Category: Uncategorized

It occurred to me today that maybe the problem is that I’ve become hard boiled.

Which is a problem, of course, since my favorite mysteries were always cozies. But you see, we have been watching a hard boiled mystery series on TV every night, and I know the tropes: every authority is corrupted, everything turned against the newcomers, the idealistic, those who are clean.

And I realized me, the cozy writer, have come around to a complete hard boiled world view.

For instance, all the people who throw fits about forgiving student loans don’t realize they are standing on the side of giving the government debt-slaves. Or maybe they do. Under Obama there was talk of not letting people leave the country who owed student loans. Think on that a minute. You’ll see what the plan see should they get fingers on levers again.

They don’t seem to realize to what an extent our money is fungible and being taken out of our pockets — continuously — by inflation. And how much of the money the government actually collects goes to…. oh, let’s look at the unroll, shall we, even without looking at the USAID schemes to fund insurrection against ourselves and the burning or our own cities, there is stuff like they’ve been funding each and every illegal to the ridiculous tune of 100 and some k per year, at least. Though a lot of those moneys come from city and state, you know where the money comes from ultimately. Printing press goes brrrrr. Sometimes we funded them higher through other programs, like the ones that gave them start-up money or house buying money.

Where did that money come from? Why from your pocket, brothers and sisters. printing press goes brrrrr.

I’m not going to worry too much about that, because my taxes, all the ones I’ve paid, the ones I will pay, all of them, have gone to the Taliban, left in pallets of cash in the ignominious withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Forgive me if I don’t think anyone should give them any cash. Not one more cent until we know where every cent is going. And you know d*mn well even with Doge, even with everyone doing deep dives, you know we don’t know everything they’re wasting.

But it’s not just that, oh, no. It’s everything else. Everything is stacked up against the new, the outsiders, those with no pull.

But even those who are supposedly at the top and have pull? Remember the healthcare CEO gunned down by Luigi whatshisname? And how the whole left say he had it coming?

Look, I’ve shared here — I think — about my own issues with our insurance. For instance, they don’t cover the expensive daily inhaler my doctor prescribed, which is part of the reason I keep getting sick. Underlying inflamation from low-level continuous asthma. And I had to fight them to get the meds my husband needs for diabetes.

I understand the anger at the insurance companies. And to an extent I have some problem sympathizing with them because the dumb bastards were all in on the Obamacare push. But– But what is happening to them is the same screwing at the hands of government we’re all getting.

Obama care mandates the coverage of gender transition — you wondered where so many cases came from? Why it became the first go to to push on autistics and mal-adjusted and, well, Odds? Easy peasy. You get more of what you pay for — and when cases multiplied by 400 or so, the companies paying for it, particularly the medicine insurance part are spending themselves bankrupt to pay for girls becoming boys and boys becoming girls. Diabetes? They ain’t got no money to treat no stinking diabetes.

All of this goes unnoticed. We notice that the insurance companies are dicks, but we don’t see the fed revolver at the back of their heads.

Like … No one speaks for the voiceless.

One of the situations is with people who are infertile. Can’t have kids. I was there. Back then already I ran into people telling us to “just adopt.” Back then we knew people who adopted. They had way more money than we had. They adopted from abroad: China, Eastern Europe. Even Western Europe, sometimes. Okay, Portugal, but that–

Why did people do that? Why the expensive process? The left says it’s because we want ethnic kids. The same left says a bunch of kids are in foster care because white people won’t adopt children of color.

The truth? Adopting in the US is all but impossible. You need a lot more money, you need to open your household and yourself to fantastic intrusion. And you kid can be taken from you at any time, even if you’re the only parents he’s ever known, because the US adoption system is in thrall with Rosseau’s idea that somehow “natural” is better, that there is some mystical bond between the child and the parent who held him for half an hour (if the mom wasn’t hopelessly addicted and even realized she had a child) before surrendering him.

Also, speaking of outdated notions, the US also believes that it will materially damage the child to be adopted by someone who tans a different shade. This is baffling to me,a s someone whose child is darker than her — and much darker than her husband — despite looking like both of us.

Which brings us to where we are now. There’s hundreds of thousands (millions?) of children in foster care, while hundreds of thousands (millions?) of people who long to have a family can’t adopt. At this point foreign adoption routes have closed. (Except Africa, and given what Africa is — poor fucked up Africa — you might be adopting a kid who was kidnapped or who knows?)

Most people don’t know. As with student loans where the decent people don’t talk about it, and slowly sink under an impossible payment system that would be outlawed if they were payday loans on the corner? As with insurance denying medicines we need because they’re too expensive, because the insurance has to pay for all the things that Obamacare says you can’t dispute, those affected don’t talk about it. What’s the point? And if they did, they’d talk about how the insurance is screwing them up.

