According To Hoyt

John Lennon’s Tooth and The Machinery of Fate A Blast from the Past April 2014

It is a given fact that you guys like to disturb me. I don’t know why that is. I’d take it for granted that, in fact, life disturbs me enough. Take taxes, for instance — oh, wait. Los Federales already did. They have great need of money to eat it or something. Never mind.

Perhaps in an effort to distract me from running around the house repeating RAH’s dictum that you should be wary of strong drink: it might make you shoot at tax collectors and MISS, one of you told me about this dentist in … Alberta? Who bought one of John Lennon’s teeth (who even sells that?) and who plans to “clone John Lennon.”

Okay, as publicity it might be okay, though – I don’t know about you – I’d be hesitant to go to a dentist – any doctor really – who is into macabre souvenirs.

But the idea…

My answer to the reprobate who told me about it was to point out that we already have plenty of broken misfits around. I think he was a little taken aback, so I had to explain.

This is not the case with every one, of course, but speaking for me and a lot of other writers I know – and Lord help us, plastic artists are WORSE – art is what happens when you break somebody, then put them under unbearable pressure. Imagine if you will living, animated, sentient coal, and you’re trying to make diamonds. You apply enormous pressure…

And sometimes you’re going to get the diamond. The misfit will reorganize, re-integrate, find an outlet, and the result is something rarer and far better than mere human coal. But this being humans, most of the time you’re just going to get coal dust or perhaps diamond chips.

The resemblance between artists and madmen has been noted through history, but it’s slightly sideways from the truth. The truth is not that artists are mad, but rather like they achieved a state supra-madness where they function fine because they have that artistic outlet.

Now, I’m not quite that way, but then as you know I’m more craftswoman than artist.

Anyway, what shocked me about that story is that artist or not, Lennon’s success; his fame; his contribution to the world of music and the performing arts, is even more dependent on chance, on just how high that pressure was turned, when.

Regardless of what you think of his solo career it came after the Beatles, and might never have been what it was without the Beatles, and besides the Beatles is arguably his greatest contribution. What I mean is, absent the Beatles, he’d never have been the John Lennon he was, for good or ill. (This is something I tried to capture in Superlamb Banana. And yes, oh my, that does need another cover. Sigh.)

And that surely isn’t expressed in his genes. Unless you think of genes as sort of a magic destiny, the sort that the fairygodmothers used to give people over their cradle.

You might, of course. It’s a new and popular theory. Everything we are and everything we achieve is supposed to be there, in our genes, ready to happen. This Calvinistic (but not religious) view of humanity of course presupposes that the future is pre-written. We are, if you will, lines of code in a program we can’t help follow.

This is very similar to the Portuguese idea of fate which, Portugal being heavily influenced by Islam, is still central to the culture. You hear even educated people say things like “We all follow our fate.”

And it annoys me. It is, if you will, part of the Widgetization of humanity.

The left is going for this in a big way, without ever admitting it’s what they’re doing, just their their assumption of culture being genetic is never admitted to be full on racism. (It is. What else would it be? White people are endlessly protean, but if you are an interesting sub-race/culture, then you have to follow a script and know your place? Straight up racism!)

They’re going for this fate and pre-ordained thing in a big way because it’s a logical follow on their idea that nothing is your fault. If everything is scripted, its’ wrong to hold crimes against criminals. It also fits right in with the number of extreme left people who are radical losers. You might have an IQ of 180 and be living in a trashy apartment and raiding trash cans for garbage, but it was all planned, and it’s not your fault. Oh, yeah, and you can’t escape, so making the effort to actually integrate into society? Not possible. It will only fail.

Of course this destroys human freedom.

I’ve said of this before, that even if it were true (and if it were, we couldn’t prove it, barring proving the entire universe is a computer program) it would be evil to believe it. It would rob all existence of meaning and all humans of individuality. However, what we know seems to show it’s not true. I mean, maybe someone scripted me to have my particular life so far, in which case you have to wonder if they were sane (sorry) but I, like all of us, can see the errors, the failures, the slips – and what might have been. And it was not forbidden to me.

Of course, the jokers who believe this bilge then say that you don’t really think: you just follow a script, and then rationalize your actions.

While a lot of people do this, and a lot of us do it at times in minor stuff — like we forget we were going to make a cake and when we’re halfway through making a soufflé, we do the cat thing “I meant to do that” — I beg to differ. Major decisions are usually weighed by everyone but the very infantile, and the ones who believe that they can’t help themselves.

Again this is the widgetization of people. It’s making people things who would all act the same way given certain genes. Yeah, some twin studies purport to show that, to an extent, but I always wonder about the ones that don’t make cute lifeline stories. Oh, sure, the tendencies are in your genes. But what you make of them is your choice.

You’re not the sum of your ancestry. You’re not a widget. You’re not the slave to the culture you were born in. The future is yours to mold.

And as for John Lennon, poor man, who the heck needs another kid with funny glasses, a lot of uncontrolled aggression and some musical talent? He left children, in the normal way of mankind. Let that be enough for his contribution, and let him rest in peace.

You guys know what I read as the pressure climbs, right? Yep, yep, Jane Austen fanfic. But what happens if the pressure climbs above that and I’m running on empty?

If you said “books about great lost civilizations” you get a prize. I’m not sure what the prize is, but it’s probably a booby prize. Anyway, so in the five days between two drives across the country, I fell into a series of “I totally know where Atlantis is” books.

And I ran into it. Head first.

Noble savages. The whole genre is full of noble savages and their ancient ways of knowing. They’re soft pedaling it on the great goddess these days, possibly because the sound of raucous laughter has made them back off. But oh, the noble savages, and the evil Western civ.

Here let me interject that for just a moment that it’s understandable that all the “ancient lost civilization” people are new agers and often sound like they inhaled a bit too deeply from the peace pipe. Because counter-cultural people — truly counter-cultural — aren’t usually the sanest or most respectable people around. Mostly because if they were they would walk the line, trying to keep their jobs, pensions and benes.

