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Chaos For Fun And Profit – David Pascoe

I’m not sure if the world is going insane, or it’s been there for a while and it’s just now been off its meds long enough for the symptoms to show. Naked anti-semitism rears its ugly head from our own shores throughout Europe. I’d thought the whole Holocaust thing had suggested – gently, mind you – that rabid hatred of persons of jewish persuasion might be … hmmm, gauche? No, not gauche – too effeminate, really. Too pursed-mouthed disapproval. You want racism, activists of the first world? You will find it in those who scream “death to the Jews” in Paris, or “Jew, Jew, cowardly pig, come out and fight alone,” in Germany, where the use of that particular gem has been banned.

Ebola rages through western Africa, where the medical care doesn’t particularly deserve the term. Within the last couple of days, two American aid workers who’d contracted the horrifying disease were transported to the vicinity of Atlanta, GA, to a hospital with an isolation unit where they’ll receive the best medical care the US can manage, where trained folk will monitor the course of the disease. A disease we still know very little about. Hopefully they’ll learn a lot. That said, there’s a lot of fear out there about ebola landing here at home. Go read <a href=”http://teddysratlab.blogspot.com/2014/08/all-we-have-to-fear-is-fear-itself.html”>this</a>, in which a scientist of many years experience gives the straight dope on why the panic gripping many (I had a moment the other day, considering ordering gas masks. And a moonbase lair.) is less than helpful.

Closer to home, or at least to the headspace many of us occupy on a more regular basis, Amazon put out it’s arguments for cheaper ebooks in its ongoing <del>dispute</del>negotiations with Hatchette. Hatchette has, as far as I know, not responded. Except for plenty of people who don’t think mathematics are worth understanding, or have a distinctly activisty grasp of economics. Amazon Derangement Syndrome is has a far higher infection rate than ebola. Let us hope it doesn’t turn out to have the same fatality rate.

Most significant, at least to our little corner of the interwebs, two prominent and erudite people disagreed on the issues in scifi and nobody had to file a Hurt Feelings Chit over it. I had to look outside to ascertain that Hell hadn’t burst into the material plane and blood and ashes weren’t raining from the sky. (Rain, yes; rain of people-juice and fire-leavings, no.) Bravo Zulu to everybody for being adults, and it makes me a little grouchy that it’s such a big thing when two groups of people in our world can discuss differing points of view without turning shrill and unpleasant.

Speaking of shrill and unpleasant, Wee Dave had a rough afternoon, yesterday. After some friends (whom we hadn’t seen since leaving Hawaii last spring) left, he decided that all the things were all the wrong, and proceeded to cry himself hoarse (Which is actually kind of adorable, though that realization leaves me a little ambivalent. Am I terrible person, or do parents simply not talk about these things to those who aren’t parents?) He’s seeing the pediatrician on base today for his two month “well baby” (I’ve always called it a check up, but that’s apparently gauche *shrug*), so we’ll see if there’s anything beyond being a bit overtired and overstimulated by a long weekend of faces he doesn’t recognize and who don’t smell right.

Where’s all this going? I’m not entirely sure, but you’re more-or-less my captive, here, as I ramble. As a new parent (and, for all I know the rest of my natural life) I was willing to do pretty much anything to fix whatever was wrong with Wee Dave that had him crying until his little voice was scratchy and funny-sounding and get my smiling boy back. Virgin sacrifice? Sure, just as soon as I can find one. Slaughter a goat to Nyarlathotep? Same, though I doubt he’d care. Maybe try Bastet, instead. Read from the Necrotelecomnomicon? Twice in the time it takes to say the darn thing. And I’d remember to say, “Nikto,” too. Commit a few abominations unto Nuggan, just for good measure.

That seems to be what’s going on in the world at large right now. There are countless problems and nobody knows how to fix them. Oh, they think they do. They think that if they just manage to get the hacks out of the publishing industry, keep the indies from mucking up literature with their pulp schlock, then they’ll finally be part of the cool group and have the prestige and approval of a society they’ve never really felt part of. Or they think that if they can beat all the assault weapons into plow-shares, then the lion will lay down with the lamb, and the gangs in Chicago will have dance-offs before going home at 9:30 so their mothers won’t worry about them.

What people actually want is their comfortable, secure existence back, and are willing to blame anything and everything for taking it away. Trouble is, it was all an illusion to begin with. The safety and security they thought they had never actually existed. The proverbial 9-5 job (be it line manufacturing, management, creative) for thirty or forty years with a pension at the end of it to see you through your twilight years was as much an illusion as the wealthy, privileged families of Father Knows Best and Leave It To Beaver. A minuscule fraction of the populace actually experienced that life, let alone got to enjoy it. Even tomorrow has never been guaranteed to be more or less like today was. (I’m pretty sure the observation that days blend together is more a matter of human cognitive strangeness than a genuine reflection on reality.)

My best advice is to get comfortable with chaos. I’ve been polling those of greater age than I, asking such things as, “does the world seem more unstable now than twenty years ago? Thirty years ago?” And asking about perceptions during events like the Vietnam War, Cold War, Cuban Missile Crisis, etc. Most people feel (and that’s such a helpful thing for figuring out what’s actually happening) that it is. So, either we’ve got things being more unstable now, about as unstable, or less unstable. I’m going to discount the last, as it owes me money and made a clumsy pass at Mrs. Dave the last time it came over. If the world is as unstable now as it was ten, twenty and thirty years ago (ad infinitum), then we have no expectation that things will get somehow “better.” If the world is more unstable now than it was at other points in time, then we genuinely have reason to worry. And we still don’t know what tomorrow will bring.

NASA just tested a reactionless drive. Successfully, it seems, though with a thrust measuring in the tens of micronewtons. Is a – you’ll pardon the expression – quantum jump in spaceflight capability just around the proverbial bend? (I sure hope so.) And yet, just think of the disruption such a thing will bring to civilization.

Society changes with every new generation. Think of the buggy whip makers. Think of the stirrup. Stability of the sort we crave and assume is an illusion, but there’s opportunity in the upheaval, if we have the eye to see it and the hand to grasp it.

I didn’t want to write about this. Eric S. Raymond was one of my beta readers for Darkship Thieves, and has been a friendly acquaintance for a long time, even if we haven’t been in touch for a long time.

So I didn’t want to write about his article, because I … Well, it’s not even that I disagree with his views on the situation, it’s more like he’s looking at it upside down and sideways, so until we clarify that position, there’s nothing doing in terms of agree or disagree.

But everyone keeps sending me this, and it’s come to my attention that in terms of my making a living from writing, this is friendly fire (I don’t view ESR as an enemy) of the worst possible kind. It will put off the people who would enjoy my work and attract a lot of people who will be offended by it.

First of all, he puts the ELoE and the academic left in SF as equal and opposing forces, each wanting to take science fiction in its own direction.

This is wrong. Well, it’s entirely possible this is true of The Bannished One (name omitted to avoid trolls.) I don’t know. I haven’t read much of his work or blog. I know that his work at least from what I heard is not political. His blog is. I used to read it now and then back in the days when instapundit linked him, and I have to say that while I agree with him in some things (I agree with the other side in some things too.) I have as many if not more points of variance with him than the other side does. They’re different. His remarkable infatuation with Europe, for instance, makes someone who grew in Europe as a native facepalm and say, (as I do very rarely) “OMG, only an American would believe this.” The “askew” from “innocents abroad” permeates a lot of his writing from international politics to economy. Maybe it wouldn’t bother anyone else. Certainly it doesn’t bother the left who makes many of the same assumptions. But it drives me nuts.

Now, The Banished One is entitled to having whatever views he wants to have, and I’m the last person alive to say he must have mine or he can’t be a science fiction writer. (And it’s entirely possible he’s right and I’m wrong. I don’t think so, but we’re all colored by our past and our upbringing.) I’m just saying his blog rubs me wrong so often I haven’t done more than dip in and look at this or that when it relates to sf/me. So I haven’t a clue whether he wants to silence the left. (I object to calling them rabbits, as I understand that’s The Banished One’s term.) I haven’t a clue whether he wants to push them out of sf/f writing. I wouldn’t THINK so, but I don’t know for sure.

As for the rest of the ELoE, John C. Wright is more socially conservative than I am, but I don’t think he attempts to impose it except by proselytizing which is within permissible means. And Larry and I just want to write stories, make money and have fun. Sure, his view of government leaks into his books. And it leaks into my science fiction. But that’s because things written by someone tend to reflect that person’s opinion.

