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*This is the new free novel I’m posting here a chapter at a time.  This is pre-first-draft, as it comes out.  It is a sequel to Witchfinder which will soon be taken down (once edited) and put for sale on Amazon (And at this point I’m hoping that will happen by the beginning of July at the latest).  Meanwhile, if you donate $6 or more, I’ll get you a copy of Rogue Magic, once finished and edited, in your favored ebook format.  Of course, if you’re already subscribing to the blog at a level at which you get whichever books come out that year, you don’t need to worry. *

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

Irregular

Jonathan Blythe, Earl of Savage,

 

I let myself go boneless on the seat for a moment, at the thought of another world, another magical threat.  It had been bad enough to be caught in what we’ll call for lack of a better word the elvenland wars of succession.

To be caught in something else, something having to do with myth…  I sat up suddenly and narrowed my eyes at the King of Elves.  “Your majesty will forgive me, but—”

He grinned “That bad?”

“Beg your pardon?”

“You started with Your Majesty, not Penn, and certainly not Gabriel.  That bad?”

I waved a hand away.  “Bad enough.  Your Majesty will forgive me my presumption, but would you tell me, perhaps how different such a world can be from yours?  Isn’t your world considered a myth by mankind in most of the worlds in which magic is forbidden?”

For a moment, he looked genuinely shocked.  It is always bad to guess whether an elf is showing his true face but this one looked to be doing just that and to be genuinely shocked.  He took a deep breath.  “Too far, my dear Jon,” he said, though his tone was not dangerous and he didn’t seem to be threatening me.  “I am not responsible for what humans do when they make up stories to themselves of what is real and what isn’t.”  He sighed.  “No.  I beg your pardon.  I am human too or at least.”  He rubbed the middle of his forehead with two fingers, as though he had a headache.  I remembered the same gesture from Seraphim.  “Or at least I remember being human, remember it vividly enough I didn’t mean “human” as an insult.  No.  In some ways I wish I had the luxury of being human still.  But it is true that you – we – in our ignorance of deeper magic—“  He puffed out his cheeks and let himself fall back upon his chair, as though despondent.  “When I ascended,” he sounded like a corpse describing his own death day.  “When I ascended to my current… dignities I found that there were many things that not only do humans not know, but humans can’t know.  The way my mind is now… I see in places you cannot see.  It’s like having a wholly different sense that is magic and senses magic.  You know how you can see magic patterns and the traces of magic, being a magic-user.  My people, we… I, now, can see with magic, all the time, like an extra sense.  To be honest I always could.  Like the language of elves, which is inborn, so that our day-old babes can speak it, so is magic like that, existent, all the time.  But I chose not to use it while on Earth.  I voluntarily blinded myself to it.”

“But becoming king of elves,” he said, “forced me to open my eyes and forced me also to see things I didn’t wish to see, to know things—

“There are worlds, there are divisions in magic, there are flavors I can’t describe to you.  Suffice it to say that fairyland is a whole integral land, that now and then interacts with human worlds.  The mythworld is … I won’t say it was created by human minds and human magic.  I was, at least in my human form, a Christian, raised as such in the Darkwater household.”  He furrowed his brow.  “I wonder what the good Reverend Dickson would think of me now, should I show up for the services.  But whatever he may think there is no inherent war between my people and Christianity.  There is a dispute over whether salvation applies to us, whether pure elves have a soul.  I don’t know.  I don’t see why it shouldn’t.  We’re… close enough to humans.  But the myth worlds are different.  It might have been created through human belief, through human need for powerful entities in which to believe.  It might have been created – Marlon thinks so, at least – through the fall of Adam.  He thinks so but can’t prove it with math and I prefer not to follow where he goes just because I trust him.”  He grinned at my expression.  “My love does not blind me, Jon.  He’s a man and therefore fallible.  I’m an elf and therefore also fallible.  Our fallibility is just of a different order.  I don’t allow him here, by the way,” he gestured in such a way, that it might mean this office or his whole realm.  “I can’t.  He’s too much of fairyland that it would start colonizing his mind, and make it hard for him to live where he has chosen.  I visit him, when I can.  That is good.  It helps me remember being human.  And right now, my memory of being human tells me he’s guessing.  But in either case, the mythworld is… subservient to humans.  I told you it was a parasite.  It might not be able to be anything else.”

“Yes, but why would it attack our world now?  And why our world in particular.  Is it simply our turn?”

The creature who’d been Gabriel Penn shook his head.  “Oh no.  It is in dire crisis.  One of their own, older than rational man, has awakened and it is … making demands.  I think they built a prison for it, but I’m not sure how it works.  This is disturbing as I think they have taken part of my realm, and are preventing me from seeing it.  But their own is… cannibalizing them.  Taking all their energy for what it thinks will be an attack on human worlds.

“However, part of what caused him to wake… part of what…  Your father, Jon, what do you know about your father’s activities?”

I felt color drain from my face, leaving me blanched and cold.  “Good God,” I said.  “Not Papa’s activities.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“I know he used magic to trade with and swindle humans.  I know he unscrupulously arranged to have travel forbidden to non-magic worlds so only he could do it and his fraud could not be detected.  He might have traded in objects of power.  I know he was behind the kidnapping of the princess.  How can there be more?”

He gave me an odd smile, lopsided.  “It is good to know I’m not the only one who has to blush for his relatives.”

“I’m glad to give you pleasure, your majesty,” I said, in my most caustic tone.

He laughed, suddenly.  “No, Jon, but leaving that aside.  Your father seems to have found a way into mythworld and to have taken part of it.”

“Part of… what?”

He sighed.  “I’m not sure.  Valkyries.  Maenads.  What you call them.  Warrior women full of vengeance.  He found a way to bend some of them to his will, to make them do his bidding.  I’ve not found out why yet.  But it was those women, dislocated to Avalon who caused the elder god to wake up.  It seems they were part of his guard.  I’m not sure why your father would do that, or what benefit redounded to him.”

“Some, you can be sure,” I said acidly.  “That much is guaranteed..”

“Yes, but I haven’t pinned down what yet, and I’m not sure it matters.  When the elder woke, it steered the world towards Avalon, and there it connected to its lost members and… Since it was in dire need of magic due to the awakened elder, its members got a new mission – to take Avalon’s magic.  As much of it as possible.  This in turn corrupted Avalon’s magic, and the world as we know it will disintegrate without it.”

I opened my mouth to ask him what he cared.

“Don’t,” he said.  “I know it’s not my world, anymore, but there’s Seraphim, and Nell, and Caroline and Michael, and yes, there is also Marlon.  If I lost them I’d lose most of me.  All that remains human in me.”  He sighed.  “And also, through them they can get to me, and through me Fairyland.  Since their need is great because everytime they grow their irrational elders grow, this means they can devour all the worlds.  Jon, think.  Surely it is worth fighting?”

I stared at him for a moment, my eyes unfocused.  “But… why would I be able to do anything?”

He sighed again.  “Your mind,” he said.  “tastes the same as theirs.  Your magic is more similar to theirs than any I can see.  Jon, no,” this was in answer to my half rising, offended.  “I don’t say it to wound you, and I don’t even say you have anything of them, though surely you know gods copulated indiscriminately.  But Jon, my friend, I’m using the only weapon I can.  They are an irregular world.  Only an irregular man can defeat them. Seraphim is too honor bound.  I am not fully human, and… I can think of no one else to call upon.”

