According To Hoyt

I am not unaware of the invasion taking place on our Southern Border, nor am I unaware of the ramping up to happen.

I’ve been silent on it only because — beyond the fact there is bloody nothing I can do beyond preparing and telling you to prepare — it is a complex and difficult subject. Not in my reaction to it — obviously I disapprove — but in what is happening, what it will cause, and what can even be done at this point, even if we could stop it today. And obviously we can’t stop it till at the earliest January.

First there are my views on immigration.

I’d be the worst kind of hypocrite if I said someone born abroad can’t or shouldn’t join the American experiment. However, having gone through acculturation and knowing how hard it is — almost impossible, particularly in a culture (ours right now) that actively discourages it — I will link various posts in which I discuss it, in no particular order:

And Marry Our Fortunes Together – Immigration is like marriage. Both sides should have a say. No one has the right to come in, and we should choose those we want in.

Cross-Culture – Americans have trouble “reading” other Americans and — trust me guys — are drawers at reading other cultures. Adding vast amounts of other cultures will get … sportive. Quickly.

Prepare to be Assimilated – Acculturation is hard, and making people feel guilty for wanting to assimilate is crazy.

Borders, Immigrants and Invaders – Effective immigration, legal or illegal must be difficult. You must suffer to belong, or belonging will mean nothing.

And by the way, a lot of my doubts about immigration apply to legal immigration ALSO. Our immigration is profoundly broken at all levels. We’re importing, for instance, health care workers that are not trained to our standards, let alone have a similar culture. (And most of them are Chinese, yes.) Meanwhile we make it difficult for people of similar training/similar cultures to immigrate here, even if willing to acculturate. Heck, at this point it might be particularly if willing to acculturate.

This is because of the left’s vision of the world — mostly Gramscian — and it’s creating a mess in our lives, cultures and institutions. If you think that importing our medicines from a largely inimical nation is wrong, imagine importing a vast number of our knowledge workers, instead of training up our own children. (And add up to what’s wrong in that case put in the fact that the left has effed up our schools to a level that’s hard to imagine, unless you look closely. Seriously, EVERYTHING they touch they destroy.)

But importing Americans? Sure. Heck, I’d also make it really, really easy to adopt children under 2 from abroad.

Why? Because our demographics are broken. They’re not the worst in the world, but they are broken. We are not reproducing enough, and that’s taking in account that I think they’re grossly inflating our birth/immigration statistics.

However, not by having an open border, not by letting everyone in unvetted, and not by extending all sorts of services to them with absolutely no vetting. Oh, and not — repeat not — by almost requiring no socialization.

I’m not sure how cultures work, but I do know they can become mortally wounded and either never recover, or never recover into a functional form. A lot of the dying cultures of the world have that issue. We have that issue, sort of, because of leftist prodding and poking and removing Chesterton’s fence over and over and over again. We can’t take much more of it, much less a “multicultural” invasion in staggering numbers.

So, again, this is complicated in my head, so I’m going to organize it into headings: It’s worse than you think, it’s not as bad as you think, and glimmers of hope, followed by How it all goes sour.

It’s worse than you think

Well, perhaps not if you’re a reader of this blog and others like it, but most people are bombarded with images of children, and mothers carrying children in arms, and they think that’s what immigrants are.

Most immigrants coming in are in fact males of military age. Before you attribute super powers to the left, part of that is what every “wave” of immigrants starts off as. Because men come over, establish themselves, then “send for” the family.

However, we do have evidence from when people did deep-dives into the “caravans” that a lot of these pseudo migrants are being actively recruited by communist groups. And yes, of course — do I look stupid? — the left is intending to use them as shock troops of sorts in a conflict they desperately want to go physical. (Because they’re stupid in a highly specialized way, okay. They have watched all the movies of communist revolutions. They think that’s reality. No. Even the migrants wouldn’t save them. But that’s besides the point.)

Leaving aside that a lot of these people are ideologically opposed to us, the demographic tilt is bad bad bad news — salutes BGE — because a large, undigested, probably largely unemployable population of young males will have bad effects. Bad effects for general disorder. Bad effects for crime. Just bad effects in general, regardless of what the population is.

In this case, the fact that most of the populations are less “civilized” by which I mean more actually racist, patriarchal, homophobic and violent (because most of the cultures they come from are that also) and from lower trust cultures than ours means bad bad bad results.

We’re also not vetting anyone, so there will be more gangs, more organized criminality.

Look, it is something the left doesn’t get, but while both sexes (ah) of humans need to belong, males who don’t belong and don’t fit in an hierarchy go bad fast. The best mode is self destruction, playing games in parents’ basements. And these people will have no parents here, and Uncle Sam can’t afford to maintain all of them.

It’s going to get bad. Arm up. Stock up on Freedom Seeds. I’ve already seen gang crime spilling to suburban high schools in Colorado Springs. Now it’s all going to ramp up.

It’s Not As Bad As You Think

Yes, you particularly, who read this blog.

As noted above, it’s bad. Very bad.

However remember most of these people aren’t coming here because they’re mad in love with the US or freedom. Some come because they hate us. Some because they’re indoctrinated communists who think we’re richer because we stole from their country/race. (The whole la raza bullshit.)

Most of them, however — trust me — come because the streets are paved with gold; they can make more in a week than they make back home in a year, and our welfare system is a seemingly infinite cash cow.

I estimate that in normal times a good quarter of immigrants goes back home. In normal times, when we’re begging for workers, and the streets really are paved with gold.

Is it that high? Don’t know. No one keeps good track of this. Heck, our immigration system is so loose most illegality is “overstaying visas.”

This is anedacta and observation. The US is WEIRD in the world, so even in normal times a lot of people decide we’re too weird for them and bugger off back where they came from. Now that’s easier if you just came across the Southern border, as opposed to flying halfway across the world.

I do know that under Obama’s stellar economy ALMOST everyone who came in buggered back “home” within a year. It had a name, “La grande Salida” and it was noted. Heck, people were buggering “home” who had been born here, because back South of the border they had extended family and other help.

Obama’s economy was a walk in the park, compared to what we’re entering. Yes, I know part of flying immigrants around is the left’s clever-fool system for making sure no one notices the spreading disaster, and/or to spread vote fraud. But I do wonder how much of it is to make sure that these people can’t just run back over the border when they realize how hard things are about to get. It really reminds me a lot of Kenya’s resettlement of the Masai, known as “first you catch a Masai.”

So, while the numbers coming in are staggering, I think a large number will — if they aren’t already — go the other way at speed.

The backwash will still be gang activity, crime and disorder, but I don’t think on the scale anticipated.

I actually think the “salida” will gain turbo speed in the next couple of months, because most of the people coming in KNOW unstable systems. They can sniff coming trouble in the air. And heck, guys, the air is thick with it. I’m starting to get the need to dive under parked cars when I hear a backfire. And that’s me. And I’ve been here for years.

Signs of Hope

People are noticing. And the more this goes on, the more they will notice.

And a lot of the people coming in have been bit by communism, and really, really don’t want it. If those stick through the mess, they’ll serve as immunization.

People aren’t widgets. The left thinks “brown skin equals leftist. Must import more.” But that’s not true. And Latins or other races who have acculturated are frankly abandoning the left at speed. So, those who remain behind are unlikely to make us leftist.

The left is wrecking the very systems they use to make our “underclass” dysfunctional and passive. It was already strained, but it can’t survive this.

Health, schooling, and welfare are going to crack and they’re going to do so spectacularly. Which leaves it to us to rebuild. They have been counterproductive (not just ineffective) for a long time.

We will have to rebuild or die. And that’s better than slowly dying. Though yes “Everything will get f*cked up” is a weird sign of hope.

Where It All Goes Sour

The worm is turning. I’ve said this for a long time, and you can see it. The culture is turning our way.

And that’s fine, if our way is more individual freedom; more self-responsibility.

The problem is….. “paleo conservative” is only tolerable if it tolerates others. Most of the cultures we’re importing, won’t. And import them in numbers enough and they’ll influence the turn in our culture.

I grew up in a culture where as a young married woman I wasn’t supposed to linger at the window, talk to a young man alone, or be out after 8. I really would prefer my granddaughters don’t have those restrictions, and those are LIGHT compared to say the world of sharia.

I have gay friends, who are not running around demanding you bake them a cake. They want to live and let live. I don’t believe they should be tossed from roofs or have walls collapsed on them.

I’ve “joked” that I expect in ten years I’ll be extreme left without having changed a single position. Let’s not make that THAT extreme.

Gangs. Foreign gangs. We’ve never managed to cope with the Mafia. Now we’re also importing Mexican gangs and Middle Eastern insanity.

Defund the police? We’ll need a police state to cope with this.

Cleaning the vote: Most of these people, even if they ever become citizens won’t ever acculturate enough to be responsible citizens. Their children? Maybe, if we work very hard. Their grandchildren…. how hard are we willing to work?

The economy… Well, most of these people are unskilled. Which are not — REPEAT — not what the economy needs right now. Some will learn. But some might never. How many unemployed ferals can we endure? Don’t we have enough homeless addicts?

So–

What can we do about it?

Not much. Defending the borders is one of those things enshrined in the constitution, and which need the might of the Federal government. The fact that after their soft-coup they’re now facilitating the invasion (inviting/aiding/abetting) is the problem we can’t get past.