I know none of the three of us wants to “cleanse” science fiction from people of different political opinions. For one, I think, should we start, we’d find enough divergence amid the three of us to keep us fighting FOREVER.

The other side does want us to “shut up and go away” but since they are quite without the means to do so, now that there’s indie and while there’s Baen, I couldn’t care less what they think or want.

They remind me very much of when my kids were toddlers and throwing a fit and we’d laugh at them, which made them switch to “Shut up” and “Stop that.” Sometimes to the point of climbing on our laps and trying to hold our lips shut. It just made us laugh harder.

There is, and there will always be a place for the type of sf/f they want to write. It doesn’t sell much. (I know, my first fantasy trilogy, aka the Shakespeare trilogy was considered literary, and when the numbers came in, I was flabbergasted and talked to friends working in the same vineyard. It really doesn’t sell much. It used to get fairly high advances compared to sell through because prestige. More on that later.)

Second – I don’t oppose the left side of SF for ideological reasons. I oppose them because they bore me to death. My very favorite author, Terry Pratchett is an European-centrist which in American terms is kind of sort of left and kind of sort of a right we don’t have. (Right in the sense of respecting authority and constituted authority. Left in the way of viewing the individual as subordinate to society.) His views on gun control are funny. His views on monetary policy are hair-raisingly scary. And yet, I still read every book of his as soon as it comes out, even now when they’ve devolved into a sort of Pratchett fan-fic. Why? Because he’s not BORING.

However, I disagree with ESR about the idea that their leftism and what they write isn’t linked. Of course it is.

Look, Marxism is and has always been a narrow church. You have to agree with the current interpretation of the script (prestige and the fact most of the left in sf/f are academics plays into this too, but more on that later.) This is how all American communists about-faced when the Hitler-Stalin pact broke.

“But Sarah,” you’ll say. “These are not communists!”

Well, in fact a few of them are, admitted communists. There is a “young communists” club and it’s considered hip and cool. (Young as in their early forties. Poor rats.)

And even the ones who would squirm at being called “communists” will admit to socialist, and will defend communism and crush on “heroes” like Che Guevara, oblivious to the record to deaths the Marxist philosophy has left behind. (Read The Black Book of Communism, which I have reason to believe is soft pedaled.)

Now, it’s true that they don’t have “party discipline” as such, but it’s a mistake to think that what holds the left in lockstep is some kind of “party discipline.”

They are Marxist, many without realizing it, a few because they think it’s a good thing and valid, because they were taught to be Marxist. They were taught this was the social signaling for “cool” and that this is what makes them “smart.” Because of that they are as beholden for their opinions to the “party line” as the most slavish communist party member.

Because Marxism is internally inconsistent, the interpretation of it, and what is considered “the right” opinion changes every so often, sometimes abruptly. For instance, in the seventies it was believed that being gay was a matter of choice, and all leftists proclaimed this. (I think it was wrong, but that’s neither here nor there.) Now the idea is that it’s inborn. (I this this is also wrong, and it’s a combination of genetics and environmental factors, probably before the kid is even born. BUT that’s because I was born in a village and I have the benefit of centuries of family histories.) Proclaiming the wrong idea at the wrong time would make all the Marxists scream “fascist.”

This same type of mentality is why their novels neither surprise nor enlighten nor reflect anything about the human condition. Most of these people live in fear of saying the wrong word and being cast out into the outer darkness of the “conservative” and “uncool.”

This was not always so, and Eric has a point it is so now because the “cool” SF is a subset of academic posturing. I.e. these people are mostly college professors, and mostly they want to be admired by their kind. Having tumbled on to the fact that science fiction is not admired in academia, they’ve been trying to change that ever since… oh, the seventies at least.

It’s a doomed effort, because for mainstream writers, even those who in fact write science fiction but don’t call it that, science fiction is frozen in a fifties that never happened. No matter how many awards the left give to stories full of inchoate longing for awards, their colleagues will always view SF as “girl passed out in monster’s arms, pursued by robots.”

But good Lord, if they want to spend their entire lives in a futile endeavor, who am I to stop them?

They can’t stop me doing what I want, so who cares?

Other than the fact that they took over SFWA and made it even more useless than it needed to be, why should I care?

Third – But if I stop talking about my politics, they might then listen to me on the criticism front.

Oh, hell no. (Rolls eyes.)

Look, first, no, they won’t listen to me. I actually do have the credentials to critique them, having a degree in Modern Language and Literature from an excellent college and having read more, both literature and literary criticism, than you could shake a dried up stick of a college professor at. H*ll I ENJOY the stuff. It bewilders my STEM degree sons when I get excited over a poem, and I don’t think relationship with younger son ever recovered from my admission that Jorge Luis Borges is one of my favorite writers.

But that’s all besides the point. I’m not teaching English/Literature at a prestigious university. And h*ll, even if I were it would make no difference, because the minute I set myself up against what they’ve been taught is good/cool, I become one of the lepers. (Kind of like no one asks Dr. Sowell about economics, but they fall over themselves on that fraud, Krugman.) So, yeah, I could explain to them why their stuff, yay, indeed, sucketh mightily. But then they’d just call me fascist.

In fact, they decided I was “fascist” BECAUSE I opposed the drumming out of Malzberg and Resnick (neither of them men of the right, mind) for the crime of using the word “ladies” not because of my political opinions.

The second part of this is that I’m NOT going to stop expressing political opinions on this blog.

Look, for years my livelihood was dependent on keeping on the right (left) side of that list of things you must believe. If I deviated or expressed the wrong opinion even by implication, in a book, even in a way I didn’t notice, it meant I’d never work again.

Now, because writing is something that comes from who you are, it will in itself, reflect you. So I never cloaked well enough to get the promotion, the push and the prestige (“be one of the darlings” as we call it.) But I cloaked enough to stay employed. And it almost killed me.

When Darkship Thieves did well, and I got the possibility of going indie, it literally stopped me walking off. I’d had the talk with my husband that said “I can’t stand this anymore. I have to speak or burst. And I can’t watch myself all the time anymore.” We’d agreed after I delivered the two due books, I could walk off into the sunset and write fanfic or whatever. We were going to sell the house (we should have anyway) and cut our expenses, and I was going to see about starting some crafting business or something. Something that didn’t get in my thoughts and censor them.

I express my opinions – though rarely outright political, though I will admit to the fact this administration’s creepy combination of Marxism and incompetence and hippie-dippie pacifism is giving me the creeps – in this blog because I think it’s important. We are in a cold civil war at the heart of which is not the war for science fiction, but the war for civilization itself.

(This is another blog in itself, but the loss of cultural confidence by Western civilization after World War I as allowed horrors and barbarism to persist that should long since have been glared out of the face of the Earth. And yes, Western Civ has done some horrible things – but so have all other human civilizations and at least we no longer stone our adulteresses or kill people for being gay or the wrong religion. A little admission of our own accomplishments and values could go a long way.)

I will talk about what catches my mind. If it’s political, so be it. Because it’s painfully arrived at step by step on my own, it will often disagree with both sides. And then the left will proclaim me “fascist” because they’re the ones with the unbending, inflexible agenda. A lot of you reading this say “she’s to the left of me on—” but you don’t call me “communist” and storm off in a huff.

Of course, tarring their opponents with the same brush, and then calling them the most extreme thing they can think of is and has been a weapon and a tactic of the left across the world. In Europe social democrats get called “fascist” (people with whom they only have – sometimes – in common the nationalistic aspect of their ideology.) So do libertarians in the US, which is even crazier. Capital L libertarians aren’t even nationalists, and those of us – small l – who are are nationalist in a different way than anyone in Europe. Our loyalty is not to race, blood, and imagined genetic superiority, but to a bunch of documents that proclaim principles of life, liberty and pursuit of (individual) happiness. But we get called “fascist” because we oppose communism/socialism. Same as it’s ever been, all across the world.

Fourth – Why I had to write this, and why the whole thing matters to me: If I am anything definable in politics it’s “Heinlein libertarian” and even there I differ from him in some respects. (For instance while I think group marriages should be allowable, I also think they’re their own punishment.)

This does not define me as “right” in either the American or the European spectrum. Granted, it also doesn’t define me as left.

