According To Hoyt

*First of all, a blessed Easter to those celebrating, and for those who celebrated Passover this week, I hope you passed dry shod from slavery to freedom. And now, the promo!- SAH.*

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, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. By clicking through and buying (anything book-related, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE.*Note that I haven’t read most of these books (my reading is eclectic and “craving led”,) and apply the usual cautions to buying. I reserve the right not to run any submission, if cover, blurb or anything else made me decide not to, at my sole discretion. Remember though all of these submissions are from people willing to be associated with this blog. So if you’re trying to buy from people who don’t hate you, this is a good place to start.– SAH

FROM SARAH A. HOYT, ON PRE-ORDER COMING OUT APRIL 23: Witch’s Daughter

Some letters come from the living. Some come from the dead. This one comes with a formula that turns a rowboat into a miracle.

Seventeen-year-old Lord Michael Ainsling — youngest brother of the Duke of Darkwater, builder of mechanical marvels, survivor of fairyland — receives a letter from a man sixteen years dead. The inventor Tristram Blakley has not perished; he has been imprisoned by his own genius and begs the one mind in all of Avalon brilliant enough to understand his work to set him free. All Michael has to do is find seven missing brothers first and walk a magical path..

Fifteen-year-old Albinia Blakley has spent her whole life under her mother’s iron thumb — and her mother is a witch. The day Al finally escapes down a rope of knotted sheets, she lands in a world she doesn’t recognize, with no money, no magic kit, and no idea that the stranger who catches her is about to become her greatest ally.

Together, a girl with more secrets than she knows and a boy who builds machines that try to murder him must outwit a sorceress, navigate the treacherous courts of Fairyland, and unravel an enchantment years in the making — before a family is lost for good.

Witch’s Daughter is a gaslamp fantasy brimming with wit, warmth, and wonder, for readers who love their magic wrapped in velvet and their adventures served with morning tea.

WITH A STORY BY L. JAGI LAMPLIGHTER: Amelia: Counterrevolution

The UK gambled.

The UK lost.

The right people won.

That didn’t backfire at all.

In a critical moment for British society, the UK government created, not a video game, but a propaganda tool intended to prevent youth from being “radicalized.” In the most stunning of unintended consequences, that game introduced to the world Amelia, now a digital icon for the conservative ideas the creators feared as having too much influence.

Amelia: Counterrevolution is an anthology of Tales from the Lemurverse, celebrating irony, farce, and the embrace of Western civilization, culture and history that the Amelia meme has now triggered world-wide. In Amelia: Counterrevolution, readers will find a varied, entertaining approach to the latest internet phenomenon.

FROM TALEENA SINCLAIR: Everything Beautiful In Its Time

Everything Beautiful In Its Time

A Collection of Poetry

In Everything Beautiful In Its Time, the ancient rhythms of nature interweave with timeless spiritual wisdom to create a contemplative journey through both calendar and conscience. This collection moves from the observable world—spring’s capricious winds, summer’s dappled light, autumn’s memory-harvest, winter’s patient stillness—into deeper territories of the heart where biblical wisdom meets personal experience.

Drawing inspiration from Ecclesiastes’ meditation these poems explore the appointed times of human experience: birth and death, planting and harvest, mourning and dancing, silence and speech. Through intimate narratives of family, marriage, and faith, the collection traces how divine purpose unfolds in particular moments—a child’s escape from garden labor, the forgiveness cycle walked along Pacific Northwest cliffs, the gamble of loving deeply.

Rich with sensory detail and anchored in place, these poems speak to anyone seeking meaning in both the sweetness and sorrow that come to every table life spreads before us.

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: Never Bind a Fox

If you inherited an antique puzzle box from your world-traveling uncle, would you open it? And if you did, what would you do with the things you found inside it?

Everything started when Terry inherited just such a box, beautifully lacquered with images of foxes. With some help from his buddies, he was able to get it open and discover the treasure inside it: a plate, a comb, and a tiny booklet in Japanese. For a group of college students more accustomed to art-book grimoires and cosplay-prop wizards’ trunks, it seemed like great fun to act out the spell that little booklet described.

Then Yumiko showed up. Cute, cheerful, and a cook like none of them had ever known, she seemed like a dream come true. But then things started getting very strange….

FROM LINDSAY PETERSEN: Shadow Chasers: Steampunk Excursions to View the 1878 Eclipse

A once-in-a-lifetime experience! Adventure you’ll never forget! Irresistible – to some.
In 1878 a solar eclipse was predicted, the shadow’s path to sweep from Alaska across the Rocky Mountains, promising an enthralling event guaranteed to strike envy into the hearts of others for the rest of your life. But how to get to the edge of the frontier safely?
Victoria Bearskin of the Wyandotte tribe and a student in Vassar’s astronomy program is forbidden to go. Nofina Nolana, an oyster pirate scoundrel from San Francisco orders his crew to hijack a ship to Juneau – which turns out to be Captain Nemo’s long-lost Nautilus submarine. From New Orleans Lurie and Clark ride paddle steamers up the mighty rivers of America’s heart to preserve images of the event.
While all eyes are on their sweet moments in moonshadow they overlook chance encounters with bad men, big animals and birthin’ babies. After all that, who would emerge from the mad gambles?
All learn there are no promises in this life, but there are second chances and new beginnings are born from once-in-a-lifetime experiences.
A stand-alone novelette of 14,000 words by Lindsay Petersen.

FROM FAY ELLEN GRAETZ: Brave New Farm

BRAVE NEW FARM chronicles the family of Rose and Sonya, guardians of the Anders’ generations-old homestead in the rolling hills of the Midwest.
The sisters are thrust into a contentious debate when they learn the government chose Greenleaf Township as a test site for clean energy production.
The entire farming community is at odds, pitting families in need of a financial windfall against those who choose to protect the pastoral environment at all costs.
When tragedy strikes Rose, the balance of power shifts and resentments fester.
Suspicions arise after another “farm accident.”
If justice is served, who will be left to tend the farm?
Who will mind the legacy of the homestead?

FROM NATHAN C. BRINDLE: The Cross-Time Kamaitachi (Timelines Universe Book 5)

I did not land here as a warrior, but a warrior I so soon became . . .

One moment, Dr. Yukiko Yamaguchi was in her high-tech singularity research lab in California, busily adjusting an electronically-leaky fitting playing hell with her instrument readings.

The next moment, she was falling through space, and landing hard in a wilderness area she would quickly discover was her family’s ancient stomping grounds in Japan – but with an apocalyptic twist.

A hundred years later, there would be legends of a great yōkai, a demon, whom some called a kamaitachi – a sort-of whirlwind, weasel-like creature with blades for claws, which catches up unwary humans and slices their skin. But this kamaitachi is no ordinary yōkai – rather, she is

The Cross-Time Kamaitachi

FROM HOLLY CHISM: Bar Tabs: A Modern Gods Story

Brief back stories on the characters from the Modern Gods universe.

FROM MARY CATELLI: The Enchanted Princess Wakes

Once upon a time, a princess was cursed at her christening — but not the one you heard of.

When the fairy decreed that Rosaleen would fall into an enchanted sleep, and how she would wake, the grand plans of kings, to unite kingdoms, failed. They sent her to an out-of-the-way castle in the mountains, in hopes the curse would do no harm to anyone else.

There, alone, Rosaleen lived and learned, and realized that she herself had to be ready to face the curse, and when it broke.

FROM JOE HUFFER: Suburban Moon: The Autobiography of Sam Wyatt (Hoosier Flats Book 2)

Sam Wyatt wasn’t always a lonely, one-legged drunk clinging to the dim light of the suburban moon. Once he was a husband, father, and a man who believed the world still held room for hope. Losing his wife shattered that world, and the year that followed buried him in bourbon, bitterness, and memories that cut as sharply as they comfort.

When a new neighbor with troubles of her own moves in next door, Sam is forced out of the bare existence he has lived in for too long. Their budding friendship forces Sam to face the hardest truth of all: If he wants a future he has to let go of the past.

Poignant, funny, brutally honest, and deeply human, Suburban Moon is a sweeping story of grief, redemption, and love. For anyone who has ever lost deeply, loved fiercely, or wondered if second chances happen — this is a story that stays with you long after the last page.

Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

So what’s a vignette? You might know them

someone be a better writer, not at crushing them.

And since these are likely to be drafts, don’t jump up and down too hard on typos and

grammar.If you have questions, feel free to ask. 

Your writing prompt this week is: Canvas

*I hope Caroline doesn’t mine my revealing that she’s a member of the Chinchilla of Hope group. This group of insane people cheered me through No Man’s Land and convinced me I shouldn’t in fact give the project up because “it will never sell.” As we know they were right. How they got their name was because I threaten them with Chinelos (the Portuguese version of chancla) when they misbehave. One of them is tragically dyslexic — I’ll let her out herself IF she wishes — and so got this as “chinchilla”. Next thing I know, I’m moping and she’s threatening me with the chinchilla of hope.
As such things do, it took wing, and now members of the Chinchilla of hope are writing stories. Caroline posted a tiny bit of this as a throw away thing, and I asked her to write the full story. Here it is! (You’re welcome.)

Geronimo for Hope! -by Caroline Furlong

Nose twitching in the waning light, Geronimo held his stick still, willing his whiskers not to move. The rest of the 15^th Hope Regiment were in the trees, waiting for his signal.

Winter clung to the land even though spring’s first breath brushed the grass and trees. By far, the grass was in better condition, with the trees still mostly naked. A few had buds sprouting on them here, and up the street a couple of ornamental pears had already bloomed, their snowy flowers missed in the mass of gray by all but the most attentive humans.

The sky had begun to gray over. It wasn’t a natural gray, not at all, and certainly not in the afternoon of a nascent spring day. Rain wasn’t due today, they had checked with the air sprites. That had been…interesting. Dealing with the Fair Folk often was, but these sprites had tested everyone’s patience with their forgetfulness. Poor Corporal Terrence had barely avoided shouting, he became so frustrated.

Flighty things, air sprites. Must come with the territory, Geronimo decided, scanning the ground. Sniffing, he tried to see if he could scent their prey.

No good, there was no wind. This gray mist over the sky was all the warning they were likely to get.

His chinchillas were good, though. They wouldn’t so much as twitch without the signal. Hope Corps knew they could rely on Geronimo’s regiment to get the job done, with minimal to no casualties, too. Not that he liked to rely on or brag about that; he had worked his way up through the ranks from Felix’s squad. Bragging tempted fate and made chinchillas less likely to watch their tails. Some pride was warranted – they did good work. But too much was bad for everyone, especially their clients.

Today’s client was a Mrs. Halifax, a codename, for safety’s sake. In this case, the target seemed to be Mrs. Halifax’s oldest son. He wasn’t doing well – not seeing friends, barely leaving his room, constantly arguing with his sister and brother. The latter wasn’t entirely unusual for a young teen boy but combined with the rest, it was cause for concern.

Mr. Halifax had tried talking to his son, several times. It had seemed to work, only then he had been deployed, and what progress had been made had slipped away. The Black Dog had returned with greater power than before.

So far it appeared there was only one dog. They had done recon, of course. Geronimo wasn’t going to risk his chinchillas’ tails like that. Regiments that didn’t get the lay of the land were asking to lose members. If it was necessary to rescue a client, then he would accept the loss. Otherwise, no.