So, what can you do?

-Teach your children. Knowing they’re Americans, and what that means is vital, if we are to rebuild. Also, having marketable skills, no matter how hard the establishment tries to stop them from doing so.

-Enforce FIFO to the measure you can. Tell new immigrants that it’s Fit in or Fuck off, and no, we’re not going to make it easy for you, because what’s free is not prized.

– Create trust networks.

– Watch your six, there will be more disorder.

– Buy freedom seeds. No. More freedom seeds.

– Work. Work at building under, building over, building around.

– Defend your convictions.

Is it enough? Probably not. But it’s all we can do as individuals. And maybe — just maybe — we’ll get lucky and a miracle occurs.

It’s happened before.

Be not afraid. Light the lamp of Liberty and hold it high. Be the shining city on a hill.

When older son was four or five, one of our — childless — friends tried to chide him by telling him he was impossible. At which point son fixed her with his most pedantic stare and informed her “No. I’m merely improbable.”

He was right about that. As am I. As are a number of people here. The amount of coincidence and strangeness needed for us to exist, much less exist as we do would strain the pen of the most fantastic novelist.

However, today, in church — of all places — I was meditating on the power of being impossible. Of doing the impossible. Of saying what is not said and doing what’s not done.

No, I’m not actually talking about the resurrection, or being G-d incarnate. This being Palm Sunday we didn’t touch on those, but on the interview with Pilate. I was thinking about the sheer unmitigated impossibility of someone looking at a Roman governor, backed by the might of Rome and giving pert answers like “You say that I am.”

Later on, that utter, unmitigated gall and impossibility helped the growth of Christianity to an enormous amount because these insane people went into the arena singing, happy to die for the faith. Who does that? That’s impossible.

And don’t get me started on picking up unwanted kids and raising them, not as slaves, but as their own. Who in a highly tribal ancient world would even do that? That’s impossible, right?

Doing the impossible gets you noticed, even when — particularly when — you do it from a position of weakness, and yet you dare.

America is, in many ways, an impossible country. We are, actually, despite every attempt to make us otherwise, a functional, cohesive multi-racial nation. (No, we don’t rise to multicultural. Sighs. Guys, seriously. Yes, there are differences between our states. We’re not monolothic, but America identity still transcends all that. In fact, as an identity/base culture American is as persistent as Roman and that…. is still around in many ways, in lands the Romans never trod. There is more difference between adjacent European villages than between NY state and TX.)

And we have a way to do things to rules and mandates from above, that frankly no decent country would do. And by “decent” I mean predictable. (So I’m glad we’re not decent.) You can distort America, but you can’t control her.

No, not even the covidiocy managed it. Yeah, some places got really bad. But mostly? Bah. Spring of 2020, traveling across the midwest, we found more signs on the highway saying some small town was “Fully open for business” and “no masks” than I care to say. (And btw, the fact those towns weren’t dead means that the entire thing was crazy. And yes, of course we stopped. Do we look stupid to you?)

I suspect Europe was more easily commanded, at least from what I’ve seen, but it’s hard to tell, because their media is stupider than ours if you can imagine that.

I do know that these food shortages and things they’re expecting? Well, I don’t know about you, but all our neighbors are merrily turning lawn in to vegetable beds. (We intend to start this week. I hope I can find onion sets not sold out. I should have done it last week, but we’ve been busy.) I suspect our “overlords” are going to find their eyes spit upon when they try to put on the squeeze. It’s not just all those weapons we keep losing at the bottom of watercourses. (Seriously, guys, would you learn to canoe already? Or stop taking your guns on pleasure cruises, no matter how bored they get?) it’s that… well, we’re a tinkering people.

I won’t say other countries don’t have hobbies. I do say other countries don’t engage their hobbies like we engage our hobbies. Heck, in the seventies, when bread makers in Portugal went on strike people were baffled because they’d never made bread. (To be honest that is very Roman. Bread comes from the bakery, after all.)

Here? I know people who make cheese, beer and bread for fun. Son and daughter in law made mead. (Never figured out if it was drinkable. I don’t LIKE mead.) People can and pickle, and preserve. (I WANT to buy a freeze drying machine, but they’re spendy and I haven’t braved myself to doing it. Sigh. I’m afraid we wouldn’t use it enough to justify it. OTOH we do have nearby friends I’m sure would be happy to have a turn. Um.) I know soap makers, quilters, weavers. I know tinkerers, who can keep machines going more or less indefinitely. Younger son is working very seriously on his 3-d printing skills partly so we can keep things going if pieces are scarce.

I suspect that as we get squeezed, the impossibility that is America will come out in all sorts of odd and interesting ways. Impromptu schools, Victory gardens in every corner, new ways of doing things with what’s on hand.

I suspect it, because we’ve done it in the past. And before you say that we weren’t the same people: The spirit is still there. If you don’t see it, you are in an odd/depressed area of the country. And hey, maybe you should set the example by doing the impossible.

Do the impossible today. Say no to an authority figure. Speak the truth, when a lie is adamantly demanded. Subversively cast doubt on what everybody knows by saying “Well, sure, but maybe–“

If you can’t be impossible, be highly improbable. Totalitarianism requires widgets and predictable subjects. Refuse to be that.

Oh, they won’t let your kids go to school? Start a homeschool pod. They say there will be famines? Sure, start an edible garden (Some are even pretty.) They are making war on beef? Arrange with friends to purchase a cow to grow. They close or try to close churches again? Bah. Gather with some friends to pray.

Be polite, be clear, but do not fall in.

They try to get you into a defensive mode? Refuse to apologize. They call you names? But why should you defend yourself? Just give them the cut direct.

Being impossible is hard. Trust me on this. I’ve been impossible for years, while people kept trying to bring me back in line. (Peculiar you say? Impossible.) I ramped up the impossible by doubting the whole covidiocy, while people came over to yell at me, about being so…. impossible, and while my mom was screaming at me in panic over the phone every year. I ramped up the impossible by refusing to be black pilled. And I intend to continue not being blackpilled, btw. Yeah, it’s a depressing time and sometimes holding on to hope seems impossible.

However not being impossible — giving in, folding, behaving as they expect us to — that’s the true impossibility.

So you see, I really have no choice but to continue being impossible.

And I suspect neither do you. I mean, I think the most compliant among you are at worst — best? — highly improbable. And some of you are in the realm of impossibility of an entire universe in the flame of a match.

This is good. Again, I tell you: Totalitarianism requires predictability.

Be unpredictable. Be impossible.

Prepare, organize, work, thrive.

Refuse to let the chintzy bastages of the Junta and their fellow travelers hold you down.

Who are they to give orders to Americans? Who are they to hold us down?

We are eagles, and we were meant to soar. And we’re going to.

They ain’t seen nothing yet.

Book promo

If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE. That helps defray my time cost of about 2 hours a day on the blog, time probably better spent on fiction. ;)*

FROM DAN MELSON: Moving The Pieces

The die is cast.

The demons have mobilized to attack the Empire, and Joe and Asina are behind enemy lines.

For 150 Earth years, Joe and Asina have been clandestinely helping the humans of Calmena prepare for the coming war. In that time, the Calmenans have gone from barely Iron Age to the brink of space. From scattered starveling communities hanging on by their fingernails to proud independent city-states. But now the demons are pushing enough troops through the Seven Gates of Calmena to wipe out the human cities in passing.

Joe and Asina will not allow that to happen.

FROM CHRISTOPHER DIGRAZIA: The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of: A Theda Bara Mystery

THE STUFF THAT DREAMS ARE MADE OF

Hollywood, 1917. Silent movie queen Theda Bara is filming her epic, Cleopatra – “the one they’ll remember me for.” But when a studio extra turns up dead in a PR stunt gone wrong, Bara finds herself the center of intrigue, from a friend from the past who isn’t at all what she seems, to an Egyptian cult that wants her dead. With stars like Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin and Erich von Stroheim along for the ride, Bara and her loyal friend, makeup artist Toby Swanson, have to find out who is telling the truth, who is lying and whether it spells the end of Cleopatra. . .or of Hollywood itself.

FROM DAVE FREER: Save the Dragons.

Blundering through a series of fantasy world populated by dragons, dwarves, vampires, werewolves and worse, our hero, an inept alchemy student finds himself caught up in a heroic quest to save the dragons from tooth-hunting poachers, that threaten not only Zoar, a world of swamps and dragons, but all the worlds. He’s not built to be a hero, but someone has to do it.

FROM A. PALMER: Troubled Poems for Difficult People

This is a book of troubled poems
For difficult people.
The first of those people is me
I write them to myself
I write them about myself
But I don’t write them for myself.
If reading them helps, I am grateful.

“Troubled Poems for Difficult People” is a body of just under a hundred poems about philosophy, pain, and humility before God from a Christian perspective. It concludes with “Book of Weekdays,” intended as a meditation on mornings and evenings for each day of the week.