Everywhere I look, things are crooked, people are caught in a system they can’t fight which is screwing them coming and going.

Even us, how often do we forget the swallowing up of Hong Kong? Oh, that wasn’t us? Sure it wasn’t. Because it was ignored and China was allowed to do what she would, and we didn’t even give any aid or offer of asylum to those who had fought against China.

How often do we talk about the way that the attempt at freedom in Iraq was ignored and by being ignored thwarted by Obama.

How often do we forget that there are three hundred thousand kids missing, give or take ten thousand, who crossed the border as… mules, as disguise, as heaven knows what, a lot of them children kidnapped or bought South of the border, and who just…. vanished.

Where are they? A system that can’t be trusted to make sure innocents aren’t handed off to the worst of the worst? It’s corrupted beyond belief.

As corrupted as it needs to be to lock up an entire country, destroy an economy, try to make us all conform to ridiculous pointless measures, let the old die alone and the young be maimed forever by isolation. And we know they did that.

I could go on. [Pours two fingers of Devil’s Cut. Swirls the glass.] Oh, boy, I could go on.

But I won’t. It’s not my job to blackpill you. (Lights virtual cigarette and takes a puff. Look, bud, with my lungs, virtual cigarette is all I can have.)

Yes, this is the chasm we stand at the edge of. This is the precipice we could fall down.

But–

This has been a time of miracles, the last 2 years. We’ve seen miracles. And the miracles have gone our way.

And Trump 2.0 has gotten smart about a bunch of things. Take the whole vexed issue of the student loans, which are still controlled by the government and still ridiculous and where people are still fell into the cement vat.

He didn’t rescind that on day one. Maybe because he couldn’t, because it’s tied to something else (Obama dealt dirty.) Or maybe he simply hasn’t got there, yet. However it might be simply he hasn’t got to it. So much to do, so little time. On the other hand… On the other hand….

On the other hand I think there’s some obstacle in the way, because he’s doing things. What things? Well….

I realize this lynch pin involves a lot of things more than this, but one of the things his EO on disparate impact means that tests for jobs are back on. And that means not only is the goose of colleges cooked, it tumbles a whole lot of pins, like people actually having to know what they’re doing, not just getting credentials because they know someone.

Blows rings on the imaginary cigarette and smiles at the dark night sky.

Yeah, the crooked judges are fighting back. What? you expected them to lie down and let us have our way. Nah. They’re going to fight every step of the way. The dirtier they are, the harder they’ll fight.

It’s going to be a fight in these mean streets. And, oh, the streets are mean.

But we’re fighting back. Not just Trump. There’s something awake and aware and fighting back.

And there’s us. Yeah, puny, powerless us.

But we can be voices for the voiceless. We can be connections for those without them.

And we can have each other’s back.

The system of the hard boiled requires that everyone, everyone be dirty, but the one upright man, and that the upright man be isolated.

Dome now. There’s too many of us. And we’re not isolated. We got each other.

We don’t have much, but we have each other. And we’re not crooked. And we’re going to keep at it.

Right?

We’re going to keep at it. Until we clean it up. It’s impossible to achieve perfect justice, but we should be able to clean this utter darkness and mess a bit. Just a bit. Give good a chance to flourish.

Give a chance to people who want to marry and feed themselves and have fat babies. Give a chance to people who want to build and create things that benefit us all. Give a chance to everyone else who isn’t utterly corrupt and evil.

We’re going to keep at it, right? And you’re too, right?

Finishes the virtual bourbon, stubs the virtual cigarette, puts on her fedora and walks out into the velvety dark night.

We’re going to keep trying.

And we’re going to win.

Today we remember the victims of Communism. I highly recommend this project.

Communism — lowball — over the twentieth century killed a 100 million people. That’s direct kills. Direct putting in grave.

It doesn’t count those killed by famine, by disease. And it doesn’t count those who were never born because desperate would-be parents couldn’t afford kids or died early of alcoholism. It doesn’t count those killed by the wars which are the way the communist monsters keep themselves in power.

It also doesn’t count the toll on civilization which costs lives: the corruption of our institutions, our colleges, our science, everything.

The fundamental flaw in the mind of the idealist, silly “communism has never been tried” people is that the only way that kind of communism would work is if EVERYONE did the thing they need to do.

Leaving aside the ability to know what to do, etc. never in the history of ever, since the first day of the universe has “everyone” done anything.

“If only everyone” is the lie at the center of the honeyed lie of communism.

The brutal reality is war, famine, and for the lucky ones a shot to the back of the head.

Communism is a virus. Humanity either kills it, or we lose civilization.

As for me and mine, we’re for civilization.

And now for the memes.

There is a train of thought that goes if you find anything at all is wrong with a child to be born, you abort it.

