I will be available for a book signing at the Board Room in South Charleston, West Virginia, this Sunday afternoon. I’ll be there with copies of my book for $10. You can get my signature and chat with me about the book. If you prefer an electronic copy, that can be found here. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BLSVRZN5  

As you may recall from my last post, I have once again caught the bug which is the cause of so much of our season of discontent, though admittedly there are other causes. It was also the cause of my decision to take up writing. I’m still trying to get that book published, and I recently did a bit of editing on it, waiting to get feedback from a beta reader.

So, I thought I would go into the idea that got me to start writing. I assume no one will steal this idea that I am openly posting online. Here you go.

Pandemonium is a city on an island on the coast of South Carolina. It was founded in the year 1620, same year as Plymouth. The difference is that Pandemonium is founded by Satan-worshipping witches. They are carried there by a group of drunken pirates turned religious fanatics, called the Strangers, who mistakenly burn an Indian princess at the stake, thinking she is one of the witches. The two groups join forces to prevent the chief from killing them all and then found a town. Throw in some enslaved persons from a Portuguese ship (the Fieldhands) and a group of Jewish immigrants in the 1890s who turn into massive beasts on the full moon (the Ze’ev), and you have a complete town.

Turn to the present day, the Witches have become the most lackadaisical Satanists the world has ever seen, replacing human sacrifice with the crushing of a bug. Meanwhile, the Strangers have sold their historic church to sleazy prosperity gospel preacher, Miles Simon. However, when Simon finds out that the Strangers keep a vampire, Theo, in their crypt, Simon tries to make a deal with Theo whereby he would hypnotize people into giving them money. Theo turns Simon down, but after Simon finds out that Theo’s vampiric rival, Scratch, lies in the crypt with Theo, the crooked televangelist sets his mind on resurrecting Scratch.

Alas, Scratch is not a good business partner, being a theocratic vampire who sucks women and children dry believing he has God’s blessing. With the bloody puritan on the loose, the locals have to band together and put him down.

And that’s the idea. It’s a regular American town, founded by Satanists, now in the present day. The above-described plot would be Book One, and I would precede with a new villain for each book until around Book Five. I have six books planned, but I could do more. Right now, I’m trying to sell Book One. I’ve been going the literary agent route. I think it’s a good enough idea to work for one of the big five publishers.

That being said, I do have another book I am currently selling, available here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BLSVRZN5  

I’ve caught the bug. Yet again. This is my second time to get it. Both times after being vaccinated with a booster shot. Not a vaccine skeptic, just a little impressed by our modern-day plague. It doesn’t give up, now does it?

My wife tested positive first, and then I tested positive two days later. Now I’m quarantined for the week. As an attorney, it’s a good time to get document review done, I guess. It wouldn’t be so bad were it not that my wife and I now have to take care of a very hyperactive little boy while being weighed down with another round of everyone’s favorite lung-scarring coronavirus.

It takes me back to 2020 when this whole thing got started. March 2020 was a crazy month. The world shut down, I paid off the last of my student loans, my wife got pregnant with our first son, Joseph (we are now working on little Tony, due in May), and I started writing. It all happened in one month. Talk about a life-changing event.

Yes, I got started writing with the lockdowns. I think a lot of people did. Kept indoors, away from work, and the gym, and the bar. Stuck in my apartment with my wife, and it was a small apartment. I had an idea for a book I had been kicking around for a while. Still haven’t sold it, but I fell in love with the idea enough that I took up writing as a hobby. Beer Run, which you can buy here, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BLSVRZN5, is actually something I wrote for a writer’s credit to promote that book. I may be querying later, as I haven’t given up on trying to get a major publisher on this. I may start explaining the idea on my blog in later posts.

But for now, I’m stuck at home. Again. Maybe I’ll do some writing on that book over the weekend. God hates a quitter.