Geronimo swept his eyes over the gray/brown ground between the trees. Lawns were showing green more than these areas, where last year’s leaves still lay deep and thick. Squirrels, those annoying cousins of his race, raced across the ground, setting up a cacophony and making hearing difficult. Blast those daft creatures, couldn’t they do their kinoodling some other time…?

Almost as he thought that, the squirrels paused. Held still, except for the odd flash of a tail. Geronimo felt his chinchillas tense.

Squirrels took off, bolting for holes or climbing up trees. A stealthy shadow moved over the ground, hardly disturbing the leaves beneath his paws. That was the trouble with Black Dogs. Unless they were looking for them, humans couldn’t see them. Sense them, hear them, yes – if they paid attention. Most didn’t because the aura a Dog brought in its wake only magnified the lies they whispered in their heads.

Unaffected by the squirrels’ panic, his chinchillas readied themselves. Branches didn’t move as paws gripped, relaxed, then gripped again. Teeth flashed in grimaces or grins while fur fluffed or smoothed down, each member of his regiment preparing ahead of their jump.

After a quick look at his men, Geronimo zeroed in on the Dog again for a better look. He blinked. Oh, he knew this one!

Wagging an ear, then another, Geronimo raised the stick. His chinchillas caught the message, shifting minutely. The Dog continued on, looking nothing so much like a pitch-black Doberman that had been on a diet of meat. He was thickly muscled and bore himself like a king.

Light seemed not to touch him, except where his eyes were concerned. Now they burned almost black but in the dark they would be coals of red. Geronimo grinned, remembering the last time he had looked into those eyes.

The Dog walked beneath the regiment, and Geronimo dropped the stick.

Dark eyes tracked toward the sound the stick made when it landed in the leaves and so the Dog didn’t see the 15^th Hope Regiment jump, the glamour falling from their pink suits. Pink would not have been Geronimo’s first choice for a color, but it always caught the enemy off-guard. Tended to send some Black Dogs running with their tails between their legs, too, which did help with missions occasionally.

But this time their prey was too slow. By the time the Dog looked up they were on him, cutting loose from their parachutes with the ululating war cries that caused humans to say “Aww!”, Fae to wince, and Black Dogs to fall to the ground whimpering.

While his ears pinched and he shook, this Dog was too strong to simply fall. He put up a good image of a fight, snapping and whirling even as Scathlock and Pip landed on his collar. Some were thrown off but not with such force that they risked harm.

They made it look good, though. Had to. If word got back to the Dogs, he would be in trouble. Geronimo himself howled out another war cry as he didn’t bother deploying the parachute, jumping and aiming for the snapping jaw.

He hit him with enough force to stun and then hung on as the rest of the Regiment swarmed up and onto the Dog’s back. Each of them swelled in size, feeding off one another’s triumph and strength, rallying with cheers and encouragement. It was enough to make the Dog stumble, his knees buckling. He tried to stand up….

Zena was faster. Geronimo’s second in command had retrieved the stick and now used it to open a portal directly to headquarters. A foolish move, if this had been any other Dog, but perfectly safe with this one.

They landed in the base’s deployment bay as Rufus fell to his belly, huffing a laugh. “You got me,” he wheezed, eyes flashing bright as he finally grinned. “Mind getting off so I can breathe, at least?”

Geronimo hopped off his snout. Most of the Regiment followed suit, but some clung to Rufus regardless – including that scamp, Pip. Geronimo glared at him but his nephew grinned back and dug his claws in. With an annoyed eyeroll, Geronimo accepted his stick back from Zena as the team’s sorceress passed it on. “What’s the situation, Rufus?”

“Boy’s dissatisfied with his life,” the Dog rumbled, shaking his head sadly. “Can’t entirely blame him, he’s being bullied at school. Won’t tell his parents, thinks he should handle it himself.”

“Friends?” Zena asked, materializing a pen, clipboard, and paper in her paws.

“None bigger or stronger than he is,” Rufus said, settling on his haunches. That caused most of those who had hung on to finally slide off, but Pip used it as the opportunity to climb higher and settle on the Dog’s shoulder. “They’re at more risk than he is. It’s part of why he’s being bullied. He’s protecting them.”

Whistling through his teeth, Geronimo looked over Zena’s shoulder as she dashed off the information. “Going to need Randy and his Specialists for this, I think,” he told her. The Hope Corps had Regiments to fight Black Dogs and Specialists to deal with purely human problems. Most got into position by acting as pets, but others found different ways to help humans more directly. Randy and his team were particularly good at it.

Nodding, Zena looked up at Rufus. “Anything else we should know?” she asked.

“If you don’t get him help quick, Command’s going to send a whole pack,” Rufus said grimly. “They know if they push the kid, they get more than despair. They get him dead at least, a lot of others hurt or dead at worst.”

“Our information suggests he’s stronger than that,” Sergeant Terrence said, frowning.

Rufus’ smile had no humor but also no menace. Just a weary sadness. “Even better, as far as they’re concerned. If they can’t break him, they get to train pups on him – and maybe spread influence to the ones he’s protecting.”

“Put a priority note in there for Randy,” Geronimo growled. “Thanks, Rufus. You were the one assigned…?”

“The only one,” Rufus confirmed, nodding. “I did my best, made sure to keep it down, but…he’s in a bad way, Ger. You need to get people on it, now.”

Geronimo made a sharp gesture and Zena put the clipboard in her mouth before taking off for the elevator that would bring her up directly to the General. He refocused on Rufus. “And how long has it been since you were, ah, in our custody?” he asked the Dog.

Ears drooping, Rufus let his exhaustion show as he bent his head so they could look one another in the eye. “Too long. Geronimo, please. I don’t think I can go back.”

“I told you last time there might not be any more fight left in you,” he said gruffly. Then Geronimo moved forward to put a paw on his leg. “Talk to the General. We can work something out, I’m sure. Some of your brothers are meant to keep up the fight, but you’ve more Dog than Black in you. Let Zelie do her work while we talk with the Powers That Be about arranging a home for you.”

A sigh whooshed out of the canine’s mouth, ruffling his fur. The big Dog nodded and his ears perked up. “Zelie’s back in charge?” he asked.

“Did I hear someone call my name?” a voice caroled – literally. Zelie’s shouts were almost always pitched with magic to ring around a room to get attention, mostly because even by chinchilla standards, she was tiny.

Rolling his eyes, Geronimo turned toward her, putting his paws on his hips as the Regiment and all the other workers in the deployment bay parted for Zelie and her troop of makeup artists. All wore feathers, makeup, beads, or ribbons in one or another shade of pink. The diminutive figure at their head wrinkled her nose at Geronimo before turning her face up to Rufus. “Dahling, it has been too long! You look awful, this won’t do! What do you want this time? The full treatment? Or the Special?”

“Special,” Rufus answered as Pip, seeing his aunt had come and not wanting his own makeover, slid down from the Dog’s shoulders. The rest of the miscreants had scattered long before.

Geronimo reached out and snatched the boy’s ear, causing him to yip as Rufus stood up. “Do you have any more of that hot pink nail polish? Please tell me you have that same raspberry conditioner….”

“You’re in luck!” Geronimo’s sister said, eyes sparkling. “We just got a new delivery. LADIES!” she sing-songed louder. “We are running the Special! I need the hot pink nail polish, the rosette bow, raspberry conditioner – and a perm?” she asked, squinting up at Rufus. When the big dog nodded she snapped her fingers. “Hup hup! Daylight is burning! Move it, ladies!”

Murmuring, the chinchillas behind her soon had Rufus surrounded as they ushered him down the hall to the private baths. Thankfully, those were reserved only for agents or defectors, so he would be safe. If they put him in with the regular captives, it’d be a slaughter.

None of which made Geronimo shake his nephew any less firmly, still holding him by the ear. “And what did you mean by that tomfoolery, you chipmunk?” he growled at Pip. “You know protocol dictated that once he’d let his head down and gotten the despair out of his chest, you were supposed to get off.”

“But it wasn’t all gone!” Pip yelped. “I –”

“You,” Geronimo growled, “are lucky you’re getting KP duty and that I didn’t let Zelie take you to the baths.”

The young chinchilla gulped, then looked up at his uncle, determined. “We’re supposed to bring hope to everyone. Sir.”

“Hmph,” Geronimo said, finally letting go of his ear to glare at him. Pip winced and rubbed the ear, then looked up at his uncle defiantly. “I think it’s time I had a talk with Randy,” Geronimo told him grudgingly. “He was right, all those years ago. You’re Specialist material, not Regiment.”

Pip’s ears fell, then lifted, his eyes lighting bright. Geronimo couldn’t hide a smile. After all, they were the Hope Corps, and they were in fact meant to bring hope to everyone. His nephew qualified as part of “everyone.”

Which didn’t mean he got off lightly. “Report for KP duty, stat,” he barked at the youth. “I want tonight’s nuts peeled better than they ever have been. Then we’ll see, once Randy gets done with his assignment for the Halifax boy, if he’ll take your ungrateful hide into his unit.”

Chest puffing out, Pip saluted. “Sir!”

(And if you’re curious, this is Caroline’s Author page on Amazon.)

As we know, this little assembly that gathers here semi-regularly, we’re all heartless.

Just listen to the left any day — and dear Lord, all day on Sunday. Don’t they have a life? — and you’ll find our positions come from the fact that we are, all of us, absolutely uncaring of what happens to whosoever the current “downtrodden” group that’s always “most affected” by whatever happens.

To wit, we don’t want government to pay for everyone’s health care. (I’m told women and children most affected.) We don’t want open borders and importing the poor and crazy of the sh*tholes of the world onto our land. We don’t think we should accommodate the “homeless” by letting them camp, sh*t and feraly attack people in public. Instead we’d like to see city regulations on vagrancy — from 1910 — sternly enforced, vigorous encouragement to get treatment for addiction, very vigorous mental health initiatives and let private charity pick up the rest. We think anyone stealing, murdering or raping should be punished to the heaviest extent of the law. Oh, yeah, and barring assistance on some very specific disasters, we don’t think we should be sending pallets of US taxpayer cash to “poorer” or “more needy” countries.

Therefore, we clearly don’t care about women, children, the elderly, immigrants, people of other colors (in my case not caring about people of other colors, depending on how you squint means not caring for white people,) the “unhoused”, we despise people suffering from “substance abuse”, we don’t understand the pressures society puts on criminals, and we want foreigners to die screaming.

I might be missing one or two groups we’re supposed to hate, in there. Oh, yeah, because we generally don’t want sex-f*ckery be it transitioning or indoctrination into all sorts of kink and fetishes done to people under the age of reason we’re also sexist, homophobic, transphobic, kinkophobic (I made that up) and repressive prudes.

In fact, the honest to G-d truth is that we’re bleeding hearts, each and everyone of us. We’re just bleeding hearts that think, instead of jumping from whatever propaganda image of kiddies with big tearful eyes is being shoved in our faces that moment.

Before I start this, I want to make one thing VERY clear: Although some functions, like the confinement of the irredeemably insane or intractably criminal MIGHT have to be done by the government and although things liek border enforcement BELONG to the government — government IS force, after all — in general, grosso modo, I prefer solutions that don’t involve the government. And if we have to involve the government, I prefer it be small, local and extremely well aware that its victims citizens know where government officials live, making torches is not that hard and any garden center has pitchforks aplenty.

There is a reason for this beyond my being — DUH — governmentophobic. You see, the further from you the government is, and the larger its apparatus is, the more it has to relie on bureaucracy for whom each citizen becomes a number on a colum.

