The sloth day of Christmas.

I tried to get motivated to work; I really did.

I have a job due, but not until next week -- but the sooner it's done, the sooner I'll be ready to take on something else. It's an editing job, and I already know enough to loathe the book and be offended by it in every way. However, I'm not going to be like those crybabies who refuse to work on books by authors with whom they disagree. That's anti-American and a dereliction of duty. 

However, getting motivated to work on such a thing on a day that was technically a federal holiday (since Christmas fell on Sunday) was more than I could handle. 

I also have a book of my own to work on, but I'm trying to work out the structure for a chapter. Chapter two, that is. So you see, I'm not deep into that one either. Easy to let it slide for a day.

Oh, sure, I could blame the six bandages on my fingers from burns and cuts acquired during cooking and the recent cold snap. Makes it hard to write, literally. And I could protest that I was not entirely inert all day Monday. I took Izzy out for a long walk in the morning. I got the dishes all done from Sunday. I got my wife's car tires inflated, because when the temperature drops like a stone, so does the tire pressure, and her car is not shy about complaining. I showered, and was responsible for preparation of meals (leftovers, however).

My most ambitious idea of the day was to load Izzy into the car and take him to a gathering at church. Not in the church itself; this is a group in a meeting room, a meeting I was not expected at, but I thought it would be fun to drop in and say hello at. And it was. Izzy was a perfect gentleman and enjoyed attention and love. However, he got antsy after a little while and wanted to eat someone's Lorna Doones, and I knew it was time to go. He isn't service dog material. Plus, I figured he had to pee, and I didn't want him to desecrate the churchyard.

Um, I should mention that Izzy is a dog, if you're just joining us.

Then it was back to the sofa for a nap, and now I'm writing this for Tuesday.

And now I'm worn out from all this blogging, so back to the sofa! Wake me up in time to post this in the morning. 

😴😴😴😴😴😴

It's over.

The Chinese Death Virus Pandemic from Hell is over. The rest is just face-mask theater. 

How do I know?

The price of everything is going up, and Stop and Shop is unloading hand sanitizer for a dime a bottle. Another supermarket near me was literally giving away big bottles of hand soap. 

There are a couple of caveats to this hand-sanitizer deal. For one, they'd been hanging around for a while and were due to hit their expiration date soon. However, the fact that they'd been hanging around at all is more proof that it's over -- you couldn't find this stuff at any price two years ago. For another, you had to have a loyalty card to get it for this price. Big deal -- it's not a club card, it's just the free store discount card. I've seen cashiers scan one for people that forgot their cards. Most people have them on their phones now anyway.

That's not all. In May 2020, Time magazine solemnly declared "COVID-19 Killed the Handshake. What Will Replace It?" Well, it's back, baby! I'm greeting friends with handshakes and/or hugs, and I'm seeing that everywhere.

There are still the holdouts, of course. Quite a number of people are still walking around wearing face masks. My church is still dividing the seating--freedom on one side, masks/social distancing on the other. Which is probably about as effective as the old no-smoking areas were in restaurants and airplanes. We also don't shake hands at the sign of peace; we just kind of wave at one another like people in on parade floats. Lots of guys have gone to the fist-bump and don't want to go back. My vet's office, of all places, still demands face masks -- but it's the only place I know around here that does. 

At this point it is all kabuki healthcare, and maybe that's all these precautions ever were. 

As for me, no, I do not want to get the Chinese COVID death virus, because I don't like being sick, I can't afford the hospital, and I don't like losing my ability to taste delicious food. But this is about the least you can ask of someone like me who says Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death. I've had it and I'm not playing along anymore. 

It's over, people. We have got to try to move on.

To Helen gone!

I'm not one to go tooting my own horn, as you know. I'd much rather bribe someone to toot my horn for me, and then act all embarrassed about the tootage. Oh, please, you make me blush!

Nevertheless, I wanted to put up a post today about Helen's Page, upon which I have signed for a trial basis.

Dr. Helen Smith, author of Men on Strike and, in her spare time, Mrs. Instapundit, has decided to take the cultural challenge of canceling to heart -- and fight back. Since prominent Internet platforms are deleting books and events and even persons that might get in the way of El Narrativo (in Mikeski's term), she has begun her own media page -- Helen's Page, "A Happy Place for Liberty-Minded People to Meet." 