Oh, and don’t sing me your sacrosanct science of archeology song. I still think mostly they’re looking under the street lights, and even so I’ve seen them revise their “certainties” over and over again till what was “science” when I was young is now “we used to think.” The problem with archeology is that it’s just soft enough that a few dominant personalities with a theory can stop new discoveries. Or if you prefer, science changes a grave at a time, and none more than archeology. You people in STEM, even if you dive into their writings, probably don’t catch the whiff of “Stompy Stomp because I said so” that I do, because of having been forced — for my sins — to study literature so they’d let me study languages. But trust me, it’s obvious to me. And impossible to ignore. Like a stompy stompy skunk just got run over.

While on that, and as a side bar, are there ancient lost civilizations? Oh, almost for sure. Humans create civilizations as they breathe. And advances are often lost to cataclysms or self-goal even now.

Was any of these civilizations at our level? No. Or at least highly unlikely, because well… a lot of things had to hit just right to get us where we are when we are. 19th century or even 18th century level? Don’t know. It’s possible. But…. no trace? Well, none we’ve found. Remember however that if it was before the ice age, it could have happened and left no trace. That kind of change scours the landscape. Now Egypt or Babylon level? 99% sure there are some we haven’t unearthed. You see, those tend to be…. smallish in scope, and therefore easier to completely destroy. Trade goods found elsewhere would not be easily found. or if found, they wouldn’t necessarily be obvious. Or classed as “anomalies”.

But that’s not the point. The point is that everyone accepts that lost civilizations don’t exist, and so anyone bucking the “everyone knows” is likely to be slightly peculiar anyway.

Still must it always be noble savages? In the name of the gods of sanity why?

I read well-intentioned descriptions of children burials and how sad the kids’ parents must be, while … well, let’s say I’ve read enough about pre-history to know what a child sacrifice looks like. And the fact this author is incapable of “seeing” it is scary and infuriating. Actually the fact that all of them all the time ignore signs of sacrifice, cannibalism, tribal war, etc.

And it’s like that with everything. Absolutely everything. “Western Civilization evil/bad” and “If only we listened to the wisdom of the noble savages.”

The problem is the noble savages are a myth. And possibly the most harmful myth of all, ammunition for oikophobes and haters of civilization and the west. It also encourages the soft-headed and young to think that if they destroy civilization they’ll get paradise. These born-again Rosseaunians have been plaguing everything that still works and thinking life will improve if they destroy it. Then taking the increased problems as a sign that we need to destroy more. And I’m tired of it.

For the record no ancient civilization other than Israel (and there’s a troubling passage in the Bible about whatshisname promising to sacrifice the first person to come greet him out of his house, and his daughter does. Yes, there are other explanations, and maybe it was just shutting her up in a nunnery or something, which is still weird, but not as much) is free of human sacrifice. We now know even Greece and Rome sacrificed young people when under pressure, duress and fear. I’m not sure how widespread cannibalism is, but it still happens in current day, so why shouldn’t it happen when there was no strong moral repulsion of it? It gallops through African fairytales and legends, for instance. Other things? Well, let me disabuse you: no, it wasn’t white people who brought rape and female exploitation to the Americas. You might not find any references to it in old legends for the same reason you don’t find us stopping to say “Oh, by the way we breathe air.” Also rape and female oppression wasn’t a crime. It was “the way things are.” Pretty much for everyone till those Judeo-Christian weirdos decided that women too were children of G-d and ought to be respected as such. Which threw a spanner in the works right and proper. And even so, because men’s physical strength is and has always been (no matter what lies the moderns tell) immensely larger than women’s, it took centuries — centuries — and technological advances (G-d bless Smith and Wesson) for the idea that raping women or pushing them around was a bad thing to fully percolate through society in the West. Yes, yes, the anglosphere was better, particularly the colonies, but I still grew up with “He beats me but he’s my man” and my family being weird because the women would straight up shiv you if you disrespected them.

Primitives, living close to the land? Oh, please. The only reason that raping a woman was wrong was because it somehow injured the man she belonged to. That’s it. Which is why even in Regency England (or in the Portugal of my childhood) the remedy for rape was to marry the woman to her rapist.

So, great civilization of the past better than the West? Sorry not buying it. Particularly when you’re carefully avoiding seeing the signs of horror and evil.

Someone whose mind and “sense” I greatly respect said he sensed evil all around Gobekli Tepe, which checks with Peter Grant saying that the ruins of Great Zimbabwe are viewed by locals as terrible places where terrible stuff happened. I know how I react to eve pictures of Aztec pyramids. Is it because I know what happened there? Sure. Probably. Maybe. And?

Civilizations can be the best of their time, and technically accomplished and still be rank and utter horrors.

A lot of people, even the right, look for perfection in the past. It won’t fadge. No the Victorians weren’t better than us. The eighteenth century wasn’t better than us. And no, the early twentieth century wasn’t more “moral” than us. Oh, sure, the ethos, the in your face public displays were. And they hadn’t (yet) been invaded by an oikophobic and destructive elite who tried to make a mockery and a destruction of everything good and moral.

But the real people, the people living day to day were about the same. The US remains the most religious place on Earth and, look you, Christendom remains Christendom. Yes, people will say they’re agnostic or atheists in polls a lot more because in the past it was frowned upon and no it’s lionized. But what they feel and think, at base level hasn’t changed a whole heck of a lot. We still have our fair share of saints, even if low key and not talking about it. And they had their high share of scoundrels, perverts and evil people, same as we do. It’s just in the past they used to hide.

(Yeah, yeah, church attendance is down. Have you looked at the mainstream churches recently? Because I have to make a constant effort to find the one of my denomination that’s not insane at that moment, and sometimes this means driving two hours to service. If it weren’t because I feel I need it I wouldn’t bother, either.)

The kids, whatever the media tells you, are still all right.

There is no perfection in the past. The savages were by and large less noble than we are. And our recent ancestors too. Which doesn’t justify erasing the memory of their great deeds, btw. But it also doesn’t justify treating ourselves as if we can’t achieve greatness.