I don’t think people belong to the government, I think government belongs to the people and I am one small objective “equalite” (as defined as total equality, not equality under the law) from agreeing with the people who started the French revolution. (The people who finished it are more like the other side of the spectrum, including the mandatory atheism. Eh.)

I believe you need to have some very important COLLECTIVE reason – like mutual defense – to take money from people by force (all government is force, all of it enforced by guns, be they in the hands of the police or the army.) I don’t believe “to give to school administrators” is reason enough. (Though I do believe it’s in the general interest to make sure children know how to read, even those whose parents won’t teach them. Then again, this current system doesn’t do THAT, let alone anything else.) I don’t believe it is in the general interest to give money to companies (solyndra) to develop pie in the sky green tech and/or to put limits on what fuel we can burn. Yeah, the environment belongs to everyone. But my money doesn’t. And decisions made by scientifically illiterate people who have power over the army and police are not enough reason to confiscate the money I made.

In the same way, I believe marriage is an intensely private matter. To the extent it produces children, it might be of some interest to government, but I still don’t think that interest is important enough to justify taking from Paul to give to Peter. Look, there should be a better way to legalize/register unions than at the tender mercy of the government. And the tax breaks, etc (which are not nearly sufficient, anyway, as any family with kids will tell you) should go to families with children, not to people who just signed a paper/had a ceremony of their faith together.

And while we’re at it, no, I don’t care what you are, but you have no right to force a church to bless a union against their principles. If the little church of the united KKK doesn’t want to bless mixed race marriages, that’s THEIR issue, not yours. Yes, their beliefs might be repugnant (they would be, if they existed) but that doesn’t give you the right to infringe upon them. We either have freedom of religion or we don’t.

Now, do I expect my beliefs to come to be the dominant ones, absent massive disruption? Oh, heck no.

See where government is force. This means it normally attracts people who want to exert force. The chances of getting people who take over and leave you ruthlessly alone is not high. (And no, I’m not running. That’s what I threaten G-d with, when the book sales dip. Weirdly, they always come right back up after that. Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m also heretical. Such is life.)

The point is that being listed as a member of the Evil League of Evil amused me. I even have a mug with a portrait of me as a beautiful but evil space princess up on zazzle.

That’s fine, because it’s so ridiculous.

But it’s a problem when a neutral/sympathizer like Eric S. Raymond lends it credence. It’s a problem at both ends.

The minute someone gets it into their head that you’re “right wing” what they see is not “I don’t particularly like government, get out of my land or I shoot” – they see the image of the opponents of the left that the left has been pushing through its monopoly on entertainment, news and education for almost a century.

What they see is someone who is uneducated, not very smart (left is the PERSTIGE position) probably is both a millionaire and lives in a trailer park (this part they never seem to pin down. Evil rich or destitute? Eh.) hates working people, hates other races, thinks gays should be treated as the Taliban does indeed treat them, and is a fundamentalist Christian in a way that no fundamentalist Christian is.

None of the people they pushed into the ELoE fits that, not even the Banished One. But I stand perhaps on the extreme side from him as not fitting.

For one, both by skin color and religion and background, I would offend that cardboard cutout a lot. Possibly to the point of death. (Not that it matters, since I’ve yet to meet anyone on the right who IS like that.)

Again, the image is laughable, and that’s why I embraced it in fun. BUT when a friendly lends it credence, people are going to start looking at it as true, or more than likely true.

And while the idea the left has of the right is out of place, there are some points of slight contact.

Someone who reads about how I’m a “moralist” and a right winger is going to be very upset at A Few Good Men where the main character and the main romance are gay. Or even Witchfinder, where the secondary romance is gay. They just are. And the more upset at the excess of feminism, will take exception to the fact that Thena in Darkship Thieves is physically stronger than most men and takes no cr*p from nobody. (There’s a world building reason for that, and well, Thena has issues. – Shut up. She is TOTALLY not autobiographical.)

And then there’s my fantasies, which have no politics at all, and certainly don’t preach moral to anyone. Mine or the left’s.

And there’s the fact that while, if forced to write all literary fantasy all the time I’d slit my wrists, I’m not going to promise I’ll never write “literary” anything. (As soon as one promises not to do something in writing, it’s when one does it, of course.)

So this article by ESR worries me. It might very well scare away potential fans and bring in a lot of people who will get upset my opinions aren’t “pure” enough.

That said, I believe he meant well, and think his point about SF/F having been taken by the side that wants prestige over money is true.

I also don’t think we can do anything about it. Or need to.

Likely traditional publishing – other than Baen – will eventually become a prestige thing, a way to signal you’re among the ‘smart’ and ‘enlightened’ as defined by universities.

And the rest of us, who aspire more to the career of Dumas than of Gabriel Garcia Marquez (that friend of Castro!) what can we do?

Well, for years what we could do was “not publish.” But there’s an indie for that.

Yeah, we might not get the awards or the fawning upon. Like I care. My favorite expression of admiration for my work comes with “pay to the order of.”

So, other than making fun of them now and then (but “if you were a science fiction writer, my love” you’d be far less mockable) because they are so much fun to mock and because it might give other people the courage to say “I too don’t buy the entire lefty list of enforced beliefs”, I couldn’t in fact care less what they do or say.

They can continue writing and fighting for their little pool of true believers.

As for me and my people, we have worlds to create.

*I haven’t gone through all of the backlog — I am also working on through fire and editing The Musketeer’s Servant.  And I still haven’t figured out replicating magic — so there will be inconsistencies.  the only thing I can promise is to fix those as I finish going through it.  It is also probably going to be third person but so “close in” the difference is academic.*

The prequel to this — Witchfinder — is now up on Amazon.

This novel will get posted here a chapter every Friday or Saturday, or occasionally Sunday.  If you contribute $6 you shall be subscribed for the earc and first clean version in electronic format.  I think it will probably take another three months to finish.  Less, if I can have a weekend to run through and get ahead of the game.  It hasn’t happened yet.

NOTICE: For those unsure about copyright law and because there was a particularly weird case, just because I’m making the pre-first draft of my novel available to blog readers, it doesn’t mean that this isn’t copyrighted to me.  Rogue Magic as all the contents of this blog is © Sarah A. Hoyt 2013.  Do not copy, alter, distribute or resell without permission.  Exceptions made for ATTRIBUTED quotes as critique or linking to this blog. Credit for the cover image is © Ateliersommerland | Dreamstime.com

Lady Caroline Ainsling, Sister of the Duke of Darkwater,

Nymphs Sighs, the cookies, as baked by my future mother in law, the centaur queen, were possibly the lightest and best treat I’d ever had. And when you consider my papa hired the best cooks, and that we were always allowed to go around to the kitchen and get cookies, and Michael and I were ever the cook’s great favorites, that is saying something.

I sat at the table, with a plate of cookies and a glass of milk, and found it mildly amusing that we were served this treat, and not tea proper, since surely we were old enough for tea. Then I looked across at where my betrothed – and if truth be told, my beloved, though mama had told me that ladies of quality didn’t say that about their fiances or husbands – was dipping his cookies into the milk, then slurping at the soggy end, and giving quite a good impression of being about two.

Looking up from Akakios’ enjoyment of his food, I met his mother’s eyes, and in them such an exact replica of my feelings of exasperation and tenderness, such an understanding that men, strong and imperious as they can be, had a little-boy side which was charming and disarming, that I smiled at her.

She nodded a little. She was, I thought, the oddest mix of regal and peasant.

Sitting here, in the kitchen, with the cat sleeping in front of the fireplace, and eating cookies at a scrubbed pine table, I might have been sitting in one of the farms belonging to papa’s tenants. Only at the same time, the furniture was just a little too good, the house a little too clean, when there seemed to be no servants about. And there was to the queen of centaurs a suggestion of regal bearing that could have put our very own queen Cecily to shame, even dressed in her royal robes and sitting on the throne.

It came to me in a flash that you couldn’t, or not sanely, compare a society that was mostly magic to a society that wasn’t. You couldn’t, not sanely, compare a kingdom carved out of fairyland to a kingdom like ours where people must still produce most things with the labor of their hands.

I thought that from the outside this village of centaurs looked like any hardscrabble, forsaken village, the houses mostly huts.

But inside the house, it felt much larger than the outside. And I would bet, from the look of the people, that they neither worked sun to sun out on those fields, nor did they have the occasional famines that blighted pastoral communities. I thought this was more like the idea that rich people in my world had of farm life: relaxed and gentle, but with all the strife, the hardscrabble choices taken out of it.