FROM M.C.A. HOGARTH: In the Court of Dragons: A Peltedverse Collection in the Fallowtide Period

Loose ends don’t tie themselves

Sweeping cultural changes sound very good on paper. But in the lives of normal people, even the ones who stand to benefit, those changes can be a challenge… one they might not have even asked for. In the Court of Dragons collects eight stories of the period after the events of the Chatcaavan War, focusing on changes both personal and widespread: old favorites return and new characters make their debut as we follow the effects of the war on everything from the imperial harem to the nascent Eldritch newsroom. What are the Faulfenza up to in the capital? What was the fate of the palace castrates? And who taught an Eldritch to… bungee jump?

This reader-commissioned collection includes stories written by the author at reader request. Come home to the Alliance with these tales of hope, renewal, comedy, and romance.

FROM ANNA FERREIRA: A Summer in Scarborough: A Pride & Prejudice Sequel.

Miss Anne de Bourgh was delighted to receive a letter from her cousin Georgiana, explaining that she would be spending the summer by the sea, and requesting the pleasure of her company. A glorious few months of balls, shopping, and walking by the sea awaits- a wonderfully diverting holiday for Anne, who has rarely left Rosings before.

But Anne is a de Bourgh, and life is never simple. Before long, she finds herself caught between the attentions of two very different men, and must choose if she will follow her heart or disoblige her family. One must be disappointed, and Anne has never been very practiced in the art of disobedience. Must she give up everything she has ever known, will she find the strength to search for happiness elsewhere?

FROM MACKEY CHANDLER: Another Word for Magic

Fleeing the Solar System after an attack by North America, the three Home habitats now have to seek their own fortunes. Heather, Sovereign of Central on the Moon saved them but now has to make certain the USNA can never threaten them again.
What was a tentative research partnership with the Red Tree Clan of Derfhome becomes a full alliance of equals. Lee finds she has to grasp authority and act for the Red Tree Mothers and herself to repossess the planet Providence she and Gordon discovered. The Claims Commission on Earth has collapsed without the leadership of North America. Explorers like her are cut off from their payments and the colonists on Providence are left in the lurch too. To do that she needs these powerful new allies.

FROM MAX BRAND, WITH INTRODUCTION BY D. JASON FLEMING: The Smoking Land (Annotated): A Pulp Super-Science Lost Civilization Adventure!

When rancher Smoky Bill’s closest friend, scientist Cleveland Darrell, disappeared in that lab explosion, everybody figured Darrell had died, his body vaporized. But when Bill finds out about a “fake” artifact that includes a fragment of Darrell’s writing, Bill knows he must follow his friend, and possibly rescue him. For that fragment of writing mentioned going north of Alaska, to “The Smoking Land”.

FROM DAVE FREER: Cloud-Castles.

Augustus Thistlewood was an idealist. The youngest scion of a vastly wealthy family, he’d come to help the poor, deprived people of the strange world of Sybill III – a gas-dwarf world with no habitable land. The human population, descendants of a crashed convict transport, lived on a tiny, crowded, alien antigravity plate they called ‘the Big Syd’, drifting through the clouds in the upper atmosphere. It was a few square miles of squalor, in a vast sea of sky, ruled by the degenerate relics of two alien empires.
The problem was that the people of the Big Syd wanted to help themselves, first – to his money, his liberty, and even his life.
Only two things stood between them and this: the first was his ‘assistant’ Briz, – a ragged urchin he’d picked up as a guide. She reckoned if anyone was going to steal from Augustus, it was going to be her, even if she had to keep him alive so that she could do it. And the second thing was Augustus himself. He didn’t know what ‘giving up’ meant. Actually, he didn’t know what most things meant. As a naïve, wide-eyed innocent blundering through the cess-pit of Sybill III, he was going to have to learn, mostly the hard way. Some of that learning was going to be out in the strange society that existed on the endless drifting clumps of airborne vegetation, and the Cloud-Castles of the aliens who hunted across them. Most of it was learning that philanthropy wasn’t quite what they’d taught him in college.

FROM PAM UPHOFF: Bad Tolz

Bad Tölz. A World named for a city on the Home World . . . Barely controlled by the “True Men” Mentalists of the Drei Mächte Bündnis. An unstable alliance of aggressive Worlds . . . on the brink of civil war.

Fynn, a bastard half-breed adopted by a friend of his dead father, was, despite his irregular antecedents, an ordinary college student. Then the increasing problems in in the Alliance led his new father to pull him into a secret society sworn to protect an Alliance that is crumbling.

When Bad Tölz is invaded, Fynn is all that stands between his World and brutal subjugation.

FROM CHRISTOPHER WOERNER: Convoy

Current events, essays on history and leftism. They’ve been at this for a very long time and now they’ve reached the highest point. I’m doing what I can but that pretty much comes down to analyzing and writing. One day I hope to figure out the ‘why they do it’ because it seems so anti-human. That’s why we have such misery and suffering.

This book mostly covers the Freedom Convoy and whatever the hell is going on with Russia and Ukraine. It comes off more like a sham than an actual war.

*Some of you tell me you couldn’t possibly publish your own books in indie. I just want to point out my friend’s cat, Henry, is a published author. Okay, so, sure, these are blank books/notebooks. But that is an accurate representation of Henry’s thoughts, so… (He’s almost as daft as Havey.) So, be brave. Be like Henry. (But with more words.) – SAH*

FROM MR. HENRY HAYDEN, ESQ.: Notebook: Pay Attention to MEEEE (So Sez Henry)

Super cute A5 notebook chronicling Henry’s DEMAND for attention. This warm design is perfect for the cat lover in your life.

Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: CALLOUS

It’s late, and I’m blah, and I should be writing….

I blame the cats for enticing me back to bed once I’d got up.

So this is a sorry excuse for a post, in which I’m going to give you a bunch of cool stock photos, then links to some blogs you should be looking at if you’re not.

Strangely, though in general superior, Pexels seems to have fewer “could make a cover out of this” illustrations than Pixabay. I suspect this is because I haven’t found the way to search it that will unlock them. As in “illustrations, not pictures.” https://www.pexels.com/@mikhail-nilov/ has a series of “woman in spacesuit” though that should be suitable for anyone doing space opera with a female protagonist, and they’re free.

This one is also nice, I suppose, though I get an “SF thriller” vibe from it, and it’s the only one of its kind by the photographer, so…. you know?

I mean, there’s lots of cool abstract things that look a lot like the science fiction covers of the 50s through 70s in Portugal. (Might still do. Portuguese publishers are CHEAP.)

And don’t get me wrong, it’s pretty. Just doesn’t signal genre as well as I personally like for my covers. Now could be totally used for a background, with, say, a fairy in the foreground, of course.

Pixabay, as usual has interesting stuff, though nothing so far that screams out “I must use this” (I’m also not looking for a cover, as such, more looking at things while the caffeine comes onboard.)

Though no offense, but some of ya’ll looking for a cover might do worse than this sort of generic thing:

Or this for your more woo woo SF:

I mean, I can totally see that for some of Clifford Simak’s stuff about aliens.

This for more generic:

Add a spaceship:

like this. Or this:

or even this:

(All from Pixabay) in that lower left corner, adjust the color to match, and you’re in the business.

Then are are some lovely, lovely images that can be used as is, but not (alas) for books I write. Like this one:

I think it could work very well for a Dave Freer book, mind. One he hasn’t written yet, of course.

And this would be perfect for a YA Science Fiction.

And if I ever write anything even vaguely Phillip K. Dick-esque (I have, but only short stories. I don’t think I could do a novel.) I will use this as a cover, mostly because it reminds me of the covers of his books. (In Portugal, at least.)

And okay, I’ve wasted enough of your time looking at pretty pictures, so for more substantial (and not mine) fodder.

If you’re not checking out Tilting at Windmills, by Tom Knighton, at substack, you should be. He’s a friend, yes, but also one of the people to whom I dole out my limited funds in subscription. Because he’s worth it.

The other two people I subscribe to are Frank Flemming’s Frank Talk (also at Substack.) Remember he’s the guy who started IMAO. Though here he mostly shares his fiction, you still won’t be disappointed.

I also subscribe to BillWhittle.com and have for years. I really need to figure out where I put my password. Since I can’t find it, I mostly watch the public stuff, but I still think the endeavor is worth supporting.

Speaking of that, and supporting, and subscriptions, the boys have been at me again, on “you need to have an annual fundraiser on the blog.” Sigh. They’re probably not wrong, since this costs me a couple of hours or more a day, and 2k a year seems paltry for that. (And that’s about what I get from subscriptions. Okay, there’s another 1 to 2k from the Amazon associates account, but still.)

Reluctantly, I think I am going to do it. Mostly because people like Jerry Pournelle tried for years to get me to do it. (As does Chris Muir.) But also because husband needs to stop working sixty hour weeks. That’s fine when you’re in your twenties but when you’re staring sixty in the face it gets old. Also leads to car-fixing expenses. (Don’t ask. Truly.)

No, this won’t be an emergency like the last one (You guys have no idea how much you saved my bacon. Without it, we wouldn’t have been able to extricate ourselves from the house, as we had to have stuff done for the deal to close. Thank you.) And it will be a scheduled thing.

Son suggested I do it on the 4th of July. Or at least that week. And that makes sense. There will be prizes and stuff, too. But absolutely no balloons and face painting. Unless you guys want virtual face painting. (Have paintshop, will not travel.)

So anyway, that’s something I’ll do. Er…. unless all of you think I’m out of my mind.