So, my brother in New York finally got his copy of Beer Run. He saw my dedication of the book to my father “progenitor of much fine beer and annoying siblings.” He apparently took some half-hearted offense to that dedication and texted me a picture of his middle finger, along with an obscene caption. Ahh, brothers. I don’t think it will surprise many of those who have read the book that Isaac is directly inspired by my two brothers.

If you haven’t read my book…why haven’t you read my book? It’s on Kindle Unlimited, and if you don’t have that, the ebook is really cheap. Check the link here.  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BLSVRZN5

Alright, since you have all now read my book, you know Isaac, or A-1, the first sentient android in my universe. Unlike certain other androids in science fiction, Isaac is self-centered, egotistical, career-obsessed, and neurotic. Isaac hates being treated like a machine. Then he builds another android and proceeds to boss her around. Isaac talks down to Bill for running a brewery rather than a robotics lab, and then rats on his brother to the authorities because his “legacy” is at stake. But he’s the first person Bill sees after nearly dying and follows Bill to the end of the story, teaming up with his adoptive brother to get them out of a hostage situation. (If this makes you want to read the book, the link is above!) That’s siblings for you. You hate them, you love them, and somehow you do both at the same time.

Isaac is mostly based on an exaggerated version of my brother, Joseph, who’s currently working as an architect in Brooklyn now. Joseph is irritating, narcissistic, and one of the only people who kept my grandmother and a lot of our other elderly relatives company as they passed away. Don’t worry, he mocks me in a very similar way. (In my family, I am known as the destroyer of chairs) But, we’re glad to have each other around.

I based the character Isaac off my brother because the typical android character is just too dull, too robotic. (Well, I guess that’s the point) I wanted an android who was more like a person, not just trying to be a person, like a Pinocchio made of steel. Isaac is too flawed to be a Data, and that is what makes him real.

I bring all this up because I have two brothers. The other is named Nathan, and his birthday is tomorrow. Since I haven’t created a character based on him, I thought I would dedicate this blog post to him. Happy 34th Birthday Nathan! Many more years to you.

I am happy to present to you my predictions for the year 2023! Please note that these predictions are guaranteed to be 100% wrong (God, I hope so.)

January

Georgia cruises to its second consecutive national championship, beating TCU 56-3. Players on the TCU bench migrate over to Georgia’s sideline in order to avoid being put in the game as the Horned Frogs are beaten so badly, several of them are declared sterile after the game. In an unrelated matter, after missing the playoffs this season, Alabama Head Coach Nick Saban summons Satan and demands that his soul be refunded to him.

In international news, as the war in Ukraine approaches its first year anniversary, Russian President Vladimir Putin admits that the war hasn’t gone as planned, but asserts that he expects imminent victory as he has appointed “General Winter.” Putin and his Cabinet enjoy a Dr. Evil-like laugh session until one of Putin’s aides tells him that General Winter was assassinated by Ukrainian sharpshooters when getting too close to the front line.

February

In a massive upset, the Cincinnati Bengals defeat the Philadelphia Eagles to win Super Bowl LVII. Starting QB Joe Burrows proclaims he’s going to Disney World before the fabric of the universe tears apart and swallows the entire stadium whole.

In entertainment news, James Gunn announces that in his new DCEU, Superman will be played by Jim Parsons of the Big Bang Theory, the Flash is really just a nudist who can run a four-minute mile, the main villain is the Penny Pincher, and each movie will be at least 95% CGI. After an ensuing riot, Warner Brothers announces that Gunn will also be put in charge of the next fifteen Harry Potter movies and the planned Tom Bombadil trilogy to begin in August 2024.

March

March begins with one last winter flurry, knocking power out for the entire state of Texas. As the state struggles to bring its independent power grid online, Elon Musk suggests that they drill a hole to the Earth’s mantle and unleash a flood of magma to melt the ice. When the state government turns Musk down on the basis that this would destroy all plant and animal life in the state, Musk tries to buy all the land in Texas. However, Musk is denied credit as after running Twitter for six months, he now lives in a cardboard box on the streets of Houston and babbles endlessly about “terrorism coordinates.”