Look, it’s not that I don’t understand or even sympathize with the reasoning. All two times I was pregnant I bargained. “I can take deaf, I can take blind. Let his mind be okay.” Because in the present day, minds are essential to be able to actually be an adult and independent. The rest can be cumbersome, but you can deal with. (One of the best students in my degree was, or at least looked like, a Thalidomide baby. No arms. Hands coming out his shoulders, and shortened legs with feet. Never examined, obviously, since he was dressed in school and anyway, not a specimen, but I suspect no thighs, just legs. or very abbreviated thighs. His mom brought him to school, but he had friends, and the rest of the day they took him from class to class, hung out, etc. They removed his socks and shoes so he could take notes with his feet, then put them back on. Again, one of the best students, and I expect he has had a long and productive life as a translator/interpreter.)

If I’d found one of the kids really for sure, for absolute sure would be non functional, I don’t know what I would have done. I’m not judging anyone in that situation. You wonder about things like “who is going to look after him/her after I die?” and “How can I support him/her and still be okay for both of us?” and… I know two families in that situation. Knew a couple others in Portugal. There is no happy ending for those situations.

I understand.

When I refused to abort older child after being guaranteed that he’d be mentally deficient and never able to live on his own, it wasn’t even so much an excess of Catholicism (at the time honestly no.) It was part cussedness because i hated that Obygyn and part the fact we had gone through infertility for six years — six years — and been told a baby would never happen. At that point, I figured if I had to look after the kid his whole life, at least I’d have a kid.

As it turns out, he was fine. Though he’ll say given his choice of career he IS mentally deficient and his wife is proof he’s not able to live on his own. (I didn’t Gibbs slap him enough!)

I haven’t read the Martian Chronicles. It’s been a weird week. I’m better, but last week I was very, very ill and unable to function for days at a time.

But I was thinking about Clifford Simak’s novels and Data republican.

In Clifford Simak’s there is often the person who would normally be discarded in his time at least and some of them in our time would probably be aborted.

Some of them were just the outcast and the weirdo. The man who raised skunks. The oddball journalist without a life. The lonely paleontologist….

BUT a recurring character is the kid who is disabled. Deaf, mute, sometimes “not sure what but doesn’t respond to anyone or anything.”

Most of these are kids in the hills, when families were large, and people tolerated less than normal siblings or kids, fed them, though probably treated them like pets, not quite human.

I grew up in that kind of society, and while deficient people were less likely to be aborted (partly because the womb was more opaque back then) they were more likely to be treated somewhere between a kid and a pet. They’d be fed, and kept clean, and maybe given things to play with, but no extraordinary efforts would be made to school them or help them live a full life.

Now, of course, we’re different. We’re more likely to abort the kid, but also, if we have the resources, we’re more likely to teach the kid. Though any number of parents will still institutionalize a “defective.” Again, not judging. I can only imagine the horrible vise grip people are in, between trying to survive in a society that often demands everyone to work at all times. And looking after someone who will never get better, never be normal, is heart breaking stuff, stuff that demands heroism, and again there is no happy ending.

Simak had a tender touch with those kids. I’m thinking of the girl at the end of Way Station, who turns out to be one of very few sentients who can operate the peace-making gizmo. I now the figure appears under similar guises in a couple of other places.

I always thought that figure was fairly unlikely.

And then we have Data republican. I know some of her challenges, and I give all the props and admiration to her parents for facing those challenges, not institutionalizing her, bringing her up to be functional and make the best of her natural abilities.

When I started following her, I thought she was a Clifford Simak character come to life: a woman born for the moment.

What is the point of this? Well, other than being in awe of Data republican, which is always in style.

We all have challenges. Sometimes our challenges are more than anyone should deal with. I know this is true for a few of you.

But maybe there’s a time up ahead that you were born for. A thing only you can do and that others need.

This might be as big as the girl who could speak to the alien peace-gizmo and saved several worlds. Or it could be saying the right word to the right person at the right time. Making treat for someone who is very down. Say something that turns their lives around. That puts them on a better path.

But there is some situation up ahead, where only you, disabilities, abilities and all, can make a difference.

Stay on this side of the turf. Stay active, alive, alert. Learn everything you can. Stay engaged with people and the world as much as you, personally, can.

And if the occasion presents itself, stand up. Don’t be afraid to shine.

Weirdos though we are, there is a time and place for us.

So, I got in a fight on X and … Look, I realize the idea of forgiving student loans irks a lot of people. I even understand why.

I just think you need to think of it by turning it around another way. Because there was so much duress all along.