So I created an account there. It's not much yet, mostly a means of displaying my novels and a link to come here, to this marvelous blog, whereupon one might click on those links to the right and peruse the wares. I'd like to support the page and help get people more interested in it, even if they don't want to buy my books.

We know that approximately half the known universe follows Instapundit, or should, so that's a lot of people who might check out Helen's Page. I hope more people join up, and we can make this bigger than Etsy, Craig's List, Angie's List, Huffington's Post, Drudge's Report, and Stiiv's Bunk! (Yeah, I know I got them wrong and one of them doesn't even exist. "Drudge Report" -- ha.)

Wish me luck, but mostly wish Dr. Helen luck -- this is her "Build Your Own Platform" moment, and with the other platforms becoming cancel culture mouthpieces for monothink, or being canceled themselves, we need more platforms "for Liberty-Minded People." 

There's a report on NBC that quotes a senior Department of Homeland Security official saying that "DHS plans to expand its relationships with companies that scour public data for intelligence" (you know which companies those might be). "'The idea is to identify people who may through their social media behavior be prone to influence by toxic messaging spread by foreign governments, terrorists and domestic extremists,' the official said. 'We want to Identify the narratives that are emerging, assess which narratives are likely to incite violence, figure out what targets are likely and then take steps to mitigate the risk.'" 

The ostensible cause for this plan is not the rioting last year that killed 25 people, injured hundreds, destroyed livelihoods and caused millions (if not billions) in damages; it's a handful of unarmed knuckleheads who got into the Capitol on January 6. The idea is that the government, which knew Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa of Colorado was a problem and did nothing to stop him before he murdered ten innocents, is going to put people on a no-fly list (among other things) for Liking the wrong things on Facebook. I think it's safe to say that if this had been a Trump administration initiative, you'd have heard the screaming on cable news in the Kuiper Belt.

In other words, Helen’s Page is about more than getting some books in front of eyeballs. This is about creating space on the Internet for a free citizenry to enjoy basic freedom of political expression without fear of reprisal. We need a lot more of that. 

Gab grab bag.

Parler is fighting for its life now after being cut off at the knees by Google, Apple, and Amazon, fearing that the president of the United States (for two more days) will flee to that platform. So I've established a profile with my handsome Vitamin Fred icon on Gab's site now. 

As I wrote when I joined Parler back in October, "I always entertain hopes that my blog might entertain others, and maybe even entice them to try one of my novels," and I thought that the site might help me do that without enduring the firehose of horror that is Twitter.  

Now it's become more than that, though. For years I desired to keep this blog free from political content beyond some light satire. I never intended to write fiction for political purposes, hoping to entertain any reader. I would prefer to write funny stuff about food and dogs and middle-class life and post goofy cartoons every day. But I was raised by libertarians and conservatives and liberals to love free speech, even when I don't like the content, and the cancel culture that's gripping the West is an abomination to everything for which our nation stands. Books are being forced out of publisher's lists or literally out of stores; persons are not only attacked but their families and livelihoods threatened. The only law these victims have broken is the law in some dillweed's imagination that says YOU CAN'T SAY THAT, although everything in our culture and history is meant to say we can. Meanwhile, our totalitarian enemies around the world smile.

The weird thing is, the Left used to garb all kinds of things as political speech -- comedy, obscene music, getting naked in public -- as political speech to prevent its being banned. Now the very speech they most seek to ban is political speech, and of course everything is political when you look at it through blood-colored glasses. The kind of speech that conservatives are apt to censor is very narrowly defined -- obscenity, threats, slander and libel (especially of private citizens) -- but if you remove all that I think half of the world's Tweets would disappear.

This all makes it sound like I'm using Gab for firebrand purposes, but no -- I just want to help support a free-speech centered company that believes in the user's privacy and doesn't support the Leftist mobs. A lot of people feel that way, and the Gab servers are being somewhat overwhelmed as I write this. I'm sure it will all settle down soon, and when Gab becomes popular enough to pose a threat to Facebook, the tech oligarchs will come after it as well.

Meanwhile, should you decide to join up, look for your friendly Fred Key on the site and let's have a gabfest. Hey, talk is not only cheap -- it's free.

Parler games.

Their quarry cornered, Twitter, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and even Pinterest have decided to make Donald Trump a nonperson by refusing him access to their platforms. 

And just in case, they are delisting Parler, expecting Trump to flee to the same free-speech app that I joined a couple of months ago. 