And that kind of thing — ALWAYS — ends up with considering humans for their practical, material value. Let’s face it, a lot of us, (including me) when it comes to value to a distant, tax-farming government, are only suited to be fertilizer. And it always ends up in that. Always. The kind of shenanigans the Germans got up to in second world war ALWAYS happen in a government that’s too big and out of control, regardless of its alleged philosophy.

Being a bleeding heart, I oppose big government and all its works, and its false glamor, and its empty promises. Remember that as you read the following, since for some functions we still do need government, and I bitterly have to assent to that. For instance the defense of our borders is specified in the constitution. And just because we were assaulted with weaponized human waves it doesn’t mean it wasn’t an invasion and a novel weapon to deploy against a country which is stronger than all of them combined.

So, in order, I oppose so called “universal health care” on the government dime. You’d think after the horrors we’ve seen from Europe and Canada — ranging from children being denied treatment and their parents prevented from seeking treatment abroad, to euthanasia of the poor and depressed — you’d think this would be self-obvious.

Yes, medical treatment is very expensive, a lot of people go into debt to save their lives, etc. etc. etc. But giving it over to the government is ALWAYS the wrong way. It is at its most basic stopping belonging to yourself and belonging to the government. He who pays the piper calls the shots, which is what we’ve seen over and over again.

No, I don’t have infinite money for health care, or even as much money as Elon Musk, but I should be able to choose the options I can have, and how much I’m willing to sacrifice for it.

My bet, because each person’s health matters most to each person, is that overall returning choice — real choice — to the people, getting government money and government insanity out of health care would save lives. And I’m a bleeding heart. I want to minimize suffering. I want more people to be healthy.

I don’t want us to keep our borders open to the suffering multitudes of the world, because — honestly — there’s nothing for them to do here, other than draw welfare. Oh, lawns and such, sure, but they’re not actually NEEDED for that. They’re taking that work away from local teens that the government for… reasons… decided no longer should be allowed to work.

But what I meant is there is not the kind of work they can do that will lift them out of their wretched condition, allow them to integrate fully and be able to be as productive as our citizens are or can be. Look, the beginning of the twentieth century gave a lot of people a lot of wrong ideas. The wretched multitudes of Europe didn’t need to be skilled or even speak English to do line work in factories. And that work was, back then, valuable enough to allow them to rise and integrate.

Now it’s no such thing. The people we need are highly specialized and far fewer than we’re raining H1Bs on (that’s a weird scam to maximize profits and control over workers, and though a subset of this nonsense, is its own post, eventually.)

What they do is create a vast indigestible group dependent on welfare and (because illegal) various illegal scams and schemes for simple survival. Which is bad for the whole country.

BUT it goes well beyond that. The open border is demonstrably bad for the people coming in. Not taking in account that most women, girls, and a not inconsiderable amount of boys get raped on the way here, a lot of them are basically imported as slave labor.

That link is just one instance. There are countless others, even though no one is looking into. And yes, I know that’s from Canada, but it’s the same here. People arrive to the US in debt for their “fare” to be smuggled in, and have to work in indentured labor to pay it back. And even though the work they can do isn’t particularly valuable, you can still turn a profit if you treat them like slaves. Various criminal organizations DO. (Anyone remembers the kids rounded up working on POT FARMS in California?) And that’s if you’re lucky. For women and children the great danger is sexual slavery. If you think that the open borders didn’t start a river of that, you are dreaming.

It’s bitterly funny that the people who obsess about past slavery are creating the conditions for slavery in this country at this time. “Undocumented” — what a ridiculous word, as though they’d forgotten their drivers license in the other purse — people are people ripe for the taking, exploiting, abusing and worse by bad elements in society. They’re not officially here. No one knows where they are. They have no ties. Read up on serial killers. This is what their dream victims are made of. It’s what every bad guy’s dream victims are made of.

The administration of the Bidentia created more slavery and oppressive conditions than any time since that small disagreement between North and South.

I’m a bleeding heart. I don’t think people should be enslaved, exploited, raped, tortured and ill treated. I say close the borders and keep close track of everyone who comes in.

This by the way doesn’t take in account what the foolishness did to other countries, the countries of origin, many of whom lost all their young people. Who also came here for what turns out to be a lesser future.

Send them home. It’s the bleeding heart thing to do. In their culture, where they belong, they’ll have a better chance to thrive. Yes, some of those places are hellholes, but who should change that other than their young and dynamic population? Yes, I know it’s not guaranteed, but at least they’d have a chance.

As for the homeless, a friend pointed out yesterday the horrors of life for them. Just utter danger and hunger and disease and all the problems of raw, barbaric humanity.

We treat diseased dogs and cats better. Look, as much as I want to respect people’s civil liberties, etc, the problem we have right now is not one of “homelessness”. Or worse “unhoused.” You could give each and every one of those people a house tomorrow, and 90% of them would be back on the street in the same condition within the month if not the week.

In fact we do a deep deservice to the other 10% — some of my friends have been THAT for a time — who are genuinely homeless due to spectacular bad luck or a combination of toxic relationship/unemployment. Those people in fact can be helped and should/could be helped often by private charities, if it weren’t for the fact they get lost in the sea of the rest: the mentally ill, the drug addicted, and the inexplicable. (People who don’t seem to have any of the higher functions at all, and whether they were born that way or rendered themselves that way function at the level of animals.) THOSE people cannot be helped by throwing money at it, giving them a house or giving them a hand up.

Some percentage probably can be helped simply by refusing to let them camp in cities, letting them defecate in public, allowing them petty theft and threatening of the general population. Breaking the inertia might cause some of them to look for drug rehab programs, or such. While I do believe you should be able to put in your body whatever you want, this is predicated on — so long as you don’t force others to endure the consequences of your behavior. (For instance, prohibition was a disaster, but no one is suggesting DUI is fine.)

Others, and no one knows how many are simply a danger to themselves and others, but mostly themselves.

I hate to suggest madhouses for various reasons, but mostly because it curtails human self determination. However, there is no constitutional right to stand on the corner pissing yourself and yelling at foot traffic. Further, by doing so you are violating the rights of the people going about their lawful occasions, notably those of merchants and food vendors doing a productive job. I think it’s time to admit that throwing the mentally ill to the “community” was more throwing them AT the community with a trebuchet and it didn’t end well for anyone.

It’s time to stop throwing money at it and start looking after the people who can’t look after themselves. And yes, if we allow it and create the legal framework, a lot of this will be done by private charity. The remainder is a legitimate function of various levels of government. A lot of the mentally ill, notably a percentage of schizophrenics can be productive and relatively happy if they’re kept on medication. Unfortunately that requires a level of quasi-imprisonment to make sure the meds are taken on time, because the condition itself precludes them taking them regularly.

I’m a bleeding heart. I don’t want people rotting in street corners while still alive and dying of the most bizarre crap no one in the 21st century should die of. It’s time to bring back rehabilitation, madhouses and anti-vagrancy laws.

This incidentally also allows the poor (it’s almost always the poor) to live and work in city centers without being in fear for their property and lives.

As for criminals, I think they need to be severely enough punished to stop doing it. By criminals in this case — did I mention our penal code needs a severe pruning — I mean those who commit crimes against others. Theft, destruction of property, assault, rape, murder: all of these need to be punished swiftly and decisively. Heck, i think we should bring back public flogging and public hanging.

Some people are more prone to criminality than others. No, you’ll never prevent all of those people from doing evil. But a fear of public and horrible punishment will stop a lot of people from taking that path who would otherwise have taken it.

That not only spares those who would have been their victims, but it spares those people themselves from what is now an unproductive, unhappy and generally disordered life, in and out of jail or prison.

I’m a bleeding heart. I think it’s time to punish crime and protect the innocent.

As for sending money to all those disadvantages places as a matter of course, there is arguably a point that doing so has kept those places from developing their own industry, their own agriculture, or much of anything. We’ve made them resentful pensioners of the first world.

On top of which, look, most of those lands aren’t poor because they lack wealth but because they’re Kakistocracies and those in power steal everything.

If you send more over, you’re just giving money to the worst. And some of the worst might even be honest enough to take the money you sent them to put on an LGBTQ opera for the poor (of Bolivia!) and actually only embezzle half of it and put on the opera. Will no one think of the suffering of the public, not to mention the actors?

I’m a bleeding heart. I think we should let the working people of America keep as much as possible of their own money. And the kakistocracies abroad should be deprived of a teat to suck. Minimize unhappiness in the world.

And this is just scratching the surface of ways in which I’m a bleeding heart, so disturbed by the suffering of people that I think we need to remove every vestige of Marxism from our societies and– appropriate for the season– let the people go.

Because I’m a bleeding heart.

Recently I’ve come to realize — through extensive deep dives into the craziest internet nuthouses — that Ohio is not in fact a real state.

This was slightly disturbing since that’s where I graduated high school and met my husband.

Actually looking at that map above, I should have figured something was up. I mean I met MY HUSBAND in a state that is — look at it — vaguely in the shape of a heart. This is not even vaguely plausible.

And also, honestly, it’s the stuff associated with Ohio that makes you wonder what is going on. Because in what but an unreal state would a RIVER catch fire?

So this day of all days, I decided to do a little investigative journalism on the state — or lack thereof — of Ohio.

I spoke to several highly suspicious characters who claim some kind of relationship with Ohio.

The first was a gentleman in trench coat and dark sunglasses who was standing by a dark car in a parking lot that looked like someone had been breaking and stealing the asphalt.

Honestly, he looked like such a shady character, I got to it immediately. “When did you first realize Ohio wasn’t real?

He looked at me a long while and answered,

What?

I wasn’t about to let him off that easy, so I continued: Does the unreality of Ohio bother you?

Nah, I grew up in IA and Ohio was one of those back east schools that filled out our schedule when not playing someone important like Iowa State or Purdue

So, where do you actually live? Kentucky or Indiana?

Classified.

Are there a lot of birds there?

Shhhh….they’re listening

I was about to thank him and leave — fast — when we were approached by… Well…. I’m fairly sure it was a well known writer, one whose middle initials are R. R. Except he looked like he’d acquired a soul since the last time I’d seen him in person and he assured me he wasn’t that writer but a much better one. He gave his name as Fuzzy.

He said he’d always suspected that Ohio wasn’t real because gas was so much cheaper there than in his state of Indiana. The problem is that you have to use it all up before you reach the border, otherwise it disappears on the border.

This led me to wonder whether Ohio was a sort of fairyland.

At which point the first — very suspicious — character said he thought it was maybe a realm of dark elves, because who else thinks of putting Mediterranean spices on ground beef, put it on either hotdogs or…. pasta? and call it chilli? That’s an abomination of such an order that if they were real Texas would probably already have mounted a punitive expedition against them.

At this point a wild Canadian appeared. He was the strangest Canadian with a maple leaf on his chest painted over with stars and stripes. He said he was on a pilgrimage to find a new dwelling place, but when he drove to the US for the first time, one moment he was Michigan then he was in Kentucky and had three hours missing. So he understood the unreality of Ohio.

Which is when George– I mean Fuzzy. I swear that’s what I meant — broke in with: What are the creatures that are supposed to be under the mantle, like the Deep Sevens under the ocean? I’m spacing. But Ohio is a creation of theirs, for whatever nefarious purposes they might have. What would the native Americans have to say about it? Have they ever been to Ohio, which doesn’t exist?