There is no perfection in the future either. Only fools, children and leftists (BIRM) believe that. Don’t aim for perfection. Or do, but know you won’t achieve it.

If anything requires that “everyone” does something to achieve it, it’s not achievable. If you think any society is a failure because there’s the occasional rape or murder, or because your neighbor is a rough-talking heathen, you’re just going to enshrine barbarism.

Instead improve what you can. Do the best you can.

Oh, and do study the past and learn from it, both the good and the bad, without trying to worship your ancestors. That was always a crazy heresy.

And please, please, please, get some sane archeologists in the game. (Which might require taking it from academia.)

Now I’m going to return to writing my fascinating and not wholly noble savages. Catch you later.

*We’re finalizing our preparations for LC. OBVIOUSLY we’re not leaving in the morning. (Work stuff. Not mine.) Anyway, for those of you making it to the range, this seems like an important post. I’ll try to write one tomorrow. Time not guaranteed, as we’ll be driving and sometimes connection is iffy. Same Friday. Anyway, stay safe. Practice responsible bang therapy. (Not that kind of bang, you sickos. Well, that kind of bang maybe too, but I don’t want to hear about it. Ew.) – SAH*

Range PPE by David Bock

I’m sure the majority of our regular readers are aware of the importance of range safety.  Most people know this means following range instructions from the range safety officer and/or match director, keeping your muzzle down range, and other basic safe gun handling.

But there’s more to it than that.  Range safety also means personal protective equipment (or PPE) which includes dressing properly for the range.

I’d like to think everyone knows about the importance of eye and ear protection, but experience as an instructor and Range Safety Officer has taught me better.

While many modern plastic prescription lenses have similar attributes to safety glasses, they are not the same thing.  For one, regular eyeglasses do not generally have side shields.  There are too many stories of people getting eye damage from a piece of bullet jacket, an empty casing, or a ricochet hitting them from the side.

Prescription safety glasses are available as well as regular safety glasses that will fit over your everyday glasses.  Yes, they might not be as comfortable, but I’m willing to lay odds they’re more comfortable than an eye patch.

Moving on to ear protection, hearing damage is cumulative and permanent and over time, it affects us all.

The unit of measurement for sound is the decibel. The decibel scale is logarithmic, this means that a change from 10 to 20 decibels is not double, but ten times the volume. Another aspect of hearing damage from sounds is duration.  Exposure to a lower volume sound for a longer period of time can be just as damaging to our hearing as exposure to a loud sound for a shorter time.

Any sound in excess of 140 decibels, without hearing protection, can cause instant hearing damage.  A .22 rimfire pistol generally exceeds 150 decibels at the muzzle. The volumes go up from there.

Both the National Institute of Health and Safety (NIOSH) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) have more information on both hearing loss and hearing protection.

Here’s a decibel chart with a specific emphasis on firearms.

Here’s a more generalized chart of common noise levels.

Hearing protection is listed with a noise reduction rating, or NRR value. For hearing protection to be good for use while shooting, it should have a NRR in the 20s at least.

Keep in mind that the actual decibel reduction is not what‘s listed on the package.  To determine this value, take the NRR number (as decibels), subtract seven, and then divide by two. As shown in this 3M Hearing Protection Guide (PDF warning).  So a product with an NRR rating of 27 would reduce volume by 10 decibels.

Some people like to double up their hearing protection, wearing plugs and muffs, for example. However, the two ratings aren’t added together, five decibels of protection are added to whichever element has the higher NRR value.

In addition to these two main elements, there’s also making wise clothing choices.

The general recommendation is to wear a long sleeved, high collar shirt, long pants, closed toed shoes, and a hat.  Avoid low cut tops.

All of this it to keep brass off our skin.  Brass gets hot when fired.  Anyone who’s ever gotten a piece of brass down their shirt knows just how uncomfortable this can be.

One of the main benefits of the metallic cartridge case is that it takes a significant amount of heat with it when it leaves the gun. I don’t think any of us want that heat transferred to our skin. As I was told during firefighter training more than once “people cook just like chicken.”  I’d say more like pork, but whatever.

There are many good reasons to wear proper protective equipment while shooting.  It won’t protect us completely, but it can go a long way to making our experience safer and more enjoyable.

It never fails. Never. If a site is gaining popularity with the “to the right of Lenin” crowd, some expose, sometimes a lot of them come out explaining how they’re out to get us, it’s the most terrible thing ever and it’s a trap. And people run.

And this is the most stupid thing ever. Somewhere between a punishing sites that encourage or tolerate us, and doing the left’s bidding by allowing them to take over spaces by running before them like scared sheep.

For years now some of you — you know who you are — have thrown hissy fits and ranted at Amazon.

So Amazon is soft left. Cool-ee-oh. Cute story bro. Note that most — not all but most — of the cases of their taking down books that are “right wing” are manufactured by agent provocateurs who make sure they violate the rules just-so and then act shocked, shocked, they were taken down and insist it must be left wing bias.

Okay, I haven’t looked at all of them, and one or two of them might be true. There are — we know this — bad agents embedded at Amazon, and MOSTLY there are stupid agents, meaning people scared of “offending” because they are not American and don’t understand America.

To be fair on this, because I still lurk, forgotten, in leftist groups, and they complain of as many “politically motivated” take downs. And most of them also aren’t.

But the point is, let’s assume that Amazon really is politically biased. (Well, they are, in the sense they hired people from trad pub to help run the book side. At best they’re soft left) and will at some point in the future and for no reason take down every single author to the right of Lenin and forbid us the site.

Well, that would in fact be a terrible thing, and I’m not sure how I’d deal. I have plans and could probably shift, but it would still hurt for a year or two.

Here’s the thing though: that hasn’t happened yet. And until that happens, Amazon if the 800 lb gorilla of indie publishing.