I almost asked if his own lover, once a necromancer might not be a better choice, but truth, I knew the man and except for one characteristic he was more conventional than Mama.

“Irregular,” I said, as I pondered it.

When I was very little, my mom sang a song to put me to sleep.  You’ll see from one particular word what must be the vintage of that song: “Soldier out on the trenches, if you see the flag bearer fall with it in his hands; lift that flag, soldier, in a bit of green/red rag, you have the country* in your hands.”

There is smoke in the air, this fourth of July.  Yesterday the air was clear, but when we opened our balcony door last night, the smoke was choking, as though our neighborhood were grilling right on the porch.  Since I’ve not heard sirens, I assume it’s one of the weather weird things and we’re getting smoke from somewhere far away, maybe even Arizona.  But in a way it’s fitting that the flag is flying against a background of smoke and ashes.

Yesterday a friend and I tried to remember any other country that was ever governed by an elite which hated everything the country stood for/everything that made it stand as a nation and wished to dismantle it from within.  We couldn’t think of any.  Certainly not any that hadn’t been governed by an occupying elite.  Maybe there’s a reason the movement our elites approved of was called “Occupy” (and largely financed by the elites.)  [Or maybe the elites should tell Occupy as the Church of Satan told the pro-abortion protesters “Whoa, dude, you’re giving us a bad name.]  Even then, the political elites would be less worrisome if they weren’t supported by a crazy train of academics, artists, press, all of them indoctrinated in the same hatred of the land that allows them to exist.  (And brainwashing has got really good.  These are people who presumably can read and write, but they seem incapable of studying up and really seeing how bad the rest of the world is.)

Our money printing presses are running overtime, and our elites, like Morsi in Egypt, seem to have only one idea of how to run the economy “keep borrowing” – in our case from the future.  Da Tech guy says it sounds familiar, and he’s absolutely right.

Our internal agencies, which are supposed to protect us are being used as a bludgeon against one political side (apparently the thing about “progressive” also being on an IRS BOLO was a thin and unconvincing narrative.  I.e. if it was the IRS is more inefficient than we thought, since no progressive group was delayed in non-profit status.)  And the lady running Truethevote, a group that tries to remove dead and duplicate registrations from the books was harassed by the IRS, the NSA, the ATF and Homeland Security.  No word on whether the EPA got in on the act, but I suspect they’re even now designating her kiddie pool a wetland.  And I’m sure the Department of State that left four of our own to die alone in Benghazi is very interested in stopping TrueTheVote.  After all, it’s very important to maintain the APPEARANCE of consent of the governed.

And while the crazy train leads the parade, foreign powers are looking for a moment to strike the wounded eagle.

Countries have fallen from less than this.  They’ve gone down in smoke and ashes and risen no more.

So, there is smoke in the air, and things look bleak.  Fortunately this is not the first time things have looked bleak for us.  And fortunately other countries are not the USA.

I got from Audible and am listening to – at CACS’s instigation – a series of lectures called Brotherhood of the Revolution.  I already knew our founding was done by the skin of our teeth and through a series of lucky incidents.

I bet things looked bleaker than now that winter at Valley Forge.  But they succeeded.  They succeeded in no small measure because individuals took up the cause.  How many actually fought?  I have the figure at 3% from various places.  My husband’s 14 year old direct ancestor – after whom he’s named – joined the Connecticut contingent as a drummer boy.

But in small towns and in far away places ordinary people held the flag aloft.  The thing about American women fighting as well as their men was likely true.  America proved too expensive, too much trouble to hold.

We’re a miracle nation, born not of blood brotherhood, not of territorial disputes, but of a belief in securing Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness to the largest possible number of individuals.

Have we stumbled in this?  Often enough, we have.  The founders themselves allowed slavery to survive to be resolved by another generation, and the resolving of that crisis gave a central government far too much power compared to the individual and the states.

But the thing is we’re trying.

During the Iraq war, a trucker, one of the “human shields” volunteering to go help Saddam, I mean “preserve peace” said on television he didn’t believe Saddam had any evil intentions.  Why would a nation that couldn’t even secure clean water for its citizens even consider making war on anyone?

The trucker was I THINK British, but his opinion (besides betraying a jaw-dropping lack of knowledge of history) was very American.

It is in America that we assume that the government exists by consent of the governed; that their first duty is to secure the comfort and safety of the people, and other than that leave people alone to pursue Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Other countries have now included similar language in their constitutions, but the belief and mind set is not in their DNA.  It doesn’t course through their veins and form their thoughts.

And then they always try to go one better and guarantee other things, things that in the end deny those three rights, positive rights, like a right to wealth, a right to sustenance, a right to – this is the most vicious – equality.  Equality not just before the law, but of results.  And then the horrors of collectivism tumble forth because it’s impossible for a government to give anyone anything that was NOT stolen.  Governments produce nothing.  At their best, they protect those who do produce things.  At their worst…

So – there is smoke in the air the flag flies in, this fourth of July.  But the flag hasn’t fallen.  Someone I respect greatly told me it’s inevitable it will fall; that we’re headed for a hard crash.

Maybe that’s right.  Maybe it will fall.  I hope not.  We’re fandom.  A lot of us know people who can barely hold it together – health, mind, economics – in the world as is.  If we crash we’re each going to lose friends and neighbors and people who make life worth living.

But even if we crash, it’s not the end.  It will never be the end while one of us stands; one of us who believes in Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness, one of us who believes the consent of the governed means more than being able to count the votes, one of us who believes that in the proper order of things the government exists to serve the people, the government belongs to the people and not the other way around.

If that flag falls in the muck and mire towards which it’s sagging, it is the solemn duty, the very great privilege of each and every one of us still standing to lift it up high and continue the fight.

They pledged their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor.  I pledge mine.  And no, I don’t think those are just words, or that it’s all a game.  All of us who believe in the principles of our founding pledge our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor, implicitly or explicitly.

May we never be required to pay even as we stand ready to.

May we escape the crash we so richly deserve and may my grandchildren celebrate the fourth of July on clear days when their government works to secure their liberties, not take them away.

*(Country is given as Patria which literally would be fatherland, but obviously can’t be translated that way because of what has happened to that word. Motherland which would be permissible since Patria in Portuguese is feminine, still holds same echoes and homeland makes you want to say “security.”)

I’d like to interrupt the current insanity with some helpful definitions.

By this I don’t mean just the SFWA incident, about which I can’t pronounce because they haven’t actually revealed what the horrible horrible incident was, and without that I can’t comment.  I can also add I’ve heard rumors about this editor for years, but rumors aren’t proof.  So I won’t pronounce on that one way or another.

HOWEVER there has been a lot of screeching and finger pointing and crying of harassment everywhere else too, and frankly, ladies, I’ve had enough.

So this is the part of the blog in which we define.

What is harassment?

Harassment: sexual, political or social has two necessary components – you can’t avoid it, and it’s being perpetrated by someone with power over someone without power who is either an underling or in some other way needs this person to continue working/doing what he/she must to survive.