The “Boxes from Sarah’s Garage” are coming. What happened is that we had to pack them and move them, and son has spent the last month and a half sorting and organizing the contents, so we can DO something. Right now we’re doing the “How much do we even charge?” (December, January and February son was attempting to cough up a lung, which is not conducive to doing much of anything. Eh.)

And this weekend I need to finish Bowl of Red (Maybe it IS cursed) while hampered by prednisone, which makes me sleep. (Apparently this is contrary to everyone else. Well, you know, 23 and me says part of dad’s genetic contribution is “from unknown origin” so maybe I am part alien?)

Which bring us back to interesting or in this case weird links.

I again re-iterate that going to zerohedge is what I do in lieu of climbing into a filled bathtub holding a plugged-in toaster. You can tell how crazy I am by how much I check it. So…. three times to five times a day is probably not good.

But this is weird even for zerohedge. And to be fair, it’s not THEIR weirdness.

Pentagon Report Claims UFOs Left “Radiation Burns” & “Unaccounted-For Pregnancies” After Encounters.

And if you just said “What in the name of light fandango?” yeah, that’s what I said too.

I’m just going to say that whenever Democrats are fully in charge everyone starts seeing UFOs or talking about UFOs. Maybe it’s a “Beam me up, Scottie,” effect/wish.

Moving right along, you should probably check Spin, Strangeness and Charm at least once a week.

Samizdata is often interesting.

I’ve been reading Neoneocon for decades, and when I disagree with her it’s because we followed different but equally valid tracks. I sympathize with her — what now would be called red pill — experience of political conversion, because even though I was never leftist, I did grow up in Europe, where the center and even the right are leftist. So it took me a long time to figure out “Liberty-right” or American right. So we have commonality.

Kim Du Toit, whom older son (who greatly likes him) refers to as a “retired space pirate” (It fits, somehow) has Splendid Isolation. If you’re going to pearl clutch over semi-clad or wholly unclad women don’t go over, but he often has insights combined with devastating humor. And he’s almost — almost — as angry as I am these days.

And I would be remiss if I didn’t direct you at Behind the Black. Some politics, but a lot of space news. Now if I could find the like site for dinosaurs, my life would be complete. :D

As for the state of the writer, in case you’re wondering, other than sleeping a lot (mostly prednisone, though I suspect also healing from all that’s been going on) I’m getting better. I mean, I’m not reading dinosaurs, true crime, or fan fiction. I’ve clawed my way up to (clean) regency romances. Next up his mysteries, historic mysteries, and eventually science fiction again. (Look, guys, it’s a slog once I fall all the way to true crime, which I did mid-last year.)

The sun is shining. I have flowerbeds to build. But first I need to finish Bowl of Red which is a …. very weird book. No, I mean, even for me.

Bows. Exists stage left.

Don’t even think of sending the bear after me. Not even if it’s just a guy in a bear suit. PARTICULARLY not if it’s a guy in a bear suit.

One of the most appalling moments at one of the DNC — was it 08 or 12? I can’t even remember — was when some creature said “We all have to belong to something, so I choose to belong to the government.”

He/she/tutti-fruti wasn’t wrong in that first half of the sentence. “We all have to belong to something.” We are, after all humans, built on the frame of a social ape. We’re creatures of the band, creatures of the group, half biological and half culture, not nature, not nurture, but yes indeedy.

And that’s fine.

But in that second half the meaning of “belong” changes. You can belong to a group, you can belong to a band, you can belong to a family, a culture and a nation. That means you’re included, you’re part of it, you identify with its history, its past, its future.

But you can’t belong to the army, the bank, the mortgage company, the government. Because those aren’t identities, ad-hoc associations or philosophical entities. Those are organizations, with a ledger, with belongings, with the ability to enforce and reclaim what belongs to them.

To belong to the government means to have people who have the right to order you to do things; not to do things; to work at something; not to work at something; to kill yourself.

Stop right there, Sarah, you’ll say. Belonging to a nation is the same, isn’t it? The nation also has laws, the ability to enforce them.

Kind of. In that case you have to squint and ask yourself how you belong to the nation. Do you “belong” by fitting in, and because these are your people. Do you obey the laws of the nation because the nation’s government takes its power from the consent of the governed?

And that’s as far as I want to go down that slippery slope, because when it comes to nations, yeah, you can belong in both senses. But if you’re a free man — which is almost to say an American, though Britain at one point also knew what it was to be free — the line is sharp and clear in your mind. You might give your life for your nation, but you’ll be d*mned if you obey an order to commit suicide.

That’s the line between free and slave.

What was creepy was that the person didn’t say “I choose to belong to the nation, but “I choose to belong to the government”” That is the order-giving, often irrational, always bungling part of the nation. The authority part of the nation.

I had a moment of recoil, and then a moment of overwhelming pity.

We, the children of the late twentieth century, messed about by generations that went through the two global wars — or if you prefer the long war of the 20th century — we were born to a generation/generations that had had fundamental assumptions shifted, tilted, banished. As a result we were fired off into the world with complete nonsense filling our addled heads.

You’re going to say every generation goes out with heads filled with nonsense. Well, to an extent. But to an extent, it was tried and true nonsense. “My country right or wrong”, “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori,” “Our gods and our temples are right and just, yours are silly, strange and heathen,” “My band has the best flint tools and we will feast on your carcasses tonight.”

Was it nonsense? Band/country/city and religion/tradition/way of doing things? I don’t know. I was taught all that was nonsense, and completely wrong, and besides it caused war and was mean and stuff.

Was it?

I doubt it. A lot of it masked the deeper mechanisms of how human cultures select for the best and the best traits of those; how they share, perfect and evolve. Yes, it sometimes sucked to be a human being caught in those movements. And yes, it often meant that for a time the culture took a turn to greater suckitude. But looking back, you can see we’ve moved steadily to “more people having enough to eat, and being able to live full lives.” (With the exception of imposed synthetic cultures like socialism/communism. Come for the philosophy, but the famines and massacres are to die for.)

I am progressing, slowly, to believing that cultures themselves are…. quasi-sentient entities with minds almost-their-own. They change slowly and organically. There are mechanisms for them to evolve. We violate those at our own risk, because they can die. But they take their people with them.

Anyway, the point is, my generation was sundered from the past of humanity and the things that humanity traditionally told the individual he/she belonged to: family, locale, nation, religion. All of these were wrong/evil bad/ deeply distorting.

My generation took seriously the nonsense of the romantics (what else did we have to go after?) and encouraged by parents who were themselves either already traumatized or addled and confused by Marxism (a toxic form of the romantics besides) did a deep dive in search of the “natural man” with the sincere belief that if we eliminated everything else, we’d go back to Eden and the “natural” way of being, to the noble savage and some kind of egalitarian garden.

Of course this is nonsense. At the bottom of that pit there is no natural man. The natural man is an ape: naked, scared, alone, and without much in the way of tools. It will mostly likely die/be vanquished/kill and commit horrors.

But this is what our elders told us; the only culture we were given.

Those of us who are…. stubborn and odd started noticing the issues, fighting back, finding ways to connect to something deeper, something more meaningful. Others went along, and ended up….

Well, we call them NPCs, because they seem to change their minds and attitudes with whatever comes from above as the new thing.

In fact, they’re rather sad apes, drifting in a sea of nothingness and clutching onto these “truths from above” as a life saving something that will finally make them fit in, make them be part of something.

Yes, they are scary and they will commit atrocities in the name of transitory truth. But in the end, they’re just normal (which none of us is, really, my friends) humans, betrayed by a culture that denies them what they need most: to belong.

They’re willing to be mindless slaves just to belong to something.

You see, humans are brief, but the human mind compasses eternity. We need — NEED — to belong to what came before, and know we are shaping/will belong to what comes after. It’s part of being human. This doesn’t always required biological descendants, but it requires being part of something bigger than us.

Which most people in our culture never had.

A lot of them are the children of my generation. We were fired off into the world with nonsense like the lyrics of Imagine as a map for living. By the time they came along, we knew that didn’t work, but we had nothing to replace them with. We’d been given nothing. So they were fired off into the world with….. nihilism, cynicism, and the vague, desperate hope that there was, somewhere, something to believe in. Then the schools gave them collectivism and the worship of authority.

Maybe what saved me was grandma, my dad’s mom. We were of course from very different worlds, but when it came to being a solid point in the maelstrom, give me grandma as a fulcrum, and I can move the universe.

She knew who she was, she knew what she was for. She belonged, and was part of the past and the future. She was part of her family, her village, her world.

And though I left the village behind (And the family, in the sense women do) and the country too, she gave me roots. I know where I came from. And I know where I am, where I chose to throw my lot in with.

And I know what’s important, and it is this: A free individual provides for him/herself. (There is no work too menial. And yes, for a while I didn’t provide for myself monetarily, but I devoted myself to both improving my craft so I could, and easing the life of the person who did provide for both of us), he/she looks after those who are “his” be it by kin, friendship, choice or chance, and prepares the way for those in his/her future to do the same.

In the end, the rules according to grandma were not so different from Jordan Peterson’s. Though, granted, she would have said “feed a cat” but hey. A dog too. And a turtle. She …. liked animals.

It seems ridiculous the hatred the man draws. And I’m sure grandma would draw no less hatred, for the same reason.