If I run now, I’ll still sell to my hard core fans, sure. And maybe some of the softer core ones if I had some publicity efforts we’re contemplating anyway. But I will lose maybe half of my readers. These are the casual “Oh, I see that name and kind of remember I liked her last book. I’ll buy or at least borrow.” And I’ll (listen closely to this) lose 90% of my ability to get new readers who just stumble on me on Amazon.

Question: Why would I do that to myself? On purpose? Have I developed a sudden allergy to cash? Taken a vow of poverty? Really hate my family and want them to suffer? Which one is it? Because barring one of those, I’m being a dumbf*ck by running before I’m kicked out.

There is one semi-valid point to be made for running: don’t give money to those who hate us.

This one DOES apply to Amazon, but in Amazon’s case, it is negated by “Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face.” Sure I’m giving them (some) money. But without them I get almost no money. To run now would be to take poison and hoping my enemy would die.

That last point applies FAR MORE to places like Facebook, which are already in decline/present few opportunities for promotion.

So why do I stay there? Because I have a reasonable contingent of my readers for whom that’s the main social media. I’m not leaving them behind. But…. giving them money! Oh, please. Mostly these days I go there to share posts or promo books. I buy nothing they advertise. Sure, they’re still collecting data. Most of it is bad (I checked. For instance, I’m a political “moderate.” Which is actually true, mind, but not in THEIR reckoning for sure.) So the only money I’m “giving” them is adding one to their numbers. What? You think they can’t just invent more? Why do you think they don’t erase obviously dead people and pets? Yeah.

Mostly I stay in places like Facebook because I don’t want to give up the platform. If no one there were reading my blogs, they wouldn’t work so hard on doing things like making sure no picture (and sometimes no specific post) show in my link. I’m not leaving. They’d have to kick me out. (If you’re a private person, not a public figure, of course, that’s completely different.)

But recently I’ve noticed a trend of attacking sites that are specifically either ours or specifically secure.

I actually fell for the first of these, Proton mail, which was alleged to have rolled over and finked. It took me months to find out I was actually wrong about it, because the precipitating incident was that they REFUSED to roll over fink for (I THINK. I’ve slept since then) the UK government. And I should have known it was stupid, because if both are on Proton mail it’s end to end encrypted and if broken into it gibberishes (totally a word) itself. So even the owners couldn’t fink. If they wanted to. The encription is based on YOUR password, which they don’t know.

Now, mind you, I have other problems with Proton, mainly the fact it does NOT notify me I have messages, and being ADD AF I forget to check it. But you can get me to answer by pinging me on hotmail and telling me you emailed proton. (Yes, cumbersome. Deal.)

Signal is the same on end to end encryption and I’ve recently seen a flurry of screaming that it’s a trap, and they work for the left and…. Listen, you rockheads, I don’t care if half the left invests in it, they can’t read your messages, because it’s encrypted end to end. On your password. They couldn’t if they wanted to.

The latest target of the screaming mimmies is substack.

Is substack perfect? Oh, heck no. They’re technologically kludgy and weird. Financially too, in the sense that they could be easier at setting how you’ll get paid.

However they do not in fact have a political bias, as in banning what you say. Might they have it in one case or two during COVID? sure. Possible. But as we now know, den fuhrer bootsies were actively telling platforms to take down “misleading” “disinformation” or the government would shut them down. I haven’t examined the cases of substack take down and can’t be sure it was political. (Because most of the time it isn’t. It’s florid politics, and behind the scenes violating rules to ensure they’re taken down. Almost like they’re trying to scare us into panicking and running.) HOWEVER if those were political, they are still within the margin of error, and all the articles about them are GROSSLY overblown.

Being one of the most popular blogging platforms, if you run from them, who are you benefiting? If the right runs the left, by definition owns the field and really this time sets the rules so you can’t get in.

Heck, take WordPress, which is no angel. All the cases of “political take down” I dove down were in fact like Amazon’s. “I was taken down for my brave article about Covid” and you’re all sympathetic. Then you dive down the site, and in the side bar, under “about us” or “interests” or whatever you find actual incitement to violence which is the real reason they were taken down.

Remember the guy some of you mentioned and who had in fact been linking my articles for months, and I allowed the links to show, because I assumed what I saw at a cursory glance, was what the blog was: a place that showcased links to me, and Ace and a few others? When he was taken down and you guys linked him, he came to the comments to cry. But something he said — I don’t remember what — hit me wrong, so I went to check his site. And oh, dear Lord, in the About Us and other side bars, it was a fest of stuff that yes, of course it’s going to get banned, including explicit triple x pron.

In other words, the site had been setup as bait to have word press ban them, at which point the guy could spook the right by claiming it was all political and look how they are unreliable. When I called him on it in the comments and blocked him, he left one more comment which he didn’t approve, about how ah ah you sheep are so easy to scare.

Which I remember.

Yes, WordPress is annoying, but most of it is stupid programmer tricks, trying to “improve” it and making it worse and worse. Even though they are not explicitly for us, nor designed to attract us.

Sure, they play with my numbers, though that might be google. And other stupid tricks. But I’m still here.

Here’s the thing: If we run, they don’t have to kick us out. If we abandon speech platforms? They don’t have to censor us. If we spook at the first hint or a rumor? They don’t have to make an effort. And no one will try to fill our niche market, because we’ll be too unreliable.

I understand being paranoid. We’ve been under sustained attack for 100 years. But right now, just by refusing to run, speaking out and rewarding platforms that allow us to speak out? We’re winning. The culture is turning. Politics inevitably follows culture. not the other way around.

Sure, sometimes we’re going to get hit. Keep backups of your content so you can move quickly. But it’s not worth it to move preemptively, and it is in fact BAD FOR YOU and for all of us.

The fact the left is now trying to demonize ALL internet usage — No really — we really are winning this thing.

Look at what was suggested for me by pocket last night:

“The internet is evil, you stupid prolls! It will give you apnea! It makes you ungovernable! Stop using the internet and listen to us!”

Keep on keeping on. To quote Ian “It’s scared.”