Pope Francis dies suddenly in his sleep. After a one-week enclave, the cardinals elect Tobias Forge, founder and lead singer of the heavy metal band Ghost, as the new pontiff. Dedicating his reign to Lucifer, Forge pledges to be the worst pope in world history or at least the worst pope since Alexander V.

April

In a run that would make Cinderella blush, the Arkansas Razorbacks make it to the NCAA Championship Game…where they lose by one point when Davonte Davis bricks a three-point shot so badly, it flies into the other basket at the opposite end of the court. Statisticians claim this is one of the least likely events since the Big Bang, yet Arkansas Razorback fans merely shrug their shoulders and say “them’s the breaks.”

The race for the Republican Presidential Nomination for 2024 heats up as Ye West throws his hat in the ring, as he abandons MAGA to forge his own cult of personality. Media commentators are stunned as the platinum-album performer cobbles together a weird coalition of rap fans, neo-nazis, and the clinically insane. As he watches his own supporters abandon him in favor of Yeezus, Donald Trump endorses QAnon and accuses Ye of being a tool of the international Satanic child-molesting conspiracy. In response, Ye appears on Alex Jones’ show with a twelve-year-old prostitute and says “I Like Satan.” His favorability among Republican primary voters goes up by two points.

May

West Virginia Attorney and aspiring author Jack Willems and his wife Rachel welcome their second child into the world. At the same time, Jack’s first novel, Beer Run, available on Amazon, becomes a New York Times Best Seller, propelling Jack to instant stardom! (Okay, maybe I do wish this happens)

Elsewhere in the world, protests in Iran enter their ninth month. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei announces a new concession that women will no longer be beaten to death for failing to properly cover their hair but will instead be given a quick clean death by gunshot. The protestors respond by walking down Pasteur Street in bikinis.

June

President Biden’s aides walk into the Oval Office to find the President hunched over his desk, having apparently died from natural causes in the middle of the night. The staff of the White House quickly call Chief Justice Roberts to administer the Oath of Office to President Biden’s corpse. The White House Press Secretary immediately calls a press briefing to assure the American Public that President Biden, while no longer breathing, is still in charge and will run for president in 2024 as the best morticians in America are working to preserve his body. She cannot confirm reports of Vice-President Kamala Harris banging her head against the wall of the Eisenhower Executive Building.

In China, with COVID infections reaching new highs and the Chinese economy buckling under the pressure of increasing debt and an aging population, President Xi Xiping makes a nationwide address on June 5 to remind everyone that nothing happened on this day in 1989. “I just wanted to remind you all that the CCP knows what it’s doing and certainly doesn’t view you all as expendable,” President Xiping said. “Some people might look at our actions and assume we’re purposely trying to piss you all off. However, these people just don’t understand. We’re playing 4-D Underwater Chess here. Your rulers are very competent and deeply concerned for your welfare. Make China Great Again!”

July

Audiences flock to movie theaters to see this year’s Summer Blockbuster: X-Men Infinity: Rise of the Reboot. Breaking Avatar’s record for the highest-grossing movie of all time, audiences describe it as “Okay” and “mildly entertaining.” Hugh Jackman reprises his role as Wolverine, yet again, though Hollywood magic must be used to digitally remove his walker from each scene. Meanwhile, an unreleased Hayao Miyazaki film is discovered in the vaults of Studio Ghibli, which when screened in America, makes animation enthusiasts weep tears of joy. It fails to survive the opening week.

Having finally found a way to completely stretch out the NBA season to July, the league championship is finally awarded to the Memphis Grizzlies. Head Coach Taylor Jenkins credited the team’s victory to solid defense, his coaching staff, and a well-placed bribe to Commissioner Adam Silver.

August

Temperatures rise to 110 degrees in southern states as the U.S. faces one of its hottest summers on record. As construction workers and returning football players die from heat exhaustion, several localities consider letting people go outside in the buff to relieve the effect of the sweltering weather. Not any of the places like Texas or LA mind you. We’re talking Minneapolis and Milwaukee where it never got above 90 degrees. They just don’t know how to deal with the heat.