I noticed that on Sunday Parler had refused Apple's ultimatum to knuckle under to their enforced censorship codes, and thus the Parler app was removed from the App Store.

Little pipsqueak of a nobody that I am, I sent Apple a note suggesting they develop an A.I. soul to replace the one they lost when they betrayed the founding principles of the nation. I also suggested that they have made their tyrannical friends in China very happy. 

Apple can be awfully stubborn. Last August the wildly popular Fortnite game decided to try to cut Apple out of their in-game purchase money by using an independent system. Apple promptly bumped their app off the store as well. Epic Games, the creator of Fortnite, promptly released a parody of the famous Apple 1984 commercial, showing Apple to be the tyrant it now is. Epic is suing Apple, and also Google, but they have Facebook on their side. In the meantime, the Epic app is still off the store.

Parler has got to sue its opponents on Constitutional grounds and hurry. If they don't, they will be destroyed before they've even begun. If they give in to pressure, they will be nothing but Twitter Junior, and who needs that? 

Like it or not, Parler is a test case going forward for whether our tech oligarchs will get to decide who can say what in this modern era. I hope they give it to their opponents good and hard and fast, or we'll be living under a censorship as fully as any Chinese mainlander does. Fortunately, it sounds like Parler is planning on a fight, and God bless them if they are.  

In an era where our speech is considered violence and their violence is considered speech, we have no choice but to fight this battle. Personally, I'm too old to learn Newspeak and I'm not going to now.

UPDATE! As noted in Comments, Amazon has thrown Parler off its AWS, so the app and the Web sire are not working. Pardon my francais, but this is a shit thing to do by any measure, and I can only pray for a Republican blitz in 2022 that will lead to a Congress that will start busting these trusts to bits in a way that would make Teddy Roosevelt flinch.

Step into my Parler.

 Some of you may know -- since it brought you here -- that I joined Parler. 

Why would I do such a thing, when I have thus far eschewed all the other social media platforms? Well, the reason I decided to try Parler is that I always entertain hopes that my blog might entertain others, and maybe even entice them to try one of my novels. 

The problem is that Parler only has about 2.8 million users compared to Twitter's supposed 330 million and Facebook's 2.6 billion. 

But Parler is devoted to the exercise of free speech. Therefore, Parler is not dedicated to hosting the mobs who moo as one to destroy the lives of people who say things they dislike. And Parler itself does not go about silencing the voices of people who might -- just as a hypothetical -- post something embarrassing about its preferred political persons while promoting the voices of those who make wild claims about persons it dislikes. 

As Mark Steyn often says, if you don't believe in free speech you dislike, then you don't believe in free speech. There was a time when that bald fact might be enough to shame Leftists who shout down and threaten political opponents, but no more. To them it seems power is the only principle, and all other principles are only speedbumps to be run over, torn up, paved over. 

I hope very much that Parler sticks to its guns, and that its membership continues to grow. It will take quite a lot more Parleyers to get to the point of cascading popularity, where people go on the platform because so many people they want to follow are on the platform. 

Twitter looks invincible now, but so did MySpace, AOL, and Yahoo, once. 

So come drop by @Vitaminfred if you're on Parler and say hi. Hell, say whatever you want. It's a free country -- so far.

Fred's Book Club: Another Brick.

Welcome to Wednesday, or whatever it is when you see this. It's Wednesday here, and that means it's Hump Day, and time for the Humpback Writers, who don't actually have humps, unless they have some around that they haven't shown me. Nobody tells me anything.

Today we delve into recent history to have another look at "real" communism in action.

British journalist Christopher Hilton, who was a sportswriter for most of his career, compiled an amazing collection of stories of the Berlin Wall in 2001's The Wall: The People's Story. It's a street-level view of the rise and fall of the famous barrier that came crashing down in 1989. For almost forty years it was at the eye of the Cold War, and by the start of the eighties it felt as if all the world was watching, as if Berlin was at the very center of the world. Not the Middle East, nor Kabul, nor Tokyo, nor even New York City, where I lived, but that bisected German city, one half of which was an outpost of freedom in a desert of communism.

Hilton seems to have talked to a lot of people; in fact, he seems to have talked to everybody. After summarizing the tensions between the East and West in the postwar period, he describes the origins of the wall that began in the city and spread its arms across Germany. Prior to that, thousands of East Berliners traveled to the western half every day to work, the half that had shops filled with goods. Many tried to move permanently, leading to worker shortages, particularly of the smarter workers (the "brain drain"). For that reason and a number of others, the East Germans, despite prior assertions to the contrary, decided that a wall must go up.