The guy in the dark sunglasses and trenchcoat leaned forward and said, urgently, in a hushed whisper. “No, No. ok listen, I’m only saying this once so they don’t find me, Ohio was created as a cover story to hide the location of Hanger 18…can’t say anymore, I think they’re coming….you never heard of me or saw me, right?”

And then he disappeared. Just. One minute he was there, the next he was gone.

But the twitchy Canadian grabbed my sleeve. “It’s true. I have proof.” And slipped me the world’s grubbiest picture. Who even prints photos anymore?

By then I was thoroughly spooked and got out of there fast, having decided I’d just interview the mathematician, who spent some time in Ohio growing up and also went to college there.

Investigative journalism starts at home, on the comfy sofa, with a bowl of popcorn.

So once more I dove right into it.

When did you first realize Ohio wasn’t real?

I’ve always thought Ohio was a microcosm of the US: The north west was wild and playful, the North East was industrial and overcrowded, the South East was farmland and good old boys and the South West is mostly empty except this one pocket of technology at the southwest extreme. After a while I realized that was a little too pat.

Does it bother you that Ohio isn’t real?

They say that all the cells in your body are replaced over seven years, so a case could be made that the memories of Ohio are an illusion, which would fit with the idea that we’re all living in a simulation.

Have you ever considered the excess of snow is designed to hide the fact that Ohio is not a real state?

You mean Ohio is a state of matter like solid and liquid?

Did Ohio have a lot of birds?

Squirrels. They ate the birds. I don’t remember birds. Just squirrels.

Are the squirrels real?

I don’t know I haven’t seen black squirrels anywhere else. There’s a lot of black squirrels. They might be CIA drones.

Of course, doubting Ohio made me doubt my own existence.

So you also are a construct by the CIA? Is that what you’re confessing to?

I can neither confirm nor deny.

Um… So I’m sitting here, with my bowl of popcorn and suddenly I’m worried about Ohio, about constructs, about the nature of reality.

But more importantly, is the Mathematician a construct of the CIA? I mean I should have guessed something was up when he had a name two letters off from the main character I invented for my space opera series when I was fourteen.

… The birds have gone very quiet.

If I disappear, look in Ohio. Which doesn’t exist.

*FIRST AN ANNOUNCEMENT FOR ALL OF YOU WHO LABOR IN THE VINEYARD OF WORDS:
If you’re an indie author –fiction or non-fiction– and not afraid to be seen on my blog, post your name/facebook/twitter handle/substack site and an Amazon link to one of your books that you’d like people to read. I (actually my much abused assistant, Holly Frost) will be collecting all these for a post next Monday (April 6th), to jump start people’s Spring reading! (And give them a ready-made intro to you.) If there’s a lot of names, I’ll do them in batches at night starting on the sixth, until I’m out of names. And of course, I’ll share these posts at Instapundit for greater impact. GO. -SAH*

Yesterday a friend sent me a substack post he thought I want to share at instapundit. I did, but I had several problems with it, including the fact that her solutions would essentially need to be financed by the taxpayer. But there was something more that bothered me greatly about it, and I couldn’t put my finger on it.

Of course I woke up with a blog post, because that’s actually the way my brain works. I do my best work, fiction and non fiction while asleep. Older son says that’s because my pre-frontal cortex filters my ideas otherwise, and — he doesn’t say this, but I’m telling you — OBVIOUSLY my pre-frontal cortex — like China — is a**hole. (This also explains — if anything does — why I’ve had entire trilogies “download” when I’m sick or just plain exhausted. Picture my brain desperately waiting for the pre-frontal cortex to go off line and then core dumping all the creative or analytic stuff into my mind.)

So, if you don’t want to go through the link (TLDR — too linky, didn’t read) that article has the premise that Motherhood while emotionally and psychologically rewarding has a massive cost in potential for damage or death (less every year, and what is she whining about, again?) and also loss of career potential and earning potential and social status.

Her recommendation is to pay women to have children. No, seriously. Some kind of subsidy for staying home with your kids, a higher social security payment for mothers, whatever. I read it last night, so I might have missed something. In her mind, this will raise the social profile of motherhood and rush people to the delivery wards.

I might have missed something through the gritting of my teeth at “give people money taken from other people to have more children.”

Spoiler: it wouldn’t work.

She would know this if she had studied the history of such efforts, from Rome giving mothers of more than x children an award, to the USSR doing the same, to the Scandinavian countries in the eighties (I don’t know now. I haven’t been talking to engineers from Sweden and Norway as I used to do for work) paying per child and giving mom and dad maternity and paternity time off paid, and having social workers come and look after the wee ones, and what not… It doesn’t work. You get a brief bump in births, but then it goes back to not happening and entering population down spiral.

Yes, “raising the social profile of Motherhood” and making it admired WOULD work. The problem with doing that is that motherhood is inherently NOT glamorous.

When my older son was one and a half, I came across an article I think in some woman’s magazine — let me explain, through no fault of older son, and having nothing to do with being a mom, in that case. I read anything I could get for free. I think MIL sent me a subscription to Good Housekeeping or the like — that clicked with me so hard that I used it all through the kids’ childhood.

The woman writing was about where I was. I think she had two little ones at that point. Anyway, she had just seen her mom heading out to a lunch with friends, dressed to the nines and with fully done makeup and hair, and she felt more depressed than ever, covered in baby spit up and smelling a little funky because the toddler had wiped his hands on her and his hands had SOMETHING. And then she came up with the perfect metaphor: she was at the beginning of her mom career, on the factory floor, sweating and working overtime, with her hair pulled back in a knot, no time to do makeup and smelling a little funny. As the kids grow, you go up through the ranks. By the time they’re in high school you’re a middle manager, and dress a little better, but you’re still hassled and overworked. When they’re in college, you ascend to the executive suite, but you still sweat and live in fear of what the people you manage might do to break everything. It’s only when you retire that you have time to dress well and go to lunch with other retired executives and laugh about the struggles back at the old firm.

I can’t begin to tell you how real this is, having gone through it and being now a retired executive who has pivoted into another job, started when I was a middle manager, because I knew I’d hate doing lunch.

The problem is that making Motherhood prestigious or glamorous is as unlikely as making factory floor work glamorous or prestigious. I mean Mike Rowe kind of does, but not really. He just points out these jobs are important and lucrative. Honestly he should do a segment on Motherhood as a dirty job. Because it is essential and it is rewarding.

It’s just not upfront, in your face, economically rewarding.

Trying to pay women to have children is just another iteration in trying to make it an obviously economic decision. And that doesn’t work.

Because that’s what got us where we are. Breaking the culture and looking at men and women as ONLY economic units. I can’t begin to tell you how profoundly wrong that is.

My own internal conspiracy theory for which I have no proof partly because I think it’s a prospiracy, is that shoving all women into the work place and convincing them that their highest purpose was to follow a male life path into the OUTSIDE THE HOME workplace and the executive suite (where again, only less than 1% of people male or female make it) was the equivalent of opening the borders under Auto-pen. It was a ploy to flood the job market and therefore devalue labor, which allows greater profits and of course makes it imperative for women to join the work force, because “no one can live on one salary.” (This is wrong too, but that’s another story.) Once they had sucked all the women (more or less) into the labor force, they started in on the H1B visas and the open borders.

Look, it’s great for profits and for the increasingly sick partnership between business and government. But it’s bad for everything else, including people.

Leaving that aside, though, the way to tackle the birth dearth — which is starting to tackle itself, believe it or not — beyond making it affordable. (The chick at substack says everyone can afford to have kids. Look, I’d like to have a word with her. And by word I mean a metaphorical baseball bat. Sure, everyone can afford kids, if they don’t mind living on pancakes, renting in a dangerous part of town and having their entire entertainment be from the dumpster behind used bookstores (or the little rejected shelf up front.) THAT’s a really high bar.)

Making it affordable passes by things like “forgiving student loans.” But Sarah! That means taking money from people’s pockets too! Oh, can it. You don’t understand “economics” as applied by our government which is funny money all the way down. THEY ALREADY TOOK THE MONEY OUT OF OUR POCKETS by printing money for those “loans.” That money has been spent. The money in your pocket has been inflated away. All you gain by sticking it to the loan debtors is “suffer you idiot, for believing what everyone including your parents told you.” Kindly admit you’re a sadist and go satisfy your kink in a healthier way. Yes, the good kids are on plans where they’re paying 20% of what they make into the loans, to retire them in ten years. For many of them this leaves them where they absolutely would have to live in the dangerous area of town and eat pancakes four times a week. This doesn’t kill them. And having the kids in these circumstances won’t kill them. Ask me how I know. BUT IT’S A REALLY HIGH BAR. If I’d known how broke we’d be because number one son’s birth was a medical nightmare that costs us back then slightly more than my husband made a year which — being insane — we decided to pay back in three years, would I have done it? Would I have gone through all the medical treatments to have the kid? I don’t know. And it’s likely I wouldn’t. So, if we already had the debt and were living just slightly above that: say dinner out once a month and the depressing but not dangerous apartments, would I have been willing to plunge into actual danger and near-starvation and SLOG for three years? Look, I’m going to say it’s doubtful. (And that’s me speaking against interest, since younger son and his wife might read this.) It passes by other things too, like “Why are we willing to make entire parts of our cities Indian Country, too dangerous for anyone but the highly trained. Why don’t we fight that with rigorous law enforcement?” (Sure, the Nazis did that, but that’s not what made them bad. The Nazis also (I HEAR) drank water. And no one tells you to stop drinking water.) “Why don’t we — if not putting them in prison like mad houses — mandate that the people who are a danger to themselves and others live in certain homes where they have supervision and are given the drugs they need to act sane.” “Why don’t we do something about rampant drug addiction?” etc. etc. etc. This is actually a whole article, and I’d be happy to write it at another time, because there are at least for SOME of the problems far less authoritarian solutions than it sounds like. That’s another time.

But beyond that… Sorry people, it’s the culture.

Thinking of everything in economic terms — men and women are widgets and economic units — is a Marxist thing, a perversion of functioning human society (as Marxist everything is) and it gives us not just birth dearth but abominations like euthanasia for the poor and the depressed not to mention the old, the deformed, the unsightly.

The fact is that the Nazis worse excesses came from Marxism. It is impossible to reduce men and women to nothing but economic units without ending up with eugenics, culling, extreme authoritarianism and wars of conquest. (The later because this kind of thing destroys productivity and you need to keep the population quiet.)

And yes, saying we need to turn the culture away from Marxism is pretty, but hard. Hard partly because we’re still propagating the idiotic “men and women are economic units” everywhere, from schools to well-meaning substack articles.

Of course, it’s changing on its own, because humanity abhors being extinct, and the herd is starting to panic. We’re seeing a revival of the more traditional religious beliefs and the faiths that value family. And yes, that is a way to engineer.

Listen: Even though I’m Catholic and even though I’m a believer and even though I struggle daily to follow my faith (and mostly fail, because failing is one of my core competencies.) I don’t think we should repose that kind of cultural architrave on religious faith.

Oh, maybe they can do it in Spain and Portugal, and perhaps even France (though France is funny and was more or less always funny) if they run the socialists out of everything, including the Catholic church, and become sincere Catholics again. Maybe the path to rescue Britain from its shallow grave at a crossroads in a bad part of history is for them to run the atheists in robes out of the church of England, perform an exorcism on Charlie the Unthinking and return to sincere and militant Anglicanism. (This is where I confess to a somewhat shameful fondness for old time Anglicanism. Don’t tell my dad. He’ll worry.)

