Librarians eaten.

I hate this stuff.

What they think they're doing: Showing that "different" things aren't scary.

What they're actually doing: Showing that heroic men are idiots.

Here's the deal: Dragons are mythical creatures intended to be scary, even if they are good, as in Chinese mythology. A cuddly dragon is a non-dragon creature of some other kind. That's the point of dragons. 

I'm sick to death of dragons being the good guys. Dragons want to eat us. Dragons are no good for human companionship. Dragons suck. Boo dragons. Leave them alone.

Where did it start? Ogden Nash's "The Tale of Custard the Dragon," about a cowardly dragon (who does in fact eat a human)? Anne McCafferty's Dragonriders of Pern series? Wherever it did, we find now that the world is on its head, that the dragons are always (surprise!) good and the guys who want to take them out bad. Whether it's Dragonslayer, Dragonheart, How to Train Your Dragon, it's hard to find a dragon in fiction that's not the good guy. It's like finding a police office or priest in fiction who is the good guy, especially if he's white and male -- like finding hen's teeth.

It's all part of the crap that gave us Wicked and all the new Disney pictures that root for the bad guy. (As long as the bad guy is, you know, a girl -- Captain Hook and Gaston remain bad.) The ladies are just misunderstood, you know. Men were mean to them, probably. That's why they're bad. 

Or maybe they're just power-hungry crapweasels. I don't care what made the green babe mad in Oz; if she sends a pack of wolves to rip up a little kid, kidnaps her with terrifying flying monkeys, and threatens to slaughter the little girl when the sand runs out of the hourglass, to hell with her. Drop a freaking house on her. SHE'S THE BADDIE. How she got that way is irrelevant; she chose her path. 

As Germán Saucedo wrote recently in First Things:

The clear images of true evil present in the best fairy tales, ballads, myths, and legends offer both a vision of what is to be avoided at all costs, as well as a vision of virtue. As such, the “sympathetic villain” genre is a symptom of a society that disagrees on what is good and what is evil, or that tries to explain evil away as trauma, psychopathy, or pathology. But to identify and avoid evil, we must first learn to recognize the good. The insistence on subverting villains is a sign we have lost confidence in our belief that we can know what heroism looks like, a heroism that displays the good that would oppose their unrighteousness. In a world without any moral certitude or any agreed upon system to define true virtue, what is wickedness anyhow? It would be just a matter of perspective.

In this light, we see that stories like this tell us a lot more about the storyteller than they actually do about good or evil. 

One dragon story that takes a more serious approach to the topic was based on Fred Saberhagen's Swords books, which I discussed here last year. An Armory of Swords features stories by other writers about what happened to various normal people whose lives were touched by the mighty god-forged Swords that were circulating the world. In "Dragon Debt" by Robert E. Vardeman, my favorite story in the collection, a young man comes into possession of Dragonslicer, the Sword of Heroes... and also a small, helpless baby dragon. A moral dilemma ensues in which the stakes are not small. 

The point of dragons is that they're dangerous, and dealing with them requires valor, not tea and cookies. Pretending they are all nice and lovely is just pretending that there is nothing really dangerous in the world, which we know is false. As C.S. Lewis wrote in the essay "On Three Ways of Writing for Children," "Since it is so likely that they will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker."

Meanwhile, the librarian type in the meme above are the sort who expect their native goodness to make everyone but the genuinely evil side with them -- and when people don't, they go on TikTok demanding the ruin of their lives. 

I've had it with dragons, but when the one pictured above turns on his bookworm buddies and eats them, I will offer him a mild nod. Not that I want the wicked dragon to win, but smugness and stupidity must be punished if we're to understand why these are bad things. 

Their new slogan.

 

Upside-down world.

It's hard not to feel like the world has been turned completely on its head. We have a government in the United States that seems to despise its citizens, monetary policy that makes money worth less daily, militaries that can't win wars or defend the nation, government agencies intended to protect Americans that target Americans, fathers who abuse children and mothers who kill them, schools that teach everything but what they're supposed to teach, recycling programs that stuff landfills, and a ruling class that does not rule and has no class. Sometimes it appears that the airheads are all rising to the top by nature of their empty heads, because that's what seems to be in charge. And sometimes that's the optimistic view. The worse view is that only some of them are stupid; the smart ones are all evil. 

We know in our hearts that things are upside-down and have always been, even if it makes no rational sense -- if things always seemed wrong, why would we expect something better, something right? I find the supreme example of this inversion in the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary, where we see that everything is a cruel funhouse image of what it ought to be. The religious class that ought to love God instead persecutes Him. He is betrayed by a kiss, a sign of love, and abandoned by His friends. The Roman authority tries to administer justice by scourging the man declared innocent -- I find no fault with this man, so we'll beat him half to death. The crown Jesus deserves is not the crown of thorns He gets; He is exalted, but by being lifted aloft on the scornful, torturous cross. Everything is a cruel mockery. 

It informs me that while life may get better in many ways, we just can't escape the grip of evil on our own. And now, in this utterly unprincipled era, we find less hope that there is anything to fall back on, any law on the basis of which we can hope for justice among men. 

But we have hope. St. Francis of Assisi, they say, saw the world upside-down, or perhaps right-side up by being upside-down. Writing in The Crisis, Michael Warren Davis notes: 

St. Francis called himself the Jongleur de Dieu—God’s court jester—precisely because his virtue was so absurd by the standards of our own convention. But to say that he looked foolish in the eyes of the world is an understatement. His charity gave as much offense as any sinner’s meanness. St. Francis’s spirituality demands such uncommon virtue it’s offensive to common decency.

The most famous take on the Jongleur in the English language must be from our old friend G. K. Chesterton from his book about the saint, who explains that the jongleur is not a juggler so much as a tumbler or acrobat, and Francis came out of the darkness of despair from his crushed dreams of being a noble knight as if he'd been turned on his head:

Francis, at the time or somewhere about the time when he disappeared into the prison or the dark cavern, underwent a reversal of a certain psychological kind; which was really like the reversal of a complete somersault, in that by coming full circle it came back, or apparently came back, to the same normal posture. It is necessary to use the grotesque simile of an acrobatic antic, because there is hardly any other figure that will make the fact clear. But in the inward sense it was a profound spiritual revolution. The man who went into the cave was not the man who came out again; in that sense he was almost as different as if he were dead, as if he were a ghost or a blessed spirit. And the effects of this on his attitude towards the actual world were really as extravagant as any parallel can make them. He looked at the world as differently from other men as if he had come out of that dark hole walking on his hands.