It didn't start with bricks at mortar; on the night of August 13, 1961, it started with wire. The East German Factory Fighters, a kind of civilian reserve, began the installation.

Two Factory Fighters in shirt sleeves walked with a coil of the wire wrapped in a ball round a stout stick, a Fighter holding each end of the stick. As they walked, the wire automatically uncoiled and another Fighter, kneeling, lifted a strand of it and hammered it into a concrete post using cleats, gathered another strand and hammered that in, then another -- row upon row, neatly spaced -- until the wire was head high. An elderly couple were escorted from the wire by a policeman, the sadness and the powerlessness expressed by the stoop of their shoulders.

That very night, illegal crossings began.

At 10.30, a crowd of 4,000 lingered on the Western side of the Brandenburg Gate but for an insurrection to occur would mean bursting past their own police, then the cordon of Factory Fighters, then the armoured personnel carriers with the water cannons, then the Eastern police, before reaching Unter den Linden; and Unter den Linden had been cleared, anyway. At 10.45, a report came in that ‘a male person’ had swum the Teltow Canal.

They would continue into 1989.

Part of the new wall ran right along apartment buildings, and East Berliners started jumping out the windows to escape to the West.

In Bernauer Strasse workmen swarmed the ground floors of the apartment buildings, bricking up windows from the inside. Residents called to people in the West for help and clambered onto window ledges to drop to the pavement. The West Berlin Fire Brigade hurried there with safety nets anticipating that, when the bricklayers reached the upper floors, residents might jump.

Hilton does a minute-by-minute reconstruction of the night the wall rose and the days that followed, when the United States and its allies tried to determine the best course of action against this surprise move. Three hundred trucks towing artillery were sent, and to many it looked like the wall was the spark that would begin World War III.

Hilton's book spends many riveting pages on the period following the initial wall construction, but goes on to tell the stories of those living in its shadow for decades, those who risked everything to escape, and those present when they tore the damned thing down.

Anyone interested in history would find this a fascinating read, I think, and for those of us who grew up in the Cold War, it's crucial knowledge. We are faced with a real possibility of Cold War II, thanks to the actions of the Chinese Communist party, and we have a generation that has no idea what communism really looks like, or why someone would risk death and torture to flee it. Hilton, who passed away in 2010, strives to be fair to the East German and Soviet leadership, and yet the bald, brutal face of communist dictatorship cannot be prettied up.

Maybe our youngsters now would say that it wasn't "real communism." But it's always real communism. This is what it always is.

US of A.

Friends! Comrades! Broth-- uh, Persons-Metaphorically-Related-in-Arms! The revolution has won! We control the means of production! We control the government! We control the media, the universities, the technology! Welcome to the United States of Antifa!

We know you're concerned about what this will mean, and will it be what you have fought and killed so many racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, transphobic, speciesist bastards and bystanders for. The short answer is: YES! It is Year Zero! We promised you free education and student loan forgiveness -- and it is yours! We promised you free housing, and it's yours! We promised you free food, and it's yours! We promised free health care, and you have it! We promised an end to environmental despoilment, and it is done! The factories are closed! We promised to cancel your credit card debt, and it is done! We promised to outlaw the police, and it is done! We promised to tear down all racist statues, and there's not a single statue left standing, so I guess we got them all. We promised to get the dead hand of the past off your shoulder, and we burned all the books and churches! And we told Dorothy we would come up with something other than a black flag for the new nation, so we did!

Spiffy!

Now, this is how we will all pull together in our new nation, shoulder to shoulder (or to some analogue for those who may have no shoulders). It's a very simple plan, so foolishly simple it exposes the cruel complexity of our racist sexist etc. forebears with their oppressive Constitution and U.S. Code. It works this way.

First, we want everyone to be engaged in meaningful, fulfilling work that is needed to maintain the revolutionary structure. To that end our central committee will determine what each of you will be assigned to do. Do not worry, my friends; all the jobs are necessary and therefore will bring you joy and satisfaction. Just remember, we have more than enough filmmakers, poets, and guitarists already. Some of you with university degrees will be recommended for trade schools, depending on your present skill sets. You can't have too many plumbers, amiright? And we have to get the factories up and running; quotas don't wait!