But in the US? It would be a nightmare. Unless you’re willing to do a modified German solution, where each state has a “state religion”and you either conform or move out, it would be a nightmare. And if you do that, it will be a nightmare of another type. If I were younger and you tried to do that, I’d run away and join the Amish, just to get away from state religion.

Fortunately we don’t need to do that, because we have a civic religion that says that individuals have value as individuals, not as economic units. And this should be taught in schools. Every day and twice on Friday to last you through the weekend.

Yes, even the weak, the old, the poor, the sick. Because they are individuals like us, and they too are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in the measure of the possible. (Hear me out: when you devalue other people who look and are to an extent like you, in the end you devalue yourself. It’s impossible not to.)

More importantly, we need schools and society — and oh, my my bunny! Companies too, though that requires getting rid of half a dozen “funny” laws and Supreme Court decisions — to stop thinking in SHORT TERM economic dividends.

As long as we think in short term economic payout terms, we will continue to suck women into the work force. We will continue to open the borders and given H1Bs away like candy. We will continue to send our industry abroad including to countries that are basically slave states, or even dangerous to us (Hi China!). Because that’s what short term economic payout DICTATES. It’s not the greed of the individual CEOs. It’s what they have to do to obey law and regulation.

Teach economics in school. Real economics. Sowell foremost and use most of the economic theory garbage of the last century ONLY as comic relief.

Because here’s the dirty secret: Yes, motherhood is emotionally and psychologically satisfying. Those years on the factory floor were amazing, because I was learning so much. And I was young (my thirties) so I had the energy to work insanely.

BUT more importantly, I learned so much that helps me now in everything else I do. No, seriously. I learned my limits. I learned that things like my job being really sucky (remember I had one working from home, and ooh boy, it sucked for twenty years) matters way less than how much I learned to do and enjoyed in raising the boys. I learned that money matters less than how you spend it. I learned that yes, I could learn to do things from scratch and it wasn’t even that hard. I learned to reality-test my neurosis and fears. (You can’t survive life without that.) I learned how to multitask, till the entire house ran on slightly creaky wheels and I could still write six books a year while keeping us in sanitary conditions, cooking two meals a day, talking over life and everything with the boys, AND not stressing too much or tiring myself into the ground.

And the kicker? It was more rewarding financially too. Uh? Come again? Well, imagine Dan and I had no kids and I actually stuck with the translator job (this is unlikely for other reasons. Or at least we’d be unlikely to still be married, because both working sixteen hours a day, including some weekends doesn’t make any sense with a marriage.) We worked so hard that we ate out most days. And I — more than once — bought new clothes because I didn’t have time to do the laundry or the mental “give” to send it out. Overall, we profited maybe 2% after taxes over what we’d have profited from only Dan working.

But once I came home to raise the kids, I did all the cooking. I had the time to do the laundry. And this left Dan time to concentrate on his career. (Even if sometimes I had to remind him where his socks were on the dresser, and buy him shirts behind his back because he had no time t go shopping.) For a vast part of our young years we had one reliable car (which I drove, because kids) and an utter completely near death beater, which he drove only to work and back. (Mine was a beater too. If you read Deep Pink…. well, my car was a seventies (I THINK) Suburban with a missing front bumper, one side stuck in, just missing the light, and the world’s ugliest paint job. We bought it to tide us over till insurance paid on the car someone had totaled by crashing into it was parked up front. It cost us $1500. There were chickens living in it. Took forever to clean. But the d*mn thing just WENT.) When his cars (usually $500 and under) died, he’d drive mine till we found another one. And we could afford to buy falling-apart houses in good neighborhoods, which I then rebuilt while living in them and sold at double price later.

In the long run, though it didn’t feel like it at the time, we’re much richer because I punted to the factory floor, instead of being the harassed specialist in the cube farm. And not just psychologically. On the money front too. Oh, because it more importantly taught us that status symbols are bullshit. Yes, we do sometimes go out to very expensive restaurants for special occasions or just because we want to try them out. But we also go out to tiny, funky, sounds interesting holes in the wall because we want to try them out. Or we know they’re good and it’s a special occasion. While friends who stayed stuck in the career ladder would tell me things like “I hope no one sees me going into Pete’s Kitchen. What will they think.” (Uh? Does not compute.)

The truth is from an economic stand point none of life is RATIONAL. No, hear me out: Economically, the most rational thing I could have done is never get married.

I knew this, btw. Getting married and tying my financial and professional future to another person whom I couldn’t control was neither rational nor economically sensible. This is why I rejected six proposals between 18 and 22.

Heck, moving out of my parents’ house wasn’t rational. It wasn’t like I was being beaten, even if dad kept telling me in a forlorn voice, that the Chinese character for war is two women under the same roof. In fact, as I started tutoring and making my own money, while taking way too many classes, the house was just a place where I slept and sometimes mooched some food. Why bother moving out?

More importantly, why would I move to another country where my almost guaranteed employment degree would become useless? It’s not rational.

Do I need to tell you that if I had followed the rational path I’d have been miserable, or more likely dead because I’m a depressive?

Humans are not clockwork economic units. Just because something isn’t financial rational, it doesn’t mean it’s not what needs to happen.

Man — and verily and maybe particularly — woman doesn’t live from paychecks and corporate titles alone.

The solution is to see humans as humans and recognize that we have certain life trajectories that worked for the culture for generations, and those were NOT to work at some job for your entire life so some company has more short term profits and you never experience what it’s like to be human.

You are not a machine. You don’t owe it to anyone to sell out your life for cash in hand. You are a human being, and human beings need a group. The most fundamental and basic of those groups is the family. And being a part of a family, always with some exceptions, is the most rewarding thing you can do long term.

Turning the culture around, away from putting a dollar price on people, and towards making people the center of society is what we need to do. And the cure for what hails us.

You guys have no idea how hard it was not to title this post “It’s all so tiresome.”

Some days it’s not safe to post on X even the most innocuous stuff. You immediately attract a vast army of propaganda bots. At least I hope they were bots. Or foreign. Or perhaps foreign bots. Except for the woman who was certainly a feminist bot, but that appeared to be a self-administered lobotomy with a wooden spoon composed of half indoctrination and half native stupidity. Because if those weren’t mostly foreign and mostly bots…. allow me to quote Heinlein. “I weep for the whole human race.”

Anyway, you think it would be safe, given my audience, to quote-share an idiot testifying in congress — I swear to living Bob (the registered) I’m not making this up — saying that men and women are exactly as strong as each other, so only the rankest transphobia could cause people to oppose transwomen competing with women in sports. I share quoted it with a bog standard normal thing about how women’s bodies are actually better in many ways, such as the ability to create life within ourselves, but that in the service of that biological capacity there were other things sacrificed, such as the raw strength and agility of the male body. And that those differences start in the womb. (Not said, as I assumed basic knowledge of biology those differences get more marked every year, and sealed past puberty. I assumed this was known since it’s the biological fact recruited to justify pre-puberty (and toddler!) medical sex changes. From a physiological point of view that’s the best you can do. But knowing that kids don’t know if they want to — or can — be trains or dogs it’s a complete abomination for which our age will be judged harshly. (I thought I’d grow up to be a cat for a while in early childhood.))

Never have I ever — till that moment — been called a thot, a (though the fem-bot didn’t have enough vocabulary for that. But it’s what she meant) slave of the patriarchy AND a female supremacist in the exact same post before. (Being called a communist and an anarchist is bog standard. I assume it’s short hand for “I don’t understand your political positions, and I must scream.”)

If these weren’t — mostly — bots, there’s a great wave of mental illness stalking this great land of ours, and it’s all spiraling around the most basic of our groupings: men versus women. In fact, if these weren’t all or mostly fifty cent army or bots, I’m no longer surprised the birth rate is falling. I’m surprised it EXISTS.

And the worst part of it is that it’s all based on massive crazy. On swallowing story wholesale. On seeing people as widgets who belong to groups of widgets on a characteristic only. On completely lacking a theory of mind and thinking that whatever obsesses one is in fact the crux of existence for everyone. More importantly, on a lot of crap absorbed from a lot of “education” and “mass media.” That being the two that I suspect were not bots at all, just self-maimed individuals.

It started with the almost certainly fifty cent army. One after the other they came by to inform me I had failed biology, because women can’t create life without male contribution. Look at what I said. WHERE did I say women created life ex-nihilo and not from the (thank you guys!) gracious contribution of the male added to their own ova? Yes, I could have been more precise and said “grow life” but the creation in fact happens inside us, and again, everything we are physiologically — even people who would never on their craziest moments consider being moms — designed to do. It’s what our bodies DO. It’s what we are as members of the human species. Even those who for some reason have some defect that renders them unable to, physically (I almost was) are made on the same basic template, and designed for that, which affects our entire bodies down to cellular structure.

But apparently this was heretical and I had failed biology. I was scathing. I pointed out “created” was poetic license. I didn’t say “As opposed to saying: conceive, grow and nourish because that would be too long, you arrant fools.” I was, you understand, by way of being restrained. It happens rarely, so yes, I would like a medal. Please and thank you.

Honorable mention to the almost certainly foreigner (there is one religious book that SPECIFIES this is what happens, so you know…) who was very upset, because women create nothing. Women just take the sperm and incubate it into a baby. He was either foreigner or a visitor from the middle ages. I’m too late in the day (the cats had a field day peeing behind the computer in the living room. No, I don’t know why but I assume Havey did it because he piddles on himself, and the others decided this was the new pissoir. There was much cleaning and there’s STILL eau de cat. Sigh.) to search the Medieval medical illustrations. They were however hilarious. Note the Greeks also thought this, and also that a woman could get pregnant by eating beans. Honestly, I’m almost shocked no one answered with that. It’s the type of thing an AI would find.

Another honorable mention to the religious gentleman who’s been reading the Bible in stupid and who doesn’t understand words. He kept screaming at us that women (and presumably men) had nothing to do with making babies. G-d made babies, period. He seemed to think that’s what the word “conceived” meant and so far forgot himself as to post a screen shot of the word conceive in the dictionary and a case use which was something like “Peggy conceived three months ago.” I had to point out to him only one woman ever conceived without having sex and she doesn’t have an x account. (I THINK. I mean, who am I to say?)

Next came the bizarre wave, like a new instruction had come out, to inform me that being able to have babies is nothing special. All sorts of animals (emphasis on the grossest ones. One of the responses used cockroaches) can have babies. So what. To which I got so upset by the bizarre and besides the point stupidity that I told one of the guys that this was fine. He should try to do it himself.

Honorable mention here goes to the feminist bot that started that way but that informed me — as though this had anything to do with the fact this is what we’re naturally designed to do — that not only could every animal do this, but the important thing was for women to use their minds to innovate.

I’ll give the medal back if you wish, but by then I was not being restrained at all, so I informed her that yes, sure. However if no one has babies there will be no one to give a hang about innovations, no matter who creates them. And because by then I was feeling mean (yes, I must go to confession today or tomorrow) I pointed out it also depends on what she means by innovation. Because if this means another paper on gender studies then really she had no reason to live.

She never told me what the great innovation was, but came back to tell me “I’m sorry you were indoctrinated that the most important part of you is between your legs, babe. Particularly as you advertise yourself as a writer.”