Were there some assholes borrowing half a mil to study fly fishing on Mars? Undoubtedly. There are always assholes. But that was neither the majority, nor the reason we should consider forgiveness, relief of staggered forgiveness or something — though for practical reasons I’m going to back forgiveness, and THEN SHUTTING DOWN THE WHOLE SYSTEM. Throw it to the free market. Things are changing anyway, and the duress is passing. But there is a whole 20 years of people with their butts caught in a vise.

“So, their problem,” you’ll say. And sure, it is their problem, but problems that affect that many people and are that big, affect all of us. And they are.

Not only should we look again at the question for fairness and justice but we should look at it from the POV of “clean the wound and let us heal” in a timely manner, that allows for a next generation.

Look, I know I have zero influence on this. ZERO. And I know this administration is committed to making people pay the loans as a matter of optics, etc. I also think the discourse around student loans has been hard-poisoned with false ideas, so that it seems like a no brainer to insist “Pay it, deadbeat.”

The fact that it’s me telling you to take a second look, should warrant a second look, though. Because I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t think it was needed.

I’m going to start from the practical side, first.

You have a lot of people between the ages of 45 and 25 not even looking at getting married, much less having kids.

Yes, I know it’s really hard to wrap your head around because everyone says we’re over populated, but we’re not. And we might — it’s hard to know because no one is telling the truth or keeping the right numbers — be on the verge of serious demographic trouble. The US almost certainly is, not sure about the world, because counting there is even harder.

There is a contingent of this generation, maybe 1/3 who are under crushing student loans and have no hope of paying them off.

Yes, there are other economic barriers to getting to where they can marry, own a home, have kids. There are many sources. BUT the loans are putting a crushing pressure on a system already tilted against the young.

Saying “Shut up and suffer, you’re young” is not a lot of fun, unless said in jest while you make kids carry heavy stuff for you (and feed them and pay them for it.) But it’s even less fun when it’s going to destroy civilization.

This is one barrier we can lift.

Then there is fairness.

“They signed. They should pay.”

Cool beans. Yes, I do understand that’s how civilization works. “My word is my bond.”

But I also understand that civilizations, nations, and heck villages (even if there it’s the law of “I give you such a kicking”) have laws, regulations and other ways to stop people who signed unfair contracts from having to be further victimized.

Were most student loans unfair.

Depends. I’m going step by step, okay?

1- They signed the contract.

They ABSOLUTELY DID. The vast majority of them were between 16 and 19. Most of them probably could read the contract they signed. (Though not all.)
Let’s assume they were all legal adults, though. Legal adults on paper. But note that the overwhelming chances — due to our anti-child labor laws and insane regulations — are these people have not worked a single day in their lives. NOT ONE DAY. They’ve never signed another contract. Not for more than “I won’t eat candy before dinner” with mom and dad. They probably have a bank account but likely it’s mostly for gifts and such. If they’ve worked at all, it was unpaid intern stuff during summer to buff their resume.

Both the concept of money and paying back money, let alone a full understanding of the bind they’d be in are at best academic concepts.

They are in fact the ideal population to be loan shark victims.

So, yeah, they signed the contract but there were extenuating circumstances.

But wait, there’s MORE!

2- Most of them signed under duress.

What duress? Well, you might not know this if you don’t have kids or have never actually had to get a pinch job without quite the right credentials, or don’t have friends who don’t have degrees, but by the 2010s it was almost impossible to get a job even in retail, even as a barista at Starbucks without at least an associate’s degree. And if you expected to go beyond entry level, you needed at least a BA.* (The * are because this is going to have footnotes.)

Yes, there were people who got somewhere without those, but it took being very special and also luck. You can’t count on luck.

So if you’re a kid who wants to get a job; don’t think that you can make a living from your tunes, or your game design that you never do, etc. you need to go to college.

Duress.

3- In addition, if you’re smarter than the average bear EVERYONE tells you to go to college. Parents (guilty), teachers, authorities, government. “Go to college. Make something of yourself.”

4- There are no scholarships. Or rather they are, but they have absolutely NOTHING to do with ability or hard work. They go to earmarked “protected classes.” You stand somewhat of a chance if you are a female of any color, with a good tear-jerking story. BUT mostly you need to be female, can tan, etc. Even male from “minority” ethnicity doesn’t really count. Because male.
There are little scholarships, hard to chase, and you can amass a number of them. Younger kid managed one. Substantial. Takes a lot of time and is hard if you’re in advanced classes. (He was.)

So that’s it for “they freely signed.” They signed because they had to**, and most of them didn’t have enough practice in financial stuff to sign anything in an informed way. The circumstances under which these contracts were signed would be ILLEGAL if it weren’t the feds doing it.

“But they have to pay or the economy crashes.” And “It’s not fair to make the little people pay for doctors and lawyers.***”

1- Bull. That money has been spent. It’s not waiting to be paid back. Obama made the government the only lender for student loans.
They then printed the money and handed it to the universities. It’s been spent.
It’s imaginary money. Like most of the money from the government. By being spent, its value was already inflated away. You already paid. I already paid. All of us already paid.