Second, everyone will be allotted equal housing based on their needs. Large homes are being split up into units. Everyone will have roughly the same amount of living space, except for those whose physical needs or professional requirements cause them to need more. I, for example, will be living in the newly painted Striped House on Pennsylvania Avenue, as it is also an office complex that the central committee will be visiting.

Third, food distribution will be done every Thursday afternoon at six p.m. in designated areas in each major city. Each person will be given an adequate calorie amount in food for the week. Also, in the first delivery you will be informed how much energy you will be allowed to consume between then and the following week. If you use too much, it will be shut off; if this becomes an issue, we may have to examine your case. We cannot allow greed in our new nation; the time of hoarders and wreckers is past.

Fourth, you will each receive in the mail your first voucher for a health visit. Use it wisely, my friends! You would not want to use it for a simple influenza and then break your leg. How unfortunate! How embarrassing! But it is our best means to make sure everyone has the same access to medical care, at least until we get a few more liberal arts majors through medical school.

Finally, I would like to introduce Dorothy XY, our new Minister of Cooperation. Xe will be heading the Cooperative Services department, making certain that all our suggestions are carried out and that the kulaks of the bygone era will have no place in our new nation. To that end, xer Cooperative Departments are being set up in each population area to maintain adherence. Those of you who are identified as community helpers or handy with a firearm or truncheon will be contacted about possible job openings.

That is all for now, friends, until we think of some other things for you to do to promote our glorious future. Unity! Freedom! Social Justice!

Something to aim for.

Ask any guy who was around and was a guy in the 2000s about the flies in the Amsterdam airport and he will probably tell you that these were pictures of flies etched into the back of the urinals in the men's room. Men "shot at" the flies and "spillage" was reduced by 80%. Why? Because the men who used the facilities now had a target for their micturition. I don't know a guy who didn't find this news A) fascinating and B) obvious.

We'd been shooting at the little urinal cakes for decades. We wondered how many pees a urinal cake could take before a hole got worn through one. Bars where they threw old ice into the urinals as an auto-flush measure were always of great interest. How many cubes could one whiz melt? So this fly experiment seemed like one of those ideas that was so obvious that we were surprised no one had thought of it before.

It seems to be really catching on. The other day I was in one of those outlet shopping centers, like Disneyland for shopping (if that's not redundant), a place that had been remodeled extensively since the last time I'd been there. The men's room had gone from being "clean stadium" style to "fairly upscale restaurant." And check out the urinal:

The blue dot is little blue seashell, perfectly placed for target practice, courtesy of Sloan Valve Company.

It's a pretty good idea. For a generation that grew up on video games and staring at phones, there's a need for constant stimulation and activity, however dumb. Here's a game you can play while urinating, and it actually has a benefit for society at large! (Society is always benefited by having less pee all over it.)

Unfortunately the guys who promoted the Amsterdam fly experiment are also promoting something called "Nudge Economics" or "Behavioral Economics," using little manipulations (like the flies) to nudge people into the behavior their betters want them to demonstrate (such as urinating in the urinal and not on the floor). Now the jig is up, though, and we can be sure we'll start peeing on the floor again, metaphorically speaking -- humans being notoriously contrarian. Also, we don't like passive aggression from those who consider themselves superior. Anytime you think government is trying to "nudge" you to do what they want you to do, I suggest you do something completely opposite, just to confuse and frustrate them. To hell with them.

But I hope we don't actually start peeing on the floor again. Really, boys, the less pee all around the better.

Sweet land of liberty and loss.

Longtime readers (bless you) may know that I really don't like to talk much about September 11, but I am always compelled to write something to commemorate the date. It may be about constant reminders; it may be about idiot conspiracy nuts. It could be about grief, a feeling we are all getting pretty strongly with all these hurricanes and wildfires walloping our country as I write.

We were in Manhattan that day, my wife was downtown; I had to walk half the length of Manhattan, but we got out alive and unharmed.

A decade and more later I happened to be killing time in Hoboken, New Jersey, and was down by the waterfront when I got this shot on my old flip phone:

The tall building in the center is, of course, the Freedom Tower, officially 1 World Trade Center, under construction. This must have been late in 2012, judging by other construction photos. It took for freaking ever to get the damned thing started, but once they got all the cats herded and the plans drawn up and the foundation secured it went pretty smoothly.