I looked at the cookie in my hand and thought that it might not be such a bad thing to be stuck in this portion of the fairyworld. It had to be better than the school I was consigned to, not to mention the one that poor Akakios had to endure.

As I thought this, Akakios’ mother sat down and got a basket, from which she pulled something upon which she started sewing. I thought it would be some mending, but when I looked closer, it was an intricate tapestry in varied colors.

From the sharp look Akakios gave it, I wondered if it was just a tapestry or something else entirely. After all, magical weaving – using the loom to replicate movements of magic and influence the world – was well known and in fact an art taught in my school, not that I was any good at it, because I wasn’t. Magical embroidery might be just as practical.

Akakios finished the cookie he was eating and licked milk and milky crumbles from his fingers, before wiping his hands on the napkin next to his plate. I’d say I blushed for his manners, only I didn’t. He had quite decent manners – better than mine – when he wished, but now he was home, at his childhood table, and a creature must be allowed to be himself sometimes. I thought too that he probably missed running with the herd, which had seemed to me a remarkably free life.

“Mother,” he said, his voice suddenly grave, for someone who seconds before had been playing with his food. “What do you mean about Night Arrow? Why do you call the king That Poor Boy?”

“He is, isn’t he?” she said, looking up. “When the forces of another, and predatory world come looking for you, and your only chance is to fracture and hide pieces of yourself so many places even you can’t find them all—”

“Is that what he did?” Akakios said. “And why?”

His mother sighed. “Yes. It is what he did, to keep himself from being caught and the world from being destroyed and ripped and eaten by the mythworld.”

“Eaten?”

“Eaten.”

“But mother, if that is possible, if the mythworld can attack ours, why has it never done so before?”

The lady paused, and threaded her needle, then looked up, her lips pursed in a way that showed deep concentration. “Because we never before had such a reluctant king. A king who is divided against himself. Most kings of fairyland have to fight hard to get to the throne, and when they do, they find they like it very well indeed. But Night Arrow would, I think, have preferred to stay in Avalon, with his family and his lover, even if he must be a servant there and is a king here. The mantel of kingship fits uneasily on his shoulders, and the only way he bears it is by visiting Avalon often and being able to play at being mortal.”

“You’re saying his natured created a weakness the mythons will explore?”

The queen pursed her lips some more, forming a little o as though she were getting ready to whistle. But instead she grimaced. “No, not that. In some ways I think his division makes him stronger.   You know how besieged we were under…” she seemed to struggle for words, as they did when trying to translate their names “Glitter Orb, the former king, because as his mind unraveled, so did fairyland. But Night Arrow keeps his mind orderly by visits to a world where logic prevails and causes have consequences. No. It is more that the tension within Night Arrow, his… struggle with himself, makes him the ideal sacrifice to restore the Myth world to its full power. The fact that it would destroy fairyland along with our king is inconsequent to them, of course. People of the Elder world don’t ever consider any other land quite real.” She looked up, and into her son’s pale and shocked face.

“Sacrifice?” Akakios said. “Sacrifice to… the gods?”

“Why are you so shocked? The elder world has ever lived on blood and death and sacrifice. It’s just that…” She sighed. “They feel themselves weaker than before. Fewer of the multiworlds offer them sacrifice. They view this as their one chance at survival. In fact, they’ve been gathering sacrifices from all the worlds, people who have the same… tension as Night Arrow. They plan a grand sacrifice, but for that, they must capture our king. So he divided…”

“And plunged the world into war.”

The Queen shrugged. “Supporters of Glitter Orb maintain that it’s all because we let Night Arrow take the throne. True in a way but beside the point, since Glitter Orb would surely have destroyed the world by now, were he still in power. His mind was disintegrating. But now… now they say he’s all put together again, and that—”

“But the former king is dead!” I said.

She shrugged. “Death in fairyland is rarely permanent my dear.”

“I see,” I said.

“So my husband has gone to fight on the side of Night Arrow, because … we’ve sacrificed a son to get him on the throne, and if Glitter Orb reigns again his vengeance on us will be terrible.”

“But…” Akakios took a deep breath and stood, suddenly, extending a hand to me. “But that means that Caroline and I are those who are unsatisfied with our roles and were lured here…”

“To be part of the sacrifice, of course,” his mother said. She set her embroidery down on her lap. “But son, if the other side wins no one will be safe, on any of the worlds.

With a smooth movement she unfolded her tapestry across the portion of the table that had no food upon it, and I swear the table grew to support it. It was an odd pattern, like nothing I’d ever seen before, like a landscape in tones of gold and silver, but at the same time, with an overlay showing people and things. And the people and things it showed moved, as though they were alive.

Then I realized they were alive, and this was a mirror spell of some sort, because there were armies of centaurs clashing, and—

“So we should find the king and gather him together?” Akakios said. “Or help hide some pieces of him?”

“No,” she said. “Neither. You are to go here,” she pointed at a mountain peak. “And stop this representative of the myth world, before he ferrets out where all of the king’s pieces are.”

Akakios nodded. “You will look after Caroline for me, while I am gone, mother.”

At the same time I let out an outraged protest, his mother said. “No, my son. The lady of the pure magic must go with you. She’s your only chance at survival.”

Felicitations, O my people! My apologies for the lack of books the last few weekends – much of the vast Oyster Clan converged on my sleepy little town [Ed.: Did you just call your sister-in-law “vast”?] and then there were some… communications breakdowns. [Ed.: Oh, is that what you’re calling it? FRO: Okay, so the giant squid may have escaped his tank momentarily and eaten the network hub, but that’s it! The rumours of my developing a snickerdoodle addiction and spending a week in rehab are lies, lies I tell you!] To my great pleasure, I can offer you in recompense a half-score of stirring stories, an array of astonishing adventures, a plethora of pleasing prose, a multitude of marvelous melodramas! [Ed.: Speaking of melodrama…] So, as I was saying, we’ve a fine lot of books for you this week, including several new releases! Also, a sincere thank you to all of you who send things in each week. You’ve all been marvelous to work with; I haven’t seen one complaint! [Ed.: Yes, you are quick with the delete button, aren’t you?] If you have books to include in the future, promo post entries can (and should!) be sent to my email. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think my editor needs some… wall-to-wall revisions. Happy reading!

Jason Dyck, AKA The Free Range Oyster

Word Polisher, Code Hawker (a lambda for the pretty lady?), and Proud Minion to the Beautiful but Evil Space Princess

Cedar Sanderson

The God’s Wolfling

Children of Myth Book 2

When The God’s Wolfling opens, Linnea Vulkane has grown up since the summer of Vulcan’s Kittens. Sanctuary, the refuge of immortals on an Hawaiian island, is boring. When the opportunity for an adventure arises, she jumps right into it, only realizing too late the water may be over her head. Literally, as she is embroiled in the affairs of the sea god Manannan Mac’Lir.

Merrick Swift has a secret he’s ashamed of. Then when he meets Linnea and her best friend, he doesn’t like her. She’s bossy, stuck up… and oddly accepting of his wolf heritage. Like her or not, he must do his duty and keep her alive. The children of the myths are being plunged into the whirlpool of immortal politics, intrigue, and goblin wars, and they might be the only ones who can save a world.

Stargazer

Free this weekend!

A short story of a woman who looks to the stars as she tries to protect her children and offer them a future. In a world with no escape for those who cannot undergo a genescan, a fugitive mother has vanishingly few options left to her. Ultimately, only her sacrifice can change the world… but what becomes of the children?

Sabrina Chase

Dragonhunters

Guardian’s Compact Book 2

Only one Mage Guardian now defends Aerope from the malevolent plans of Denais and his dreams of conquest and revenge. Ardhuin desperately tries to make the Allied governments see the danger and replace their murdered Guardians, but the long peace dulls any sense of urgency. Her new husband Dominic fears the Allies consider Ardhuin’s phenomenal power sufficient—and in no need of help from their mages. And yet… a weary traveler from the ends of the earth rushes to their home to deliver a message from a man thought dead. A desperate plea for help, invoking the Compact—as only another Mage Guardian would. Does another survive after all? And what new danger threatens the world?

Walt Pimbley

Sundowning

A Short Story

Korea vet steps irritably into the twilight, but unexpected guests make him feel young again. (Warning: a few salty epithets, and maybe some VIOLENCE.)