Sam Bankman-Fried pleads guilty to fraud, along with everyone else at FTX who worked with or for him, everyone at Alameda who lent FTX money, everyone who ever invented a cryptocurrency or NFT, anyone who ever trading cryptocurrency or NFTs, and anyone involved in the creation of the internet, and anyone who owned a digital anything anywhere.

September

As students head back to school, a new report from the Department of Education finds that Americans are increasingly falling behind other nations in all major subject areas such as math, science, and whether you can talk and write good. Standardized test scores show the USA has fallen behind Uganda, though that might be due to putting the results in alphabetical order. President Biden vows, once someone lifts his arm up and moves his mouth, to redouble the national effort to improve our public schools.

Meanwhile, the competition for the Republican nomination entered a new phase with the beginning of debates. With no fewer than 53 candidates splitting the vote, Ye and Donald Trump take the lead with five percent and four percent respectively. Fox News commentators are split on Ye, as on one hand, he is certifiably insane, and on the other hand, he is currently ahead and they know how their bread is buttered.

October

The New York Yankees win the World Series, as their bizarre strategy of spending billions on getting the best players in the game breaks through. They then rename the team to the New York Wildcats, the blandest name imaginable, in order to placate a group of Red Sox fans who find the word Yankee (originally a term for New Englander) to be extremely offensive.

An ancient group of Pagans come together on Halloween at Stonehenge to celebrate Samhain with the sacrifice of children and succeed in the resurrection of the Old Ones, plunging the Earth into a thousand years of darkness. No one can really tell the difference, however, so life goes on as usual.

November

Feeling left behind with all these protests, Kim Jong-Un arranges for a protest against himself and then has the protestors shot just for the Hell of it. He then blames both the protests and his executions on South Korean capitalists, Japanese Imperialism, and the U.S. The party praises Dear Leader for his far-sighted vision.

Pastor David Portenoy of the Jesus Kiss Me Church predicts the End of the World will occur on November 29, 2023. The day comes and goes without anything happening. When asked about his prediction, Portenoy explains that the world has ended, spiritually, but it will end physically next May. He then takes his ministry’s entire trust fund and migrates to Bermuda, where he will spend the rest of his life.

December

With a plurality of three percent following the addition of another 44 different candidates, Ye West takes the Iowa caucuses. This is in spite of massive headwinds from Republican voters who polls say find Ye racist and also, black. Donald Trump pledges to fight on to New Hampshire, where he is currently polling in first place at two percent of the vote.

On the Democratic side, the desiccated corpse of Joe Biden defeated his former Vice-President Kamala Harris. Harris’s dark horse candidacy, with the famous slogan, “At least I’m alive” failed to gain ground against Biden’s campaign. “He hasn’t explained how he can continue to be commander-in-chief in his condition,” Harris complains. “He can’t talk at all. He’s been dead for six months. “

Those are my predictions for 2023.

I’ve made my opinions about Christmas as compared to other holidays clear in other posts to this blog. I’ve also talked about adding other gift-giving holidays to take the pressure off Christmas. Nothing I have done approaches the idea of giving Christmas its original meaning as developed in medieval Christendom. That would be like Horace telling the Romans to abandon their city and find a distant land to settle in to cure their corruption issues.

Today, I’ll cross that line and talk about a real old-fashioned Christmas: drunkenness, feasting, and role reversals. During the Middle Ages, Christmas was a two-week-long binge of beer and bacon. The twelve days of Christmas lasted twelve damn days. Everyone had to get the time off. Serfs, apprentices, students, lower officials in the church. Not only were lords required to give their serfs time off, but they were also expected to throw a party for the peasants on their own dime, complete with booze, roast boar, and even entertainment. Cross-dressing, practical jokes on the nobility, and getting completely plastered were all par for the course.