This may have given him a unique perspective:

This state can only be represented in symbol; but the symbol of inversion is true in another way. If a man saw the world upside down, with all the trees and towers hanging head downwards as in a pool, one effect would be to emphasise the idea of dependence. There is a Latin and literal connection; for the very word dependence only means hanging. It would make vivid the Scriptural text which says that God has hanged the world upon nothing. If St. Francis had seen, in one of his strange dreams, the town Assisi upside down, it need not have differed in a single detail from itself except in being entirely the other way round. But the point is this: that whereas to the normal eye the large masonry of its walls or the massive foundations of its watchtowers and its high citadel would make it seem safer and more permanent, the moment it was turned over the very same weight would make it seem more helpless and more in peril. It is but a symbol; but it happens to fit the psychological fact. St. Francis might love his little town as much as before, or more than before; but the nature of the love would be altered even in being increased. He might see and love every tile on the steep roofs or every bird on the battlements; but he would see them all in a new and divine light of eternal danger and dependence. Instead of being merely proud of his strong city because it could not be moved, he would be thankful to God Almighty that it had not been dropped; he would be thankful to God for not dropping the whole cosmos like a vast crystal to be shattered into falling stars. Perhaps St. Peter saw the world so, when he was crucified head-downwards.

We can rail against the upside-down world, but we ought to remember that in the end it is destined to be flipped and placed on a firm foundation as it ought to have been from beginning. That is the hope, that is the divine expectation. 

A plea for reviews.

Well, artificial intelligence and the idiots who use it are certainly trying to make things worse for everybody already. 

Apparently the weenies are cranking out AI-generated books and "flooding" Amazon's publishing platform, among others. They are using it in some cases to take bread out of the mouths of specific writers, as Wired noted, publishing "books" that are just summaries of the actual authors' works but keeping the dough for themselves. 

Even if the work posted is original (meaning, generated by AI as its own piece of garbage, not a piece of garbage piggybacking on an existing work), these "authors" are unleashing a tsunami of computer-generated crap among the actual books, making it harder to find anything worth reading.

Amazon's efforts to combat this so far have been surprisingly low-tech -- asking "Is this AI-generated content?" (Oh, no, I wouldn't do that, Mr. Amazon!) and restricting book uploads to three a day, which for a single account is almost a hundred a month. The bits-and-giggles crowd doesn't care; they just hope to fool enough people to make a few bucks by doing next to nothing. 

My plea today is simple, for all authors, not just me, not just self-published ones: If you've read a book, please leave a review. It's a way to separate a real book from the fake ones, maybe the only way a searcher can find something that's real. Without a number of reviews, search engines tend to ignore books when compiling results. Sure, the weenies can make fake reviews, but that starts to sound like work.  

Seriously, even if you didn't much like the book, leave a review. I think it's fair to say most writers would rather fail on their own merits than because no one knew they were even there. If no one ever finds you, no one can ever read you.  

Thank you very much for hearing my plea. Skynet may not take over the world, but it sure is making it even harder for writers and artists to find an audience.  

Get ready to fight!

So it's Ash Wednesday again, and boy are my arms tired. Wait, that's the wrong joke. 

Am I ready for Lent? No. Usually I like to pick a project, like reading all the Pslams, but I haven't managed to do that. Well, maybe I'll think of something today. I do kind of have a theme. 

Last Sunday's readings included the Beatitudes, especially the part about turning the other cheek, and our pastor went bananas on it. I mean that in a good way -- inspiring. He shared stories of forgiveness of people who had suffered more than I ever will, and how freeing forgiveness was to the forgivers. 

That got me thinking. Any Christian will tell you that the Evil One, the Bad Guy, is always seeking our collective and individual ruin. Sometimes you have to be ready to literally fight when circumstances call for it. And sometimes you have to figuratively fight, which can be a lot harder. 

I grew up reading comic books, as you undoubtedly know, and at the heart of comics, fighting evil comes down to one thing: Punching someone. 

Again, don't get me wrong: Sometimes nothing less than Clobberin' Time will do. But there are reasons Jesus didn't come into this world to tell us to find God's enemies and slug them. 

Let's face it -- we can't outsmart the devil, or overpower him, or trick him, or probably even beat him at a violin playing contest. 

Maybe the Blessed Mother can punch him in the
face, as in this 13th century image, but we can't.

The only way we can beat him is to do what Jesus told us. Help others. Forgive our enemies. Correct those in error. Love God. Avoid sin. Sacrifice our own desires. Think of ourselves less. 

I know, I know. Punching is a lot easier. That's why we have a 40-day period of exercising our spirirs. We don't have a 40-day period where we do a training montage and come out throwing fists. 

Christmas Villains Anonymous.

Winter Warlock: Now, everyone, please be seated. It's time for our meeting. We have a couple of newcomers here, so let's show them we can play by the rules now, okay? Ha! Little villain joke there. 

Bumble: GRAWR.

Winter: What's that you say, eh, Bumble? Oh, sorry, yes, no doughnuts this week. Eon bought bagels and -- oh, yes, that's right, isn't it? No teeth. Well, I suppose you'll have to suck on one. 

Bumble: GRERERRARARAWWAR!

Eon: BRAAWWWK!

Bumble: Mutter mutter mutter

Ebenezer: For goodness' sake, you'd think a monster your size would be able to deal with a bagel. We didn't even have bagels in my day, that being 1843, you know. Oh, these Christmas Yet to Come kids!

Winter: Yes, thank you, let's come to order. Welcome to the meeting of CVA, or Christmas Villains Anonymous. My name is Winter W., but my friends call me Winter. 

Everyone: Hey, Winter!

Winter: And I actually have friends now. We meet here every Tuesday to help one another stay away from evil and to help the newcomer turn from bad to good. Today we'd like to welcome Professor Hinkle, visiting from the Magicians Group in Mullerville, to share his experience, strength, and hope with us.