Forgiving Michael

A teen trying to improve concrete for a science prize stumbles onto a formula that transforms the foundation of his parents’ house to mud. Hilarity does not ensue, even when the mud dries “into something rich and strange.”

Moscow wants that formula, and so do Tehran and Peking. Tel Aviv wants it buried, fast. Washington isn’t sure what it wants, but the EPA’s hopping mad and throwing its weight around.

With sinister spies and comely assassins on the prowl, can Michael’s family find a way to safety?

Jerry Lawson

No Network Found

Future Tech Book 1

Cell phones are useful. Cell phones with lots of books? Even more useful.

A cell phone with a lot of books… that got pushed back to 1956? That’s just trouble looking for a place to happen.

Early Adopter

Future Tech Book 2

When the conditions are right – an avalanche can be started by a dropped pebble.

A cell phone with almost 40,000 books from the future is a little larger than a pebble, with a far greater impact.

What will be left when the avalanche is finished?

Worlds of Wonder – August 1956: A Semi-Pulp Magazine

Future Tech Book 4

You’re looking through a pile of old pulp magazines in a used bookstore – and a cover photo and odd titles catches your eye. Parting with your hard-earned money, you go home and settle in for something… unusual.

In this little collection, I’ve emulated the story styles of the science fiction magazines I grew up with. Short stories, terse writing, something that would give you a smile or a chuckle, and then pop you into the next story.

So pull up a chair, blow the dust off this odd little magazine you’ve found – and enjoy this little semi-pulp magazine.

Richard Alan Chandler

Kiwi

Alex Sanderson doesn’t like much of anything, but of all the things he hates, getting locked up in an alien prison on trumped-up charges tops the list. All he wants is a fair hearing and he’s sure he can get out. His cellmate on the other hand, she has different plans for Alex…

Note: This story contains profanity, some violence, and sexual situations; although not especially graphic, they may be offensive to some readers.

Wesley Morrison

A Piece of Eternity

Films That Never Were Book 1

A premium human in a genetically enhanced future, Rylen Weir was bred for a life of harmony and balance. Being kidnapped by unenhanced “throwbacks” and finding himself the key to which version of humanity survives was never in the plan.

Rylen has little choice, however. An unknowing test subject for the Traveller Enhancement, allowing him to send his consciousness back through time among his own ancestors, Rylen can possess the one man who set this future in motion. Which gives Rylen the power to save everyone, and everything, that he has ever known—or to prevent his world from ever happening.

Only neither side knows what Rylen will choose, because Rylen Weir is flawed.

Alma Boykin

Between Flood and Flame

A Cat Among Dragons Book 6

When trouble calls, don’t answer the radio!

Rada and Zabet return to Drakon IV and promptly end up in a tangle of Lineage politics, imperial incompetence, natural disasters, and rumblings of possible civil war. Just when she thinks it’s safe to take a few days hunting trip, Rada discovers a dying junior and a long-secret crime. There’s no such thing as a quiet decade, or half-century, when Rada ni Drako gets her fur up. Or is there?

Also available from Barnes & Noble.

*Okay, so I’m a weebit loopy today, but I have boxes to clean and promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.  Deal.*

The man approaches the dark door that wasn’t there a minute before. As he approaches, it opens a crack.

He’s so nervous he has to clear his throat twice to speak. “I come,” he says. “To join you.”

The eye on the other side of the door gives him the up and down. The person makes a sound that might be “umph.”

Then after a pause in which we get the impression the person on the other side of the door was examining his nails, “What is the password?”

“There is a password? No one told me there would be a password.”

“Of course there is a password. What kind of conspiracy to take over the world do you think we are.”

“Oh. Er… Um… That pig is wearing an apron?”

“Okay.”

From inside the room a voice says, “Not an apron, you dufus, a dress. The pig is wearing a dress.”

Another voice says “Apron!”

“No, it’s right there on page mumble of A Few Good Men. It’s a dress.”

“It’s an Apron, isn’t it, oh, beautiful but evil space princess.”

“Buggered if I know,” says a voice with an unplaceable accent. “I write the books, I don’t read them.”

There is a long silence. “Well, okay,” says the guy behind the door. “You’re going to have to prove you belong in another way. So… here goes: fish, what is it good for?”

“Eati—“ the man starts to say when a memory intrudes. “Throwing.” With a timid gesture, he lifts his cloak to reveal a weapon at his waist. “I have my carp trebuchet.”

“Good man that,” the guard at the door says. He opens the door. “Come in.”

The man enters the strangest room he’s ever been in. Part of it is medieval tavern, part futuristic space room. In a corner a group of guys are huddled with their guns. Somewhere, on a stage, a man is declaiming Kipling. A bunch of people in a corner are watching Monty Python and saying all the lines before the characters. At another corner, there’s a sign that says “Church of Heinlein, Reformed” and, oh, my, is that a woman in the altogether with a serpent draped around her?

“So what will you drink?” Bellows someone from the back.

“Coffee, he’ll have coffee,” say a kilted man, who hands the newcomer a mug of the tastiest dark brew he’s ever tasted.

In a corner there’s two people slugging it out. He looks fearfully at it.

“Don’t worry about it,” the barista says. “that’s the permanent fight. The fighters change but there’s at least one going on at any time.”

Suddenly a chant rises. “And an unwavering devotion to—”

“Karl Marx,” a brash voice shouts.

There’s a complete silence, then someone says “A fink for authority. How did he get in?”

The door opens. Someone else throws the man bodily out. He sails near the ceiling and lands outside. The door closes. “They do keep trying to come in and enlighten us,” says a stocky young woman in elf clothing. “I’m a hobbit,” she says apropos nothing. “But my husband is an elf.”

“Oh,” the new comer says politely. “How… how could they lift that big guy and throw him out.”

“Oh, that’s easy,” someone says. “We lift brontosaurus haunches around every day.”

“Bront—“

“For the grill.”

Just then four men come in carrying a monumental roast.

It’s set in the middle of the table, and the newcomer stares as people help themselves.

“I think I’m going to like this place,” he says.

“Oh, sure you are,” another voice says. “And just wait for desert. We have snickerdoodles.”

These days I’m getting that feeling at the back of the skull that the news and what I see in everyday life just don’t fit. Part of it might be that we’re just not getting decent information about things that might affect us.

Look, presumably there was a time in the past of our breed where each person could get the information they needed through their senses. Maybe. I mean, you still had to sort of trust (or not) the kid who came running into the village and said there was a lion/tiger/beast of prey outside. Because when you saw the animal with your own eyes it would be too late.

However those were limited circumstances. I very much doubt grandma M’Ogg read the morning paper to see how the berry crop was doing. No, she’d go out to her favorite berry patch, and if the berries were blooming, she’d drag them home. (And depending on whether she knew how to dry them/preserve them everyone ate until they had the runs, of course.)

Those days are far behind us. Which is a very good thing if you think about it, because that method of gathering food – and data – could support maybe a million humans across the world. And it might have been worse than that, since we know from our genetics that at some point human population went down to maybe 100 individuals.

So, we’re not going to mourn them, but we can complain about these extensions of our sensory organs that we call the press.

Because the problem is when the kid came into the village screaming there was a tiger outside, presumably you knew the kid and how trustworthy he was. Or not.

But with the press all most people have is “is everyone saying more or less the same” and “is this a big, mainstream news?”

And then they follow that. Because if everyone is saying it, monkey sense says it’s likely to be true. Which might have been right, at some time. Not sure about that, since I keep hearing about corruption of the press as far back as the early twentieth century. Maybe the industrial model of concentrated newssources was a bad idea to begin with. It gave us too few sources and all of them likely to know each other and want the other to think well of them.

But we know that in the age of Jourlolistism they actually confer behind the scenes to make the news fit, regardless of their merit or lack thereof. They decide what news to promote and what news to bury, and how to slant the news they tell, all without any attention to how credible those news are, but mostly to what they want to be true.

This is a problem, because if people don’t know the truth they make bad decisions at the low-level of grandma M’Ogg picking berries. If grandma M’Ogg has to rely on the paper to tell her where the berries are, and the paper, who wants to hide the fact that Big Chief’s prayer didn’t make the berries multiply, says that while the bushes near the village are stripped of berries because the tigers have turned vegetarian, but the bushes three miles away are loaded down with berries, Grandma is going to hike three miles, and even if she doesn’t collapse because of her bad hip, she might get eaten by the non vegetarian tiger.