This all culminated in the Feast of Fools on January 1 celebrated by the clergy, known in Paris as Topsy Turvy Day for the complete inversion of any hierarchies within the church. Choir boys were appointed as bishops. Priests would eat black pudding on the altar and wear obscene masks during mass. Subdeacons would give their superiors orders. All of this derived from ancient pagan festivals where slaves would treat their masters as equals. Occasionally, you can still find signs of these role inversions, such as in the British Army where the officers serve dinner to the enlisted men.

See, that’s the real Christmas spirit. The King of Kings was born in a manger, not in a palace. The king who lived in a palace killed every male infant under two in Judea trying to get rid of him because Herod was afraid of any challenge to his power. Jesus escaped to Egypt, and if old Herod knew that people would use his birthday as an excuse to tell their superiors where to shove it and then say “feed me,” Herod may have killed all the girls just to be safe. The term “public servant” isn’t meant to be a sad joke and your employer has a moral responsibility to be a leader of men and not merely a consumer of services, whether he accepts that or not.

So, sorry, Charlie Brown, I don’t think we’re recapturing the Christmas Spirit anytime soon. I’ll believe we’ve recovered the true meaning of the Yule Tide season when Elon Musk shines my damned shoes.

About a week ago, someone on Twitter asked “Why do no fine restaurants serve turkey as a meal?” I naturally responded, “Clearly, they are part of a freemason conspiracy to prevent people from eating turkey because it disrupts their mind control waves.”

Got a few likes on that. Yeah, it’s funny, but lately, I’ve been thinking. I mean, it’s bullshit. That’s right, horsehockey. Restaurants serve turkey on sandwiches and as complete birds on golden plates if you come on Thanksgiving or Christmas. Go to Subway. Go to Jimmy Johns. Sit down at a restaurant and ask for a turkey club. You’ll get it.

Then, go to a grocery store. Turkey is everywhere. Butterballs. Sliced thin deli meats. They’re even turning out ground turkey these days. Whoever eats that stuff should be put in a mental asylum, but it’s there.

Who likes it? I mean, other than the Dad in the Christmas story. Sure, turkey is good when it’s deep-fried, but so is everything else. Pickles. Twinkies. Zucchini. Carrots. Everything tastes better deep-fried. Based on what I’ve heard, some people in Scotland even stomach Mars Bars that way.

The Powers that Be aren’t hiding turkey from us, they’re pushing it on us. The only thing I can’t figure out is why. What’s that you say? Maybe turkey is a filling meat, easily reproducible, which is so bland that, much like vanilla, no one will really object to it? Sure, that’s what they want you to think. Who are “they?” Oh, come on. They. The Illuminati. The Bilderbergers. The Elks Club. The people really running the show. Why these shadowy globalists, by which I mean people who use globes rather than maps and not a veiled reference to Jews, are forcing this bland bird meat down our throats, I cannot fathom.

So I’ll make something up. I know two things about turkey: everything I’ve said so far and that Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey to be America’s official bird, not the bald eagle. This supposedly had to do with the fact that the turkey is a farm animal representing hard work and prudence while the bald eagle is a lazy scavenger. There you go. I blame Benjamin Franklin.

Not alone, but he was a Freemason. And he did help create the current federal government with the whole writing the Constitution thing. I’ll blame them. Particularly the ones with the funny hats. Yes, the Freemasons and the Federal government have forced turkey on us to control us. It’s MKULTRA 2.0. How do I know that turkey causes mind control? Once again, why else would people eat it?

Of course, there was this one guy. Who I met. At a bar. And is not made up. He told me that the federal government started promoting turkey in the 1960s around the same time they killed all the birds. The flying birds that is, not the turkeys. Flightless birds can’t be replaced with cameras. Check that out here. https://birdsarentreal.com/ They injected the turkeys with LSD as part of their mind control experiments. Because as we all know, the main thing LSD does to users, is make them want to go to sleep. It has nothing to do with tryptophan y’all.