2- the way interest accumulates on these things and the fact they are non-dischargeable in bankruptcy AGAIN makes them on par with loan shark stuff.

3- People have a lot more of them than you expect, and they’re some of our more ambitious, hard driving people.

Like, for instance, if you want to enter medical school (there you have “doctors and laywers”) they prefer if someone has a masters or a doctorate. but you usually have to have at LEAST 2 BS degrees. With perfect grades. (No, it didn’t use to be like that.) But there are thousands of applicants for each medschool position.
I happen to know it’s the same with every highly desirable degree, particularly post-graduate. you have to make yourself look good. It’s a bet. Most bets don’t pay off. It costs a lot of money to bet at this table, though, and most people making that bet have been star students ALL ALONG. And most of them end up with debt they can never pay for. EVER.

We’re pulling these people straight out of the gene pool. Unless of course, they come from wealth.****

4 – A lot of the more accessible (money wise) colleges are playing games that force people to take longer to graduate, or simply make it impossible to graduate in any reasonable time. Look up the graduation rates at your local State college. Particularly for STEM. It’s easy to say “the kids are stupid now” but I’m going to beg you to believe they’re not. Most of them are not. And the ones who are, most of them aren’t aiming for STEM.
There are now scam “colleges” that work. You pay a lot of money and they get you graduated in a year. I know more than one kid whose parents had to do this. Neither the parents nor the kids are stupid, and they all work hard as heck. (No, neither are family.)

How to fix it:
FORGIVE the loans. Not like Biden did, which left so much room for fraud and also left the system up.

The only way to do it is to shut down the system of loans (it is my belief that the colleges are headed down anyway, particularly if the EO on disparate impact sticks.) If people need loans for college, let private lenders fund them. (I bet you that the price of college comes down from the stratosphere pretty fast too.

Set people free. Among other things, heck of a political statement. And who knows, might get some people to rethink their stands.

It won’t be noticed. It’s already been inflated away. And it opens the door to productivity and adulthood.

Now is that the only way to do it? No.

But what we’re doing is eating our seed corn. And when that’s done, we won’t have any more corn.

And no future corn either.

Yes I know “But they signed contract.” Consider, in the bowels of Christ that you might be mistaken.

Notes:

*This was done because they couldn’t administer literacy tests, and our schools are so floridly and obviously horrible, that you can’t tell if someone can read and write with A HIGH SCHOOL DIPLOMA.
Now, the thing making tests impossible was “disparate impact” and it might be gone. Eh. Depending on judges. Or it might not. If it is, that is the right way to negate the need for “credentials” which is what all this idiocy is built on. Also what feeds the need for H1Bs: they are being tested abroad where it’s legal. Not the whole need, but a lot of it.
Which is why disparate impact has to go.

**Let’s dispose of “might have joined the services.” Not everyone can. A lot of kids have issues that preclude it. That’s one. Another is… well, let’s look at the last four years. or the ones from 2008 to 2016.

The other point is: the services don’t want to take every kid, do they? What would they do with them? And do you want people to only go in to get college paid for? I don’t.

***Not all doctors and lawyers make the money the envious imagine. Second they sacrifice a lot of earning time and most of them graduate under crushing loans. And they too are being undermined by “imported” workers. (A startling number of them from China.) Also they are a tiny percentage of those who owe money. Why are you concentrating on them? Leave envy to the leftists. They do it better.

**** if you want for it to be so that IN AMERICA people have to be massively wealthy to be doctors, or yes, lawyers, or higher level scientists, explain to me way.
And yes, we should be able to make medical degrees more available, etc. But that’s the institutions, etc. NOT people’s decisions.

Of sorts. Real post tomorrow.

I realized I’m coughing less, and less stuffed up, which means I am getting better. My voice is still not back. I sound like a three pack a day smoker, but I don’t sound like a goose hissing anymore.

The truth though is that I am tired. SO TIRED. Tired like I just ran a marathon. This apparently might be due to being on antibiotics, or at least some of you said so.

I’m hoping to work tomorrow, including a chapter of Witch’s daughter for the substack. I’ll even make this one free. (Don’t hold me to it, though. Tomorrow might end up being Wednesday.)

I do need to get on my feet though, because Indy is driving Dan nuts. Not enough occupation.

This was the crime scene in the office this morning:

AND someone got super-salty when I cleaned it up. “But but but, we had play dirt and SALAD.” Yeah.

The blackout: I would assume it’s lack of energy above all. (Kind of like I feel right now.) I mean when we were there six years ago they were going house to house — they, the government — and installing some kind of switch to make the switch on the board pop at lower loads. To make this clear, BEFORE the change I couldn’t turn on a heater and a hair dryer without taking down the electricity in this four bedroom upper middle class home.