Professor Hinkle: Thank you all very much. I'll have to be brief, since it is Christmastime and I have to get bus-y, bus-y, BUS-eeeee! So, where did it all begin for me? Ah, yes, let us hark back to that chilly Christmas Eve Day afternoon. There I was, plying my brilliant trade as a stage magician in front of an audience of very naughty children. I was completely unaware that my top hat, which I had procured in a reputable vintage clothing shop, had some magic in it. When it brought that What's-His-Name to life, that snow homunculus, you can imagine that I felt quite villainous! 

[Mumbles, nods]

Hinkle: You see, I was full of the fear of failure, full of envy at other magicians. I was driven quite literally to the ends of the earth to reclaim my property and extract my revenge. Fortunately for me, Santa Claus intervened, and I realized that there was something much more important in life than old magic hats that never worked for me. And that was: Christmas loot! And I'm much happier now. Thank you.

[applause]

Winter: Thank you, Professor. Let's go to a show of hands, shall we? Yes, Jack?

Jack Frost: So glad you came in today, Mr. Hinkle. 

Hinkle: Professor, if you please. Proud purveyor of sensational magic tricks, exceptional legerdemain, mind-boggling illusions, renowned by the crowned heads of Europe--

Frost: Oh, pardon me. I'm just a personification of an entire season's meteorological phenomena. But we do have a friend in common. Frosty the Snowman helped me understand that I shouldn't be jealous of him, or anyone, but instead I should be grateful for friendship and for being able to provide winter fun for the children. So I became good also. And if it were not for your magic hat, I would never have come around. So I owe you a debt of thanks.

Winter: Thank you, Jack. Say, have you seen Snow Miser lately? 

Frost: Hmph! He and that hothead of a brother made up their minds that they were never the villains of anything. I told him that denial is not a river in Egypt. He said if it was in his territory he'd freeze it.

Winter: Pity. Who's next? Yes, I see a furry green hand...?

Grinch: Yes, well, thank you, Hinkle, and, uh, Winter. Professor, I'd just like to say I'm glad you decided to go from naughty to nice, even if it was just to get your stocking stuffed. 

Hinkle: Not mere ordinary presents! I'm talking about trick cards...

Grinch: Yes, yes...

Hinkle: Magic balls...

Grinch: Sure...

Hinkle: Hats... 

Grinch: Fine! I get it! I mean, I understand how much these things mean to you. But my conversion from bad to good was all about comprehending the true meaning of Christmas. You can't buy THAT in a store.

Ebenezer: Did someone preach to you? Show you the errors of your ways? Bring you the light of the manger as light to the world?

Grinch: NO! I just -- I just figured it out, all right? It was very meaningful. IT GREW MY HEART THREE SIZES! 

Hinkle: Isn't that cardiomegaly?

Winter: Shh...

Grinch: And my shoes even fit better! I neither stink, nor stank, nor stunk! I'M A NICE GUY NOW! I even love roast beast.

Bumble: GRHENmdmmMDMROWR

Grinch: Yes, we know you love pork, Bumble.

Bumble: MROWWWRM

Grinch: Yes, pulled pork. The teeth. We know. 

Winter: Thank you, gentlemen. You know, Grinch, at the risk of cross-talking, I would like to point out that Santa Claus meant at least as much to me as he did to the professor. Sure, it was the gift of a choo-choo in my case, but it wasn't the thing itself so much as the kindness in the act. Isn't that right, Professor?

Hinkle: Hm? Oh, yes, of course, of course. 

Winter: Kris --  well, I call him Kris -- taught me that it was all about that first step. I was a wizened, frozen old wizard, couldn't even move, encrusted in the ice on that mountain. The Kringle unfroze me, taught me how to walk again, like a baby, can you believe it? It was a terrible shock. Cost me my magic powers for a while there, as my old powers came from evil sources. My carousing buddies, like Willy Willow and Peter Pine, tried to pull me back to my mean ways, but I wouldn't listen. I knew that I never would get where I was going if I never got up on my feet. It was a struggle, but in the end I even proved that I wasn't such a loser after all! All thanks to Kris Kringle.

Burgermeister Meisterburger: Bah! Der Kringles! I can't stand the Kringles! Dot's it! I'm leaving!

Winter: Didn't Kris give you a yo-yo, Meister, er, Meisterburger?

Burgermeister: A typical Kringle trick! Dose little monsters! Nonconformists! Fifteen tiny men and vun huge voman! It's an outrage!

Winter: I don't think you--

Burgermeister: Come, Grimsley! 

[stomp stomp SLAM]

Winter: Too bad for him. He was mandated by HR. 

Ebenezer: I wonder if they ever figured out why he’s the only Sombertonian with a German accent.

Comet: Well, I don't want to be here either! Listen to you guys, going Santa this and Kringle that. I'm one of Santa's top reindeer! I'm his main trainer and talent scout! What am I doing here with all you villains? I'm one of the good guys!

Grinch: Didn't you say last week that you wouldn't let that Rudolph kid play in any reindeer games? Straight up discrimination. 

Comet: That boy was a distraction! Bad for team cohesion! Showed talent, but come on -- all the kids were freaked out by that crazy Chernobyl nose of his! How much would we have gotten done with that thing blowing off all the time?

Grinch: Seems like a little bit of an overreaction.

Comet: Well, you guys can hang around here and yak all you want. I have work to do. That Santa Claus you love so much also thought Rudolph was a weirdo, you know -- made his folks cover up his nose! You got a problem with me, take it up with Mr. Kris Kringle!

[galloop galloop SLAM]

Grinch: Hm.

Winter: Well... Kris was going through a tough time then.

Mr. Potter: Are we done here? I'd like to go try to make some more filthy lucre before we break for Christmas. 

Winter: Very well. Meeting adjourned. 

Ebenezer: I just can't get through to that guy... 

Hinkle: Thank you for having me, Winter, it was very interesting, ver-y interesting indeed. 

Winter: Thank you for joining us. 

Hinkle: Just wondering something -- I was always frustrated and jealous because I didn't have magic powers, but you had them and were just as mean and nasty as ever I could be. Why did you go up on that mountain and just stay there alone? 

Grinch: BECAUSE OF THE WHOS! Oh, sorry, thought you were talking to me. 