If forced, then move, but until then refuse to be spooked.

Be not afraid. Fear plays on the side of the enemy. We’re not afraid. We’re the ones they’re afraid of.

You got this.

When I was in highschool, back in pre-history (the 1970s were pretty barbaric!) the hotness in psychology and sociology and frankly in public discourse was Freudianism. It had been completely internalized by then, proceeding from the halls of academia to the popular imagination.

If I had a dime for every time I was told I only wrote poetry (or novels. And boy, were they wretched) because I was sublimating my sexual impulses, and how I’d be “normal” and well adjusted if I simply slept with everyone who asked, I’d have…. well… I’d never have had to work, and I’d still be spending those dimes.

I know there are people here who are older than I, but I don’t know to what extent that pervaded the US back then. And I suspect the young people never really encountered it in that form, because by then it had sunk even deeper into popular culture and become non-explicit. It’s the underpinning of movies (boys/men only care about getting laid. Women…. well, behave like no woman ever, see any of the series where all women care about is getting laid, too.) and tv and books, but it’s not clearly articulated.

It was pretty pervasive and impossible to ignore. There was a sub-genre of “intellectual” books and movies where the murderer killed because he didn’t have enough sex, or not his preferred type of sex, and “cold” women (who didn’t want to indulge whatever crazy sexual fantasy the guy preferred) were guilty for every mass murderer ever as well as every other social ill.

There was also the gross subset, the reaction to which causes the spasm of accusations of child abuse in the eighties: the idea that if children were exposed to all kinds of sex very young they’d not have repressions (or in the lingo of the day “hangups”) and would therefore be perfectly well adjusted and jealousy, envy and aggression would just vanish. (This was perfectly integrated in the Communist Manifesto where Marx explained why if people gave him everything and every woman slept with him, the world would be paradise. And okay, sure, I exaggerate, but not by much to be fair.)

It really was everywhere. It’s still everywhere, but not completely articulated as “if>then.” And since it’s mated in people’s heads with the whole (also unspoken) Marxist concept that for every situation there is an oppressed and an oppressor, and if something is wrong, you must find the person/group to blame for it, it’s going to be a load of trouble as we try to right this ship and recover from the 20th century.

In most problems, there isn’t a clear cut oppressed/oppressor dynamic. My instinct for just about everything is to blame the government, and it’s amazing how often that works, but mostly that is because most human problems have their basis in how humans are — the human condition, if you will — but governments throughout history have tried to “improve” on that, and the accretion of bad ideas just builds and builds and builds, till yeah, it’s the government. Then that changes and we get other bad ideas accreting. Mass solutions fit nobody.

Anyway, what brought this rant about was this:

There is a link above the image, which gives you the context, but that’s not the important part. The important part is one of the answers to this, which was so wrong it wasn’t even wrong. As in it was literally “None of this makes any sense” and it had its root both in freudianism and Marxist dualism, both of which, by providing a facile veneer of intellectualism to very simple thinking have penetrated the back-mind of the west to the point they’re like a sort of brain parasite, eating away at what still functions.

As for the tweet above, there is nothing wrong with it/no falsehood detected. Those are indeed the sounds of vibrant goblin neighborhoods the “diverse” and “vibrant” areas of our towns, ever more infused with newcomers, newly arrived from third world shitholes.

The problem was that in the comments, someone who I’m sure thinks he’s “right wing” and “conservative” took offense with the fact that all the examples of bad behavior she cites “are male.” First of all, I can’t find where she mentions the sex of the overdoses. And I believe the “he” for schizophrenic is more in line of the old grammatical rule that if you don’t know the sex referred to it’s “he”. Second, as for males beating females, way for this “based” and “Chad” dude to tell everyone that he never actually lived in a poor neighborhood. Because, yeah, males beat females. A LOT. It takes a high degree of Western civilization for the opposite to ever happen. Reason being for males to get beaten, they must HOLD BACK. Which means they have internalized “men don’t hit women”. Now, sure, some other guy piled on saying she doesn’t have some chick yelling at her daughters, and a cat fight. But AGAIN way to tell us you’ve never lived in a poor neighborhood. Those dulcet sounds get lost in the death-like-screams of some woman getting beat within an inch of her life. Or on Saturday night, multiple women getting beat within an inch of her life. Because the imports from the third world take full advantage of males being bigger and stronger than females, and take out their frustrations on their wives like American men might relax by playing video games, or watching a fairly violent movie. It’s just what they do. Particularly on a weekend night. (Having grown up in a western but strange country and in unenlighted times, this happened in the village too. Drink a little, beat your wife, and other chilling that happened on weekends. Not in my family, but that was why we were Odd. Also why our women were known and feared, because we must have some weird magic.)

Anyway, the point here is that out of a cogent point this guy saw only “she’s attacking males.” Because he feels — possibly rightly — oppressed, so it must be females doing it.

Then he segwayed into this very weird thing about how she was only mad at men because she couldn’t get a “Chad” to sleep with her and had to sleep with inferior males.

I’m not going to reproduce his response, because he also threw in a bit of anti-semitism, because why not, if you’re going to be an idiot be an idiot all the way. Also, of course, since all oppression is binary, if he isn’t rich it’s because “reee! Jewish financiers control everything.” So, of course. But if you page down through the answers, you’ll inevitably find him.

The point is that it’s a bizarre response. The Marxist duality is so ingrained in the idiot that he can’t even read what’s actually written. Like the left, he just scans for pronouns, and if those are bad and denote “bad” things, then the poster must be anti-male, instead, of you know, having lived in low rent neighborhoods and correctly reproducing the noisiest type of malfeasance you can hear in those neighborhoods. (Because most of them are stocked with third world males.)

AND THEN when assigning the reason why a woman would do that, (Why she “hates” males, because that’s what he thinks) he must default to stupid background Freudianism. I.e. if there’s any evil or any envy or anything wrong, it’s because someone isn’t getting as much/the kind of sex they want.

This reduces humans to the most basic, instinct-driven animal.