Now, this guy I’m telling you about: I never got his name. Two men in black suits swooped in while we were making boilermakers and took the guy away. That’s the federal government for you. They are so omnicompetent, any attempt to squeal on the numerous conspiracies against the public they run: like the time the world ended and they force us all onto ships, blasted us all into space, and then tried to hypnotize the stupider among us to forget it. You don’t remember that. Well, the hypnotism worked. The government always knows what they’re doing and they’re perfect at it. They wanted you to think there were no WMDs in Iraq because it made them all look so stupid, you would never believe how smart they were.

You might say “Jack, listen to yourself. The federal government isn’t that competent. Haven’t you ever dealt with the post office?” or “I think you’ve made a big logical stretch saying that because people get sleepy after eating too much that turkey has LSD in it.” or “What do the Freemasons have to do with this? You never explained that. This is just silly.” To which I say, you’ve missed the point. Of course, it makes no sense. If it made sense, the sheeple would figure it out rather quickly, wouldn’t they? Yeah, it would be reported in the news and written down in history books. Everyone would believe in it, not just me. I wouldn’t be special.

That’s how I know it’s true. It’s true because I believe it. I’m special. I’m certainly not a failed attorney, sitting on his couch, pounding away on a keyboard in hope that someone will care about me more than the people I actually deal with in real life. I’m special. I matter. I’m important. I am.

So that is why turkey is evil. Also, buy my book. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BLSVRZN5  

Alright, now that I have posted all of Beer Run and advertised my interview with Terry Bartley, I will now completely destroy my reputation and write about the dreaded Cancel Culture.

I will begin by laying my ideological cards out on the table: I’m a recovering Republican. This is a member of the Harvard Federalist Society speaking here. I started reading the National Review when I was in 8th Grade. What changed? Well, with me, nothing really. I still believe what I used to: free markets, a strong national defense, and the radical idea that judges should interpret the laws the way they were written. The problem is that the GOP changed what they believe, which is now protectionism, isolationism, and that Democrats and John McCain eat children. I voted Libertarian in 2016 and haven’t stopped.

So what’s my opinion on Cancel Culture? I’m not a fan, but it’s nothing to whine about. In every age, there are certain things you can’t say without becoming a public pariah, even where free speech is operative. Try talking about sex the way a normal person does today during the Victorian age and see where it gets you. George Carlin famously said there were seven words you couldn’t say on television. Today, if he did the same bit, all those words would be racial slurs, which I think counts as an improvement given that Carlin’s words were merely crude, not demeaning. Our age is as sensitive to race as past ages were to sex. That’s not obviously wrong.

Still, the flip side of that is it makes having a public debate about something really difficult. When I was in college, professors talked about the need for this nation to have an honest conversation about race. It’s difficult to have an honest conversation about anything when you make so many opinions taboo, particularly when those opinions aren’t really outside the norm.

There’s a reason I keep using the Victorian era as an example: a failure to have an honest conversation can have real consequences. Take a look at some of the anti-masturbation devices of that time (but don’t blame me for the nightmares). Right now we’re having a public debate about transgenderism which could potentially have a wide-ranging impact on the way our society works, from public restrooms to women’s sports to women’s prisons. That debate is marred by the fact that one side says there’s no debate to have. For some people, any suggestion that transgender women can’t be treated the same as biological women is akin to endorsing eugenics. This convinces nobody, but it shuts a lot of people up.

On the other hand, Kanye. Yeah, Kanye. I don’t think I need to say much more. When you make your white supremacist handler and Alex Jones look like the reasonable people in the room, you’ve achieved a new level of offensiveness. It was really something seeing Jones, who declared that parents who lost their children to a school shooter were crisis actors, trying to moderate someone else’s opinions. It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving person.