Points for glancing at my page. Points withdrawn for not realizing I do FAR MORE than “advertise” myself as a writer, and also that I’m not posting racy pictures of myself, mostly because I don’t want to damage the eyes of the unsuspecting public. Further points withdrawn for not realizing that what I was talking about was growing babies, and that the apparatus to do so is not BETWEEN YOUR LEGS. I don’t know. Maybe she is deformed and carries her uterus and ovaries in a discrete little purse tied between her legs. MAYBE that’s her innovation. I might have called her sweetie in my answer. And something else, almost certainly not pumpkin, to show my appreciation for her calling me baby. It should have been “pumpkin” for several reasons. I did point out that yes, I was indoctrinated. Most people my age and up to ten years older were. We were propagandized to consider having children a vocation only for those who couldn’t cut it intellectually, and raising them almost an admission you were brain damaged. But fortunately I’d overcome it and realized that I could both have children and work with my mind, and be a fully realized human being.

I DID NOT finish the comment with “Fortunately no one will remember your name.” Which shows some greatness of mind. (Give me back my medal!)

Then came the champion of craziness in this whole bizarre exhibition. He — for reasons that live between his ears — decided that I was pleading for sympathy because…. hold on a minute…. because women had lost the Battle of the Sexes tennis game recently. this apparently had sobered me up after gloating over the other Battle of the Sexis tennis game.

People! You probably know me fairly well after years of reading this blog. Does any of you think I follow tennis? Battle of sexes, battle of the stars, battle of the countries or battle of the oppossums, for that matter?

I used to play badminton as a young woman, but even then I don’t think I ever followed competitions. I just liked playing it, because it was an amazing work out and it was… well, fun.

I mean I will confess to periodically cheering on Porto’s soccer club, virtually, because I know dad is happy when they win. And I have been happy when the Broncos win a big game or — hasn’t happened in forever — the superbowl because Denver is my hometown and because I have fond memories of parties to celebrate such wins. BUT I’m as likely as not NOT to watch the game, because I don’t care enough. Also this is the sum total of my involvement with team sports.

I had to deputize Foxfier, who was hanging about doing nothing (I mean she only has a small tribe of kids. How busy can she be) to figure out what the gentleidiot was screaming about.

Apparently there have been a series of battles of the sexes tennis matches, in which the male is handicapped to give the female a chance (no surprise to anyone who knows biology) and the first (?) maybe one in the seventies (maybe. Sorry Fox, the details have leaked from my ears during the night) was won by the woman, but the latest one was won by the man.

Which is why this guy thought I was trying to ingratiate myself with men because otherwise… I don’t know? Some other guy — handicapped so the woman will be competitive — will win another tennis match I probably won’t even hear about as I’m working on some two or three novels (yes, at once. Shush you.)? OR because I’m afraid random men will come to my door and challenge me to tennis matches? Because let me tell you, that is in fact a terrifying prospect, because I could never play tennis and am in dreadful shape after several years of upper respiratory infections. (Yes, coming back from that is on the schedule, and working on it in a small measure while I kick this latest.) Fortunately I DO still own guns and knives and axes and anyone coming to my door and demanding I play tennis with him (Or let’s face it her or small furry animal) will be chased off the lawn at gun point and have an ax thrown after him. (Or more likely, I won’t even answer the door because I’m upstairs and writing with headphones on, and Dan will look at the cam of the guy in Tennis Whites with a racket and go “Uh. Another weirdo. We’re not answering that.”

The point here being, note this man heard somewhere that women were gloating over this tennis game and now that women lost I must be suing for mercy. He drank the story so deeply, by the bucketfull that it never occurred to him women — like men — are in fact individuals. Women — in general, with massive exceptions (younger DIL likes baseball. Who knows why?) — are less interested in sports than men (unless our men are interested in sports. Mine is interested in mathematics. I do have to tell you he talks a lot about it. I can’t say I retain much as it all flies over my head at mach speeds. But it’s entertaining while he’s talking.) More importantly that women — in general — aren’t really in some imaginary war of the sexes, and cheering on every little victory and ruing every defeat.

I actually wrote a thing about it afterwards, on why we’re complementary, not opposites, but before that let me point out something:

Yes, you might hear more women acting like Ms. Feminist Bot above and it’s possible for men or bots who lack the company of women who trust them to believe that all of us are fully invested in this war of the sexes thing and think that we’re in some competition with men.

Look, yes, a lot more women will talk like that than men used to (that’s changed because indoctrination, foreign bots, and guzzling story.)

First, for both sexes, given them till they’re in their late twenties, please. More if they have advanced degrees. They are propagandized into the war of the sexes, and women particularly are told they will be traitors if they’re not feminist first and humans second, all through their schooling, and it takes a while for this to shed. (Apparently some people never do.)

Second, more women will SAY that, if caught unawares and asked this stuff for a poll or an interview. Look, first think of which of the sides — right or left — is violent, and you’ll understand why women who are physically weaker and more socially inclined “talk left” in public and repeat back received words, even if it has nothing to do with what they think.

I’ll be honest with you, guys, if I’m cornered in public as a sixty three year old woman currently out of shape, I WILL answer with the answer the person cornering me wants. And note THIS IS ME not some little conflict-avoidant co-ed. Because in public I am conscious I AM IN FACT WEAKER and highly dislike being beaten up (even more than being forced to play tennis.) For other women, particularly those with small kids? They are going to talk left really hard. Why? Because the LEFT IS VIOLENT. And none of us trusts polls to be secure. That’s why.

As Avi Loeb said about his graduate students sometimes having to deny they helped him or trust him or believe in him “I understand. If they didn’t they wouldn’t be able to have careers in the field.” Some people are constrained and therefore the data is caca.

Are more women than men leftists? I don’t know. All the data is polluted, because people — particularly on the left — would like you to believe so. Because… well, they’re all about dividing and conquering. Yes, I know a large number of women — and men — who appear to be lefty bots. I also have been surprised by more women than men coming out as conservative once they feel safe to do so. BUT this could be a sampling error. Honestly, it’s probably the same. I suspect the difference in the votes comes from fraud. I suspect imaginary, dead and not supposed to be here women vote overwhelmingly for the left. And despite my daft (I say what I mean) hand with imaginary characters, I can’t fix those.

Anyway, what I do know is that women in general are NOT in fact constructs of someone’s mind. Women are no more widgets than men are.

We are individuals, with our own path, our own thoughts and our own abilities. I have no grudge against women who never found someone to have children with or who, for reasons of force majeure (including physical or mental conditions) believe they should not be mothers. I feel a little sad for them, because it was the most amazing adventure of MY life (and I’ve had an adventurous life) but they have agency and can make their own decisions.

None of which changes the fact I set out to make when I — foolishly — quote-tweeted an idiot. Our bodies are made on a template wholly designed by millions of years of evolution to conceive, incubate and nurture new life.

Of course, we are sentient beings, so we are also capable of living our lives for other purposes, including, yes, scientific innovation or artistic or athletic pursuits or whatever tickles our grey matter. (I will take exception at living your life for gender studies. Repeat after me: NO ONE WILL REMEMBER THEIR NAMES. It’s like auto damnatio memoria.)

As are men. Men and women ARE NOT THE SAME. The same forces that shape muscles and bodies wholly differently into two general models (with variations and of course glitches) also shape our brains from the moment of conception (just about.) Men and women use their brains differently. I’m reminded of this daily as Dan and I take wildly opposed paths and often (more often than not) come to the same conclusion.

Men think more directly, from point to point. Women think in webs. (Now keep in mind like all characteristics this is a spectrum. But in general these being the effect of testosterone and estrogen, the most webby of men will be more direct in his thoughts than the most linear of women. But they can be close enough.)

There are other differences, too, but this is not a class on biology, and there must be still some unpolluted biology books. Find one from the eighties, maybe?

For various tasks, but more importantly for the one of creating and nurturing children, it is better to have both. We’re complementary. He watched my back and warded off threats as I waddled about 8 months pregnant and unable to see my feet, for instance.

Does this mean I believe we should have quotes for hiring women? Are you joking now?

I think we should get rid of all quotas and ALL indoctrination in what men and women SHOULD do, and hire the most capable people for whatever, letting the chips fall where they may.

If — as I predict — most engineers will be male and most nurses female, so what? ARE THEY THE BEST PEOPLE FOR THE JOB? THEN HIRE THEM.

Because people aren’t widgets. And if you let them choose without trying to social engineer them, most people gravitate towards what they’re good at, or at least can do with the least effort/pain. (Humans, in common with nematodes, don’t like pain.)

Yes, you’ll find out that some women like refinishing pianos, some men like playing them. (In my case, because I was grandad’s shadow when he did carpentry jobs. In his because music and math seem to be linked very deeply in his brain.)

BUT the way to bet is the other way. Because of that difference thing. And that’s okay, because female jobs aren’t superior, male jobs aren’t superior, and there is no percentage in pushing one into the job of the other.

Yes, you might find, either formally or informally, as the engineer goes home and talks the problem over with his wife, that women can bring new perspectives to some problems, and vice versa. But let that happen naturally.

HIRE THE BEST PEOPLE.

The only women jobs males can’t do is that growing a baby thing. And the only men jobs women can’t do is impregnate someone. Other than that…. we can try. Sometimes the results will just be inferior. But that might be the only person willing to do it at that time, too. Again, merit not sex. Hire individuals, not groups.

AND stop believing the other sex is a vast, formless group. Even our Bob knows better. That’s actually and for real crazy cakes.

If you think that, go out and talk to a dozen women. Provided you don’t do it when they’re all together, you’ll find vastly different people. And the same for women talking to men.

What you do with it, afterwards, is your problem. Just stop being stupid.

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, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. By clicking through and buying (anything book-related, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE.*Note that I haven’t read most of these books (my reading is eclectic and “craving led”,) and apply the usual cautions to buying. I reserve the right not to run any submission, if cover, blurb or anything else made me decide not to, at my sole discretion. Remember though all of these submissions are from people willing to be associated with this blog. So if you’re trying to buy from people who don’t hate you, this is a good place to start.– SAH

FROM KEN LIZZI: Dekason (Twilight Galaxy Book 1)

On the feudal world of Kvasir, lowly armsman Carkston Monitor steals an ancient glider and launches a one-man raid to shatter two enemy armies—hoping to win a baron’s daughter and a seat among the Peerage. His audacious strike succeeds… and utterly ruins a secret plan of the nobility. Banished in disgrace, he’s dumped on the decaying planet Dekason, where stagnant syndicates duel with dueling swords and forbidden electromag pistols.

Now Carkston is done playing by anyone’s rules.

He forges a deadly alliance with an Unsanctioned House, turns rival nobles’ own vendettas against them, and unleashes a whirlwind of sabotage, estate raids, and blazing gunfights that threaten to topple the rotten aristocracy of a dying world.

One outcast. One stolen glider. One chance to seize the stars—or burn both planets down trying.

EDITED BY JANA S. BROWN: Tentacles and Tides (ExtraOrdinary Beasts) Paperback

What lurks beneath the waves?

Krakens. Sea serpents. Megalodons. Spirits of storm and tide.

In Tentacles and Tides, the ocean is anything but empty. Sailors glimpse impossible shapes below their hulls. Coastal towns bargain with ancient powers. Great whales guard secrets humanity was never meant to find.

And sometimes…

the monster is the one telling the story.

These speculative tales explore the creatures of the deep as heroes, villains, guardians, and forces of nature—where survival, awe, and terror swim side by side.

The sea is vast.
The sea is powerful.
And something beneath the surface is always watching.