Take for example the charming habit of just about every Portuguese male over the age of twelve of standing outside café doors and shouting suggestions on what they’d like to do to me/have me do to them (I think some of the things were anatomically impossible.)  They were annoying, they often made it very unpleasant for me to go buy an ice cream.  They certainly often made me want to unleash the fist of doom.  Were they harassment?  No.  I think they might be a very stupid approach to courting and judging from some women who would shout back at them, it might even have worked.

However, those women – and I – didn’t need those men to survive/earn a living.  So at the very worst, the men were incredibly rude and yeah, I wanted to unleash fist of doom, but that would be dignifying their nonsense.  Ignoring them OTOH baffled them.

In fact, a month ago I was subjected to the international version of same as road workers called out helpful suggestions in Spanish.  Solved by pretending not to understand a word of Spanish.

Was it harassment?  No.  It was uncomfortable, and unpleasant, but that doesn’t make it harassment.

Mind my words: NO ONE is entitled to go through life without being made uncomfortable.  A) it’s impossible B) in some times and places discomfort can be useful. C) It’s impossible to play your whole life at kindergarten level.  NO ONE CAN MAKE LIFE SAFE FOR YOU.  NOR SHOULD THEY.

Some years ago, at a con, I entered the backroom of the barfly suite, where there were only a dozen guys.  They were watching a racy movie and started to turn the channel, then said, “Oh, thank G-d, it’s Sarah” and kept it on.  Was I disrespected?  Were they objectifying me by watching nudie females?

Ladies, gents and dragons: Watching nudie other sex (or same, depending) is what humans do, and often one of the only pleasures when you live in interesting times.    For me to make the leap from what the guys were watching to an insult to me personally would require me to assume that I was one with the skinny little things pretending to have sex on the screen.  The only reason for commonality there would be we have similar genitals.  PFUI.  It takes more than that to make me the soul sister of say Hillary Clinton or – gag – Nancy Pelosi.  (Both of which would be very bad subjects for nudie movies.)  Besides, seriously.  The guys were taking some time off and having fun.

Was I made uncomfortable?  Actually no.  It would be like being afraid of Night Of The Living Dead.  I made some comments on the action, including the “that’s anatomically impossible” and left because it was boring.

But suppose I’d been made uncomfortable.  Was that harassment?  Well, no.  Yeah, those guys were fans.  But the only way to make it that they had power over me is to assume every person of penis TM has power over every person of vagina TM.  That’s Marxist social theory, and why would he be right about that, when he’s wrong on everything else?  Marx can suck my middle finger.

But Sarah, you say, then you’re subjecting women to being made uncomfortable everywhere they go.  That might not legally be harassment, but surely it creates an hostile work or play environment.  Would you want to live being made uncomfortable everywhere you go?

Sure.  I did.  I do.  The degrees of discomfort vary, and if a place is so bad I can’t take it, I stop going there.  This happened with the Nebulas when for two years it became the high palace of leftist twaddle and that’s all people talked about everywhere, and I couldn’t say anything, because, well, it WOULD have meant my career.   But the best cons were – some still are (Liberty con excepted) – places where I’m made very uncomfortable by not being able to shout “You lie” and get in fights.  That’s life, isn’t it?

But Sarah, what if the hostile environment is at work?  What if these people DO have power over you?

Two suggestions – there are two types of work environment that will try you.  I only experienced one, but I read a lot about the other, which is “environments dominated mostly by males, who will make terrible jokes, etc in front of the women.”  (BTW the reverse occurs too.  No?  How many times do you ladies discuss your periods where guys can hear it?  Isn’t it amusing to see them turn purple?)  From what I read in police women and others biographies, the nonsense stops once you become ‘one of the guys’ – this involves not shrieking and giving back as good as you got in the way of jokes.

But Sarah, it should not be needed.  They should immediately auto-censure when a woman is near.

First of all that’s not how humans work.  Some form of hazing ritual applies to guys too, particularly in dangerous professions.  You need to test the newby before you depend on him/her for your life.  Second, if they censor their thoughts, they’ll end up missing stuff they NEED to think.

The second type is the (often international; mine was) company where women are viewed as combination servants and eye candy.  My response to that, and it worked like a charm, to the point of having my male boss reproach a passing-by engineer who had made a lewd comment, was to draw the line.

Few women are taught to do this these days.  But it is coded deep in the male brain and it works.  If you know a Southern Lady over fifty ask for lessons.  It involves looking neither shocked nor disgusted but inexpressibly remote, like they just put themselves beneath your notice.  The term is “freezing” for a reason.  Practice in front of the mirror if needed.  It works.  You will actually be treated above your work position – it works that well.  You need to know how to do this, because the world can only be made safe for you by YOU.

Now, let’s talk about conventions.  Conventions are tricky places.  They both are necessary for work, and they are ultimately parties.  You can’t make it totally safe as a work environment because it isn’t.

At one World Fantasy I was propositioned by SIX guys, three of them editors (well, junior editors) including the gentleman who wanted me to “dominate” him.  No, I wasn’t wearing black leather.  I was wearing a frilly green dress.

Did it make me uncomfortable?  Well, it made me worry about what they thought was so dominating about me (It was the theme.)  They might have planned it but I doubt it, since I know some of them don’t talk.  Mostly it made me laugh and look for my husband to tell him.

See, cons are supposed to be fun.  I don’t want to have to stand around minding my every word, and I don’t want my male friends to have to do the same.  Getting a little boozed up – or in my case just high on having people around – and flirting or joking with friends is what parties are about.  (Flirting is not sexual.  It’s a mind game that uses sex as a basis.  I enjoy it, even though as far as I’m concerned there is ONE man in the whole world I’m interested in.)

If the screaming delicate flowers ruin my conventions, by making men stop attending, I swear to the memory of Robert A. Heinlein that they’ll live to regret it.

Now, let’s talk about what IS harassment.  Harassment is when people use shaming and innuendo and exploit other people’s harmless behavior.  Harassment is giving liars the ability – unexamined – to render someone a pariah.  ( Yes, women lie.  If you’re over 18 you should know this, regardless of your gender, even if younger boy has trouble wrapping his head around it.  If your entire program assumes women never lie, you’re making an assumption not supported by all of human history and you should perhaps consider what you’re thinking of is angels, not women) Harassment is what was done to Malzberg and Resnick – trying to destroy their careers, their reputation, and their chances of making a living.

That’s harassment.  And that’s wrong.

 

So, one of the things I like about Liberty con is that every year is different.  See, it’s like a family reunion and that changes, as the time goes on, and the people change.  Kids grow up, people pass on the torch of this or that, but the family reunion goes on.  It changes, is all.

This year the theme was : fans.  I already knew I had the best fans in the world, but you guys clean up nice in person too.  We saw/talked to a lot of you (I couldn’t go ten steps without someone saying “Loved Darkship Renegades” or “Loved A Few Good Men” which, let me tell you, does more for my confidence than… anything else just about.  And confidence is very important, it boosts a writer’s voice, which makes the books better.  So thank you to everyone who did that.

Mostly, among the fans, we hung out with Dot and Peter and Cedar and Sanford.  We also spent a lot of time with Speaker, but as Science Advisor To Baen Authors I’m not sure he counts as just a fan.  I got to meet Stephen Simmons, Evil Penguin who is neither a Penguin nor Evil brought me a stuffed penguin who will be added to the Hoyt menagerie (yes, your worst suspicions are true.  I do sleep clutching a stuffed doll of a bald eagle.  Dan bought it for me years ago.  We will not discuss my stars and stripes pajamas.  You THINK I’m joking) and I think Kilted Dave is now my third son.