It is by the way wrong, if you wonder. Heinlein might have said that everything humans did was a mating dance, and maybe he was right, in the sense horoscopes are “right” and all sorts of models for societal things are “right” — like the fourth turning one, or the strong/weak men one, or– — in the sense that if you abstract past a certain point and ignore non-conforming data everything will fit. But I can tell you that while I’ve done things to attract a man’s attention, including at one point putting stick on labels with eyes on his monitor, and perching a saucy vintage ladies hat on it, with a label underneath saying “the other woman” it’s mostly THAT man. Telling stories isn’t a mating dance. It’s what my brain does to amuse itself so it doesn’t die of boredom. And making say little stuffed animals would be very weird as a mating dance, since guys don’t even see them. (Not to mention painting rocks. Or refinishing furniture, which would scare off most guys, and just causes the one guy I care about to tell me to stop doing it because it makes my asthma worse.) And if Dan is doing programming as a mating dance, he’s doing it wrong. Not to mention the weird side-obsessions he gets into and then MUST tell me about. Last week he was “shopping” for a camper van. NOT REALLY because we don’t want one, much less can afford it, but he dropped down that rabbit hole, and HAD to tell me everything about it.

If there are men and women out there who are SOLELY interested in sex and who do everything in the interest of getting laid, I’ve never come upon them, or not outside a specific, late teens early twenties age range.

If humans were only interested in sex and sex solved everything, then humans would still be in a cave somewhere, and the most daring activity would be to raid the next band for women. Sure, great development of arrows and flint knives, not to mention clubs. (It just occurred to me the pursuit of getting laid always involves clubs. Sigh. I need more coffee, don’t I?) But you know? baskets, pottery, fishing, etc. would long since have fallen by the way side. (Hey, other humans are tasty, no need for anything else.)

But here’s the thing: A lot of the people who think they’re “fighting back” against the leftist culture that reduces humans to sex objects and pits a human group against the other are still refusing to think.

We were all taught Marxism and Freudianism to such an extent most of us aren’t aware how much of it there is, lurking in the back spaces of our minds and polluting everything.

Be aware that the reverse of a lie is…. still a lie. And fighting lies with lies perpetuates hell on Earth, just a slightly differently-targeted hell.

But in the end, in the war between men and women everyone loses. There isn’t some perfect third group (regardless of what idiots say) to come and take the spoils. And women “winning” the superior position or men “winning” the superior position still lose the important part of relationships and marriage which is trust, confidence, and the ability to absolutely trust the other. The big advantage to being a species with two sexes (other than reproductive) is the ability and need to enter a symbiotic relationship with someone who is different. Which in turns makes it easier to deal with all that aren’t “us.” And therefore communicate and expand, and yes, colonize, which has been the advanced edge of civilization.

Don’t kneejerk to “it’s men” or “it’s women.” In the current system no one wins, but the two sides are kept forever at the other’s throat. (Okay, the Marxists win.) And things get worse every generation.

We need to look beyond the binary, and — to evoke Rex Stout — to look at humans as having other interests beyond the instincts we share with dogs.

Otherwise the Marxists and popular Freudians win. And nothing changes.

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

FROM JERRY BOYD (A NEW SERIES!): Mark’s Magic (Fat Man’s Gift Book 1)

Mark was happy enough, working as a mechanic. He didn’t know that he was more than that, until his mother gave him some keepsakes from his grandfather. Those opened his eyes to a whole world that he hadn’t realized he had a place in. Watch him learn to use his new skills.

FROM CHARLES HACKNEY: Chosen by the Sword: An Urban Fantasy series (The Professor Howard Chronicles Book 1

There are some things a PhD doesn’t prepare you for, like running two feet of steel through the guts of a flesh-eating monster straight out of a nightmare, while ducking razor sharp claws. Or having the sword critique your fighting style while you do it.

Dave Howard had a problem. Last week, he was out looking for a teaching job in the middle of a wrecked job market. This week he was neck deep in green blood and hellfire. Dragged into it by the very sword, his grandfathers’ mysterious possessed blade, that was now walking him through hacking up a ghoul without getting his own head cut off. This wasn’t exactly what he had gone to school for, and the University he had just taken a job with seemed to be anything BUT an academic institution. More like some kind of monster hunting bunch of weirdo nerds. Maybe his degree in Personality Psychology might be useful there, at least. The fighting though … as he dodged another swipe of claws and awkwardly tried to follow the instructions the sword was screaming at him, he shot back at it, “Hell, I’m Canadian! Swordplay isn’t in my cultural DNA!”

An exciting new series that dives into a hidden supernatural world that lies just outside our own.

FROM S. K. BERIT: My Shorts Are Showing: Stories with no discernable theme

“What is a ‘Once Cat’?” asked Irvin, ignoring the harsh instructions to never speak, tapping his thigh with his pistol.

Woncekats hate explaining what they are, so Otis kept walking through the culvert, staying delicately left of the fetid water dribbling insincerely down the corrugated steel tube.

Irvin stopped four feet into the pipe. “I’m supposed to find one named Otis.”

Otis didn’t need to ask why—the bounty could enrich generations. He stopped, sat, and licked the back of his right paw where an undetectable fleck of mud had attached itself.

“I wonder why she left you. You don’t, of course. That would require…curiosity,” said Otis, his low voice echoing through the dank, elongated cylinder. His words wafted on invisible tendrils that wormed into Irvin’s mind, forcing him to review his worst moments in every cruel detail. “You’d then be curious, naturally, about yourself, and the mountains of failures you’ve managed to pile up in so few years. After that comes the broken heart, not for her, but for the person you might have been, for all the futures you threw away. And for what?”

Irvin slumped, pistol in hand, against the side of the culvert, hand and pistol butt pressed against his temples, as soulless accusations reverberated inside the bony chamber of his skull.

“And then,” said Otis. “If you are unlucky enough, you’ll realize she wanted to stay. I hope not, for your sake.”

Otis continued through the filthy metal pipe, savoring the agony behind him.