Winter: That's a good question, Professor. No one has ever asked me that. You see, the fact is, I was a very different person when I decided to go into seclusion in the mountains. People hated me, thought I was evil, thought I was dangerous. So I fled. Things might have been different if-- Well. In time I proved they were right. I was evil, I was dangerous, and the longer I was alone the worse I got. You wouldn't believe how much the years changed me. Why, I had been royalty, Professor, royalty! Yes sir! But as years turned to decades, even centuries, the grind of the lonely everlasting winter on the mountain changed me. Everything changed. 

Hinkle: You were royalty? Goodness gracious me, what was your title?

Winter: Well, titles don't interest me now. But back then my friends and family called me... Elsa.  

The five tools.

A visiting priest gave an interesting homily in our church a few weeks ago. In addition to a hair-raising story of possession, he told us the five tools the Devil uses against us. I was all ears—with my history, it’s not surprising that I believed in the existence of the Devil before I believed in the existence of God.

The tools are:

Apathy: It doesn't matter, nothing matters, or at least nothing has to be done today.

Temptation: What will one [dangerous thing] hurt? YOLO! Sure, you said [promise] but aren't there extenuating circumstances? Just this once. You're worth it!

Accusation: You're a piece of garbage, just give up, nothing you do is right, might as well go all in. (Satan is known as the accuser, and loves this one.)

Deception: Just flat-out lies to make the bad look good and the good look bad. Betrayal is good, selfishness is the highest virtue, truth is what you make of it, there is no devil, and so on. The father of lies indeed. 

Discouragement: After this, you should just give up all hope.

As you can imagine, the road to perdition involves these five in countless combinations and shadings. Anyone who has read Lewis's The Screwtape Letters has had a good education in how these tools can be used to attack, twist, blind, and mangle a human soul. 

Catholics, among others, are bound to believe that humanity is faced with this enemy who seeks our destruction. We can't outsmart him, we can't overpower him. With all due respect to the late Charlie Daniels, it is exceptionally unlikely one can beat him. And yet, we have no choice but to do battle or lose without a whimper.

Fortunately, we do not go into battle alone. And that, as you know, is a much better story with a much happier ending. 

And now, we pause and reflect with Igor.

 

We have just paused and reflected with Igor. 

Baby name or microbe?

Ming the Merciless, Ruler of Planet Mongo, Invites You to Play a Round of ...

Baby Name or Microbe!

Based your performance on his tests for Prescription Drug or Fictional Planet, you had better really ace this one ... or you shall become Patient Zero in the Evil Testing Ward! Get out your pencil and paper!

BABY NAME or MICROBE?

1. Yersinia

2. Adamaris

3. Wahchinksapa

4. Demodex

5. Walvia

6. Neisseria

7. Helianter

8. Galido

9.  Ibtesam

10. Xalvadora

11. Ascaris

12. Klavdiya

13. Prokaryote

14. Vibrio

15. Quirtsquip

16. Nipah

17. Archaea

18. Spirilla

19. Jyotika

20. Ulises

👶🍼🦠🔬👶🍼🦠🔬

MERCILESS ANSWERS

1. Yersinia: Microbe -- genus of bacteria including Yersinia pestis, the black plague

2. Adamaris: Baby name -- girl's name, means Noble of the Sea per babynames.com (where Ming got all these baby names)

3. Wahchinksapa: Baby name -- Sioux boy's name; means wise

4. Demodex: Microbe -- a microscopic human mite 

5. Walvia: Baby name -- Native American for medicine root

6. Neisseria: Microbe -- genus of bacteria that includes Neisseria meningitidis, which causes (duh) meningitis

7. Helianter: Microbe -- a subgenera of paramecia

8. Galido: Baby name -- Spanish boy's name of unknown origin

9. Ibtesam: Baby name -- Arabic name for girls, meaning smiling

10. Xalvadora: Baby name -- Spanish for Savior (female version)

11. Ascaris: Microbe -- genus of parasite

12. Klavdiya: Baby name -- Russian for lame (girls' name -- even Ming thinks that's cruel)

13. Prokaryote: Microbe -- single-celled organism with no nucleus

14. Vibrio: Microbe -- bacteria in the family Vibrionaceae

15. Quirtsquip: Baby name -- Comanche, meaning chewing elk

16. Nipah: Microbe -- a type of zoonotic virus (from bats), which can cause encephalitis  

17. Archaea: Microbe -- a type of prokaryote

18. Spirilla: Microbe -- bacteria with a spiral shape, found in stagnant water

19. Jyotika: Baby name -- girls' name, Indian for light or flame  

20. Ulises: Baby name -- alternate Latin form of Odysseus (Ulysses); means to hate


MING CALCULATES YOUR SNIVELING SCORE:

20 -- You're either a huge fan of babies or of diseases; either way, wash your hands!

15-19 -- Ming admires your knowledge and offers you a place in his fiendish organization. He offers you a job naming new minions from among the Cave Monsters and testing evil viruses on them.

10-14 -- Ming tells you to study more and has you given a swirlie in the space toilet.

6-9 -- Ming scoffs and tells you to go back to school. He also calls you a double dumbass, which could get him a stern e-mail from HR. Then he has you given a swirlie in the space toilet.

0-5 -- Ming sends you to work in the evil biological warfare lab. You shall have to survive at least five dread diseases to apply for parole, so you had better hope the scientists are doing a poor job. The last guy who got out had permanent barbershop stripes all over him, like a stick of Fruit Stripe Gum. Mwah ah ah! 

Kafka IRS.

Just over a week ago I ran what I called a work of art in Pointillism, designed to reflect my frustration while on hold with the Internal Revenue Service. 

I would like to point out that the United States government, through its collection agency, is proving to have that incredible combination of malice, inconsistency, and incompetence that makes for the worst kind of authority. Their stupidity has now cost me money and is likely to cost me more that I don't really owe, just to make them go away. 

In a nutshell:

1) I got a return for tax year 2020, but huge bill for 2021. Hmm... what changed between 2020 and 2021? Note that my wife was unemployed a good hunk of 2021 but was not collecting unemployment insurance or any other compensation in that time. We figured we'd be getting a return again, but no. In fact, with the money we'd paid out for various emergencies at the end of 2020, we were unable to pay the tax in a lump.  