We also spent a lot of time with Kevin (some with Rebecca, but her health doesn’t let her stay up that late) and I’m not sure what it means when writers from Colorado go to Tennessee to hang out.  But he seemed to “get” Liberty con like we got it the first time we went: “this is fun” and “oh, wow, it’s like family.”  So maybe we can tempt him back sometime despite his hectic schedule.

We spent even more time with Larry and Bridget Correia, whom we hadn’t seen for … four years?  But they’re family (possibly literally.  No, we’re not taking a DNA test!) so it was like we’d seen them just yesterday, except for the catchup on what the kids were doing, etc.

I wasn’t IN the mad scientist panel room because it was SO hot (and I LIKE hot weather) that I hung outside the door with Kilted Dave and Richard Evans and other barflies, so I missed whatever it was, but my husband assures me that if you upset the Correias Larry is NOT the Correia you should be scared of.  Make a note of it.

I’m sure I’m forgetting about a dozen people I had long conversations with.  I know I saw a lot of old friends only in passing.  I wish we’d had (a lot) more time with Kelly and Star, for instance, but they’ve promised to visit soon.

The first Hoyt’s Huns breakfast was a rousing success for 9 am the day after the party night.  Let’s think this through for other cons and have it on Saturday morning, as the con is starting.  I mean, my own younger son (who came in at five am the night before) didn’t make it.  Robert made it despite having made of rousing tour of the world in alcoholic beverages.  (The Portuguese bred through in that one.  In Portugal, those who couldn’t hold their liquor died young and without children.

I also loved seeing and talking to Toni Weisskopf.  First because we’re always doing a million things at one time, so it was good to sit and talk.  Second because there are a couple of projects maybe coming down the pike (things need to be done/fixed/etc) that we’ve been discussing fragmentarily, and, as always, it’s much easier to get stuff solved in half an hour talking than a year of emails.

Oh, the Basset antho will be a Baen fan antho (though I’ll write for it, as will my family) mostly because every other pro I know is going nuts.  We already have some stories banked, but will also open for submission.  No pay – it’s a charity antho, but if you write give it a thought.  I’ll explain the purpose, etc, later.  It will come out Baen Webscriptions and in NRP for the other outlets, electronic/paper.

Anyway, my husband is thinking of coming down for Fencon, money permitting, particularly if he has Ninth Euclid out by then.  So maybe we should have  Hoyt’s Huns Breakfast then?  I don’t know how many of you there are in Dallas, but I know there are a lot in TX.

Oh, yeah, and on Friday I wrote the short story for Raygun chronicles.  The edits are even now waiting in my mailbox.

This all was a little marred by Dan coming home sick.  The going-around which seems to be a form of norovirus might have caught up with him.  Or it might be food poisoning.  Hopefully it’s the second, but from the fact I’m starting to get the same symptoms I suspect the first.

I meant to do a real post but after a weekend of shortened nights and a long trip back (not bad, but we drove to Atlanta and then had a wait time, and finally dragged home at midnight.) the will is there, but not the strength.  Older son dragged self off to volunteer at hospital (HE’s not sick, but I think he might have slept eight hours – over the last five days) but as we know he’s not human.

I’m going to do a quick clean on litter boxes and house and go get the cats back.  Then look at edits on short and (if the scattered symptoms haven’t crashed into me by then) settle down to work.  The fact that I’m considering a nap before I do ANY of those tells you either I’m ill or very, very tired.  I’m hoping the last.  I think that’s all it is.  In the car from Denver (not driving) I kept drifting off and waking up saying the oddest things, including “We have to put on duck suits.”  No, I have no idea why.  Yes, it was quite literally fun for the whole family.

(BTW younger son said there was a dancing guy in a bear costume at the con.  Was there?  I think he dreamed it.)

There will be subscriber content later.  Now I might take a nap before tackling the boxes.

 

 

Transcripts concerning the information feeds on Sarah A. Hoyt, found behind some dirty brown shirts and a toothbrush moustache in the NSA office closet.The pages are torn and obviously incomplete, but profoundly worrying for obvious reasons.

Capture Feed From Internet Pigeon Carrier Program, Jan. 28 1011

RelentlessAuthor [Sarah A. Hoyt]:  OMG.  It just happened.  I just killed John Ringo.

SubVert [Amanda Green]: LOL.  How?

RelentlessAuthor [Sarah A. Hoyt]:  I Red Kilted him in Darkship Renegades.

SubVert [Amanda Green]:Did you ask him first?

RelentlessAuthor [Sarah A. Hoyt]:  Of course, I asked him first.  He shouts “Live Free or Die!” before being shot through the heart.

SubVert [Amanda Green]: I have to see this.  Sounds hilarious.

Note from agent P. K. File aka Snoopy Poptart agent extraordinary for the NSA: Is Sarah Hoyt involved in killing for hire?  Knowing her proclivities why would she shoot JR after he shouted Live Free Or Die?  Does She hate New Hampshire?  And HOW did she get his permission first?  Please check vital status of NSA subject 458908796389, code file Baenbadboys, John Ringo.  Note Amanda Green’s handle.  Who is she subverting?  Consider adding to Baenbadgirls file.

Capture feed from Internet Pigeon Carrier, June15 2011

RelentlessAuthor [Sarah A. Hoyt]:  I was standing on the corner, minding my own business.

SubVert [Amanda Green]: SOCMOB?  You were SOCMOB?  For the love of heaven woman, don’t you know what happens?

RelentlessAuthor [Sarah A. Hoyt]:  Yeah.  It happened.  Suddenly this bad dude—

SubVert [Amanda Green]: OMG

RelentlessAuthor [Sarah A. Hoyt]:  Suddenly this bad dude was in my head, dictating a story.

As if I didn’t already have enough people in my head!  It’s getting crowded in there.

SubVert [Amanda Green]: Well, you’re going to have to let some out, and if this one is a dictator, let him out first.

RelentlessAuthor [Sarah A. Hoyt]:  I suppose so.

Note from agent P. K. File aka Snoopy Poptart agent extraordinary for the NSA: Note that the two writers appear to be speaking in some sort of private code, including SOCMOB.  What does some bad dude have to do with SOCMOB?  And what does it mean to have people in her head?  Is she keeping people locked up in her bathroom?  And which dictator is she speaking about.  Check for Kim Jung Un in her bathroom?  Perhaps a special feed in her shower?

Capture from email message from Sarah A. Hoyt to Toni Weisskopf

Hi Toni,

Attached find A Few Good Men.  I’m calling this the sister series to Darkship Thieves, Earth Revolution.  On the er… unusual nature of the protagonists, I know there might be some issues with relating to it from some of the barflies, but rest assured that if there are more in this series of revolutions they will be from different perspectives.

Capture from email message from Toni Weisskof to Sarah A. Hoyt

Hi Sarah,

As you know, I agreed that the Good Men needed to go down hard, but I’m not sure I meant the double entendre.  It’s good though.  Let’s plot a lot of other revolutions to follow.  BTW, when do we see Noah’s Boy.  It’s overdue, and I think it’s time to let the dragon fly.