The scariest thing of all to those who would be slaves is to know there is an alternative. You don’t need to belong to a faceless organization that has unearned rights over you. You can choose to build what you belong to: a family; a group of friends; a band of free individuals. You can choose to serve your family, your G-d, your nation.

And in that CHOICE to serve find your freedom. The freedom to choose every day, to do what is best, not what you’re ordered. The freedom you will never find in handing yourself over to the judgement of faceless bureaucrats or “experts.”

The freedom to be yourself, rooted, confident in past and future.

Because even if you lose, even if you die, you’ll do that as yourself. Not another… Brick in the wall.

Go forth and be yourself. Belong only in kinship, never in blind obedience.

Go be American. The world needs your example.

Be the America oppressed people evoke. And tell the government to go fly a kite.

The auto-immune? Well, other than in a metaphorical sense, it’s mine. (In the metaphorical sense, it’s as damaging as the attack on our culture, already, by causing fear, despondency and above all despair.)

It was supposed to get better when we moved. To an extent it has, because I don’t have the awful respiratory symptoms I got in Colorado. My breathing is pretty much normal, save for a tickle at the back of my throat, which becomes a dry, shallow cough when I lay down, and that’s normal for everyone here in Spring, I think.

It’s not the awful migraines I got in Colorado when the trees were blooming, either. My thinking is fine.

But the eczema, the thing that most responds to stress (and carbs, but I’ve actually been good-ish. Oh, not perfect, but careful) is through the roof. It’s so bad, I capitulated and will be taking a prednisone taper. (You’ve been warned. I don’t become an *sshole on pred, I just become sarcastic. And apparently funny. Heaven help us.)

Why am I so stressed? Well, there’s personal reasons, including the fact some of you have decided the present book is cursed, and I’m tired of it not being done. Today or bust!

OTOH… I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. And the stress itself/the anxiety is scaring me.

The last time I was this unable to stay away from the news was right after 9/11. I was writing the third Shakespeare book, and I literally couldn’t concentrate if I didn’t check the news every 10 minutes. I finally turned Fox News on, really low, and worked in front of it. I figured if something went really, really bad I’d hear a whistle or air raid siren or something.

My problem right now is that there’s no news station I can tolerate on even as background. There just isn’t.

Oh, yeah, before that the only time I was this on edge, like I was waiting for the other shoe, was when nuclear tensions were very high.

And yes, I do realize what Putin has threatened, and yes, I think he’s as nuts as our afflictions, which is to say very nuts indeed.

But I really don’t expect that, and I certainly don’t expect that where I live.

So why am I this stressed — on the edge of the chair, adrenaline pumping, ready to fight or flee? — I don’t know.

It could be after a long life in an insane world my reason has finally capitulated. It’s certainly possible, if not logical.

Anyway, that’s the auto-immune.

Now as to the culture war–

Yesterday in some blog — could be here, in the comments. I’m looking so often, it all runs together, and it’s hard to figure out what I read where, let alone what it means — someone said something that started out absolutely right, and then went completely wrong.

They reminded us that politics is downstream from culture. And then, bizarrely, strangely, said we had to do all the work of recapturing the culture from zero, because the left captured all the institutions.

<Hits head on desk repeatedly, then kneels to find eyes that rolled under the desk. Right. Now that’s done.

I am used to people buying the assumptions of the left. This is because, well, we all went to the same schools, and we have largely for many years consumed the same entertainment and some of those assumptions come built in, right?

But it doesn’t mean that’s true.

The assumption of the left has always been that you can remake a culture from the top down.

They’re not exactly wrong. Not precisely. You can. There are mechanisms for that. The most common one is the dreaded “imperialism.” In other words, conquest, massacre, slavery.

When you kill all the men, rape and impregnate all the women, you don’t make the old culture disappear precisely — the mothers will teach the children some words, in that long space in childhood where everyone is surrounded by women. And they will teach them some stories. And the kids will learn something by example — but you create an hybrid, and the culture that you conquered is weaker.

To an extent they’ve been trying to emulate that. In the west without the wholesale massacre. They captured the institutions, and punished and rewarded aspects of the culture. When I say we’ve been occupied by the enemy for 100 years, I am not exactly kidding.

What they have forgotten — the left does this, over and over — is that just like no two individuals are the same, no two cultures are the same. And while remaking a culture by pillage and rape works, how it works is…. mixed.

There seem to be mechanisms in human cultures to reward what works, long term. I don’t know how else to put it, and unfortunately we don’t — in any sense — have a functional discipline of sociology. It’s all lies, assumptions and bullshit, which doesn’t allow us to understand cultural processes. At all.

But we do know things. For instance, most of the religion of the Aztecs is lost in fact, and has to be reconstituted, because the mothers and grandmothers did not pass it on to their children. (The bits that come through are horrifying, but the gangs are in fact doing what Wiccans do with witchcraft, and making it up with bits and pieces of the old. It did not survive.)

On the other hand, though Rome was very thoroughly conquered, in its provinces and dependencies by Swabian and Vandal and eventually Moor and German…. it remains. You can’t walk down the street in these places without realizing that Rome never fell, that in all essentials, good and bad and well, meh it remains. Despite the fact that genetically it’s been overwhelmed and replaced.

We can’t expect the left to realize that, but we should. In the same way we should realize that the “conquering culture” never was. It was an ersatz creation of intellectuals, an insane hodge podge, bloodless and goofy that would be laughable if it hadn’t put a hundred million (and many more uncounted) human beings in their graves.

Put it another way, the culture they brought in wasn’t a real culture. There were no grandmothers who told tales to the conquerors in their cribs, tales that will come through when they talk to their sons. There wasn’t a real language that came with it. There weren’t the assumptions in that language.

It was all a fevered dream from the mad mind of Marx, seasoned with blood lust and envy, and intellectuals’ sense that they should be in charge.

As such, what it had as weapons was the cool kids sarcasm, the empty ironic platitudes of the teenager, and a fever to take everything apart and deconstruct it, because if everything was destroyed paradise would emerge. (It is this idea, that communism and egalitarian paradise are natural to humans that did the most damage. The first to get in the time machine and strangle Rousseau in his crib will have done humanity a service.)

It’s been falling apart almost from the moment it was implemented over us. Look, the people never actually bought it. Not really. Not even the educated.

How many of us know hard-core lefties who, in their private life, behave more like conservatives than the conservatives? Not just save and teach morality to their kids, but also try not to pay the IRS etc?

How many?

Most of us, I’d wager.

The only way the over culture, the conquering culture, the top down culture could hold its sway was to keep every dissent tamped down. That requires it to control everything. Not just the publications, not just the schools, not just the news, but entertainment, and peer to peer and EVERYTHING.

They almost managed it. They were aided by the mass-communication culture of the 20th century. They were aided by WWI and WWII and the cultural/governmental overreach it facilitated. They were aided by mass transportation, and by conquering schools and newspapers.

But it’s been falling apart since the end of the 20th century. Somehow, the conquered west figured it out, and even before the internet, a lot of people were treating the news like the Pravda. (There is no truth in Pravda.) And analyzing them, or even inverting them in their minds.

If they hadn’t been, Reagan and Thatcher would never have been.

And then the internet accelerated things, and showed each of us we aren’t alone.

Sure, politics are downstream from culture. Culture is now overflowing and washing away politics. If that weren’t true, the frantic cheating late at night, in the 2020 elections would be unnecessary. And the conquering Junta would not have barricaded itself in the capital for months, shaking with fear of retribution. (Retribution always comes when you no longer expect it, of course, but you can’t expect these ignoramuses to know history.) And they wouldn’t have tried to create an ersatz insurrection to discredit insurrections. And they wouldn’t be doing increasingly panicky and crazy stuff that everyone can see, thereby destroying any illusions that they are the organic and popular face of culture.

They are now the teacher (Heaven forgive me for what we did to that teacher) frantically praying and screaming orders in front of the class full of 14 year old girls — which is the rest of the people. Really all the people in the west — who are dancing on desks and making fun of her. Any minute now, she’ll lock herself in the closet, screaming prayers, and will emerge from it only to be taken to a rest home, with tranquilizers and lots of rest. Lots of rest.

Except when you still have the mechanics of power at your disposal, when the crazy, overwhelmed teacher can push a nuclear button or heaven knows what, that “locking oneself in the closet” might take a more destructive form. Much more destructive.

And I guess I found out why I’m on edge, and checking the news every five minutes.

We’ve largely taken the culture. It wasn’t hard, once we had the ability to talk back. (Frankly, the culture was never really taken by them. All they could do was project illusion.) We’re now overflowing the politics, and even with fraud, they’re getting terrified.

But they still have the mechanisms of force.

They won’t win. Force alone can’t vanquish a culture. But dear Lord, the damage they can do. To us, to the world, to civilization.

O Trinity of love and pow’r,
Your children shield in danger’s hour;
From rock and tempest, fire, and foe,
Protect them where-so-e’er they go;
Thus, evermore shall rise to Thee
Glad hymns of praise from land and sea.

William Whiting

We live in a world of light. The light illuminates us, who we are and our relationships. But all around us, from our private lives to our more complex affairs, are shadows, in which move shapes we can’t see clearly and don’t quite have a way of knowing.