2) When my accountant filed my taxes, he instituted an easy payment plan that the IRS will allow. You can pay whatever you are able per month, as long as it's paid up in a reasonable time. Downside: It requires a processing fee of $225. When you file your taxes, he told me, the IRS reviews the application and lets you know in 30 days if it accepts the plan.

3) So I waited to hear whether plan was accepted. I waited through April and May and most of June. 

4) In mid June I received bill from the IRS with penalties and fees and threats, demanding the whole amount. I sent an anxious text to my accountant, who failed to get back to me for a couple of days, so I texted him again. He assured me I must have misread the letter, so I emailed him a copy. Then he told me he could not help, because maybe the IRS screwed up, but he is not allowed to discuss my return with them. I thought the main point of having a CPA do your taxes was to have someone to act as an interlocutor with the IRS if things went sideways, but apparently not. 

5) I tried to deal with it by phone, but could not get through to the IRS. I'm sure my call is very important to them, but after spending almost an hour running into telephone trees like George of the Jungle, I decided to try the online contact option. Isn't that always easier? If you want help from Amazon (for example), you're much better off contacting them by email.

6) BUT, to deal with the IRS online, I had to prove my identity with driver's license, birth certificate or passport, Social Security card, a phone bill with current address--at least two serious forms of ID and one not-so-serious. All this to access ID.me system that they use, in a country where requiring an ID to vote is considered the equivalent of murder. I mean, I appreciate the IRS trying to keep scammers from getting my information, but I had trouble finding my birth certificate and my passport has expired. When I finally got it all scanned in, entered, and done, I had to wait for a video callback on my computer. Wait time was almost two hours. I hung around working for an hour and change, but had to take the junior dog out to pee (40 minutes left on the clock). We were outside for five minutes, and when I came back the call had bailed for "unknown" reasons. 

7) Back to the phone! I tried to call and after half an hour of weeding through branches got thrown off phone tree for call volume. How about that.

8) And I just gave up. I called the banker and arranged to have money removed from my piddling IRA to pay the bill. Four days later it was set, and I paid the IRS online immediately (that didn't require proof of identity). I didn't even try to fight the penalty and interest charges at that point. I was afraid they'd keep rolling up the charges and ruin our credit rating. 

9) Two days later I got a letter from the IRS that claimed to contain a payment voucher (although it says nothing about how much to pay or how much is owed) and/or an inquiry voucher (to mail in if I have a question, because it's 1920, I guess). I have no idea if this means that they have now approved the payment plan although I just paid off the balance in full. However, it may mean that even though I have just paid it all off, the IRS may think I also owe them the $225 fee for the payment plan I did not use. I would bet that whole $225 that I will get a bill from the IRS for $225. 

The IRS is like some kind of pagan god. It is inscrutable, it has a bad reputation, it may be appeased with massive sacrifices but it may not accept them as adequate anyway, and it can easily destroy a human being -- or at least a middle-class sucker with no resources to fight them--and that's when it's just being stupid, not actively evil. 

A sane country would have adopted a flat-tax plan, which would require a simple form and probably 1/100th of the employees, but that would leave no room for graft and political favors. The Internal Revenue "Service" should be abolished, the empty buildings destroyed, and the grown sown with salt so nothing can ever grow there again. 

Fictional Planet or Brand-Name Prescription Drug--Round Two!

 

Ming the Merciless, Ruler of Planet Mongo, Invites You to Play Another Round of ... 

Fictional Planet or Brand-Name Prescription Drug!

Did you pass the last test? Well, you had best do well this time, or it's the ice mines for you! 

1. Lenvima

2. Felina

3. Aloxi

4. Quadritop

5. ZR-3

6. Durla

7. Skaro

8. Altabax

9. Priplanus 

10. Carillon

11. Wera

12. Felbatol

13. Mometamax

14. Arianus

15. Druidia

16. Thra

17. Altair IV

18. Xudar

19. Brodo Asogi

20. Duetact

💊🚀💊🚀💊🚀

MERCILESS ANSWERS

1. Lenvima: Drug -- kinase inhibitor (lenvatinib)

2. Felina: Planet -- ruled by the villainous Overcat in Underdog

3. Aloxi: Drug -- injectable anti-nausea drug (palonosetron)

4. Quadritop: Drug -- topical antibiotic with four ingredients, for dogs and cats 

5. ZR-3: Planet -- home of the bickering androids (played by Ruth Buzzi and Jim Nabors) in the Krofft show The Lost Saucer

6. Durla: Planet -- home of Chameleon Boy from DC's Legion of Super Heroes

7. Skaro: Planet -- original home of the Daleks from Dr. Who

8. Altabax: Drug -- retapamulin, an ointment for impetigo

9. Priplanus: Planet -- home of the Robinsons in the first season of Lost in Space

10. Carillon: Planet -- in the original Battlestar Gallactica, home of the buglike Ovions

11. Wera: Drug -- oral contraceptive

12. Felbatol: Drug -- a potent antiepileptic (felbamate)

13. Mometamax: Drug -- combination therapy; canine use only, for ear infections

14. Arianus: Planet -- from everyone's favorite Star Trek (original) episode, "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" (or, "Half a Frank Gorshin Is Better Than None")

15. Druidia: Planet -- the nice one from Spaceballs, led by King Roland

16. Thra: Planet -- from The Dark Crystal, the weirdest Muppet movie of them all, including the one with Bowie

17. Altair IV: Planet -- the planet that is forbidden in Forbidden Planet. Kudos if you weren't taken in by thinking IV was intravenous rather than 4.

18. Xudar: Planet -- home of Tomar-Re, a member of the Green Lantern Corps in DC comics

19. Brodo Asogi: Planet -- the home of E.T., not mentioned in the film E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial, but used in a novel based on the movie and elsewhere 

20. Duetact: Drug -- combo drug for type 2 diabetes (pioglitazone and glimepiride)


MING CALCULATES YOUR SNIVELING SCORE:

20 -- You're either a huge drug addict or a huge nerd; either way, get help, minion!

15-19 -- Ming admires your knowledge and offers you a place in his oppressive organization. You will learn to wreck planetary economies with viruses and inflation while you cause chaos by letting violent criminals run in the streets. Ha! Ha ha! HA HA HA HA HA!