Note from agent P. K. File aka Snoopy Poptart agent extraordinary for the NSA:  Note that SAH appears to be sending people attached to her file.  Find out if she has access to technology to reduce a few good men to bits and bytes [I told you guys that the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy was dangerous.  Stop telling me she went on a diet and is less vast. She’s still vast.]  What is the unusual nature of the protagonists, and why is she working on revolutions from other perspectives.  Also, note that TW is encouraging revolutions.  (Check on Good Men Going Down Hard?  GMGDH – code?)  What is Noah’s Boy.  “Dragon fly”? Is it a code?  Check dragonflies for implanted listening devices.  [I told you guys the VRWC had gone high tech!  Do you Ever listen to me?  Nooooo.  When you find microphones on dragonflies I want my promotion, you bastages!]

Ladies, gentlemen, aliens, dragons and life forms of uncertain existential definition — I was going to write a post tonight but we stayed up late talking (among other people) to the Correias.  (Yes, yes, collaboration was discussed — no, it won’t be SOON, but yes, it will happen.)  So, my mind isn’t on.  I promise a very nice — well, very silly — post tomorrow.

In the meantime, there’s  a all-Huns-present breakfast tomorrow at nine at City Cafe but “not the one downtown.”  However, if you want to make sure of getting there with us, meet us in the main lobby at around 9 am.  We have room for seven people, or maybe five, if our kids go (we don’t know yet.  Robert was alcoholic-beverage-crawling with flies, so he might not be up to it.  Marsh… who knows?)

So, tomorrow, nine lobby, be there or be … whatever shape you are.

I’ll post tomorrow, now I’m going to turn into a big, round pumpkin.

 -A Guest Post By Amanda Green

*For those who don’t know it, Amanda Green is Texan.  She also might or might be my twin.  For months my husband thought she was my pen name, and he still wavers, even after he met her.  “I can’t tell your writing apart” says the love of my life.  “That’s because we’re twins,” I say.  “Makes sense,” he says — even though he’s met her and she’s a head taller than I and read-headed.  Don’t ask me.  Mathematician logic.  They think in quantum leaps.  Anyway, Amanda is not me, but she’s very kind to write a post for me, while I’m busy at Liberty con.  Now ya’ll be nice or I tie your ears together behind your back when I get to my tablet.*

This week has been a roller coaster ride for those who watch what comes down from the Supreme Court. The week began with the cries of outrage ringing from the vaulted halls of media as SCOTUS struck down parts of the Voting Right Act. Those cries of outrage turned to cheers of joy as the SCOTUS roller coaster turned the corner and — WHEE — overruled parts of the Defense of Marriage Act as well as Prop 18 out of California.

While I have my own opinions about DoMA and Prop 18, that’s not what has me scratching my head. No, it is the howls of outrage over the scuttling of Section 4 and, as a result, much of Section 5 of the Voting Right Act. This act was initially passed in 1964 as a much needed safeguard for minority voting rights. Since then, it has been renewed several times by Congress. The last, if my memory serves correctly, in 2010. Each time it has been renewed, it was with very little change to the original legislation.

And that, according to the majority opinion handed down by SCOTUS, is the problem. Things have changed since 1964. All you have to do is look at the number of minorities who have been elected to office in that time to see it. If that isn’t enough, look at the number of objections the Justice Department has filed against the states that have been required to undergo federal monitoring, meaning they couldn’t do anything to change voting districts, etc., without first getting federal approval. The objections filed by the Justice Department over the last few years have been in the low single digits.

If that isn’t enough to justify doing away with federal monitoring, the let’s look at the fact the courts have already allowed municipal jurisdictions to file for exception to monitoring if they can prove they’ve gone ten years without problems. More and more jurisdictions over the years have proven they have met the requirements of the Act and such oversight is no longer necessary.

But let’s get back to the ruling. Unlike what those condemning are saying, it doesn’t say the federal government can’t continue to have oversight to insure equality at the polls. What it does say is fairly simple and, at least to me, logical. The conditions that existed in 1964 have changed. More than fifty years of oversight, of people becoming better educated and more aware of what is happening in their community, etc., have changed the status quo. That means you need to adapt the formula used to determine if a state or smaller jurisdiction needs to be monitored. In other words, use current world facts and needs to determine whether or not oversight is necessary.

In short, SCOTUS has left the door wide open for Congress to pass a new Voting Rights Act. Whether it does or not isn’t something the Court should have to worry about. The Court’s concern is if the law of the land, within the framework of the Constitution and justice, is being applied. Yes, that’s overly simplified, but you get my meaning. If you don’t like what SCOTUS did, then talk to your congressman or senator and let them know. Of course, these are the same congressmen and senators who have yet to pass a budget and haven’t in much too long. These are the same congressmen and senators who voted for Obamacare without reading the bill. These are the same congressmen and senators who continue to vote on bills that effect you and me and they rely on interns and clerks to tell them what is in the legislation.

But to get back to the point, after the SCOTUS ruling came down, Attorney General Greg Abbott quickly announced that Texas’ voters’ identification law would be put into effect. Oh the cries of outrage. Oh the people on facebook claiming they’d never move to Texas because of decisions like this. HuffPo, not to be outdone, published an article with the headline: Harsh Texas Voter ID Law ‘Immediately’ Takes Effect After Voting Rights Ruling.

Wow. Harsh Law. Sounds scary, doesn’t it? Maybe to vote in Texas you’ll have to run the gauntlet to get into the polling place. Or maybe you have to sign over your first born. Or maybe you just have to prove you are eligible to vote.

Under the Texas law, in order to vote you have to present an approved form of identification. This ID can be in the form of your driver’s license, passport, concealed carry permit, military ID,  citizenship papers with photo attached or state issued ID. Seems reasonable, doesn’t it? But now, those who condemn the law say it discriminates against the poor and elderly. They might not have a photo ID and they might not have the money to get one.

Well, that’s not a stumbling block. The state will immediately start issuing ID cards — at no cost — that will be good for six years. So, no economic hardship.

But that’s still not enough. After all, the homeless might not know about this and they won’t have a mailing address, etc., etc., etc. Again, there are procedures in place for such situations.

However, let’s look at this realistically, folks. Even those who are out of work and many who are homeless have to have ID in order to get their benefits or to be able to cash their checks. If you go to the doctor’s office or hospital, you have to show ID when you are checked in. It is difficult to live completely off the radar these days and those who do aren’t likely to be voting because, guess what, that puts you right back on the paper trail.

Voting is a right, yes. It is guaranteed to citizens of the United States and of the individual states. But that doesn’t mean the states can’t take action to prevent voter fraud. Just as the federal government can oversee the states to make sure they don’t gerrymander voting districts, states can take “reasonable” steps to prevent voter fraud. In fact, any state that doesn’t is not acting in the best interest of its citizens.

I can hear the cries of outrage now. They are saying votes can be checked after they’ve been cast. You can make sure no two people voted under the same name. After all, that’s what voter registration lists are for. Sorry, but when you look at the voter fraud and intimidation we saw in the last two presidential elections, when you consider how the media calls elections based on single digit percentages of electoral districts reporting in, you can’t. In today’s world when elections are usually called within hours of the polls closing, and when it costs candidates thousands of dollars to ask for a recount, why not have some reasonable safeguards in place at the time of the election?