FROM RANDY BROWN: Next Time

Listed on the 2024 Must-Read List by Independent Book Review: “Of the many time-travel novels I’ve read, this is undeniably among my favorites.”

Fans of time-travel love stories as well as SF will enjoy “Next Time,” where a chance encounter with Miriam leaves William doubting her claims of randomly jumping forward in time. He is deeply skeptical when she tells him she’s been doing it for a thousand years.

As Miriam randomly reappears over the next several months and years, they fall in love. Rumors of Miriam’s condition raise the attention of government agents and the couple scrambles to avoid people who view Miriam as a chance for experimentation.

William and Miriam explore their past, live for the brief interludes they have together, and hope for their future, all amidst living life in scattered moments. Building a life together takes time.

Read the story awarded 5-star reviews by multiple sites, including Reedsy Discovery, Reader Views, Readers’ Favorite, and Literary Titan!

FROM HOLLY CHISM: Having a Pint

Even the dead have to make a living…

Meg Turner, vampire accountant and investments advisor, has plenty of living clients, but not many among her fellow undead. That’s about to change: she’s been invited to a regional business fair for her kind. She’ll get to meet and greet more bloodsuckers than she really wanted to (hopefully without having to suck up to any of them). than just the two Vampire cops she helped track down and stake her late, unlamented sire—and hopefully make some friends and answer some questions.

Unfortunately, she’s got a Line Progenitor who’s begun invading her dreams, and a serial killer stalking her future clients to distract her from growing her business. Throw in a sick roommate not long before the conference starts, a mafia messenger boy left on her front porch, and only one car to juggle all of her responsibilities toward her roommate and unexpected guest. And then on top of that, she has the business fair over an hour away that features vampire karaoke, nosy, pushy elder bloodsuckers, and one particular elder who’s friends with her unwelcome dream guest. Seriously, it’s enough to drive her to drink something other than coffee or blood.

Just why did she think this whole conference thing sounded like a good idea, again?

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: The Space Race Trilogy Omnibus: Time Slips, The Secret of Pad 34, Beach House on the Moon, Plus two exclusive new essays

All three books of the Space Race Trilogy, now together with two exclusive new essays.

Time Slips

What if our most treasured verities were in fact wrong?

To be selected for Project Mercury and be one of America’s first astronauts was a dream come true for test pilot Deke Slayton. But fellow Mercury astronaut Al Shepard kept telling old stories from his native New England, tales of monstrous entities like Cthulhu and Yog Sothoth. Earlier generations had viewed them as demons, but might they in fact be aliens, here long before humanity?

Soon Deke discovers evidence that something is watching the US space program. Something that begrudges humanity the stars and would put a ceiling on human attainment. Something that can manipulate time itself.

HP Lovecraft wrote that we dwell on a placid island of ignorance amidst the dark ocean of infinity, and that we were not meant to travel far.

What might the US space program have looked like in a cosmos filled with hostile eldritch entities? Would they notice us as playthings? Or as a nuisance to be dealt with?

The Secret of Pad 34

Who would put a ceiling on humanity’s expansion into space?

That’s what Gus Grissom wants to know. While fishing offshore from Cape Canaveral, he glimpses a mysterious undersea city of unearthly geometries, marked with a strange three-armed cross symbol.

His efforts to research it bring him veiled threats from strangers at his door. Trouble blights an exemplary career. However, Gus refuses to be cowed into silence, and pursues every lead he can find.

HP Lovecraft wrote that we live on a placid island of ignorance and were not meant to travel far. This is the Space Race in a world where the Soviet Union is not our only adversary.

Beach House on the Moon

The Moon is a dead world, airless and desolate. Emmaline Waite has known this fact since childhood, when she watched the Apollo landings.

But here she sits on the shores of the Sea of Tranquillity, looking up at the gibbous Earth as the waves roll in. What madness can this be?

She gets no time to contemplate that question, for she is not alone. She is about to enter a realm of love and fear, of mind-bending secrets that change her understanding of human history, and of self-sacrifice.

Her life will never be the same.

Miskatonic University in the Cold War and Contemporary Era

How would H.P. Lovecraft’s famous fictional institution of higher education have developed through the second half of the Twentieth Century and into the Twenty-first?

Space: Gernsbeck vs. Lovecraft

A look at the fundamental worldviews underlying the approaches of Hugo Gernsbeck and H.P. Lovecraft to the portrayal of outer space, aliens, and space travel.

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: Dazzling

This is a post from the Assistant, Holly. All is quite well with Sarah, she is off doing stuff with family and friends.

Yesterday: “Holly, can you put up a guest post?” “Oh, sure.”

Today: Tech hates me, and I hate it right back. There will be a quite interesting guest post at some point from our own David Bock, but it won’t happen until I solve tech.

Other than that, please wash your hands extra, there’s a stomach virus going around and I don’t want you all to catch it. I’m not quite clear how the virus transmission over the internet thing works, but I’m suspicious.

We’ve been doing family stuff this week, meaning the whole family got all-hands-on-deck to move some of the family to a new place.

This involved getting together with rarely seen in-laws, people who are not particularly political (though generally non-leftist.) Sometimes it’s hard for me to remember where most Americans who aren’t politically engaged live. Mostly because our ravingly sane cohort here has seen the stuff headed down the pipe from so long ago, that we’re sort of jaded by it now. Take the Lesbian Space Witches of the Star Wars Acolyte (Please. You might be the only one). I’m not a Star Wars fan (Sorry. I’m not much of visual medium fan and it just never did it for me, period. For a while there I wondered if Dan and I would make it. I was Heinlein, he was Star Wars. Anyway…) so this does not affect it with rage for the intricacies of the story and precisely everything they’re violating. Instead I think of all the crazy Lesbians I knew in the seventies, (oh, please. I went to college in Europe. As a liberal arts major. In a college filled mostly with women. Of course I knew Lesbians. Most of them were professors and ten years older than I. My generation had decided we liked boys. But hey!) who piously waited the time they could reproduce by parthenogenesis and do away with men, who were “defective” by not being women. And then I laugh like an hyena. Because you have to have a heart of stone not to. And I think, “Well, of course, these people are now the financiers and senior producers and everything.”