10-14 -- Ming tells you to study more and has you flung out into the space dumpster.

6-9 -- Ming scoffs and tells you to go back to school. He also calls you a blockhead and a nincompoop, which makes you cry a little. Then he has you thrown into the space dumpster.

1-5 -- Ming sends you to work in the ice mines. Ming likes his frozen daquiris, and he drinks a lot of them, so you'll be very busy mining ice for him. HA HA HA HA HA!

Humanity: Too stupid or what?

On the job!

I was going through a text for an updating project, and was saddened to read a section about how epidemics of the future will be handled. I'd love to quote it, but it would cost me my client (NDA, don't you know). However, the gist is, or was, back in those more optimistic times not so long ago, that medical professionals had learned from studying pandemics, and we the public could be assured that if a contagious outbreak were to arise, plans were in place to contain it quickly and protect the populace. 

Uh-huh.

So, as we've learned over the last year and change, this statement is true... except for a few little tiny exceptions. Like:

🦠If the nation where the disease starts doesn't want it known, it can cover up, arrest journalists and scientists, keep everyone in the dark while sending infected citizens far and wide, and never pay a price for its wickedness. 

🦠If the United States pays ten times more toward the World Health Organization than (let's pick a random example) China, but China gives lots of nice things to the WHO officers, then the U.S. is the world's worst nation and China is not to blame for anything. More important to fund the officers than the office.

🦠If medical health professionals really hate the president, then they can contradict everything he says, even if he got the information from them, and they will never be held accountable.

🦠Public health professionals will do anything to help the public, anything at all, as long as it doesn't have a chance of adversely affecting their careers.

🦠Public health professionals think that rioting and looting is less of a danger than a worldwide pandemic, in fact they think it's good, mainly because they don't live anywhere near the rioting and looting. And because they seem to think racism killed more than half a million Americans last year.

🦠Public health officials will go along with any program, even one like putting sick people in nursing homes, which a high school biology student wouldn't do, if they think they can get away with it, and especially if it means being able to refuse help from the president that they really hate, who sends hospital ships and things. 

🦠Politics is much more important than actual lives. Lives are temporary, but politics is forever.

🦠A lot of American governors really like ordering people around. "Emergency powers" is like having the One Ring.

🦠Leftism is the enemy of everything, right up to and including the distribution of vaccines. 

🦠Thank God Almighty this Chinese Death Virus is only a fraction as dangerous as the Spanish Flu, because if we had the 1918 flu in 2020, the nation would have been completely destroyed in order to save it. 

Tally me votes.

 Welcome to the Third World, America. Would you like some bananas with this republic?

The last thing I wanted to write about today was this horrible election, with all the allegations of fraud (more votes than voters in areas of Wisconsin [with an unbelievable 88% state turnout], GOP districts in Arizona being given the wrong pens on purpose, Michigan back-dating ballots illegally, and so on and so on). The stalling of the vote count on election night was the strangest and most suspicious thing I could find -- what better way to assess the number of fake votes needed and make time to find them? 

It all seems so blatant that I have to wonder if the perpetrators just don't care -- that they think even if Trump sues and wins, the violence that would follow and the allegations that he has stolen the election would make what we have seen before, with unchecked violence in our streets and a House determined to trample all norms to get the president, seem like a cloudless spring sky. Go ahead, Mr. Winning -- Win this and see how you like it. And would the American people back Trump in a prolonged fight? I doubt it. The reason the markets don't like uncertainty is that the markets are people, and people don't like uncertainty. A legal battle that stretches past Christmas would be a horrific spectacle. Even Al Gore finally threw in the towel on December 13.

The worst part is that the playbook has been set. Any Republican presidential candidate has been put on notice that he had better obey the players in his own intelligence agencies and do exactly what a Democrat-run House wants or he will face:

😈 Massive protests before he has a chance to do a single thing

😈 Fake intelligence dossiers that will be used as grounds for impeachment 

 

😈 Illegally leaked intelligence that will be used as grounds for impeachment

😈 Impeachment (and if the Democrats also control the Senate, conviction)

😈 Riots that burn American cities and kill police officers with the complicity of the local politicians

😈 When he runs for reelection (if he survives that far), he will be up against a massive media and technology edifice that can be counted on to lie about him and bury information about his opponent

😈 And if all else fails, voter fraud will be enacted to steal crucial close races.

This is what destroying our peaceful forms of political action has done. 

Of course, Democrats may say that this door swings both ways, and the Republicans could do the same to them if it's such a big deal. Which would be true except that the Republicans will never have the cooperation of that huge entrenched bureaucracy or that massive media and technology edifice. 

The Democrat president will instead have big thumbs-up for anything that drags the country toward Leftism and works to ensure permanent rich and poor classes that will deliver reliable votes. If his Senate wants to introduce a spending bill (which it cannot per Article I, Section 7, Clause 1 of that Constitution thingie), it will take an unrelated bill passed by the House, change the text, change the title, pass it, and send it to the president. Say, for example, the House passes something popular sounding like, say, the Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009 to "amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to modify the first-time homebuyers credit in the case of members of the Armed Forces and certain other Federal employees, and for other purposes." Sounds pretty bland and probably a nice idea. Suddenly in the Senate it becomes the gigantic Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and presto!  No one outside Washington will hear a thing about it, or realize that the government is breaking the nation's laws at the highest level. Then we have government of men, not laws, which is government by fiat. 

How do you like them apples with your bananas?

How we got here is easy to trace -- how do we get out of this?

I don't know. 

I'm going to get some work done and try to make some money and hope that every weasel involved in this travesty gets smitten by a guilty conscience and confesses his crimes before it's too late for his soul. Of course, if my assumption is correct, it's safe to say many crimes were committed because people involved thought it was more important to save the nation from Trump than perform their duties faithfully. It was for our own good. 

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” -- C.S. Lewis

A numbers game.

Ranking the sins.

We all have heard of the Seven Deadly Sins: PAGGLES, or Pride, Anger, Greed (Avarice), Gluttony, Lust, Envy, and Sloth. Some may call them faults, character defects, or poor behaviors. We know they're bad. But how do they rank?

For the purposes of our poll, we ranked each sin in order by the following criteria: Popularity; Amount of Damage Caused By; and Enjoyment Factor. Each sin got the points for its place in the ranking. The fewer points the sin got, the higher it finished. The sin with the lowest point total is... the winner, I guess.