What shocked me most of all was that my parents were okay with this, because climate crisis, don’t you know? (I bite my tongue a lot.) Kindly remember my family are neither stupid nor hard left (with one exception and he doesn’t realize he is. Just trusting the best sources in “academic” circles.)

I haven’t heard from them this time, but with Trump and the demonization of Trump over there — oh, by the way, an idiot left a comment that I’m handing to one of the fans to shred. I have volunteers, but if anyone else wants it, I’ll let Holly Frost know. It’s all about how Trump is “Destroying the world”. No, I’m not approving the comment. He’s an idiot (Probably from Europe.) I’m just outing him for a fisking. They don’t play fair on their sites and I know game theory. I’m not doing it here, either. — so with this, yeah, my tongue is going to be bleeding by the end of the next phone call.

The lights are going on in Europe. Literally it seems. Meanwhile they think the shadow of fascism is over…. us? It’s inexplicable.

Sometimes I wonder if the stress is keeping my auto-immune spun up.

I’ll go watch videos of the guy walking through cemeteries. (Faces of the Forgotten.)

BUT quickly: Whichever one of you told me to put vicks in very unlikely places — no, not there. It would hurt.

Anyway– “you magnificent bastard, I read your book!” I am better. Still extremely far from well, but you know? I’m starting to maybe believe hypothetically I might be well again some day.

And speaking of magnificent bastards in the best way: To the Eternal Glory of the Infantry shines the name, shines the name of Rodger Young.

Sorry, got up very late and the cats murdered one of my potted plants. I need to go clean the crime scene. See you later.

I won’t say I forgot the promo post. I didn’t. I merely have been low on spoons all day, too low on spoons to think about getting a post up. Or to do more than think about it.

Only thing I can say is that I’m better than yesterday. Yesterday I crashed HARD. Really hard, back to being as sick as I’ve ever been. EVER. Since this stuff began.

So– if you’re on a CPAP and are very ill? Don’t forego washing it one morning. I did, because I forgot on Friday morning.

Anyway, I have no idea how I’ll be tomorrow. I hope better?

There will be a post either way. Just wanted you to know. I’m alive.

While on that, if you are a praying kind, spare a prayer for Kate Paulk. I hadn’t heard from her in a little while, thought she was in one of her depressive cycles. It happens to both of us and when we’re in the “I can’t even” phase we give each other space, and just try to check in once a month with “I’m okay.”

But I’ve been sick. I don’t know. Might have been more than a month.

Today I heard that early in the month she was in a house fire, severely burned, is undergoing surgeries and treatment.

She lives across the country, and there’s not much I can do for now, or until she’s better, but pray. All I can do for now is pray. So I’m praying, and if you’re of a praying kind, please pray for her.

Kate is an enormously talented writer, and if she didn’t have bad luck, she wouldn’t have any luck at all.

Sarah. Flaking out.

Mostly this is me phoning it in, as it’s been a fairly exhausting if short — I didn’t drag butt out of bed till 11:30 — day.

two days ago the u-turn of the cold from hell became clear. It not only did a U-turn, it headed down and started making itself worse and worse and worse.

Today I went to the doctor. It was a long-waited appointment for another reason, but she looked into this too. Apparently besides my asthma acting up, my body decided this was an excellent time to develop sinus infection from hell.

So, improvements: I have found what was wrong with my CPAP and got it fixed. Needless to say being able to sleep solves a multitude of issues, though I seem to have some sleep debt I’m recovering from.

Also, the doctor gave me a couple of medicines to deal with the asthma (a new thing) and an antibiotic and prescription cough med. Also a different kind of allergy med. We’re going to hit it with everything on the market and probably some stuff extra too.

That’s what I’m doing to deal with my stupid health.

The walks will resume as soon as I am sure of not passing out.

Now the good news is today is the first time I COULD resume the long-postponed revision. And it’s still going well. Hopefully I’m better tomorrow and can spend more time on it.

Now various notes: on my promo post email, it’s started randomly dumping people in junk. If I don’t remember to check every week, it just erases them. So if you’re a friend, or even “just” someone hoping to be promoted or to get in touch with me for other reasons, ping again, and if you can ping me by another means, and I’ll look for it.

I’m trying to figure out how to publicize the upcoming book. Anyone wishing to volunteer as a stop in the blog tour (Not for two weeks, at least. it won’t be up for preorder before that) or who has some bright idea of how to promote, please let me know.

I think that’s it. Any other complaints? Requests? Thrown rotten oranges and peanut shells?

Let me know. And again, sorry to phone it in, but I’m not functioning very well.

Oh, and just as I start feeling sorry for myself, a friend has it much worse. Because some people can’t catch a break. Please Help Us With Medical Expenses.