FROM JOHN BAILEY: The Quiet Shape of Consequence (The Detective Stories)

When Daniel Whitaker receives the call that Richard Halse is dead, he responds exactly as expected: measured, cooperative, quietly attentive.

He answers every question.
He offers every reasonable detail.
He helps the investigation move forward.

What no one realizes is that Daniel is not uncovering the truth.
He is constructing it.

As suspicion shifts and the narrative tightens, Daniel refines his account with increasing precision—editing, shaping, and redirecting events with the calm discipline of a man who believes control is the same as innocence.

But truth does not disappear simply because it is managed.
And the story Daniel tells begins, slowly and inexorably, to resist him.

Told in a chilling first-person voice, The Quiet Shape of Consequence is a psychological thriller about self-deception, moral narrative, and the fragile distance between who we are and who we believe ourselves to be.

Because in the end, the most dangerous story is the one we tell ourselves.

BY MAX BRAND, REVIVED BY D. JASON FLEMING: Train’s Trust (Annotated): The classic pulp western adventure

Steve Train, gambler, adventurer, clever rogue, didn’t care much for work. But then he was offered a job with no work, but plenty of danger. The job: track down outlaw Jim Nair — and hand him a pile of money!

• This iktaPOP Media edition includes a new introduction by indie author D. Jason Fleming giving historical and genre context to the novel.

FROM NATHAN C. BRINDLE: The Lion in Paradise (Timelines Book 3)

All Col. Dr. Ariela Rivers Wolff, M.D., Ph.D., USSFM – the Lion of God – wanted was a little piece of paradise to call her own.

Being stuck on a desert world – even if she was the CO of the premiere battalion of the 1st U.S. Space Force Marines that was based there – was not getting her any beach time. Mostly because, without an ocean, there’s really no beach at all.

But she’s got a fix for that problem.

Now, if only the academics studying the problem of terraforming the exile world of al-Saḥra’ would get out of her way . . .

. . . and if only the religious fanatics who want their planet left as a desert, despite all the water from the planet’s former oceans being accessible only a few miles down, will leave the terraforming project alone long enough to see the good it will bring them . . .

. . . then, the Lion would truly be in Paradise.

But even in paradise, black clouds – and black ships – can herald danger for the Lion, herself, and for her daughters as well.

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: The Mesopredator Hustle

A dying star, and a station harvesting its planetary nebula for resources vital to a centuries-old war.

Amidst this beautiful but deadly stellar environment, a spy has infiltrated the star-lifting operations, creating “accidents” to take the lives of the crew. Can two troubleshooters from Engineering, one a human and the other a member of the feline Chongu, track down the killer when Security is certain the real problem is carelessness?

A short story of the Chongu Empire.

FROM KAREN MYERS: Broken Devices: A Lost Wizard’s Tale (The Chained Adept Book 3)

Book 3 of The Chained Adept

CHAINS WITHOUT WIZARDS AND A RISING COUNT OF THE DEAD.

The largest city in the world has just discovered its missing wizards. It seems the Kigali empire has ignited a panic that threatens internal ruin and the only chained wizard it knows that’s still alive is Penrys.

The living wizards and the dead are not her people, not unless she makes them so. All they have in common is a heavy chain and a dead past — the lives that were stolen from them are beyond recall.

What remains are unanswered questions about who made them this way. And why. And what Penrys plans to do to find out.

FROM PAM UPHOFF: Outcasts and Gods (Wine of the Gods Series Book 1)

First book of the Wine of the Gods

Wolfgang was a nice kid–until they decided he wasn’t even human.

Genetic engineering. First they cured the genetic diseases. Then they selected for the best natural traits. Then they made completely artificial genes. As the test children reached puberty, abilities that had always been lost in the random background noise were suddenly obvious. Telepathy, telekinesis. At first their creators sought to strengthen these traits. Then they began to fear them. They called them gods, and made them slaves.

Wolfgang Oldham was sixteen when the company laid claim to him. He escaped, and stayed free for three years. When he was arrested, identified and returned to the company, they trained him to be useful. They didn’t realize that they were training him to be dangerous

FROM HOLLY CHISM: Normalcy Bias: Look closer…things aren’t always what they seem to be.

Look closer. The things that you’re assuming you’re seeing? May not be what you think. Is that really a mouse, or is it a Brownie? Is that really an owl? Is that polished gemstone a stone…or an egg?

We take so many things for granted. Some of them may be harmless, but many are a lot less so. I wonder how many people ignore red flags every day, because they only see what they expect to see?

This collection takes what’s “normal” and asks “What if it’s something more?”

FROM MARY CATELLI: The Enchanted Princess Wakes

Once upon a time, a princess was cursed at her christening — but not the one you heard of.

When the fairy decreed that Rosaleen would fall into an enchanted sleep, and how she would wake, the grand plans of kings, to unite kingdoms, failed. They sent her to an out-of-the-way castle in the mountains, in hopes the curse would do no harm to anyone else.

There, alone, Rosaleen lived and learned, and realized that she herself had to be ready to face the curse, and when it broke.

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

Sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic.

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

AND BUY FROM PEOPLE WHO DON’T HATE YOU:
Shiny, Sharp, and Stylish…

Welcome! To Morrigan’s Mercantile!

Now with a lot more journals!

Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

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

We recommend that if you have an original vignette, you post that as a new reply. If you are commenting on someone’s vignette, then post that as a reply to the vignette. Comments — this is writing practice, so comments should be aimed at helping someone be a better writer, not at crushing them. And since these are likely to be drafts, don’t jump up and down too hard on typos and grammar.

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: SCARCE

*Francis and I decided we needed to reprint these. but also the crud did a u-turn on me. Less cough, but utterly exhausted. Better tomorrow, hopefully. SAH*

We Need Non-inflationary Cash by Francis Turner a blast from the past from February 2022

We Need Non-inflationary Cash

by Francis Turner

This essay makes the case that we are in the process of needing a non-governmental form of cash. This is because governments are busy tracking what we do with the money they print and because they are mostly printing a lot more of it than they should so its purchasing power is going down (inflation). These factors make it a poor store of value and hence an unreliable unit of account and medium of exchange.

Note: readers who didn’t read my essay from about 7 years ago on Money and Cake, should probably do so, and it won’t do any harm for those that did to reread as a refresher. It’s a light-hearted introduction to most of the key concepts of money.

Note. I am not a tax lawyer. Nor do I even play on on TV. Your local tax-gatherers and governments may object to you trying to implement your own non-inflationary cash. This should not necessarily stop you from doing so, but you should plan accordingly.

What’s the problem

The fundamental problem is the governments and large commercial organizations are unkeen on the concept of people exchanging clinking and folding cash money for products and services as opposed to balances of electrons being changed in various locations. There is a global push for going ‘cashless’. I.e. doing what The Register called “Pay by bonk” or possibly pay by QR code or other mechanism. In Sweden the switch away from cash is very well advanced; if I recall correctly, a majority of shops, cafes and the like no longer accept cash at all. Other countries in the developed and developing world are not far behind.

This isn’t just a government thing there are lots of large companies who also like the idea of consumers not using cash. Companies like it because they can take a cut of every transaction. It’s small on a per transaction basis (1-3% usually) and usually taken from the seller, but it adds up enormously over millions of users and billions of transactions. In addition they can often track spending habits and target ads and offers to entice consumers to buy more. In fact it seems to be popular with most of the “bureaucratic-commercial” complex everywhere, particularly in the land of Winnie the Pooh, err West Taiwan.

In Canada Truckistan, the government has declared an emergency which allows it to tell banks to freeze arbitrary bank accounts without any evidence presented to a court or similar (and to let banks do the same thing on their own if they feel like it, with no fear of court order reprisal). So you can put your money into the bank but you may not be able to get it out. Of course they justify this as “temporary” and “only going after the evil REEEE bouncy castle protestors” but

a) this pretty much defines “thin end of the wedge” and
b) how does anyone appeal when they make a mistake (not if, when because they will)?  

Meanwhile in the land of the ‘free’, the ‘Let’s Go, Brandon!’ administration and their buddies in congress are trying to get banks to report all transactions into and out of bank accounts with more than $600 in them.

This is, clearly, a potentially huge problem. It’s a problem two ways. First is the obvious government tracking one. Even if you assume the government is a wonderful organization staffed purely by the most competent and morally pure the chances of them making a mistake and bringing the full force of the law down on some poor housewife buying, say, fertilizer for her garden and a can of kerosene for emergency heating is higher than one might prefer. Given that in the world we live in the government is not staffed purely by ethical angels, the chances for abuse and error are very high indeed. And that doesn’t even get into the government criminalizing transactions that should be perfectly fine and so on.

Then there’s the problems of availability and fraud in a cashless society. If the power goes out you can’t buy a candle in a cashless society. You can’t buy anything if the internet goes down, if your financial provider has a problem and so on. Also if your provider is hacked (or your cash payment token is, or…) then you stand to lose more than just the cash in your wallet.

Fundamentally there’s a centralization and a corresponding lack of local personal control. There are benefits but there are plenty of drawbacks even before you worry that the government might abuse its knowledge of your financial life.

So keeping cash sounds like a good idea. However, there are potential downsides. Any replacement for cash needs to be able to avoid those downsides

The most obvious is to do with the supply of it. Currently there is, as mentioned earlier, a certain upward spring in the prices of things these days if you buy them in dollars (or pounds or euros – though here in Japan, in yen, not so much yet).

And that is a problem for people who like the idea of cash. As Zimbabwe, Venezuela, various other South American nations, Israel and Weimar Germany all can attest to, cash is a complete disaster if the currency is suffering from hyperinflation. In all these cases cash quickly became useless. Indeed even in times and places where inflation is in the 5%-20% per year range (i.e. much of the 1970s and early 1980s for most of the world) cash is a poor store of value although it still works as a method of payment. Cash coins are slightly better than notes though because the metal will have a base value, so much so that at various times people have taken low denomination coins of various countries and melted them down to sell as refined metals.

Plus the other problem with cash as a strictly physical object is that it is hard to pay for things remotely using it. Which is why bearer bonds, letters of credit, cheques/checks, hawala and so on developed all the way back in the 17th/18th centuries (or about a millennium earlier in the case of hawala).

So to sum up, we have a requirement for something that can act as a reasonable store of value and unit of account (in Japan the yen has been amazingly stable for the last three decades but most other currencies have not, and in Japan the cause has been periods of no growth and deflation), be easily exchanged by buyers and sellers for good and services and yet not fall under the control of the government.

Fundamental requirements

Our cash needs to be the following:

Non-inflationary (and non-deflationary).

A ton of things work better if the cost of something is predictable because the currency itself is stable. This doesn’t apply necessarily to every transaction, but the ability to be able to plan investments and calculate expected returns is made far, far easier when the unit of account remains constant over time. In most of the developed world people who are younger than about 40 have no idea what even fairly moderate 5-10% annual inflation does to your financial planning (though in a year or two they will) but it is an important issue. It is worth noting that some currencies have historically been reliable (the pound sterling for the long 19th century up to ~1914, the US dollar for much of the twentieth) while others (the French Franc, the Italian Lira) have not.

As noted in the last 30 some years the Japanese Yen has been amazingly stable in terms of in country pricing. I first came to Tokyo in 1991 and prices for all sorts of things – from soft drinks from vending machines to train tickets to restaurant meals to property prices – have remained very much the same. Some have probably gone down a bit (property in some places, some restaurant deals) but generally speaking things have been stable.