There is a commenter — ahem — who comments here and who — having been “limited” for wearing a stylish chapeaux de derriere — keeps asking how I know this or that, when I venture a guess at what is really happening in the places we can’t see. Where we can only guess what really happened.

The truth is that — of course — ther eis no way for me to know exactly what is happening in the shadows. All I can do is take what I know, what I can see and make it into a coherent whole. When it fits — same as with any puzzle –w hen the shape and the look of the thing actually makes sense, I venture a guess. Is it the truth? Sometimes. Or at least, I can assume it’s the truth, as the events unroll that fit into what I could predict.

And sometimes they don’t. I honestly thought that Trump was running for the presidency simply to hand it over to Hillary. In the same way, i was surprised by how he governed, despite his obvious hampering.

I still don’t know how or where to fit the covidiocy in relation to Trump, nor in fact what to do with the post-stolen-election debacle. All I can do is …. continue to struggle with what I see and fit the unseen patterns into it.

This is difficult since we’re living — apparently — in a more insane world than we previously thought. A world in which our attempt to decide whether a puzzle piece is part of the cat or the rug changes as the rug becomes a cat and the cat a rug.

The only thing that is obvious, as the overreach of authoritarians who mistake dystopias for blueprints for the future — it’s a problem, as the feeble of mind tend to confuse fiction with instructions — and are determined to create 1984 or Brave New world from our real world.

It won’t work. Trust me, as the creator of several plots and stories, I know that kind of all-pervasive story only works when it is between the pages of a book.

This kind of ever tightening noose can prevail in a small country — Cuba, North Korea — or a relatively “simple” one like Venezuela. In a more complicated land, it falls apart. It did in Russia and the only way to keep it going was perpetual war (which strangely they accused the “capitalists” of.) And to be supported by a more functional country, such as us.

Here? In the country that has supported others in their insanity?

It won’t work. It won’t work particularly when they’re running on a philosophy so discredited only fools and academics — and children — believe in it.

I’ve said before, and I’ll say it again, they are attempting to build the iron curtain as the Berlin wall is falling.

They can obscure reality for a while, as long as they control the media — which they still do in most of the world — but their ability is faltering, their powers failing.

Does that mean I know everything that’s going on in the shadows? No. It’s impossible to know. Particularly impossible as their plots and plans veer off the path of sanity.

I have no idea — absolutely none — what they’re going to do next, just like I had no idea they were preparing the covidiocy.

All I know is that it will be crazy. And that there’s a good chance it will fail of its purpose.

Will it be destructive? Likely. Will it spin us further and further into dystopia-land?

Who knows?

I remain firm in my belif that they can’t herd us into dystopia. They will try. They will fail. But in the meantime, there will be insanity, precipitating unforeseen events, which come out of the darkness to create very bizarre events in the light.

Perhaps more bizarre than we can even guess.

All we can do, all we can ever do is keep the light on our own private world; keep ourselves as safe as possible; keep our world spinning.

And remember the Republic, the Constitution, the Declaration. And the truths we hold to be self evident.

These things we hold sacred and will not let go.

They belong in the future. And so do we.

It’s All a Grand Plan (swallow this post after you read it!)- A Blast From The past from November 2013

So two days ago a friend sent me this “quote”:

“America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within.” – Josef Stalin

It appears it has been all over face book.  It seemed wrong to me. I mean, it appeared on the order of “Ninety percent of quotes on the internet are wrong,” George Washington.

What appeared PARTICUARLY wrong was, so to say, the “psychology” of the quote.  It’s clearly how some Americans view America, but is it how Josef Stalin would see it?

Let’s leave aside the whole question of how much he believed in communism or whether he did.  He was a psychopath, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t dress his wishes in some form of ideology, and if he did it was communism.  If he believed in communism, the idea that America was “moral” is right out.  In fact, we know he had this idea that America just pretty much was promiscuously commercial from his quote about selling us a rope.  (And that one sounds real.)

In any case, whether he believed in communism or not, he would not say that aloud if he believed it.  Think how bad it would be for someone continuously denouncing us for that criminally evil regime – capitalism – to say we were moral.

Besides, children, veddy bad news, but despite our puritan streak, no one in the rest of the world views us as moral.  Mostly because we’re more open at our weirdness than they are.  It’s like a friend tells me the Japanese are in general very straight-laced, which is why their porn is so wild.  But HERE we get the porn and the tentacle anime and… and we assume that Japanese is a seething mass of bizarre and sex.  That’s sort of how the rest of the world sees us.  If you start an internet rumor that a fad of putting goldfish in your ears for sexual satisfaction is spreading in America, they’ll believe it.  And they would probably even more so when murderous uncle Joe was alive.

The “America is a healthy body” is also something he would not say aloud.  Because again, whether he believed communism or not, that was what they were selling to the masses, and in communist doctrine no capitalist country is healthy as such.  (It’s in conflict, in contradiction, just waiting to be transitioned, you might say.)

Then we have “its spiritual life” – oh, BROTHER.  Let alone that communists are atheists, and that there is a good chance Stalin saw his god in front of the shaving mirror every morning…  Even if he subscribed to the idea that a spiritual life of some sort was good, he would look at us and think we had none.

Look, it’s unfair.  It’s like our being the prudes that everyone else thinks are the class sluts, because we wear makeup and our skirt is a bit short (meaning we don’t pretend to be holier than thou) but as much as America is more religious than other Western countries, measurably, statistically, this is NOT how the world sees us.  They see our multitude of religions.  If you’re devout, how can you be friends with people who believe differently?  Clearly, you’re not devout.  They see our crazier manifestations – and that’s mostly what they see there, the snake handling sects, the spiritist sects, and then the fake churches like the idiots who picket soldiers funerals.  It’s mostly what they see because it’s what their media finds “interesting” – and they think of our religion, here in America as somewhere between a carnival and a freak show.

Why would someone viewing that think of it as a strength?  It would be more “Keep those crazy americans busy with their crazy religions, they’re less likely to believe we’re infiltrating.”

Of all of that only patriotism makes sense, since communism is an international creed and us such believes that undermining patriotism is essential to its spread.

So, yes, I went to snopes and the quote is fake.  Or at least “likely fake.”  (Trust me, it’s fake.)

Which bring us to why I spent so much time analyzing it.  No, it’s not to inure you about future bad quotes.  They will go around, and all of us will fall for some of them sometime.

The reason I spent so much time introducing this is that when I went to Snopes, I found this listed under one particular kind of lie.  The “The enemy is so clever” lie.

We’ve seen this with the Russians far too much and all through my life.  “They’re so clever, that they engineered this and that and the other thing.”  “They’re so brilliant, this is happening just according to their plan.”

Guys, take a deep breath, step back.  If this is all according to their plan, it’s the only plan of theirs that ever went right.  I mean, seriously, they couldn’t feed their own homeland with all those five years plans, but they can do a near hundred year plan to take over the rest of the world?

But Sarah, you’ll say, you say we’re still suffering from the effects of Soviet agit prop!

Oh, sure we are, but agit prop is not a careful plan.  Look, communism is very good at proselytizing.  Arguably it’s the one thing it’s good at.  It hits, like all other communitarian doctrines, the part of the human brain that’s both looking for “fair” and longing for a return to childhood, with benevolent overseeing parents.

Put enough agit prop over there (and they put a lot) and some of it is going to hit and corrupt the vision of other countries.  Besides, communism is so tailor made for intellectuals, explaining how things would be better if the intelligentsia ruled us.

BUT that is not a plan.  Not unless it’s in the sense of “we do this, and this just might happen.”  Witness for instance, that a plan would have come to fruition much earlier – like, before the USSR collapsed.  Also, people that good at planning would have made sure that their system worked.  (It is one of the funniest things about communism that they are central planners, but their plans never work.  Okay, funny in a bitter way.  I’m not laughing at the mass graves their delusions have caused.

There is a tendency to look at trends we don’t like in society and things that aid ideologies we don’t approve of, and think that it’s all a fiendish plan.

Both sides do it.  The left looked at the tea parties and panicked, because it doesn’t fit their conceptual universe for people to protest high taxes.  So they invented the boogey man of the Koch brothers (rather libertarian old bachelors whom a friend who worked for them assured me are very nice.)

Soros is not on the same level – because, well, we KNOW he finances all sorts of left causes (and given his history, anyone who thinks he’s one the side of angels and works for causes he endorses, should think again.  Once you sell out your own people as a kid, well… you’re done, morally speaking.  Particularly when you still brag about it as an old man.)  And he has more money than the Kochs ever did.

But does that mean it’s all his “plan”?  Is it all going according to his plan?  Oh, please, guys – OWS.  No, seriously.  OWS.  Yes, we all saw the ads on Craigslist, but nowhere did it say “must poop on police cars” okay?

He’s a man who wants to see the world burn and to that end tosses a lot of money at various disruptive causes.  But he does not have a detailed plan, and everything does not go according to his plan, or you’d be looking at his face in a big screen every morning, while you did your mandated exercises. (Big Soros is watching you.  Ick.)

Here’s the thing and the reason I don’t believe in the “conspiracy theory of history” except in the sense that some humans will look for power, and that the way they do it is always predictable: humans are strange.