We’re going to look at our finances tomorrow, and then I’ll figure what I can give. I totally understand these are my friends, not yours, but if you can, G-d bless you.

For those of you who have no idea what this is about or what I’m doing, I’m reading back through THE Portuguese collection of science fiction, the one I read and which pulled me into this crazy fandom and eventually this crazy profession. (I might have come into it to write mystery, maybe, but considering how ill mystery was (yes, worse than sf) when I started, I doubt I’d have stuck it out.)

Anyway, if you missed it, the full explanation is there: The Future of the Past.

This week is kind of weird, because it should have been this book: L’Univers Vivant. Which would translate as “The Living Universe”. They didn’t get creative with the name, either. They called it O Mundo Vivo in Portuguese.

Des galaxies en collision ; des milliards de mondes volatilisés : un chaos a l’échelle cosmique progressant vers notre Voie Lacté… et l’escadre spatiale de Jerry Barclay lancée vers l’Infini pour tenter de juguler ces cataclysmes… et découvrir alors le fantastique secret de l’univers.

Roughly: Galaxies in collision; millions of worlds vaporized: chaos on a cosmic scale progresses towards our Milky way…. and Jerry Barclay’s space squadron launched towards the Infinite to try to curb these cataclysms… and then discover the fantastic secret of the universe.

To be fair this sounds like it would be more fun and not get caught up in the author’s private obsessions. The author’s private obsessions? you say. Hold fast.

First, what happened: I couldn’t find L’Univers Vivant in English, and while I could read it in French it would be rather baffling to throw it at you if you couldn’t also read it. What if I really loved it?

Anyway, so I went to Amazon and I found a series by the author. I picked the first book.

Now, this series, from what I can tell started later, and the writer fell more and more under his particular obsessions as he got older.

So, let’s get into the author: Jimmy Guieu was the pen name of Henri René Guieu who mostly wrote as Jimmy Guieu. (Incidentally the only time I had a touch for a translation in Portuguese, they wanted me to use my “English name” for the Musketeers. Eh.)

Sorry, I know from Wikipedia, but…

Henri René Guieu (19 March 1926 – 2 January 2000) was a French science fiction writer and ufologist, who published primarily with the pseudonym Jimmy Guieu. He occasionally used other pseudonyms as well, including Claude Vauzière for a young adult series, Jimmy G. Quint (with Georges Pierquin) for a number of espionage novels, Claude Rostaing for two detective novels and Dominique Verseau for six erotic novels.

I have a weird feeling I read at least one of his erotic novels. (My best friend stumbled onto one and shared. I found it was not my thing.) Weirdly, I’m fairly sure I never read Time Spiral. (I might have read L’Univers Vivant, but if so it didn’t leave a mark.) See that ufologist thing? Yeah, the more Jimmy Guieu wrote the more he started viewing his novels as channeled (more or less) non fiction in which he wrote to “evangelize” his ideas on UFOs and Ancient Aliens.

They think by hooking up into the UFOlogists and Ancient Alien people he got more readership than he would otherwise. This strikes me as odd, as it’s weird for UFOs and Ancient Aliens to have more readership than SF, but France is a strange country and there was a cottage industry in Chariot of the Gods like books. So, it is possible.

Anyway, Jimmy Guieu is the best selling science fiction writer in France, in all times, sort of like their Heinlein. They gave him his own imprint. So–

Perhaps I’m judging him too harshly, as the time spiral was published in 1952. Perhaps my reaction to it has to do with my having been ill and underslept and at the beginning of recovery. Or maybe the ideas in this book rubbed me particularly wrong, part of it due to the ancient alien stuff rubbing me very, very wrong.

A quick summary, with some spoilers, but trust me, if you decide to read it you’ll still find surprises… (and how.):

Jean Karaven who has theories about the origin of mankind is called upon by his friend in… Caltech? (I don’t remember. None of the American setting rang “right”) who has invented a time spaceship. The mechanism for time travel is weird, but not unheard of, if you read a lot of weird stuff. Anyway, it takes a spaceship and it travels backwards. They travel with military personnel, since this is a government research project, and they first go back to Lemuria — shut up — where they hook up with the party of aliens there to civilize the natives. There, improbably, a pair of identical twins fall in love one with Jean Karaven and another with an Austrian engineer who is along for… reasons. They fall in love with them so hard that they end up returning to the present with them. While there they have adventures, mostly relating to a tribe of hairy red cyclops. (Oh, I have words on the origin of those.) Then they go further back in time to where the first “alien teachers” have come to Earth to teach the natives who are…. golden hermaphrodites. These golden hermaphrodites are descended from, for lack of a better term, spirit jelly fish. Don’t go there. Don’t even. The adventure in that time is curtailing a would be space Lord who if he lived would cause da eeevile on a massive scale. Then they undo a snaffu in Lemuria where Karaven’s girlfriend got killed, and unkill her. This inexplicably (or perhaps explicably, but by that time I was not tracking very well) required them to kill their time doubles, which they do with no compunction. And then they come back to the fifties,with their brides.