But I think it encapsulates what’s wrong with our political conversation. Amidst all this political correctness, it doesn’t stop a multi-platinum recording artist from saying “I Like Hitler” live. All the outrage in the world didn’t stop Donald Trump from claiming a judge was biased against him because the judge was Mexican (he was born in Indiana), or that he saw Muslims in New Jersey cheering after 9/11, or denying he lost the 2020 election, or telling people to sterilize their insides with bleach, or meeting with Kanye and his groyper twerp buddy. Gosh, there are so many examples.

All the political correctness in the world hasn’t kept these people from being racist in public. Maybe, it’s because that kind of stigma doesn’t work against people who don’t have any shame. Honestly, that was probably part of Trump’s appeal. I have to admit I left the GOP because I couldn’t understand how Trump fit into the party’s values unless we really were the racists and idiots the other side always accused us of being. He wasn’t even consistently a Republican. Trump has been a registered Democrat in this century.

Were we the racists that we were accused of being? Some of us were. I underestimated how much race played into the opposition Obama faced. However, I wonder if a lot of support for Trump came from the theory that he could beat the censoriousness with his pure shamelessness. Political correctness is really just the attempt of the left side of the aisle to use the Overton Window ( a shorthand term for the bounds of acceptable political speech) as a weapon to knock the other side out of the debate. Maybe what people were looking for in 2016 was someone who would drive a steamroller right through that window and shatter it into a million pieces. Conservatives started to believe that society was better off without an Overton Window.

Once again, what’s the problem? It didn’t work. The past six years have seen both the normalization of white supremacists like Richard Spencer and Nick Fuentes speaking at mainstream conservative events and the widespread condemnation of figures like J.K. Rowling for taking very mild positions against admitting transgender women to women’s prisons. The terms “Alt-right” and “Woke” came into being at roughly the same time in human history. Trump’s offensiveness did nothing to stop the censoriousness of the Left, and their censoriousness did nothing to make him less crude and bigoted.

You may call this BothSidesism, and that’s true, to the extent that humans are flawed regardless of where they are on the political spectrum. However, I would argue that what I’ve described are the two polar opposite attempts of both sides of the aisle to drive the other out of existence, and neither are effective. Liberals believe they can make racism and homophobia disappear if they just stigmatize enough. Conservatives think they can defeat the stigma by being patently offensive. They just talk past each other.

We end up right where we began: of course, society has limits on speech considered acceptable. It always has. That’s true even where there is a First Amendment (which only applies to the government anyway). If you make those limits too restrictive, it makes important conversations difficult. Make it too loose, and things that really ought to be settled, like whether or not Nazis are evil, suddenly are up for debate. What’s the way forward? If you’re a liberal, the next time someone says something offensive, maybe consider just letting it go and moving on. If you’re a conservative, the next time someone gets canceled in public, consider the idea that maybe they deserve it. Some people ought to be pariahs. The fact that you have to explain that to “conservatives” is a depressing fact of modern life.

That’s my totally boring, totally offensive opinion for the day. Let’s hope I don’t get canceled.

My interview with Terry Bartley on his podcast “Most Writers are Fans” is now available on Anchor.  https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/PcjuIQ9Xqvb

This is the final excerpt of my book that I can make available for free. If you want to read the full book, check it out on Amazon! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BLSVRZN5  