No, seriously, humans are strange.  There has never been a satisfactory enough theory to the way the individual human mind works.  Oh, somewhat… but each school of psychology has hold of an end and no one has the full elephant.  Which is why psychology remains a semi-soft science.

This simplifies somewhat when you have a crowd, but it’s still not conclusive.  And when you have something like a country, which is a conglomerate of crowds… well…

History takes sudden turns, precipitated by events and one or two odd individuals in a crowd who don’t react the way you expect.  “Scientific history” is poppycock.  If it weren’t, the United States wouldn’t exist.

Yes, it is all explainable in retrospect, how we came to be. It’s easy to make up just-so stories about the past.

I doubt there’s ever been a human plan that worked, throughout history, and those of us who believe in a divine plan also believe it has taken some weird turns to accommodate us.  Or as grandma would say “G-d writes straight on crooked lines.” (Or for those of you don’t believe, yes, those could be “just so” stories too, but if it’s all the same with you, I’ll throw my lot in with grandma.  You see, I knew her, and I trust her judgement.)

We’re not G-d.  Yes, I know.  Very upsetting.  But we’re not.  This means that any plan that takes more than a generation will take some very weird turns, go sideways, and slide upside down, in the game of telephone that’s multi-generational belief.

Take for instance old Joe’s supposed quote above.  Even if it had been true, could he have predicted the effect of a massive demographic bulge on American culture which did most of the loosening of said culture?  I doubt it. I think the man had a talent for killing and terror, but no demonstrable intelligence otherwise.

Then why are we attributing G-d like intelligence to him?

Well, both because it puts the other side in the light of traitors and because it means we can’t do anything – see how comfortable that is?  We can’t do anything, so why try?  We can be absolute lumps and lecture all our friends still trying to turn things around and save us from a crash with “You fools.  It’s been planned for decades.  There’s nothing you can do.”  Which is very comfortable and morally superior.

I see it all the time, even now, even from respectable thinkers, about the deblacle that is Obama Care.  “They planned this all.  It’s all incredibly smart.  Game over, man.”

Oh, please.  You don’t need to drink their ink.  No one in their right mind could have planned that insanity.  Did they plan for the plan to collapse into single payer?  Surely.  But not by the sheer incompetence of governmental administration.

We’re well outside their plan, guys.  They’re the gang that can’t shoot straight.  No, this doesn’t mean they’re completely ineffective.  They’re very good at destruction and destruction is half of their job.  BUT it means when their plan goes wrong (and it always does) there is an opening for us to come in, to save things, to fix things, to make things work the way we want.

Will it go exactly according to plan for us?  Oh, heck no.  BUT we can push it in the right direction and keep working.

We’re good at working and at building.

This morning, I got up and I cleaned poop from the hallway.  Our geriatric cat is having diarrhea.

Being a conservative/libertarian is sort of like that.  You’re always cleaning poop you didn’t make.  And you don’t want to, because you have no interest in power over others.  But if you just leave it there, someone will slip on it and make a bigger mess.

It’s not a plan.  It’s just that you know where the spray cleaner is, and the paper towels, so you do it.  And you change what would otherwise have happened.

Be of good cheer.  Destruction is not a plan and incompetence is not a destination.

Giving up would be premature and despair is a sin.  In the long run, destroyers always lose, and you always need the person who knows where the cleaner is kept and how to use the paper towels.

Square your shoulders and be alert.  You, those you love, and perhaps the entire country depend on you.  This is not time to go wobbly.

Today I came across an article where I found these insane lunatics (yeah, sure it’s redundant. Or not. I think they start out lunatics and become insane or vice versa.) are actively re-segregating schools, because it’s supposed to give you equity.

I could go into a long list of their major dysfunctions that make them sure segregating by race is better for minorities, mainly involving the fact that all their previous tweaks to achieve equity only made things worse and made minorities look bad, instead of average. It’s the same process as assuming every woman was going to be exceptional, because those who made it into the work environment when it wasn’t normal were exceptional. (DUH).

But that’s not important right now. The important thing right now is the Procrustes bed of EQUITY. This is not equality, but equality of outcome.

The only way you can have equality of outcome with kids — or any humans — is to SEVERELY restrict super-performers while enhancing the reward of poor performers.

In school this is easy to do, particularly in disciplines where grading is subjective, like most of the humanities. (And why it drove me insane as a young kid.)

In life it’s also easy to do, if you steal from one person to give to the other, aka redistributive taxes.

The devil is in the details.

You’ll note in the article that one of their indoctrinated victims says black and minority students get punished more. This is not true. Not only is this not true, but when younger son was going through middle school year from hell, I found out he was being given detention for forgetting a pencil for class (He didn’t forget it, the field trip arrived late, and he didn’t have time to go to his locker, which was halfway across the school. And yea, that was on purpose and — long story) while the kid who had the day before held the teacher at knife point wasn’t given detention, or really any punishment.

This is because in a multi-ethnic and huge middle school in a downtown environment they punished ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY middle class kids from our neighborhood. A) because they were scared of gang (mostly Latin) members. B) they had to show improvement. And it was easy to show that middle class kids who were forgetful got better over time, for fear of detention, but not so much that multiple-assault gang members improved.

As I understand it, it’s that way pretty much everywhere. So in schools near urban centers minorities and other blighted populations get lighter punishment.

And the problem is again in the details. Whether it is because you give them an A when their work is barely worth C, leaving them unable to face work or higher education, or because you failed to civilize them to 21st century standards, when their families aren’t up to the task, the result is the same: they’ll fail. And given the populations affected by it, often give ammunition to bigots.

In these circumstances, what will re-segregating do? Well, more of the same. Leading to accusations that they get inferior teachers, etc, leading to–

The truth is that you can’t make everyone the same. Equity is a stupid goal that should never exist, much less be enforced.

Look, one of the many ways that public schools are failing is that they’ve always aimed for equity. (I was explicitly told that it was easier to handicap my kids, than teach them ahead of the class, and they hated when parents taught the kids way far ahead. Yeah.) Just for convenience and ease of the teacher, it’s easier if the kids are all more or less at the same level. And the problem with that is that this goal is implanted in people’s back brain. (Even when insane lunatics aren’t in charge.) As is the idea that we’re all about the same.

We’re not all about the same. Took me to my thirties to figure out I didn’t care enough about money to work really hard at investing. I cared about having enough money for security (eh) not enough to roll in twice a week, and keep in a vault where I went swimming for exercise. Metaphorically speaking. I just wasn’t willing to work that hard.

It’s taken me to my fifties to realize I’m completely unsuited to work for myself, and keep a schedule, and only do it because I’m driven to write.

We’re not all the same. And doing well or badly in life is not in fact a matter of how hard you work.

That, and the idea that there’s always a right answer are probably the worst contributions of public schools to society.

Because they’re put in people’s brains when they’re really, really young.

Depending on what pursuit you’re involved in, your IQ might be secondary to your ability to focus; your memory; your ability to keep doing a boring task day after day; your organizational skills; your ability to see colors; your ability to hear notes… I could go on. None of these are strictly speaking IQ (though they can influence it.)

And your ability to work hard at writing a novel almost for sure won’t correlate to your ability to work hard at investing, or picking investments or even (groan) advertising. (Ask me how I know.)

Thinking “I’m smart and had good grades, I can be a millionaire” a stupid thing to do until your mid thirties when you realize “I don’t even want to live like that.”

Imagine how much stupider it is to think “I don’t want to work/live like that, but I should be given half of that person’s millions because he/she does or is.”

Yeah.

In the end, equity destroys everything because it’s the opposite of meritocracy. You should have the prestige of the job, even if you can’t do it. You should have the rewards of a top athlete even if you have two left (eh) feet.

And in the end the rewards aren’t even alike. They keep going to the “good boys and girls” who parrot the line and play victim best. (As we have reason to remember.)

Equity is a good way to starve everyone. Because growing food is harder than having an A on a test. It’s also far more important.

Will they succeed in putting it in every school? Well, they’re getting suburban parents to rebel.

But that doesn’t mean they will realize what a bad idea it is. They were told that everyone is the same. (Not that everyone should have the same opportunities, but that everyone IS the SAME) and that any disparate results are the fault of “isms” and “white supremacy.”

This means they’re going to go crazier and crazier in pursuit of a mythical result of everyone being exactly the same.

In the end we win, they lose.

But the damage on the way there is going to be horrifying. Keep yourself and yours safe. The waters are about to get rough.

Book promo

If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE. That helps defray my time cost of about 2 hours a day on the blog, time probably better spent on fiction. ;)*

A couple of years ago, I woke up with a very silly vignette of a story-ling in my mind. This got written as “The Rain of Frog.” After that, whenever I was depressed, or just tired of the news, I’d write another very very odd story, and put it up.

I haven’t done that in some years, and while you guys clamored for me to publish it as a book, it’s really short, and I let it drag. It’s sat, completely edited, on my desk for …. five months, I think.

I finally managed to get it published, and it’s up now. I haven’t checked if the paper version is available, and I promise to make it available on other stores, as well this week.

For now it is only on Amazon. The cover is by the very nice and talented Caitlin Walsh, who has hung out among you reprobates for many years, and who let me beg/push/annoy her into making me a cover.