The main problems I had with it:

As some of you know I’m semi-nutty on there having been ancient civilizations. I am sure there have been, at least at the Greeco-Roman and perhaps at the 17 century level. We really can’t DISPROVE their existence in the vast, unrecorded years of human presence on the planet.

This is based on my belief that building civilizations is as natural to us as building dams is to beavers, and that the present civilization is only 10k years old. 20k if you want to go to first traces.

HOWEVER I do not believe in Ancient Aliens. Look, I have an issue with aliens to begin with, it’s why I don’t tend to write them much. However I’m agnostic on whether aliens exist and whether they’ve ever visited the Earth.

What I don’t believe in is these “helpful, advanced aliens coming to teach mankind.” That makes my teeth hurt. I read a lot of those books (yes, a lot of them French) when I was young, and I still read them sometimes because anything touching traces of ancient civilizations will eventually end up in that and make me ARGH. Because even reading them as a kid, I got the contempt for mankind, the desire for someone more “enlightened” to come and help us, etc. The need for someone perfect to rescue us from our imperfection. Look, guys, I already have a religion. Which is what this seems to be to me, groping for religion and refusing to consider the traditional ones, out of spite.

I hate it for other reasons, like the assumption that humans are the slow children of the universe. (I much prefer the idea, mooted in Have Spacesuit Will travel that Humans are the old ones of the Galaxy. No reason, but I’m human, so I’ll cheer for the home team.)

As a plot (or life theory) device, it ends up becoming deus x machina that explains everyhiting, solves everything, etc.

In this case it was bizarre, because while the aliens supposedly looked down on us because we’d got into war, etc. the aliens themselves have wars, and take gleefully tot he suggestion of using virus weapons against the cyclops in Lemuria, and to pre-kill someone before they commit a crime. In fact the aliens have amazing weapons (disintegrators) and are ever eager to reach for them, etc.

All of that seriously upset me. It might have upset me less if the book came right after Lost in The Stratosphere, as it’s only a reasonable bit worse than that. But after last week’s this was a big letdown.

More minor things that I disliked intensely: the treatment of women. Note this is me speaking, okay? It’s so bad that I wondered whether the cardboard character women that so annoy feminists in SF are picked up exclusively from foreign novels? I mean, these female aliens are leaders of their groups, blah blah blah, but go head over heels for these guys, despite the fact, btw. that they’re 7 feet tall and these guys are just over six. And the fact that they’re supposedly much further advanced aliens. They go for them so hard in a few days acquaintance that they abandon their mission and everything they trained for to go to a time they know nothing of and marry these guys.

Now, can you make that fly? And make everyone human? Sure you can, but Guieu DIDN’T. It’s like they take a look at the Frenchman and the Austrian and man, oh, man, they’re in love forever. I could make crude jokes, but I won’t.

A giggle-worthy point that might be a mistranslation, the first time the main love interest — Layla — shows up, she’s described as blond and pure. I don’t know how they get “pure” from visual, but cool, whatever.

Evolution. Oh, dear, evolution. Evolution is supposed to work linearly and always make species better. Oh, also the aliens guide our evolution. (If you just saw me with middle fingers aloft, you can see through space. Because ARGH. We’re not livestock.)

The action was not told in slow enough motion to matter. The people never seem to have an internal life.

Really minor stuff, and might be translation. The beginning particularly is filled with brand names for everything mentioned, from cars to guns, and always by the formal name. Thompson guns, not Tommy guns. Etc. etc. etc. It felt wrong and unnatural.

Anyway, I didn’t like it. which is me and might have as much to do with where I am right now and my own particular sensitive points, but well, I’m glad I added knowledge of this author to my arsenal, since he seems to be the most influential sf writer in France. (He only died in 2000.)

Fortunately (?) the next book on the list is an old friend, though one I haven’t read in a long time now.

Yeah, that is the Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury.

I remember being mildly confused by it when I first read it partly because the Portuguese title promised more of a hard sci fi about the colonization of Mars or something. (The title is literally translated as The World of Mars.) However, even confused, I remember loving it.

The last time I read it was when the older boy was going through a Bradbury thing…. Oh, dear, 20 years ago. (He had to pick an author for a project in English and he picked Bradbury.) I was of course a very different person.

I’m looking forward to getting reacquainted with it and seeing how it hits me now.

I’ll report next week. And sorry for being so scathing on this book. It’s entirely possible I’m unfair, but there it is.