Every party has poll watchers present in major precincts. The state and feds wills end overseers if there is the slightest suggestion of problems. The media will be zooming in with their cameras to make sure the Voter ID law isn’t abused. Remember, when SCOTUS overturned Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, it didn’t say there couldn’t be safeguards and oversights put into place. It simply said they had to be applied based on a formula applicable to this day and age.

Neither the SCOTUS ruling or the Voter ID law will allow Texas or any other jurisdiction to discriminate based on race, religion, sex, etc., etc. Elections can still be challenged and, believe me, they will be. But there has to come a time when we step into the modern age of voting and require the same sort of proof of eligibility that we require to drive a car or buy alcohol or get married.

Voting is a right and something we should take seriously, very seriously. It affects not only us but our children and grandchildren. If was want to exercise our right to vote, we should not only educate ourselves about the issues and the candidates but we should be willing to present not only our voter’s registration card but our photo ID. With the State allowing those who don’t currently have an approved form of photo ID to get one for free, there is no bar left. At least not a reasonable one.

So, for those who say they’ll never move to Texas because we are backward and full of hicks who don’t want to move beyond the Uncle Tom days, grow up. Quit drinking the red kool-aid and parroting the approved party line. Type into your search engines a few simple terms and actually read the court opinions or the laws you are condemning. Or is that too much work for your poor, atrophied brains to handle? After all, it really is so much easier to just follow the crowd as it yells condemnations even as it hurtles over the edge of the cliff like a bunch of nice little lemmings.

For previous chapters, click here

*This is the new free novel I’m posting here a chapter at a time.  This is pre-first-draft, as it comes out.  It is a sequel to Witchfinder which will soon be taken down (once edited) and put for sale on Amazon (And at this point I’m hoping that will happen by the beginning of July at the latest).  Meanwhile, if you donate $6 or more, I’ll get you a copy of Rogue Magic, once finished and edited, in your favored ebook format.  Of course, if you’re already subscribing to the blog at a level at which you get whichever books come out that year, you don’t need to worry. *

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

Neither Nor

 

Ginevra Elfborn

 

I should have been prepared when they came for me, and I should have arranged to receive them in style.  I didn’t.  I must be losing my edge.

Correction, I had lost my edge.  Why else had I written that soppy letter to Jonathan Blythe?  What had possessed me, pray?  Oh, he was a handsome rogue, all right, and rotten all through, and what business did I have thinking about him, much less being so stupid as to write to him before I left?

But I remembered the way he had fought on that awful night, and the sort hopeless courage in his eyes, that light that was neither enjoyment nor despair, but was both at th same time.  And I didn’t want him to think I’d simply vanished, without giving him another thought.

People like him have trouble enough in the world.  Well, in this world, at least.  They don’t fit too well, and their behavior is seen either as callous or as perverse.  It is neither of course, they’re just… different from their kind.

If I had time, if I’d been born in different times and in a different place, if there were no great work that called me, and no greater duty requiring me to attend to it, I’d have spent some time in some retired magical university studying whether people like Jonathan are what gave rise to my people, or perhaps if it is his elf blood that makes him slightly mad in a world not adapted to it.

But I didn’t have time, and this lifetime was not a good opportunity to get to know Jonathan better or to delve deeper into what made him tick.

Which is why that soppy letter was such a bad mistake.  And why I should have expected the Witchfinder to send for me shortly after.  I could feel him sniffing close and tracking my activities all along, ever since I’d arrived in Avalon.  Him and the other.  I should have known the moment I let the letter go – and with my tears, yet – one or the other would send for me.

Let’s be glad it wasn’t the other.  Though at first I wasn’t sure of that, not when the knocks sounded at the door to my cheap rented room bright and early that morning.  I was dressed and ready to go, my valise packed, my coat ready to put on.  In fact, I was adjusting my hat over my pile of red, curly hair – ginger, so ugly, as they would think it here – when the knock on the door came.

I did what any half-baked witch would do and sensed through the door, feeling the shape and zing of the king’s magic.  Which could be true, or a spoof, but was bad news in either case, so I backed away into the room and tried to cast a transport spell back home.  And found the path bricked.  And every path around it, equally blocked.  Whatever power had sent the men outside my door had taken care to block every magical path around me so that I could not leave.

Which meant I was trapped.  Caught like a magical mouse, in a trap.  There remained only acting innocent and opening the door, which I did, turning my limpid eyes to the two large men out there, and saying, “Yes?  How may I help you?”

They looked at me, and there was no diminution of the suspicion in their eyes, no hint that perhaps they didn’t suspect me of terrible crimes.  Of course, they couldn’t suspect me of a crime as bad as what I’d perpetrated on their world.  They were tall and dark, and had square jaws and the sort of look that said they’d seen it all and were not going to think me innocent and harmless, no, not even if I chanced to look it.

“Miss Ginevra Elfborne?” the near one said.

“Yes,” I said, and raised my eyebrows, in complete innocence.  I wasn’t, of course, but Elfborne was the closest this world could understand to what I was, so I wasn’t even lying.

“By order of his Majesty’s Witchfinder, Seraphim Ainsling, his Grace the Duke of Darkwater, we are taking you into the custody of the department of unauthorized magics.”

“Me?” I said, and aimed for innocence, but my voice fluted out of control all on its own.  Oh, I knew I was caught and it was a fair cop before that.  But I didn’t expect them to use the full name and titles of either the Witchfinder or the department.  In my opinion when people get all fancy with words, the news is bad.  It’s very bad.  “I mean, why could you wish to apprehend me?”

The one who hadn’t spoken – they looked like twins – shook his head.  “Pardon me, Miss, we’re not investigators and we’re not judges.  We’re not even judicial mages.  We’re just meant to take you to someone who can do what’s needed.  By the laws of Avalon, by the writ of Arthur, in the code of Merlin, you’ll get your hearing, and your chance at defense.  But now you must come with us.”

I started towards the door, then backed for my valise, picked it up, and, as I walked towards them tried a Cerberus spell, thus called because it had been used once – and only once, mind, before the shields were repaired – for a human to escape Hades.  It was the sort of spell that made someone fall into a sleep so you could walk past.  Sometimes the sleep lasted very long.  One of the worlds has a silly story about a princess and her court who slept for centuries.

Revision.  Maybe it’s not a silly story.  It’s not unlikely, if it was coupled or followed by a stasis spell so people didn’t eat or breathe in their magic sleep.  I don’t know for a fact the veracity of that story, so I can’t bet either way.  Betting is bad for the likes of me anyway.

I cast that Cerberus spell with all my might, flinging it at like a net at the magical guards.  It flowed around them and then through them, as though they weren’t there, and returned to me quite untouched.  I almost screamed with frustration, and more so when one of them smiled and said, “Miss, that will be no use.  We’ve been trained.”

This is when I started fearing it was the Other who had sent for me, and the thought so chilled me that I went quietly into a magically protected carriage, from which not even the Pater himself could have transported.

I couldn’t even tell where we were, as the carriage bowled along.  I couldn’t even tell – not with magic – where we were when we stopped.

The guards ushered me out and walked with me into a vast building, where men bowed to me – or to them – until we got to a large door, which was opened for us by two uniformed men, who stood aside to let us enter.