I'm not sure what I want to say about it. I don't even remember why I was in Hoboken the day I took this shot. Although two more years would pass before the building opened, I do remember it made me happy to see the tower's structure in place. That's why I took this lousy shot on my crummy phone.

I'm less optimistic about the future of the country now than I was in 2012 or 2002, believe it or not. As I mentioned yesterday, I fear our culture is so suicidal that we may not be able to pull back from the brink. Recently the citizens of Houston showed us what a functioning society looks like when it takes on a crisis, but I do not see that kind of spirit at large in the country. We had it in New York on September 11, 2001. We do not have it in New York now. Everyone hates everyone and everyone acts like a jerk. No enemy could have inflicted on us what we have inflicted on ourselves.

Googthink.

I am risking my blog here, as it is hosted by Google, but Google has done something that the phrase "chilling effect" was designed to describe.

Here's a mandatory alert:

And do I need to say it? Language alert.

Maybe you saw this Tuesday:

"See how machine learning is helping us tackle gender bias in movies." I thought this had to be one of their jolly April 1 gags, running a little late, but no, Googs is serious. Why is this terrifying to a people brought up in a society where free speech is not just an enshrined right, but one granted by our Creator? Let's see.

--The fact that Google whipped up a Bias Nanny algorithm tells me that they feel we cannot be trusted to recognize bias on our own. In other words, like the poisonous snowflake culture in our universities, Google thinks we're too dumb to know bias and hatred when we see it. So they will help us be better. That's even assuming that the damn thing works, despite the fact that it's predicated on what has to be opinion; there's no mathematical "science" that can prove bias in film, hard as people keep trying. Why would filmmakers not fight back against this? A statement like "Your film shows female characters 16.56% less than males, with passive dialogue 36.98% more often than males..." Etc. etc. data data data. As a director, screenwriter, are you going to let Google tell you your artistry must be "adjusted" to be in line with proper thinking?

--And that's the point: Google is here to turn our badthink into goodthink. You dopes in the audience, you dummies making movies! How dare you sit there and think your movie is not full of gender bias? (Next up: race bias, Islamic bias, LGBTQRSTU bias....) We can scientifically prove that you, director, are a chauvinist pig, and we can make sure the whole world knows it. Guess what that'll do to your career? Guess what'll happen when our search engines show your home address...?

--I say, so what if there is bias in some movies? There's probably biases all over the place in every work of art. SO WHAT? We're free to think as we like, are we not? Uh, no, actually, you're not anymore... the reason we need this is to teach you not to think bad, otherwise the machines will correct you -- movies now, books later, online conversation next, actual conversation next...

--What's the endgame in all this, Googs? It's a rabbit hole with no bottom. Now University of Michigan students are feeling oppressed by fucking wood paneling. So you add that to your little algorithm and now every film that shows wood paneling is a nightmare of oppression. Then what? "Vinyl flooring is an affront to my people!" Well, the victim has absolute moral authority to dictate the terms, right? But where does it end? (Hint: Hell.)

--Well, fuck your machines, Google, and to hell with your newthink. If I wanted to play in that sandbox of insanity I'd go back to school. I say our right to think and speak as we want is granted to us by our Creator, not you, not the government, not even by others who might be offended, and by fighting against that right you are acting as an enemy of freedom and the God who created it. You know what that makes you?

People who hadn't noticed when you quietly dropped your "don't be evil" motto, presumably in exchange for an "evil is okay" one, might start to notice when you start policing them. Stop "training" us, Google. You can have all the money in the world, but it's still above your pay grade.

The cruelty of retailers.

Welp, kids, summer was fun, but it's aaaaaaaallll over!

Dollar Tree, last Saturday morning

Yep, the back-to-school stuff is in the seasonal section. The flip-flops and suntan lotion have been shoved aside. It's all pencils, books, and teacher's dirty looks from here until next June.

This actually is an improvement over last July, where I'd seen my first big B2S display by July 12, and my first freaking Halloween candy on July 27. But I still think it's unfair.

I just don't remember retailers loading up the stores with this stuff before August when I was a kid. Maybe I was just in flat-out denial. "Noooo! It's not a stack of notebooks! They're... beach blankets! That's it! Little, rectangular, black-and-white beach blankets... by Mead..."

Not that my summers were an endless string of crazy, fun-filled activities. We didn't go to camp; we often didn't do any vacation trips at all. My folks worked a lot, and they did their best by us. What I remember best from my childhood are sweltering (A/C was not the omnipresent force it is today, neither in our home nor elsewhere), daytime TV, bugs, the playground with metal swings that could fry a steak, the local amusement park or mini-golf once in a while, helping Dad with the lawn and other chores, reading, and being bored.