Here are the results of our polling:

Lust is the surprise winner! Well, maybe not to some of you. Pride follows, with Gluttony edging out Greed for third; Envy and Anger are all knotted up at fourth, which is probably appropriate, and Sloth brings up the rear, which is very appropriate. Here are the judge's comments:

LUST: A perennial favorite, Lust's fun ranking helps put it at the top of the list. It certainly can lead to a lot of damage -- broken marriages, unwanted children, horrible diseases, poverty, prostitution, Lambada -- but that alone is not enough to propel it to the top. Lust is enjoyed by many even when the action it impels is not immediately available -- e.g., Obsession is a perfume, not a pancake mix.

PRIDE: The king of the sins, the sin that tells us that all other sins are our due, Pride always comes in at the top of the heap -- but not this time. Because while Pride is the engine that drives the motor of sin, it is only fun when it's fulfilled, and as the appetite of Pride grows with the eating, it never can be for more than a moment. By plummeting to fifth place on our list of enjoyable sins, Pride drops out of the top spot -- but only by the criteria used for this survey. Don't worry, Pride; you'll be back on top soon.

GLUTTONY: It's hard to say that a culture with an obesity crisis doesn't have a problem with Gluttony, so we won't. Obviously Gluttony is popular; just have a look around Disney World if you don't think so. It's also fun! People may abstain from other sins, but everyone has to eat, and only the most ascetic of us want to eat things that don't taste good. Dietitians and doctors would probably disagree that Gluttony should come in sixth for damage-causing potential, and certainly anyone whose eating has brought on heart disease, diabetes, liver disease, or other potentially deadly problems could think so as well. But being fat never started a war, and it's not contagious, except perhaps psychologically. Don't worry, Gluttony, we still love ya (obviously).

GREED: What do you get the man who has everything? Whatever the next man up on the totem pole has. Greed had multiple tines on its pitchfork -- it is fun to shop (for many people); accumulating wealth offers security; and it is a great source of Pride to have lots of good-quality stuff. So Greed has fun, prudence, and Pride on its side. Plus, it leads to stealing, imperialism, and cheating, and a great friend with Envy. No wonder it is so popular. It's just hard to pin widespread disaster on Greed, unless the one doing in the pinning is a freaking socialist Commie, in which case that sin is coming up next.

ENVY: Envy's awfully popular and popularly awful. The guy on the pedestal wants a bigger pedestal so he can look down on the guys on lower pedestals. Everyone can envy someone. As Benny Hill once said, "Poor men wish they were rich, rich men wish they were handsome, single men wish they were married, and married men wish they were dead." Envy has led to mass slaughter, wars between nations, Communism, and butt implants. If it were any fun at all it would rank higher, but envy feels like pain.

ANGER: You might think Anger should rank higher in popularity because so many people are angry these days, but our judges felt that while anger is often employed, it's very seldom enjoyed. There are those who really do dig getting mad, the ones for whom the fun ranking would be higher, but most of us would just prefer that everybody do what we demand and get out of our freaking way -- then  we would not have to be angry. Anger ranks higher for damage as it can cause any amount of violence, from a toddler smacking her twin sister to a nation going to war.

SLOTH:  I guess Sloth could be a big problem if you let the farm go fallow and die of hunger. Or are too lazy to rush to the country's defense and the barbarians invade and kill everyone. But it still seem like an also-ran in the Deadly Sin field. Thus, it was too lazy to climb out of the cellar for danger. And its popularity is pretty low; proud people are too busy to be slothful. No one is busier than the Devil. But Sloth also refers to mental, spiritual, and emotional laziness, as seen in the kind of person who thinks no one and no cause is worth disturbing his torpor. Add that to the number of people addicted to the sleep alarm, living in their folks' cellar, applying for unneeded government benefits, even refusing to help with the damn dishes, and we see why it roused itself to the fourth spot on our popularity ranking.

I'm pretty proud of this list, and the minutes of research and thought that went into it. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna get a snack and take a nap -- that is, if my friggin' neighbor isn't playing with her deluxe chain saw again. Although she is kinda cute....

Looming scandal.

A priest says to a rabbi: "I hear you're not allowed to eat bacon." 

And the rabbi says: "Yes, that's right." 

"Just between ourselves though," says the priest, "have you ever tried it?" 

"Well, I must admit," says the rabbi, "many years ago, I did taste bacon." 

"It's pretty good, isn't it?" says the priest. 

"Yes," says the rabbi, "I have to agree, it's pretty good. But tell me, priests are not allowed to have sex." 

"Yes, that's right," agrees the priest. "We're not allowed to have sex." 

"Between ourselves though," says the rabbi, "have you ever tried it?" 

"No," says the priest, "I never have." 

"That's a shame," says the rabbi, "because it's a lot better than bacon!"

Seems like a lot of our priests and bishops are doing more than eating bacon.

The other day I got sore at a friend (although she didn't know it) who seemed to be poking fun at the Catholic scandal involving active gay priests and bishops, which also includes pressuring others (including minors) into sex. On reflection I don't think she meant it as a joke on this scandal, and I was glad I kept my mouth shut. But I knew it had hit a nerve, good and hard.

I love my church and I hate to see her suffer at the hands of men whose behavior they had to know was awful. The nation has heard about Pennsylvania and now maybe New York getting legally ready to investigate and prosecute the perpetrators, justly, and one assumes that if they can take our whole church structure down with it they will consider it a job well done. I can hardly blame them for feeling that way. The Church in America has not covered itself in glory in the last 20 years.

Of course, no one ever hears about the wonderful things the Church does for others. Partly because that's expected, so it's not news; partly because of anti-Catholic, anti-Christian, or just anti-God bias among our betters in the media departments. But how can I or any of us be mad when they had a juicy scandal with real live victims who deserve justice? Whatever happens to us over this, we will have to take it.

Staunch friends tell us we will get through; that God knew all the wickedness that would follow in the Church founded on Peter, and everything is part of the plan. The Church, some say, will have to get smaller but will get better. Some would make it seem that, because God can bring good out of bad, that bad is therefore good.