Arguably this is what happened in 12. Employment and other economic statistics were fudged or outright fabricated (another rogue employee. I bet you his disk drive is unreadable, too.) and so even smart people thought we were on the verge of an up turn, the administration’s policies were working, and we should give it another try. I’m not saying that was enough for them to win, but it was enough to allow them to cheat to victory.

I’ve talked about this in the past. It’s a serious problem, of course. It’s not just that nobody knows anything, but that the things they think they know just aren’t so.

For instance, after predicting that our economy was going to come roaring – roaring – out the gate this second quarter, they are reporting growth of 4%. Which is just enough to put us in positive territory after the minus 3.9 of last time. The zero edge guys aren’t impressed, though and – whatever you think – They’re usually on target for economics.

Also, I’m not seeing the effects of this er… roar on my sales.

No one is, I think. Talking to other indies, this is not QUITE the Summer of Death, but it’s pretty bad. Most of us have seen our income from indie cut in half. Lately, if I want to shake the coin tree, I have to do something in the way of a sale. I don’t mind that, but it shows something: most people are at the limit of what they can afford.

And I just made a killing-buy at the grocery store because a pile of ground beef was at discount to 2.70, which is less than half the normal price. Think what you will, but in the really good times, the discount shelf is lean, because people buy it out very fast. Instead it was piled there and I got enough for meatloaves and meatballs and all sorts of dishes for a month or so.

But it goes beyond that. I’m not seeing the signs of a roaring economy around us. Limping maybe.

The plural of anecdote isn’t data, granted, but most people I know are hoping to make it one more month on groceries and one more year on a car (me. D*mn it. Almost cost us 1k for repairs, but I was afraid the ball joint was going to give while on the highway) that should have been replaced five years ago. Most of us are hanging by the fingernails and those are starting to bleed.

The indie stuff came through for me this last trimester in the sense of taking my fat out of the fire (yes, yes, I need to have the sequels to Witchfinder – well the first one – out in August sometime. That has settled into “The Haunted Air” as a title and involves Michael and a young lady who is called Albinia but goes by Al. Think of it as Have Spacesuit with fantasy and their being closer in age, and you’re not far wrong.)

Perhaps the people I know are just exceptionally bad at finances. I don’t think so. Not all the people I know. But there we are.

My friend Charlie says that it’s not that, it’s that the “growth” was people buying the car that wouldn’t limp another year, the fridge that quit, whatever.

This is possibly a part of it. I’m not putting it past the rest being “just made up out of clear air.”

I’ve noticed an odd trend in the spam I get. It used to be “you won a million” or “you won a free dinner at Ruth’s Chris.” Now it’s stuff like “You have just been hired by google.” (Since when is a job the dream prize?) and “you won a free dinner at Applebys” – like these normal everyday things (well, six years ago, we used to have dinner at applebys about twice a month, when I was too busy or whatever. Now, only in emergencies or we’re caught out of the house at 8 or 9 pm. BUT if you order carefully, it’s still not a dream dinner, or crazy expensive.) Spammers make their living hooking the marks, and they seem to think the marks are all running tight and lean. Which would dispute the booming economy. Even the “qualified/limited booming.”

The problem with this beyond affecting our personal decisions, is that it affects the people who make decisions on how to deform the economy with laws and regulations.

The problem is that even if they influence the media that gives them data points, they don’t get the news from elsewhere. Not in a convenient format.

I’m not making much sense. Let me try to explain. Someone who works in foreign affairs for the administration might get the raw data on that – before it’s either buried or spun by the press – and know that it’s a real mess and that Al Qaeda is a danger again. A big one.

They might be able to make sensible decisions on that – maybe. But the chances are that they don’t get the up-to-the-minute news on Russia and for that they believe what they read in the papers and the smart people in the magazines. Yeah, sure, they know that the journalists spin the bullshit for them, but they don’t think about it while evaluating those other news. And hey, all the smart people agree…

Then there’s the various areas of the economy. Mostly they drink their own ink. They believe what the papers tell them, even though they influence the papers.

And there is enough ink flowing to drown all of the administration and all of the intellectuals catering to the administration with analysis and opinion.

You see, each person might know what he’s saying is the end product of a bull’s digestion — or at least that it’s inflated/spun/glossified (totally a word) — but he or she won’t know that his/her colleagues are doing the same to EVERY single, small, specialized bit of information.

Everyone knows it’s real hard to see through a fog of ink, even if you’re the one operating the ink-hose. It’s much harder to remember that the ink is just ink if you’re not directly operating the ink-hose and it’s your buddies in journalism doing you a favor.

At which point, nobody knows anything, but everyone thinks he does.

And we go Forward! Off the cliff.

Why is it that our elected – coff – representatives think they can legislate paradise?

Yesterday we got a brochure from Colorado House Representative Pete Lee. Last time he was campaigning he came by here and did his best to convince us that he adored Heinlein. If he did, he must have read the braile print with his nose, or something, because clearly he’s missing something to an understanding of how societies and economies work – and understanding Heinlein had.

Or perhaps he read only early Heinlein, back when the man was young and a Shavian socialist. Perhaps he thinks all goodness flows from government and that government must take action to do things or we’ll all starve in the dark.

But even that makes absolutely no sense with the accomplishments he’s bragging of: the signal ones being that he voted more money for schools and that he has helped create legislation that ensures jobs won’t leave Colorado.

We’ll leave the first one alone, for now. What kind of an idiot allows him or herself to be bribed with his or her own money? No, seriously. So, we pay property taxes for the schools, and he gave more of our money to the schools. Yay?

Seriously. This country already spends more on education than any other land at any other time. He goes on to bleat about teacher to student ratio and blah blah blah.

There’s another ratio he should have looked into. Administrator to teacher. The more money you give to schools the more they grow administrators, like poisonous mushrooms after a rain. And administrators are sort of like politicians. The more you have, the more trouble they create.

But beyond that, look guys, I had great teacher to student ratio, relatively, through elementary, because my class was only 12. Unfortunately, since that was considered a ridiculously small work load for a teacher, they brought another class in for the teacher to teach. When I was in first grade, I shared a classroom with the fourth graders, then next year, after they graduated (school only went to fourth grade) I shared one with first graders, and so on. The class after us got first graders brought in when we were fourth graders.

So in the same classroom, we had a teacher teaching two completely different classes.

Also we only went to school in the morning or the afternoon (in my case, usually morning) and the classes repeated in the afternoon. Four hours, overloaded classroom.

Everyone learned to read and their multiplication tables. Even the kid who was educable mentally retarded.

Later on, when I went to middle and highschool, I THINK the smallest form (you were put in a form and had all your classes with them) we had was 42. We had classes in the attic amid broken furniture; in the cafeteria as they were setting up for lunch, and on one signal occasion the art room (for a whole year. Even though we didn’t have an art class. Central planning, eh?)

All of us learned, despite the awful teacher to student ratio and the whimsical accommodations. In a time when properties are losing their value, is it really the best idea in the world to increase property taxes in order to give more money to schools, so they can have two fewer students per class or whatever?

But this is actually the minor folly. The major folly – and the thing he is most especially proud of – is that he passed an anti-outsourcing law. Colorado firms won’t be sending jobs to India or China, why no sireeh Bob.

That sound you hear is my head hitting the desk. It’s a pity because I liked the desk. You’ll know when I go on a rampage because you’ll hear news of a woman with a branding iron marking all politicians on the forehead. It will say “You can’t legislate the economy. You can only deform it.” It will be written backwards so they can read it in the mirror.

You’d think it was obvious, right?

Younger son came downstairs while I was reading this bucket of fail and I told him, “Rejoice, oh, son, Pete Lee has made sure that no jobs will get outsourced from Colorado to India.”

He said “you’re joking, right?” And I showed him the dread paper.

He snorted. “Yeah, because it’s so hard to have a sub-corporation set up somewhere else, and have the outsourcing take place there. Or if that’s too much trouble, and it’s a family corp, to just relocate to another state – which will then get the supervisory jobs, too. Well done, there, you representative.”

I won’t say “from out the mouth of babes” because son is obviously a dude, but you get what I mean. If even number two son who understands machines better than people gets it, why can’t politicians?

Of course, if it were just my district representative in CO I wouldn’t be half as exercised. But we also have a president who has mandated punitive taxes for companies based in the states and doing business abroad or even foreign companies that do any business with the US and who has tried his best to curtail outsourcing. And we won’t get into the funnies that the congresscritters get up to.