FROM SARAH A. HOYT: Odd Magics: Tales for the Lost

Odd Magics
This is a very strange collection of fairytales, recast for modern life. In it the prize isn’t always to the fairest, the
magic is rarely to the strongest.
But lonely introverts do find love, women who never gave it a thought find themselves at the center of romance.
Doing what’s right will see you to the happily ever after.
And sometimes you have to kiss an accountant to find your prince.

FROM M. C. A. HOGARTH: Dragon’s Fealty

When he attended their wedding in summer, Lisinthir Lauvet Imthereli, Third of the Chatcaavan Empire, promised his cousins they would see him in spring for the birth of his heirs on Eldritch soil, and to attend the birth of theirs. He returns to a world and a people reviving from their long winter: a new navy; the rescue of their suffering acreage; and the burgeoning of a tenant culture revolving around the new communications and travel networks.

But a prince and a culture aren’t the only things making their return. When a mistake made in the summer season comes back to haunt them, Lisinthir will discover himself torn between warring allegiances… and someone else will have to pay the price. Will their enemies succeed in blighting the promise of the season?

FROM SABRINA CHASE: One Blood

(Sequel to The Scent of Metal)
After freeing the AI ship Argo from the ice of Pluto, Lea and her team race for the prison planet Beredul to free the Wiyert trapped there. The planet conceals vital information about the aliens that enslaved the Wiyert–and now threaten Earth. Little time remains to protect humanity. A handful of escaped Wiyert, desperate to rescue their people, offer to guide the team. With their help, Argo’s formidable power, and Lea’s unique mental abilities, they hope to penetrate Beredul’s defenses without detection.

They must trek on foot for days across the war-torn surface, pursued by gigantic, nightmare predators to reach the nearest Wiyert stronghold.

And then the hard part begins. Everything on Beredul conceals a dark past…even the terrifying beasts that roam the planet. Disturbing intelligence reaches the alien civilization, triggering an investigation.

The Wiyert have learned caution through harsh experience, and something about the humans from Earth arouses their suspicions. They know too much—and do impossible things. Can the Wiyert trust them with their lives?

Trust always comes at a price, and that price may be too high to pay…

FROM TONY ANDARIAN: The Return of the Horde: Dawn of Chaos 2 – Hell Gate, Part I (Sanctum of the Archmage)

A new constitution prepares Carlissa for an era of enlightenment. The harsh traditions of the past fade, and a promise of freedom stirs the air.

In the space of one terrifying day, that promise is shattered in a bloodbath of fire and magic.

Thousands of years ago, an epic battle was fought between good and evil. The demon lords had opened a door to the realms of hell itself, and their horde threatened to overrun the earth. But the Kalarans, led by the hero Calindra, destroyed their hellgate and drove them from the world.

The Great War has long since been lost to myth and legend. The Church struggles for relevance as the people forget their covenant with the gods. A renaissance of freedom and learning stirs the air in the modern age of Carlissa, led by the royal family, and the wisdom of the Archmage.

All of that comes to an end when a dome of shimmering magic appears in the capital city.

The people fight desperately to survive the chaos that follows, and wonder bitterly why the gods seem to have abandoned them. Their only hope lies with the magic of the Archmage — and his, with a young princess who never wanted to rule. She must find the strength to set aside her bard’s calling and take up a battle against impossible odds, or surrender her land and people to the Black Magus and his demons.

In The Return of the Horde, the Demon Horde returns to Carlissa with the opening of the Hell Gate. Can the land’s heroes survive its sudden and brutal onslaught? And even if they do, can they stop it from conquering the world?Sanctum of the Archmage, Volume One – Dawn of Chaos
Dawn of Chaos, Book 2: Hell Gate
Hell Gate, Part I – The Return of the Horde

Note: An earlier version of this book appeared as part of the novel Dawn of Chaos, published briefly on Amazon in 2017. That book has now been re-written and expanded into a series of six novella-length installments.

FROM FRANK J. FLEMING: Hellbender

Doug wasn’t sure whether he should trust Satan.

The red flag was that he said he was Satan. But the deal was good: Listen to Satan’s story in exchange for some donuts. And Doug only half-fulfilled his part of the bargain.

But maybe he should have listened better, because during his friend Bryce’s next scheme (theft with light to moderate treason—the usual), Doug and the rest of his friends—Lulu (the fun one) and Charlene (the not fun one)—end up with a powerful artifact, a small metal cube with world-ending power that Lulu decorated with bunnies. And now everyone wants the bunny cube, which means Doug, Bryce, Lulu, and Charlene are being pursued by an insane supermodel general, an army of sadists, a vast criminal organization, a smaller, more-in-startup-mode criminal organization, and an unstoppable killing machine—the worst kind of killing machine.

Doug and his friends may be a bunch of losers who aren’t particularly smart or good at anything, but they have one thing going for them: a really cool name for their mercenary group. And now it’s up to Hellbender to save the world—well, what’s left of it. It’s pretty ruined and war-torn already. But, you know, they live there, so they kind of need it.

It’s a mess, but that’s what you get for listening to Satan. Or half-listening.

BY ED LACY, WITH FOREWORD BY D. JASON FLEMING: Blonde Bait (Annotated): A hard-boiled noir thriller

Mickey Whalen lived on his boat and bummed around the Caribbean all by himself, until he found a woman alone, on a sandbar, with a suitcase full of money. He fell for her, hard, even as he was trying to figure out who, or what, the hell she was running from!

FROM ALMA BOYKIN: Hairballs (A Cat Among Dragons Story)

“Gee, Rada, what could go wrong?” Plenty, as it turns out.

Join Rada, Yori, and other Adamantine Division Scouts as they rediscover why bars are not the best place to find inspiration.

A Cat Among Dragons short story, 4500 words.

FROM MICHAEL HOOTEN: A Bard Without a Star.

Gwydion ap Don is a talented harpist, and a known rogue. His uncle Math sees something more: a young man with the magical talent to succeed him as Lord Gwynedd. But to learn magic, Gwydion will also have to learn self-control, duty, honor, and the martial arts. He’s not sure which will be the hardest.

And when his training in magic begins in earnest, how he sees the whole world will change, as well as how he sees himself. He will have to battle bandits, cattle raiders, and armies in his efforts to learn how to be a leader. But mostly he will have to learn how to control himself, which is the one battle he is not sure he can win.

This volume contains the first three eBooks in the Bard Without a Star series: Wizard’s Heir, The Two Tanists, and The Bardic Academy.

FROM BLAKE SMITH: Lyddie Hartington: Galaxy Sleuth

Facing poverty after a childhood among the wealthy and powerful, Lyddie Hartington decamps to Ceres, a newly colonized planet on the edges of the galaxy. Armed only with a change of clothes, a letter of introduction to the directors of the Andromeda Company, and a blaster, she is determined to make her fortune.

But Ceres is nothing like Orion-14, and before she knows it, Lyddie is witness to a murder- a murder that goes to the heart of the Andromeda Company and puts her life in danger. With the help of her new friend, an entirely too handsome captain of the Galaxy Watch, she must discover the murderer and solve the mystery of her family’s downfall.

If she can survive long enough to do it.

FROM CELIA HAYES: Lone Star Glory: Continuing the Entertaining and Mostly If Not Always True Adventures of Texas Ranger Jim Reade and his Blood Brother Delaware Scout Toby … Republic of Texas

Time and place? The Republic of Texas, at mid-19th century
Who and what? Texas Ranger Jim Reade, and his Delaware blood brother, Toby Shaw – tasked with solving puzzles, finding the missing, guiding the clueless, and protecting the innocent!
“So,” Toby observed, an hour and a half later. “What have you seen, from this?”
The two of them stood, a few steps from a crude scarecrow cross-frame of poles, from which hung an extremely ragged linen shirt, formerly belonging to Elisha Reade – a shirt from which some small patches had been cut to mend items of a newer vintage. But there was enough of it remaining to serve, hanging from the cross-pole thrust through the sleeves, as a target for Jim’s trusty Paterson revolvers … A good few shots had been at close range. As close as the range in which Jon Knightley had exchanged – or claimed to have exchanged – revolver-fire with his wife.
“A curiosity which I had already suspected,” Jim replied. He was tired. His shoulders slumped, and his ears rang from the frequent report of his revolvers. “Jon Knightley murdered his wife – his latest wife…”

Lone Star Glory – continuing the adventures of Texas Ranger Jim Reade and his blood-brother Toby Shaw of the Delaware, in the Texas of legend!

FROM AMANDA S. GREEN: Night of the Wolf: A Nocturnal Lives Prequel

Mackenzie Santos has seen it all as a police detective–or so she thought. The last thing she wants after closing one of the worst cases of her career is to go out to celebrate her birthday. But she promised and maybe Jenny was right. Maybe having dinner and drinks with her best friend would help put the horror of the case behind her. Soon she will soon learn she should have listened to her gut. Nightmares do come true and monsters really do exist. And, on this night of the full moon, she is the prey.

This expanded story was originally released as Wolf’s Prey.

FROM LAURA MONTGOMERY: Fractional Ownership

When his company demands either a move to Mars or the loss of his job,
perpetual plaintiff Lewis Ostrow finds he can’t even get a ticket to
the world without lawyers.

A short story.

Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: BROTHER