I don't know if my staunch friends know what this kind of scandal does to Catholics whose faith is already shaky, to those who find the Catholic obligations onerous and would love a good reason to walk away. Smaller and better is good, but smaller to the vanishing point is gone.

Jesus promised that the gates of the Netherworld would not prevail against the Church, and surely everything from the Manicheans to the Gnostics to Islam to the Reformation to the Enlightenment to Communism to the worship of Science has tried to bring her down over the centuries. But can she survive such repeated, pervasive attacks from within? Catholic corruption is how we got Protestants in the first place.

It's so bad right now that there are conspiracy theories to explain how it happened, a popular one being how Communist Bella Dodd encouraged sexually active homosexuals (not just radicals, as she told Congress) to be planted in the U.S. Catholic church in the 1930s to purposely destroy it from within. Supposedly this was so successful that it accounts for what we're seeing now. I never buy conspiracy theories, but they always tell us something about the people who promote them.

So I have nothing good to say today, I'm afraid. I will go to church, I will support her, I will hope and pray for real faith to come forth from all this darkness and reinvigorate the Church all over the world. But I won't be happy.

As for those who caused all this, those who defied their vows of chastity -- Jesus said in Matthew 18, "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea." This is also seen in Luke 17: "Things that cause sin will inevitably occur, but woe to the person through whom they occur. It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin."

Looks like we may need to get millstones in bulk.

Great things and small.

I was thinking about this whole Hollywood scandal with that Weinstein guy. Not that I know any inside information. There are newborn antelope in Africa who are better connected than I am. But I remembered the first time I'd heard of Harvey Weinstein was in connection to one of his Miramax films that he was defending despite its vile subject matter and the childish means it told its story. He was acting like a poor innocent lover of art who couldn't dream of why people should be offended, all the while doing everything to gin up as much fury as he could.

What a jerk, I thought, and if I could see that from a million miles off, couldn't everybody?

I know that plenty of well-known gropers, creeps, and men who otherwise can't behave themselves get a pass in life because they are rich, because they can buy favors, because they can buy loyalty, because they can buy people's silence. Often they can just terrify people with the slightest hint of what horrible things they and their army of lawyers can do to them, to their reputations and careers. And sometimes they get away with things because they're on the "right side," they think the "right way" and support the "right causes." In other words, they may be well known as disgusting pigs, but they're allowed to get away with little things because they're right on the big things.

Yes, I realize I'm calling the subjugation, humiliation, and even rape of women a "little thing," but I didn't make this situation or define its terms.

And maybe it's exactly backward. Really, where did we get the idea that some schmuck who cheats at penny poker is a good ally when things are really serious?

I don't have to get biblical on you to make the case, but I will, specifically Luke 16:10: "If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in little things, you won't be honest with greater responsibilities." Would you trust a guy who cheats at gin rummy even for funsies to do your taxes? to manage your money? Probably not, because in real life we know a cheater is a cheater. It's just a game is a meaningless excuse, because to a lot of big-time cheaters everything is a game. Their funsies is your ruined existence.

We love stories about the petty crook or awful sinner who comes through in the big stuff. Off the top of my head I give you wastrel Sydney Carton from Dickens, thief and murder-solver Bernard Rhodenbarr from Lawrence Block, Dustin Hoffman's petty schnook from 1992's Hero, and every bad-boy antihero scalawag out there. But the reason these characters are interesting is that they're unexpected.

In the last fifty years we've turned it all on its head. In the 1970s you were surprised when a movie cop was not corrupt. Now our pop culture heroes are all antiheroes; there's a strong wellspring of goodness lurking in every low-down punk, while every angel of charity is an evil creep. But that's not how it works in real life.

I know people who have really turned their lives back to front, inside out, to be good and upstanding, and I've also known people who never had to because they've always been kind and brave and decent. I love and respect them both. But I have also known human sphincters who never wanted to become good, never cared; always thought that genuine goodness was stupid at best, weakness at worst. People like them will always prefer the darkness, because the light burns them.

So what does this have to do with Harvey Weinstein? After all, the people who wanted large things from him (campaign support for national and international causes) got what they wanted, didn't they? He didn't stab them in the back, right?

Look at it this way: People who are rotten in small things -- especially when they are not really small -- will be rotten clean through. You know that some of Weinstein's friends are familiar with this principle; they would be among those objecting to the foreign policy position on friendly dictators that says "He may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch." And yet it didn't matter when Harvey was their son of a bitch.

Those who were using Weinstein for his money while he was using all kinds of women for his base desires were offering him cover as sure as if they were giving the police phony alibis on his behalf. The Harvey Weinsteins of the world are contagious, and you're better off staying away from them entirely.

Even if it means you wind up with all the fame, wealth, and prominence of a newborn antelope.

Smart kid.

Labor Day: Good and Evil.

I know a fellow Catholic who is very firm in his faith, but far more firm in the faith of his labor union. Around this time of year he likes to flood social media with memes like this:

Sponsored by the United American Unfireable
Government Workers Who Retire at 50

Well, it turns out that the history of child labor laws is a good deal more complicated than his union would like us to think, and it had more to do with social welfare organizations than with the bonhomie or labor unions. England's 1802 Health and Morals of Apprentices Act of 1802 was inspired by doctors seeing alarming outbreaks of "putrid fever" in 1784. The 1833 Factory Act was a result of public outcry and not unionized labor action, which had been outlawed until a short time earlier. Where trade unions fought child labor, it was because they didn't like the cheap competition of child workers.

Regardless of their motives, and despite their long history of ties to both international communism and organized crime, I'm not going to further impugn labor unions on this, their import and largely ignored holiday. I know that to many people like my friend, it's always 1911 and the Triangle Shirtwaist fire has just happened. When it comes to moral choices that cause his union and his church to be on opposite sides, he leans to the union side every single time.

But that is not my main point today, that being: memes are a stupid way to wage an argument, and probably the main reason we're seeing so much public idiocy and even violence. You have one image and five seconds to describe your opponent's intentions, so you have to make him look like the very devil himself. Propaganda posters have done this for generations, but thanks to the Internet they are everywhere. And as we know, when it comes to fighting evil, anything goes. On our streets today, anything does.

At some point, if we want to save our civilization, we're going to have to choose to engage with intelligence and civility. In other words, we're screwed.

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.