He stood behind his desk, a good mahogany desk of graceful design which barely hid the fact that it was in fact a massive piece of furniture, with a top large enough for three normal desks, all of it shockingly piled with papers and clutter.

For a moment, when he looked up, I was afraid it was really the Other and my breath caught in my throat, but then I saw his magic pattern, plain as day, and it wasn’t something he could disguise.  It wasn’t even something he was trying to disguise.

He was dark haired, beak nosed, green eyed, as all the Darkwaters, and his magic pattern was all Darkwater, too.  Powerful, doubtless.  Very powerful.  But human and clearly solid and –

Not, definitely not, something with any spark of fairyland in it.

It will tell you how badly I was rattled at that point that the relief made me feel as though my legs had turned to water.  It must have shown in my face, because as the man behind the desk rose and bowed to me there was a small smile on his lips.

“Miss Ginevra?” he said.  “Pardon me for not calling you Miss Elfborn, but that I know you’re not.”

And this after the relief was a punch in the stomach.  “You kn–  kn—know? I said, sounding like a low-grade nymph with no more brain than magic.

The smile grew.  “Certainly.  Or do you think I don’t speak with my brother?”

I closed my eyes.  I was hoping he didn’t speak with his brother.  Or rather, I was hoping his brother didn’t give him enough access to ascertain the falsehood of my magic’s signature and the tracing of it to a supposed elf mother.

Rats! I thought, which is unladylike, but there it is.  Rats!  Which is how I was caught, more or less.  Like a rat, in an unbreakable cage.  And now I would sing for my supper.  Or did rats sing?  I could never remember how things were supposed to work in this world.

I let myself drop into an armchair facing the desk.  When caught Pater always says, there’s two things you can do.  One of them is to seduce them.  I looked at the man still standing behind the desk, his green eyes full of humorous scrutiny as they rested on me.  He didn’t trust me an inch and he was concerned enough about what I was, or who I was, which showed he was no fool.  But he was amused by me, which might mean—

I smiled at him, and the echo back had not one drop of lust.  He might as well be the Other on that, only if the rumors was truth, this one was just truly bonded to his wife, Avalon’s insipid little found-again-princess.

I sighed.  The second path, Pater said, was to act helpless and lost and to appeal to the humans best instincts.  I wondered if this one had any.

So, if I’ve sounded somewhat distracted in comments, that’s because I’ve been.  I spent  yesterday installing a program I needed in the publishing computer, which of course didn’t go according to spec.  Could I have made a better use of my time?  Probably, but I felt more than ¾ dead.  I’m not sure I’m okay today (6/26) but I had so much to do I couldn’t pause to examine the question.  There were medical appointments, taking the cats to boarding, repairman appointments, and making sure the house-sitting/outdoor cat feeding was arranged.  (The other cats had to be boarded because they are all on meds, and that’s not something we can ask our friend Charles to deal with as well as the house and Greebo, particularly since his schedule is … erratic).  There was also putting up my columns for PJmedia in advance, and now I think I can’t put these up in advance – not far enough – since I will be leaving here in the wee hours to get our plane out of Denver.  Right now, I’m doing the last batch of young-guys pants, while all my electronics charge in front of me.  (This is like dancing before me,only not.)

And the reason you shouldn’t jump off the ledge while I’m gone is because ya’ll are a big bright spot in my life which contains entirely too much work.  You’ve become sort of a little, remote, imaginary family.  (Well, sort of imaginary.  I mean, I’m almost sure you’re not in my head.)  You guys and my real family sometimes keep me from jumping off the ledge.

I don’t wish to imagine a world in which we are facing the same economic/national security challenges (It seems the motto of this administration is “Millions for tribute, not a penny for defense.”  This will NOT end well) without having each other to at least make gallows humor about the situation with?

Are we going to crash?  Are we going to crash soon?

I was on a site today where someone was saying “America will be all right, because America will always be all right.  It is your racist, sexist America that is dying.”

I’d like to point that this person a) believes in magic b) doesn’t have the slightest clue what he’s talking about. c) knows no history d) is engaging in Olympic-grade projection e)is industrial-level stupid.

Will America always be all right?  Well, the fields and the streams, and the purple mountain majesty of the song that the progressives would like to be our anthem will always be there or at least for geologic ages, and since I don’t believe the hubris-laden notion that we do much to it, will be impervious to what we puny humans enjoy or suffer on its surface.

But as for “America” as we’ve known it, as constituted… there are days I think it’s only here anymore in our hearts.  It’s certainly not here in the hearts and minds of our public servants.

So it’s time to think good and hard about that consent of the governed, because that America should be here.  It’s what I signed up for.  It’s what you signed up for.  It’s what some of us (me too!) took an oath to protect and defend.  And it’s been going away since before we were born…

So it might take a while to bring back.

Will we crash before then?  Will a crash be needed to restore sanity?

I don’t know.  Did we find the horn of plenty somewhere that forever dispenses benes?  No?  then probably we’ll crash and crash hard.  Because what can’t go on won’t go on, and printing money doesn’t make wealth, it just makes representations of wealth.

But these people don’t understand that.  They’ve gone far down the rabbit hole and think the symbol is the thing.  (Anyone for picketing outside the various mints with signs saying “Stop the presses”?)

I’d rather take the crash – and honest, even a hard crash will NOT be Mad Max.  No, trust me.  This is the same reason that after 9/11 we didn’t enact Escape From New York.  Americans are about the most decent people in the world – and have it out of the way than have it blight my kids lives.  I think most of us would rather that.

The Huns will be all right, I think, even in a crash.  We have resources, we have knowledge, we know how to do things.  We might not be as fast or as lean as we once were (I’m working on it.  Smoke out of the air would help!) but we are full of ingenuity and we don’t play by Marquess the Queensbury rules.

However, our kids are varying grades of young, and I we have friends and acquaintances and people who hold dear who will suffer.

So part of us wants to hold back the crash.  And part wants to rush it.

It’s like when I was little, and I pulled my own teeth, because my mom doing it hurt more.  We want to control the manner and way of impact.

Racist?  Bah.  Would be very interesting for me to be racist, considering Portuguese are the original melting pot (not as peaceful as the US.)  I take people as they are and look to the content of their character.  It is the people who assume certain races and ethnic groups (including mine) need help forever who are racist.  And annoying.

Sexist?  Bah.  I even have friends who are women.  Not that I care.  I’m interested EXACTLY in one person when it comes to gender and orientation: my husband.  The rest of you, men or women, gay or straight, I’m interested in your minds only.  (Sorry, dahlings, I love you for your minds.)  It is those who assume women must be helped and treated like children forever and protected from facts (And words.  Don’t protect them from words, they become, you know, able to think, and then where would we be.)who are the sexists.

Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I think “Marxism is a computer virus for taking civilization apart.”  It unleashes envy, hatred and all unkindness onto society and treats them as virtues.  It separates into opposing groups people who would otherwise be allies.

If we crash, will be defeat it?  Will it be eliminated?

I don’t think so.  What you have to understand is that like other viruses it might have become part of our DNA.  Fairness was a brilliant idea in a small hominid band.  Now?  Not so much.  Can’t be achieved.  But envy, going under the name of fairness, can destroy all.

But I think we’re going to be too poor to afford the madness of  Marxism.  I think the gods of the copybook headings are returning.

Good?  No.  But better the alternative.