So I've never gotten so hung up on summer that I can't bear to see it fade. But I do feel for the kids. Even the dullest, hottest, most miserable summer was better than going to school. Ah, freedom, sweet freedom!

Ban me!

The Great Lileks posted this old gem on his Tumblr site:

The Decameron by Boccaccio is known for having some stories with sexual content. Yowza! Supposedly it's been banned a bunch of times and in various places over the last 700+ years. Obviously that hasn't kept it from being popular, or at least continuously read. In fact, it almost certainly has kept its popularity up there.

Well, that means Boccaccio is another author who's done better than me. Damn it! King, Patterson, Boccaccio, Clancy---Clancy died in 2013 and since then the bastard's got 6 new books with his name plastered on the front. In other words he writes more new books dead than I do alive. Son of a bitch.

Anyway, taking a page from Boccaccio's lewd book, I decided that the best way to move a lot of my novels is to be banned. I know my fellow Bleatnik Stiiv (all together: STIIV!) supports me in this. All the librarians will rush to buy my books. Even if they are supposed corrupt the youth. Especially if they are supposed to corrupt the youth. Then the school librarians will go on hunger strikes to get my books available for the kids.

Does it matter than my books have very little sex and generally realistic (if any) violence? Shhh---don't tell them.

Just do me a solid and tell your local librarian that you are FURIOUS that some libraries are carrying those SINFUL and SHOCKING books by that ORGIASTIC PIG FREDERICK KEY, and you'd just as soon BURN THIS LIBRARY DOWN as see it feature any of FREDERICK KEY's books in its digi catalog. Because he is DISGUSTING and CORRUPTS the YOUTH. That name is F-R-E-D K-E-Y.

Seriously, let me know which libraries you target and I'll arrange to cut you in on the sales. You'll be happy, I'll be happy, the librarians will be happy... Win-Win-Win!

Boccaccio and Tom Clancy might not be happy for the competition, but that's okay. They're dead.

Stick it to 'em.

Bumper stickers are a poor means of sharing information with the world at large. They may seem ideal---affiliations are spelled out clearly, and with a concision that makes Twitter tweets look like Moby-Dick. But therein may lie the problem. There's no argument, no logic, no fellowship that can fit on a bumper sticker that might convince, cajole, or engage. Enrage is more like it. Or else you're just preaching to the choir.

And I'm not even talking about politics or even sports affiliation. It seems like ten minutes after the first "My Child Is an Honor Student at Horkenblatz Academy" stickers went up, the first "Screw Your Honor Student" "My Chihuahua Is Smarter Than Your Honor Student" and the classic "My Kid Beat the Crap Out of Your Honor Student" stickers went up. (Ooo! Burn!)

Now there's this:

Harsh, dude! I agree, I'm not much interested in the stick figure family of the person in front of me, and the longer I'm stuck in traffic behind them, the less interested I become. But calling in an airstrike seems a bit extreme. Also, this was on a GL 450, a Benz SUV, and yet these kinds of rebuttal decals (epitomized by Calvin peeing on things) are usually associated with white-trash low-rent types. So Cletus hit the scratch off?

Anyway, there's no law against railing in print against stick figure families, nor should there be. But there's a lot of games around that suggest that the stick figure community is not going to take this lying down.

Just be careful, Cletus, is all I'm saying.

Religious bigotry, I call it!

So I went into the local kosher deli and demanded a ham sandwich.

"I'm sorry, we don't serve ham," said the snarky, smarmy, prejudicial deli owner.

"WHAT?" I said. "I'm a customer and I demand a ham sandwich."

"We don't even have any ham here."

"Well, you'd better get some!"

"I can't!"

"But you're not even trying!"

Finally he admitted the truth: "We can't have ham here! It's a kosher deli!"

"So what?"

"So, we're not allowed to have ham!"

"Says who?"

"Our dietary laws forbid ham."

"Ooooh, so your ancient and crusty old religious rules, invented by some toothless impotent old white men, force you to discriminate against ham sandwich eaters, is that it?"

He shook his head like he was tired, but I knew he was just brimming with hate. "Listen, mister, I'd like to help, but one thing I can't do is give you a ham sandwich, all right?"