The key seems to be that the money supply should not expand (or contract) in relation to the underlying economy. As we are (re)discovering with all the covidiocy money printing, when you increase the amount of money in circulation without increasing the economy to absorb it, you see prices rise. And, as we will undoubtedly see in the next few years, having got on the inflation train it is very tricky for a national economy/currency to get back off it again. [We know how to do it though. You raise interest rates and cut government spending (and government money printing) and it stops. But it is a painful adjustment as was discovered by all the countries in the 1980s that did it to end their 1970s stagflation.]

For our replacement money we want something that is a good proxy for the underlying economy. An example could be crude oil or the various refined products of it. It is true that the crude oil price varies considerably in dollars or other currencies but crude oil itself has tended to be produced (and consumed) in roughly proportionate amounts to the size of the global economy (see this graph). So if you had a currency of pints of crude then it would not be inflationary or deflationary (also it is worth noting that prior to the end of Bretton Woods and the 1970s oil shock, crude was remarkably consistent in US$ as this graph illustrates)

Independent and Decentralized

Independent means independent from governments. See above note about covidiocy and inflation for reasons why this is bad. It would be nice if it were hard to track by governments so they couldn’t tax you but that’s a nice-to-have, a must-have is that governments (or anyone else) cannot print more of it to suit their own needs.

It would be good if the currency had no single control point but could be replicated by anyone. That makes it hard to shut down if (when) governments get upset about it. They may manage to stamp out Alice’s Spondoolicks, but Bob’s Quatloos (which are readily convertible to/from Spondoolicks) can continue to be used just fine. Also if it turns out that Charlie has been sneakily coining extra Charlicrowns the only people who are impacted are those who have some. Owners of Spondoolicks, Quatloos or Dave’s Doubloons are just fine.

Decentralization also helps with scalability. While it is true that in the past a reference currency (the Thaler, thePound Sterling, the US Dollar) was extremely helpful, in a world where information is easily passed everywhere and where we all have handy dandy massively powerful computers in our pockets, it’s quite not a problem for everyone to have the exchange rates of Doubloons to Quatloos, Quatloos to Spondoolicks and Sponddolicks to Charliecrowns and therefore calcluate how many Doubloons make a Charliecrown.

Based on Something Physical

Actually this may be a nice to have, rather than a must have. But currencies based on actual gold (or wheat or cowrie shells…) have built in warning signs for when they are being inflated because you can do the sums and see that 1 billion ounces of gold probably doesn’t fit in that warehouse over there. Relatedly it is also possible to audit banks etc, and actually count the reserves of gold or wheat or cowrie shells. People can, of course, have fake bars of gold, plastic cowrie shells etc, but it is trickier to do compared to just modifying a few electrons here and there.

Hard to counterfeit or fake

I’d prefer impossible to counterfeit, but I’m prepared to go with hard. Most current cash can be counterfeited but the percentage of counterfeit cash is probably well under 1% of all cash. Again the point here is that someone (a government) cannot simply make more without investment in whatever backs the currency. A currency that can be faked is one that will soon be one that people lack trust in so we need to avoid that. One benefit of a decentralized system is that it should be possible to decouple and deprecate specific instances if they turn out to have been abused without losing trust in the entire currency. There are examples of this working in various places with existing currencies. For example in both Scotland and Hong Kong bank notes can be printed by a number of banks not just the government/central bank. If a particular bank gets into trouble then its notes may end up trading for less than face value.

Functional when the power is off

As you may have noticed significant parts of the world are learning the downsides to “green” energy with respect to its intermittency and general unreliability. The PRC has shot itself in the foot by trying to boycott Australian coal thinking that domestic suppliers and other countries could provide it instead (narrator voice: but they couldn’t). The Europeans have shut most of their coal, some of their nukes and gone for a mix of renewables and gas. And the gas all comes from that beacon of good governance and free-markets: Russia. Parts of the US (California particularly) are doing the same.

If the power flickers on and off that will affect everything that requires electricity including the internet and services based off it, as well as smartphones and so on. It would be really nice if, when push comes to shove, you can pay for that gallon of fuel, roll of toilet paper or loaf of bread in some kind of off-line token. Ideally (see below re remotely transferable) there would be a way to print out tokens, use them and have the recipient scan them back in and destroy them.

Anonymous

We need to not be able to track the origins of cash or who pays whom with it. See above re: governmental oversight. But it isn’t just governments. Any number of large commercial organizations (e.g. Amazon, Walmart or your friendly local supermarket with their loyalty card) love the idea of tracking what you spend your money on so they can target ads and offers to entice you to spend more. All of this tracking has privacy implications. Given that you can’t trust institutions to either hold the data securely or use it ethically, anonymity is a really really good idea.

Remotely transferable

There has to be a way to pay a distant supplier for a product they will ship you that does not involve you, the supplier or a middleman trucking a physical lump of money from point A to point B. It must be noted that systems like Hawala have done this mostly successfully for a thousand years or more so you don’t need an internet (or even a telegram system) to do this. But – obviously – it will be better if it is possible to use the internet if it is available.

Convertible into fiat currencies when required

Paying for things in quatloos, spondoolicks or whatever is fine as long as the other party accepts them. Unfortunately in the near future people you want to pay for goods or services are likely to insist on dollars, euros, pounds, yen etc. so there ought to be a good way to swap quatloos for the required currency. There will also be a need to convert dollars, euros, pounds, yen etc. into quatloos. It is perfectly fine for the conversion process to be costly but it needs to exist.

Usable for small purchases

It seems obvious now but in the past less divisible coins have been a problem. If you get paid 10 spondoolicks a day you probably want to be able to buy things in small fractions of a spondoolick. So the currency needs to be able to support denominations that are small enough. Roughly speaking the current major currencies all have their smallest coin as something that is too small to buy a single thing these days (but you could 40 or so years ago), but where a small number of them can buy say, a single candy or something equally minor.

Why not Bitcoin? or $otherCryptocurrency

Current blockchain based cryptocurrencies don’t work well as quickly transferable cash and have a bunch of other issues. This long blog post covers a fair number of them (you may ignore the glowball wormening part).

A few of the issues: Transactions take a while to be confirmed (minutes to hours) and it is typically complicated to handle fractions of a coin. If you want 1000 widgets to be delivered next Tuesday then a cryptocurrency is fine. If you want to buy an ice-cream or a cup of coffee to eat/drink right now it is not so easy.

Bitcoin is designed to become progressively harder to mine. That’s not stable because it’s not tied to the size of the economy.

No current cryptocurrencies that I am aware of are designed to be turned into physical tokens.

Most cryptocurrencies (bitcoin particularly) are not anonymous either. They are pseudonymous which is similar but not as strong on the identity protection front. It is possible to track every bitcoin transaction back to the origin and people do that, which is why ransomware crooks no longer want bitcoins.

That’s not to say a new cash currency would not use cryptography – in fact it almost certainly will use it for something – but not as the source of the underlying value.

So what do we want?

We want some kind of hard to fake physical token that is based on possession of a physical thing of value.

That physical thing needs to be something that is universally understandable, and available. And it should be reasonably portable at need (think bars of bullion vs say ownership of a plot of land) even if most of the time it doesn’t get transported

That physical thing needs to be (roughly) tied to the size of the economy so that it won’t cause or be subject to inflation or deflation

There should be a mechanism to transfer promises of tokens to distant locations (“I promise to pay the bearer 1oz gold”).

Energy as the fundamental physical base

I think a good thing to base the currency on is energy. That could be just a measure in Joules or BTUs or it could be physical things that have known energy values such as gallons of gasoline or pounds of coal, or it could be both.

I do not claim that an energy based currency will work. But I think it meets most, if not all, of the criteria above. It’s readily understood, readily available, easily transportable and energy usage is tied to economic activity. Its also easy to understand exchanging it, so 1 gallon gasoline == N KwH of electricity == Y lbs of coal and so on.

Tokens

You can print any token you want, but if you add a serial number that includes some crypto validation key that will be helpful for identifying fakes. There probably should be an online “validate this token” thing that can be used to confirm that the serial number is legit.

But it’s you who is on the line to produce the energy if requested. So potentially bank runs could happen but that doesn’t necessarily destabilize the whole system. It would make sense if the people who backed the tokens were people with ownership of energy (e.g. the owners of fracking wells). But you could run an electricity generator and a hydroelectric dam or simply build a load of tanks and store gasoline (or diesel or..) in them if you wanted to. Or people could trust you when you promised to pay for them to refill their car at a gas station. Or… there are lots of options and lots of ways to store energy and use the store to back a currency.

Online resources would be useful to confirm the validity of non-local tokens and some might not be always accepted by everyone. Perhaps you would discover that only special dealers would accept weird Nova Scotian tidal power tokens and then only at a discount to their face energy value. On the other hand the local Stop’n’go tokens would be accepted by everyone and regularly exhangeable for BP tokens from the nearby town or Duke Energy ones….

Energy tokens are easily printable in small amounts and easily understandable. e.g. 1 KwH would be about a (US) dime. 1 fl oz of gasoline is of similar magnitude. Energy tokens are easily exchangeable from one type to another. Swapping a 1000 KwH of electricity for 20 gallons of gasoline (note I have NOT checked the exchange rate, this is an example) is dead easy and in fact you can have some guy with a gasoline powered generator do it very precisely for you.

Remote transfer

We know how to move energy. We know how to trade ownership in energy. All we need is a way to trust the exchange of physical token to virtual one. This is actually a place where the blockchain becomes useful because it allows everyone to confirm that X tokens have been deposited at store S and store S has transferred the value to user U. At some point later when store S receives a withdrawal request it can also log that transaction in the blockchain. Note that

Works when the power is out

Indeed can be used to get the power back on because you can easily swap 20 gallon tokens for 20 gallons of gasoline right now. etc.

How to set up your cash system

See disclaimer at top of post. Talk to a practising tax lawyer. Pay them for their time. This will help you avoid steps that will bring the wrath of the government down on you. However in general, despite the disclaimer, this is how I would work (and these steps are not particularly ordered).

Start small and local. Use barter and IOUs as the basis of your system. “IOU 5 gallons of diesel” is unlikely to be considered a legal currency. Nor is “IOU 5 lbs of zucchini”. Or even the handing around of actual zucchini (or the traditional cigarettes and bottles of booze).

Code words. Squids, zuchinis, etc. have innocuous meanings that can mean they will be ignored when the authorities read your emails/text messages. Use archaic counting: score, dozen, gross. Use Roman numerals. “I want LIV dozen squids and a score zuchini” is less obviously cash that 648.20 $currencyname and so on.

The key is to keep local commerce working when the national/international stuff is not. So work on blockchains and electronic transfers later. For now having a trusted person at the other end (a la Hawala) will suffice.

If you need to make coins then washers that are engraved would work well. A modern CNC engraving tool could easily engrave the serial number of the coin if you wanted to do that along with a pattern that would be hard for a foger to replicate if he doesn’t have the pattern.

When you get to electronic banking, transfers etc. avoid all the things that have allowed crypto currencies to be insecure, most of which turn out to be stupid software bugs. Even large banks can write insecure code for this kind of thing so try not to need to write software of any sort. Or to have online portals etc. If you have to have an online thing open source the s/w and get someone to review it

Know your customer/trading partner. This reduces the chance of informants and criminals.

Other options

I like the idea of energy. But I’m sure there are other things. Even perhaps cryptobased things that I haven’t thought of. Also I’m sure there are things I’m missing. Don’t be shy. Comment away