But it’s sometimes refreshing to be with people that still find it strange and outre that the producer of Bridgertons really thinks eighteenth century England had a sort of apartheid system, with black aristocracy and white aristocracy. That she also believes a German queen was “black” and NO ONE EVER MENTIONED IT, and that she believes the Queen was black because she had a “Moorish” ancestor 500 years earlier. I mean, they don’t particularly object to the series as a fantasy — as I don’t — and alternate universe. They just find it strange that not only does the producer think this was real (all based on rumors of a “Moorish” ancestor — more likely to be a redhead than black and FIVE HUNDRED YEARS BACK — and a bad portrait of Queen Charlotte) but also that people who watch this series also believe this is true. (This is our cue to close public education and possibly forbid it. If we can’t graduate people with a better idea of history, biology and … humanity (who wouldn’t gossip about a black queen in Regency England, among the most prolific diarists in history?) the schools are counterproductive.)

This was the same week I caught Jeff Goldstein (late of Protein Wisdom) sighing on Twittex about “must every hero be gay and in an interracial couple?” and I thought “you’ve noticed now?” Five years ago I stopped watching British Mysteries, which are one of my guilty pleasures, because, dear Lord, after a while it became impossible to ignore that every couple — EVERY COUPLE — was mixed race.

Look, I don’t have anything against gay heroes. It would be really funny if I did. While I don’t write legions of gay vampires (rolls eyes) as a friend accused me of doing, I did write A Few Good Men. And I’m writing No Man’s Land. (In which the gay protagonist is possibly the least “abnormal” thing.) Both of those books have gay protagonists because it’s needed for the book (more obviously for NML.) Which is one thing over “every couple we can we make gay” where it’s not even remotely needed.

And some people — mostly insane people, but then again I have a very low respect for American-born perception of race. It’s not race. It’s just insanity — would think Dan and I are in a bi-racial relationship. We even sort of look it, since he’s paler than pale, being a programmer, while I spend considerable portions of time outside bothering plants. So obviously I have nothing against people dating or marrying outside their race.

What I object to is — outside the framework of this is obvious fiction — using demographics to try to play with people’s perception of the world.

I know why leftists do it. The people who tried to levitate the Denver Mint with the power of — ah — their minds, and who believe things like if we abolish the police there will be no more crime are not…. what is the term? sane? in contact with reality? capable of rational thought?

They are so overpowered by their fantasies, that they believe they can wish cast those fantasies onto the world.

You can see that with Biden’s new EPA regulations, which follow the path of Europe meaning, we’ll all be without electricity for long periods of time and have to burn every tree in sight not to freeze in winter. But that’s not really what Biden (or whatever passes for Biden, probably a brain trust of ivy league graduates) thinks will happen. No. These people think they can wish-cast science into happening. (This is another reason to abolish all schooling in its current form, because, seriously, they think that science is something that happens by the power of their pure thoughts and good intentions. The schools have taught them nothing, not even, arguably, how to read.)

They really think that lesbians will look at Star Wars Space Witches, and go “Oh, so that’s how one gets pregnant without a male” and then DO IT. And if you think I’m being silly, no. Not really. They really think that. For years now they’ve been telling us things like “the future is female” and this is what they’re basing it on. Their strong belief that if they believe strongly enough, it will happen.

And that’s the thing behind all heroes are gay and if possible in an interracial relationship. Because, you know? If they show it often enough, most people will become gay and get in interracial relationships. (Forget it, Jack, it’s liberals.) There is this account on Twitter called “The Queer majority” that is like the craziest bits of libsoftictoc, but they really believe it, and it makes me quirk my brow and go “The what now? You what?” I mean if the majority engaged in non-reproductive sex only, the world population would be nosediving in a way no one could avoid seeing. (Yes, it’s possible to define “queer” in such a way that everyone is but that is meaningless. I mean, now they’re adding the ability to tan. No, really.)

And they think if they rewrite history, the past will change, or at least most people will believe in the new past — because apparently they’re going to engage in a written material burn on the scale of Fahrenheit 451 or something — and then the future will be exactly as they scripted, with all couples being interracial and ushering in a new tan race (That’s not how any of this works, and among Ursula LeGuin’s stupid ideas that might be the dumbest. If everyone had the same skin tone, people would pick other things to be tribal about. Heck, if everyone looked exactly alike, you’d start signaling tribe by styling your hair. Seriously. Have leftists EVER met a human being?)

My objection to this stupid idea of storytelling, used as sort of word-spells to change reality is that it’s stupid. It’s cringe. Because it’s impossible, sure. That’s part of it. You can nudge people slightly in one direction, if it doesn’t cost them too much, and the direction is something they were already heading towards.

The fact that for almost a century the left controlled all the mass communication ability in the world gave them the very weird idea that they could control reality. But in fact, it’s just propaganda, which only works if it’s absolutely pervasive, never lets up, and it’s never disproven.

So, you know, you could convince people that Covid 19 was a plague on the scale of the Black Plague…. for a short time. As long as you kept them all locked down and unable to communicate with each other. Once people saw that there were no piles of bodies on street corners and that the people around them were just pretty much normal, the spell broke down and — get this — it’s impossible to cast it again.

More importantly, the words and the fear mongering, and the insane propagandizing didn’t change reality. It allowed them to steal an election, sure, but they know they stole it, we know they stole it, and every day it becomes more obvious they stole it. It’s not a fiction they can maintain.

In reality, all their devout belief and spell casting does nothing but create very cringe art. Which is okay, as it might speed the emergence of new pathways for creativity and distribution of media.

When even people who aren’t as sensitive to cringe as we are have become aware of it, it’s over. The propaganda will never work again.

And the only response we can make to their stompy attempts to make us believe is to laugh like an hyena.