"Sure!" I said. "Haters gotta hate, right? How about a lobster roll, or are you hating on that too?"

"Say," he said, now suspicious, "are you here just to pick on us? You must know shellfish isn't kosher either."

"What I know is, you'll be hearing from the ACLU!"

"The what? Hey, fella---"

"You get me my ham sandwich or you'll be sorry!"

"But... what about religious liberty? You can't force me to give you ham and lobster!"

"The ACLU doesn't care about religious liberty anymore!" I cried, playing my trump card. "No one does! You're discriminating against me, and I'll sue! All the courts and the entire weight of the federal government stand behind me!"

Now he looked nervous. "Why should all those people care what kind of business I run?"

"You're impinging on my freedom. Is this what we fight and die for? We supposedly spread freedom elsewhere while losing it here?"

"You're in the military?"

"Well, no," I said, realizing my rhetorical error. "I'm an adherent of the Sciencey Church of Atheism, and we believe war is an evolutionary throwback. I'm a conscientious objector."

"Wait a second---so the government couldn't make you pick up a gun if an enemy was marching into town, but it will use force to make me to give you a ham sandwich?"

"I see what you did there!" I spat. "This isn't about me!" (But of course it was. Me! Whee!) "This is about your prejudice! There will be consequences for your bad thoughts!"

"Listen, please!" he said, waving his hands. "There's no need to get excited. Look, there's a Subway down the street, and a Blimpie two blocks east; they'll give you all the ham you could want. I'll call them and tell them to make something nice, okay?"

"You're a bigot!" I screamed, really getting into it now. Oh, you should've seen me. "Where's your lunch counter? I'm going to sit there until you give me a ham sandwich! Just like we did in the old days in the south!"

"You did? You don't look old enough---"

"Ageist!"

"But I would have served the black people! Just not ham! It's against my religious law! Isn't there any tolerance for religion anymore?"

"You're the intolerant one!" I hollered. "First we're going to get the gym teacher to burn this place down. Then we're going to get Apple and Walmart to refuse service to you. Then we're---where are you going?"

"I'm closing the store," he said with a sigh, turning his sign around. "Probably forever."

Another victory for me! Me, the ACLU, and all the others who put down this so-called religious tolerance and enforce conformity!

But strangely, when I went to demand a ham sandwich at the Halal place down the street, no one came to back me up.

Freedom of religion. Feh. Whoever heard of such a thing? Like something bad could ever happen without freedom of religion.

Pull the trigger warning.

An online writing group recently debated the merits of trigger warnings in literature. For the most part the writers were against the idea, as being craven and foolish, dangerous and disturbing. A few were more sympathetic to the triggerbes, saying that movies are rated according to their content in the U.S., so you know what you're getting when you go to see one -- why not books?

Personally, I think the whole thing is a bright blue box of foolishness in a big brilliant bow of stupidity.

The latter argument comes from a place of niceness and a desire to protect children, but seems to come from a place too where no one has seen a book in a hundred years. If I flinch at violence or am looking for a book for my second grader, and I am offered a book with a bloody hatchet and an eyeball and a human spleen on the cover and a title like Kill Them Slowly and Eat Them, should I be surprised if it's not what I'm looking for?

I've heard it argued that trigger warnings show respect for victims of terrible things. Conversely, that this is political correctness run wild. I think it's censorship in the most insidious form I have ever encountered, and I look to the American Library Association to slap down this ridiculous idea, champions as they are of banned books and the First Amendment.

[insert crickets]

Most of this talk is on college campuses, where we're supposedly trusting adults to become educated. These young men and women would love to tell you that they're strong enough and mature enough to make all the choices they need to, without interference from Mom and Dad or faculty advisers or chaperones or anyone... and they can't face Huck Finn or The Merchant of Venice?

How many of these students have been traumatized, really?

I guess PTSD makes people shy away from the things that traumatized them, huh? That's why veterans refuse to join the American Legion or the VFW.

Look, I dislike meaningless violence in literature and movies, so I avoid those books and movies as a matter of taste, but when I was a student I had to read books that offended me in every possible way. So what? Maybe I even learned something.

I don't want to be mean, but come on. If you're unable to function because you have to read Mrs. Dalloway, you need more therapy.

Sorry, cupcakes: Life is hard and hiding from certain books won't change that. Stop whining. If you can't face the books, change your major to accounting. Much better chance of finding work that way after you graduate, anyhow.