So don’t jump off the ledge while I’m gone.  You’ll be needed for the rebuilding, and you can’t desert a post of honor.

 

Pardon the scattered post.  If you’re going to Chattanooga, the Huns are trying to meet for Breakfast at the city café at 9:30 on Saturday, though the time might move if I have a panel at that time.  (I can’t find the schedule.  I’m THAT with it.)

You’ll also see me in the suite, probably with a single malt, if I can convince Speaker to share.

And if you’re NOT going to Chattanooga, be good.  And don’t forget me while I’m gone, because I have a kindle fire, and I’ll be checking up on ya’ll.

I HOPE to have a chapter of Rogue Magic for you bright and early on Friday.  Stay tuned.

 

 Because We’re The People Who DO

This is kind of the opposite of Galt – though I’m still advising you go mini-galt if you can and full galt if you can until push comes to shove – but I’d just like to remind you that most of us, here on the side of the constitution, on the side of the Odds, on the side of American exceptionalistm, are the people who do things.

I was chided today while getting my hair cut (not really, my hairstylist is a nice guy, but he said he’s learned to cut despite this) because I can’t stand still.  There’s always the little movements.  Attention deficit disorder is a way of life.

However, concomitant with that is an interest in just about everything, particularly how to DO things – both useless and useful.

For instance, when I got married, I had no clue how one went from the pasta in the package to cooked pasta.  My first day in the apartment alone was a “uh?”  and I read the instructions on the pasta.  Over the next three years, I accumulated more cookbooks than some small third world countries.  In fact some of them are on the cooking of small third world countries.  (I have a collection of cooking around the world.)  Dan says for five years I never served the same dish twice, and I’ll admit I only do now because sometimes I’m very busy with other stuff.  Because learning what you can do with food is interesting and if it stops being interesting, I stop being able to do it.

I’ve also learned how to reupholster sofas (by doing it disastrously wrong once, of course,) how to do carpentry, how to paint walls, how to do crochet, how to do various styles of embroidery, how to do some dress making – and if I can find the time/opportunity, I’ll take courses in knitting and dressmaking.

I do things.  I like to fix things.  I like to organize.  I like to build useful stuff.  Long ago, when he was unemployed for a while, and then got a job, Dan brought me home a gift: it was an antique dresser that had been kept in someone’s barn and had come apart piece by piece.  He got it for me as a toy.  It was our big celebration.  (If you’ve been to my house, you know it’s in the boys’ bathroom and falling apart again.  I MUST find time to fix it.)

I’ve removed and installed kitchen cabinets.  I’ve laid carpet and hardwood flooring.  I’ve planted gardens (except in this house, where nothing will grow) and despite brown thumb made them grow.

And you know what?  That’s part of the US exceptionalism, too.  It’s starting to percolate in other countries, but it’s not the same.  Here, there is a higher percentage that looks around and goes “well, it needs doing, and I might as well…”

I remember once, shortly after 9/11 I was very depressed, and went out for a walk.  It was a relatively warm day after a cold week, and people were out, fixing their houses, installing windows, repairing roofs, cleaning gutters.  It seemed like everyone was out doing stuff, and I thought “we will do.”

Of course, even in America the ones least likely to do it are the pampered flowers of privilege.  The ones most likely to do stuff – useful stuff – to learn and use useful stuff are people like us.

We’re the people who do.

At the bottom of everything, if salvation will come at all, it will come, as someone (sorry, I can’t remember who) said in the comments “from a butterfly flapping its wings somewhere.”

What this means is, that our elites are in many ways very stodgy people.  First, as I said, they most of them suffer from 3^rd generation blight.  They were eased through life.  They never met real challenge.  They’re not the most creative people around.

So… they’re carefully trying to close off every avenue of creativity and prosperity that individuals can create.  But they’re not us.  They don’t really “get” us.  They’re like the aristocrats of the ancient regime, very good at the life of Versailles, but ignorant of how the real world works.  I’d bet you dollars to doughnuts most of them never MET a working class person in their lives.  Not to talk to.  They’ve perhaps had short conversations with working class people in the service professions when handing in dry cleaning or ordering an espresso.  That’s it.

And they’ve certainly never met people like us who are competent with our minds and our hands: and this is (I think) still most of America.  We are or can be competent in both realms.  And we don’t blush to use our hands.

So, they’ll miss stuff.

While you’re going mini-galt – cutting back on what you spend, making do or doing without, repurposing, reusing and reinventing —  if you’re going to spend time on entertainment, make the entertainment learning something new: whether it’s how to cook, how to clean really well with cheap products, how to knit, how to re-sole shoes, how to carve, how to do box-container gardening, or even how to play an instrument.  I highly recommend the teaching company’s great courses, too.  The history can be a little politically correct, but the hard sciences are usually okay.  Learn as much as you can.  Think of your mind as a compost heap to which you throw new material and new skills and allow them to ferment.  Encourage your kids to do the same.

First, because, if things get really, really, really bad – and if the immigration bill does make it through the house, they will and fast – the more skills you have, the more likely it is that you can find something you can do that will allow you to survive.

Second, because the more you know, the more you allow the fields of knowledge to cross-pollinate, the more likely you’ll come up with something startling that open new ways of life and totally circumvents what our would be Lords and Masters plan for us.

Look, they spent almost a century crawling their way through the institutions and then, just as they were in total control, the computer revolution – something they ignored as that thing geeks did for a long time – destroyed their monopoly in the arts and the media and will at least seriously dent their monopoly in education.

Where will the next breakthrough comes from, that changes the game?

Who knows?  I can’t quote from memory but there’s a passage in the beginning of The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress where Heinlein explains that you can’t predict a breakthrough that requires genius, except that you can predict it will happen, just not when where or what it will be.

I have this theory that the more things you know, the more things you try, the more you are ready for every contingency, the more you become the contingency.  You put yourself in a knowledge and action rich environment and suddenly the discovery happens.  You flap your wings, you’re the butterfly, and the world changes in ways no one could have predicted or prevented.

We have this over the forces of Luddites and statists.  We can DO.  They can only try to control those who do.

I can hear you say “but what I can do is nothing.  All I can do is… tell stories, build a piece of furniture, cook a meal, rescue a cat—

Do it.  And extend from it, and become really good at what you do.  It’s not just the genius who breaks through who makes a difference.  The person who was there to cook the genius a meal or feed his cat counts too.  Or perhaps the person who cooked that person a meal or told that person a story.

We believe that individuals acting in their own best interest can improve things.  We have history on our side.

We also have insatiable curiosity and tireless interest.  Let’s use those.

Learn.  Learn widely and do fearlessly.  Heinlein said specialization is for insects.  And many people would like everyone to be insects so that they can easily be controlled.

Don’t jump from that ledge.  Instead make yourself as unpredictable as possible.  Learn so much that you’re the one who can come through in a pinch.

Learn to pull a rocketship out of a hat.

 

A post on Breakage and healing is over at Mad Genius club.  And I’m going to apologize to my subscribers.  I promise to update that page after Liberty Con.  Trying to cue the blog, write the non fiction columns for PJM and finish a short story is about all I can do before Thurs. early.  After I come back, I’ll have models of shirts to pick from, and other stuff.  Just bear with me a little while.  I can do almost everything.  Just not all at once.

Go!