Again, you can’t legislate the economy, you can only deform it. If something is occurring because of a strong economic (or other) pressure, it will continue occurring after you make it illegal. It will just occur… illegally.

Take hiring of illegals. It occurs because mandated minimum wage is too high (yes, of course they want to raise it. They think they can legislate economic facts.) “Define too high” you say, since other countries have a much higher minimum wage.

Simply put, minimum wage is “all the traffic can bear.” While it is possible for countries that don’t have a huge open border to a poorer country, and which have a less complex tax structure, and more generous welfare benefits to mandate a higher minimum wage and get it obeyed without massive non-compliance issues, they are still paying for it. Money is going to pay too much for work that isn’t worth that much, and therefore shorting companies of R & D money or innovation money. Which means their standard of life will not be what it could be. But that’s the problem of the squid farms on Mars. You know, we spent money on welfare, so we missed out on squid farms on Mars. It seems not to exist, because you can’t prove the wonders of squid farms. The normal person never knows what they missed. And yet, the cost is still there because, duh, you can’t legislate the economy.

But when you are a country like we are, with a massive open border and a very poor/unstable country next door, oh, yeah, and punitive taxes and regulations that make the margin companies operate from tiny, what you get is illegal workers working for far less than the minimum wage. And it’s no use at all punishing the business owners. Most of them aren’t greedy monopoly figures in top hats. They’re farmers, restaurant owners, small manufactory owners, whose choice is something like “hire illegals or go under.”

Of course before going under they’re going to hire illegals, particularly since – because the problem is everywhere – there are so many of them that even with the best possible enforcement it’s not going to be very good.

(OF course, the politicians solution for this is to legalize the illegals, which… makes no sense, since then they’d have to get minimum wage. Never mind.)

It’s the same thing with outsourcing. A lot of the companies that outsourced tech support to India and China and heaven knows where, are bringing it back to the states. Why? Well, it turns out other cultures don’t have the same rules, or the same performance standards. So the higher salaries of American workers are worth it.

BUT some companies still outsource. Why? Because they’re just starting out, or they’re in trouble, and all they can afford is foreign labor.

Legislate against that? Well, they’ll either hire a company in another state, which in turn hires abroad, or come up with some other dodge. Because people don’t let their businesses die because the law tells them to. Instead they get creative. Most of that creativity makes things harder to deal with and fix, but it’s what happens.

Sometimes I wonder why politicians don’t, instead, spend time legislating the weather. It would have just as much effect, but fewer drawbacks.

Instead they legislate the economy… and we all pay for their illusions.

I’m sorry to say I do not now, nor have I ever considered men superior to women – or to be more exact, since I don’t judge men or women as a whole – while I’ve met some men I consider my superiors, most men like most women aren’t. In fact, I’d say more than half the men and women I meet are less competent than I at most tasks. (Unless the task involves memorizing actors’ names and resumes, in which case some kindergarten classes outstrip me.)

Which brings another level of distinctions: some men (some women too) are better than I at some things. I’ve met two people in my entire life who were better than I at everything. One was a woman.

Men in general are better than I am at some things. I know that going in. Most men are going to be stronger than I. This was a hard lesson to learn for the kid who grew up fighting guys in the playground. When we hit puberty, even though I was bigger than most Portuguese men, I had to switch to being cunning and low-minded. I still won the fights, but mostly because I have no governor. Once I’m fighting, I’ll pluck your eyes out and eat them in front of you. (I don’t think I’ve ever done that, but you get what I mean.) And I will spy any opportunity to get under your guard, twist around, trip you. I’ve bitten someone and removed flesh in a fight (which is not as easy as it sounds. He deserved it, btw. He ambushed my friends and I on our way from school in a lonely area. I don’t think – he was our age, so maybe 14? – he meant to do more than grope us, but he picked the wrong person to grope. My friends had run. I THINK – I could be wrong – they meant to be chased and caught. But the idiot had to fixate on me.) This is not easy, unless you’ve sharpened your teeth or had steel blades installed or something. But I was desperate. Still I’m aware that a large enough man, or more than one large man with as few brakes as I have could easily subdue me.

In that sense, yeah, okay, men are superior. And there’s the correlation: they can usually do heavier work than I can, though I have yet to throw in the towel. Because I don’t.

Intellectually? There things are more nebulous. We know males tend to cluster more at both ends of the spectrum – idiot and genius – while women clump in the middle. By statistical distribution, there will be more men superior to me than women. (I don’t cluster in the middle.) But in my life, I’ve met one man and one woman who fit that, universally.

I’ve met plenty of men who are better than I at spatial visualization, but honestly, I don’t know if that’s because they were born that way or because they have jobs that demand that. And I know now that if I’d stuck with math and used a few simple tricks, I could have overcome my tendency to transpose digits in calculations, absent which (some teachers graded around it) I was always one of the best students in anything math related. (I thought physics was candy.)

So, I’m not afraid of men.

This is important to remember, because most women these days are taught to believe men have magical powers. This comes at the same time we teach them that they are superior to men, so it’s no wonder so many teenage girls are on prescription meds. What’s amazing is that some of them function at all and that so many get married (even though our marriage rate per population is at its lowest ever.)

And right now you’re looking at me and wondering why I think that most women believe men have magical powers. Haven’t I seen the commercials portraying dad as a dufos? Haven’t I heard all about how making jokes about beating a man is all right? Haven’t I seen how ridiculously biased our courts are? Don’t I know that men are treated very badly in our schools, since it’s considered all right for all the learning to be geared to “female style” which is quite different?

Sure I have. I’ve actually talked about some of these problems. And I had to fight like h*ll for school not to destroy the boys (and teach them most of the stuff at home.)

This treatment of males would be considered a social outrage if the genders were reversed.

So why isn’t it?

Let’s get past the stupid-sh*t feminist “now it’s their turn” as though in some bizarre way the men in the States today were responsible for any woman hurt hundreds of years ago (Are women of today responsible for everyone hurt by women centuries ago, too?) or in other countries to which they’ve never been.

That’s such patent and blatant idiocy that even the women saying it don’t believe it. Oh, some of them have personal reasons to be afraid of men (with women the personal is political. Always. It’s one of the ways we tend to be different.)   But most of them just are afraid because they’ve been taught to be afraid. And if you look closely you’ll see the spittle-flecked fear behind the crazy gloating.

If you dig down below all their excuses and protestations, you’ll get that its okay to do this to men because men are stronger and smarter than women anyway. And if you are ever in a group of al women, a situation I find myself in more than (to paraphrase) “a just G-d would allow” you’ll hear the strange idea come up that if we don’t keep the men in line, they’ll just “take over.”

Some of this is natural, of course. There has been suspicion between the genders as long as there have been genders. If you go back far enough to sources in ancient Greece, you hear the same crazy fear that women with their mysterious and powerful ways will take over. Some of this is the same competition for reproductive advantage that goes on, inarticulate, in the animal world. This is what causes praying mantises to eat the male, and what causes the male of many species to use himself as a sort of perma-plug to ensure his sperm is the only one fertilizing the eggs. (Biology has always been fascinating. At eight I was sent to my room without dinner for using the word “Sperm” in front of guests. I still have no idea why this was bad. I was describing the mating habits of fish.)

But we are thinking animals, and so we complicate things. And right now the theories on why men have dominated (some parts of) society for a very long time are causing real trouble between men and women. And they’re stupid.

The theory, I guess, (no one ever explains why they believe this) is that if you give men an inch, they’ll Burka all over you.

Missing from this is the idea that men had already started giving women rights they REALLY HAD NO REASON to and to which they could have held given a wish to do so before the present era.

I’m not going to go into the whys and wherefores. Some theories involve the Virgin Mary. But the belief that women were at least as human as men, and sometimes special, has suffused western society since at least the early middle ages. (And some parts and some periods of Greece and Rome had versions of equality.) Read up on the traditions of chivalry.

Does this mean women were equal? Oh, hell no.

Remember that thing I said, about reproductive advantage and angling there to?

Since the caves (at least) women and men have had a simple pact. He made use of his stronger muscles to bring home mammoth (or whatever) and in return her children would all be his. Most of the most oppressive rules of society and most of the abuses against women come from this: ensuring the children are his. This is part of the reason in the Arab world and in more traditional societies, the grandmother is ALWAYS the enforcer of female “good behavior.” She too wants to make sure the kids are her son’s.