“Oh, I just don’t know if I’ll ever find
anyone.”
Morgana leaned on the bar, her hand
cupping her right cheek. Bill poured her a
Tripel and placed it in front of her eyes.
Mario had just dumped her.
“On the house,” Bill said.
“Thank you, you’re so kind,”
Morgana said. “I thought Mario was the one.
We never fought.”
“He seemed rather full of himself. I
mean, that’s how he came across to me
when he was in here.”
“Oh, yes, Mario did think very
highly of himself. I like a man with
confidence.”
A man with confidence, Bill thought.
Maybe now was the time to take his shot.
“Do you have anything scheduled for
Monday? That’s my day off and there’s a
showing of Hamilton at the Zorbak Fine
Arts Center. There’s a Vietnamese
restaurant I know right next to it.”
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly,” Morgana
said, sipping the Tripel. “I’m not much for
works of antiquity. I prefer more modern
art.”
“In a few weeks, Sorvasen’s got an
exhibition of his art. You know, being a
waiter here is just his day job. He’s quite the
sculptor.”
“Oh, it’s a wonderful idea, but I just
don’t think I’m over Mario yet. You’ll
always be a good friend, Bill.”
Morgana took her drink and went
outside to the benches in front of the
brewery, leaving Bill alone in the bar with
his employees. Lucia giggled at Bill’s failed
attempt to land the big fish.
“I always wondered what would
happen if you caught that car you’ve been
chasing, Rover,” she said. “Dinner and a
show. How old fashioned.”
“I’m an old-fashioned guy.”
“Which is why I’m wondering about
the other girl you took home recently. You
know the one in the back?”
“Lower your voice,” Bill said,
scanning the bar for eavesdroppers. “Who
told you?”
“Zota told me, don’t you blame
Jimmy for this,” Lucia said. “Like I wasn’t
going to find out.”
“Hopefully we aren’t that bad at
keeping secrets. You realize the government
will be looking for that thing.”
“And if they apply the same
competence and integrity that they do in
chasing down criminals and paving roads,
we’re in no danger. Hey, you’re not going to
replace me with that thing, are you?”
“I’ll tell you after I get it working.”
“Oh, if that’s the case, maybe I call
the authorities.”
Lucia raised her eyebrows at Bill,
and he rolled his eyes to the back of his
head. If the authorities found out, Bill would
be in deep trouble. What would he do with
the android if he got it going? This was
potentially a very deep philosophical
question, thankfully delayed by the
television hanging above the bar. The TV
had been broadcasting a debate on trade
between an economics professor wearing a
tweed jacket, and a large, burly Lunatic,
wearing a Tuxedo T-shirt and a tie with
Daffy Duck on it.
“We need to stop all trade with the
outside world,” the Lunatic said. The
caption beneath him identified him as Jethro
Duff, one of the main organizers of the
referendum. “The Moon loses two-hundredmillion jobs a year to off-worlding.”
“The Moon only has three hundredmillion people on it,” the economics
professor said, barely able to form words.
The screen shifted to an image of a
starship on fire, floating in dead space.
“We interrupt this program to
regretfully announce that over one thousand
people are dead,” the anchor jawed in a
thick non-regional accent. “The U.S.S.
Starstorm, an S-level spacecraft with a crew
of 1,072 people, has now been burnt to a
crisp after colliding with the Terran sun.”
“Oh, shit,” Lucia said.
“The Starstorm was the flagship of
the third fleet, commanded by Captain John
Krieger,” the anchor said, as a picture of
Krieger appeared on screen in full dress
uniform, pointing off into the distance.
“Captain Krieger is counted among the
dead. While the investigation is ongoing,
initial analysis of the black box indicates the
ship attempted to warp through the star.”
Lucia pointed at the image of the
burnt husk of a spaceship being towed to
port by several smaller spacecraft.
“Isn’t that the guy who wanted to
speak with you last night?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Bill said. “I wonder if
Krieger relied on the hull design to protect
him from that one.”

An Old Memory

“Put it back in, careful now.”
Bill’s father guided his hand as he
placed A-1’s emotion chip back into the
carefully constructed positronic brain. Bill
heard the chip click. A place for everything
and everything in its place. Prof. Stiltson
turned to his son and offered him a high
five, which Bill gladly took. The good
professor then closed the hatch on A-1’s
head, made to look like the professor’s own,
and flipped the switch at the bottom of the
android’s titanium skull. A-1 blinked twice
and then turned his head to smile at Bill.
“You have improved me,” A-1 said.
Bill giggled at the thought he that
improved A-1. His father beamed at him.
“You may have had a little help, but
very good for an eight-year-old. Now let’s
see what this thing can do. A-1, I’m going to
show you a film. It’s called Bambi. I’ve
equipped you with tear ducts. Now let’s see
if we can make you cry.”