This is why though women were treated better in the western world than in other places, they weren’t “equal” to men. They still had to somehow allow men to be reassured about the kids being theirs. Also, women died early. And as many children were required as possible, because they too died early.

So, the amazing advances in terms of females working outside the house and having equality with men in most public arenas? Safe birth and safe, reliable contraceptives. Also, the ability to determine paternity.

So men don’t have superpowers any more than we do. What they do have is greater physical strength and – supposedly – by statistics, a few more geniuses (and a few more morons.)

And yet, most women still act like men are some sort of a big threat. Yesterday here in the comments (quoting someone) someone brought up the canard that women these days are still taught to be deferential to males.

Really? When? Where? Outside the Arab world or third world hell holes?

One of the other commenters pointed out that no, women are in fact taught never to take men’s opinion or advice REGARDLESS of their validity. I, myself, experienced this when I was first married. If my husband went along with something I wanted to do, his female relatives thought this right and just. But if I went along with something he wanted to do, I got told that I was acting like a “submissive Latin wife.” (Yes, they had met me. I know. I have nothing.)

This disturbed me enough that I used to cut contact with any female friend/relative who lectured me on these lines, because I viewed it as unwarranted interference in how I chose to run my marriage.

Look, yeah, I do most of the house work – but that’s more a function of feminist-shaming than of my husband’s patriarchal oppression. Because my fellow females were sneeringly dismissive of my attempts to stay home and make it in writing (my husband never was. He’d say things like, “Well, didn’t you write a thousand words today. You worked. Let’s just grab burgers) and because I was young and stupid, I fell in the habit of justifying my “laziness” by doing a bunch of things around the house, and unfortunately families crystalize around patterns. Though the worst trouble is the fact that both Dan and I are working (At least) three jobs a piece, which means a lot of stuff goes undone, period.

I don’t know any woman who was taught that she should defer to males’ opinions. Well, not any woman under sixty.

The “good behavior” modeled in movies is the woman who gets in the guys’ face and screams even when they know better. This is not conducive to survival outside a playwright’s rigged universe, but these are still called “strong women.”

So, let’s put that to rest, as well as the myth that men will just come over and take our mojo and put us in burkas.

You want to be equal? Be equal. Stop running around hectoring other women on how to behave, even if this is an instinctual behavior. You want to be strong? Be strong? You want to be self-sufficient? Be self sufficient.

You don’t have to ignore everything men say or scream at them. The penis doesn’t give them magical powers. Just because you took their opinion on how to (say) lay flooring on the porch (because, say, they do this for a living) it doesn’t mean they’re going to take control of your mind and rule over you. And it doesn’t make you a “Stepford wife” to take your husband’s opinion on which neighborhood to live in, if he has good justifications for his choice and you think they make sense.

It makes you a smart human being, who knows that men don’t have magical-penis-powers and that technology allows us unprecedented equality. And who wants to keep it that way by treating everyone – male and female – as individuals, each to be evaluated on his own merits. (Sane women also aren’t afraid of the patterns of indo-European languages, or feel a need to fight them. Since men have no magical powers, they won’t be able to seize control of your mind because you used “his” instead of the clunky “his or hers.” Sane women have more important things to worry about like the societies where forced female circumcision takes place, or the infanticide of female babies in China.)

Set yourself free. The boogeyman you fear is in your mind.

Keep Calm, and Have a Plan to Kill Everyone in the Room – Cedar Sanderson I am a weapon. When the time comes to strike, the tool I happen to use is not the weapon, the squishy gray stuff between my ears is. In aid of keeping my weapon sharp, I have done various training and thought exercises over the years, and I know that in order to be ready to defend myself and others, I occasionally need to refresh this. Like, as the truism above states, playing a mental game of situational awareness. Locate yourself in the room. Where is the entrance? The exit? How else could danger come (the windows?) and how can you escape. Standing and doing battle may not be the optimal choice, depending on what is coming at you. But most important, be aware of your surroundings. Out for a walk? Walk straight, with head up and eyes moving, rather than looking down at your feet or grocery list or book…And if you are listening to music, go with only one earbud in, not both, so you can hear your surroundings. This awareness is vital to planning the next move. Not long ago I was performing at a party in a bad part of a nearby city. Now, I’m all sweetness and light at these things. But partway through the party I became aware that there was a situation, and I immediately started preparing for what might happen next. Best case scenario, which is ultimately what did occur, was that the cops came, all settled down, and there was no escalation. Worst case would have been for the teenage boy who was chased down the street being accused of theft to have returned with armed re-enforcements, a not unlikely situation in that area. Me? I planned to stuff the little kids under the sturdy picnic tables I was set up next to, where they would be out of the line of fire, and either join them, or stand guard over them. All I could do. Even had I been carrying (and I’m not saying I wasn’t) I wouldn’t have done anything to draw fire on them.

Not everyone wants to use a gun as their tool when the time comes. Some are uncomfortable with them, for whatever reason. But as a 5’2” female, I know that a force-multiplier is essential. I haven’t the training to use a sword, nor is carrying one every day a reasonable option. I always have a blade on me, but I’d rather not have an attacker that close-in thankyouverymuch. The firearm is a very good option, but again, it’s not always available. So… what else can you use as your tool, when you are being the weapon.

Walk with me through my (ok, this isn’t all real, but if you’re thinking about breaking in, know that it’s a very bad idea at Chez Sanderson) house… Behind the front door is a battleaxe. It’s lighter than the double-bitted axe I once used to fell trees and split firewood, but you aren’t a green spruce trunk. Also in this area are various garden tools like shovels, and a bamboo Bo which belongs to my beloved and I need lessons with…

A little further, you made it into my kitchen. Boy, are you in trouble now. A knife block with my favorite 10” santuko I keep razor sharp, my 12” cast iron skillet (bonus if it’s hot and full of grease) – these are just the beginning. Made it past that? I’m sitting in the office. I have a firearm within arm’s reach, and also a coffee carafe that is usually at least half-full of near-boiling liquid (don’t make me waste my caffeine). Bedroom? Well, to begin with there’s a shotgun…

What about outside the house? Sarah pointed out when we were talking about this post that she has defended herself with shoes and dictionaries. I often wear hardened teak hair-sticks, and yes, you can fly with them… I checked with a TSA agent once (didn’t mention I was thinking of it as a weapon). Anything loose and heavy can become a projectile. What matters is: did you think of it beforehand? Because you most likely will not have the time to think when the attack comes.

The human brain is a funny thing. We react to situations often without concious through, acting on patterns formed before we were aware, as an adult, of what we should do. Some of us reacted to bullies with fists and feet, others crumbled under the onslaught. Look at your own patterns, and if you need to change them, set out to reform bad habits into good ones. Like looking around the room and making a plan for what you would do if it hit the fan with little or no warning.

I may be little, soft, and feminine, but mess with me and mine, and I will mess you up. It doesn’t matter what tool I choose, I am the weapon, and I will have no qualms about using it on you. The myth of the weak, helpless female is more busted than anything Jamie and Adam have ever taken on. Stop acting like a twit and trying to make everyone else take care of you, instead of being responsible for yourself. If there’s a threat, deal with it.

I’m not advocating a violent response to every situation. If, for instance, I am being hit on at a convention by a male I’m not interested in, I can choose one of several options. I can simply smile faintly and move away until I am out of his radius. If he follows, then I remain in a public place, preferably making my way to a group of friendly faces (I do not foolishly put myself in a situation where I am outnumbered and alone). At this point I can clearly and calmly inform him I’m not interested. If I must escalate, that he is making an ass of himself. Frankly, I’ve never gotten to this point, however, any rational person will then disengage. If he’s not rational, then and only then do you need to resort to violence should he lay hands on you. He’s not harassing you, child, if all he’s done is look at you in the way you don’t care for.

There are situations where it becomes very difficult to protect oneself. I have been in them, including the party I mentioned above, where to do so might have meant endangering little ones. I won’t do that. Sometimes we must choose what is best for a situation based on others, not ourself. But in order to be able to make that choice, you have to know beforehand what you would do. Protect the women and children? Yes. Protect those who refuse to protect themselves? I don’t know…

So. Make a plan. Practice the plan, with lots of thought, and involve your family and anyone who lives with you. Make it into a game, to help little ones get into it without teaching them undue fear. Prepare, and may the boogieman never come through your door. But if he does, be ready to open fire with your weapon.

A place for everything, and everything in its place — Dorothy Grant