Categories: Books, Glyphosate Awareness, Obituary, Politics, Religion, Sex, Zazzle.
Books
BookTasters tweeted: "What's your ALL-TIME favorite book?" One of those questions that can't be taken seriously. I tweeted:
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Too many to pick one! If I could keep only one book it'd be the Bible. Otherwise I have to go by very specific categories: e.g. "Cat's Eye" is my favorite 20th c. women's novel.
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That would be Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood, the best of (afaik) a very small number of novels that recognized that, in the twentieth century, many people had trauma-free early childhoods but felt emotionally scarred by premature socialization at school. I am, of course, one of them. I feel, of course, that I coped better than the fictional character Eleanor in the novel. Partly because of reading about Eleanor in my twenties. Plus it's funny, and has caterpillars.
But y'know, the minute I type that, I start thinking, "Well! What about The Good Earth?" Favorite twentieth century women's novel about China by a non-Chinese author, say? "What about Wyoming Summer?" Favorite twentieth century women's palinodic novel? "What about The Dollmaker?" Favorite twentieth century Kentucky women's novel? "What about The Bean Trees?" This way madness lies.
Meanwhile, the world of books faces a different sort of...near-crisis.
In 2021, as most of us were waiting impatiently for other people to recover from a very mild chest cold, we preserved our sanity by fantasizing. The part of the fantasy we took seriously was that, 2021 being the time to write our books, 2022 or 2023 was going to be the time to publish those books. All of them. All at once. Everybody in cyberspace had had a book in us longing to come out, and some of us cherished a fantasy that, as thousands of unknown writers dropped our first books into the world, our books were going to be recognized instantly as the ones everybody on Earth wanted to read first.
Er. Um. I wrote a brilliant work of gritty realistic nonfiction that can help people. Genre fiction sells faster than nonfiction and publishers were neck-deep in genre fiction. My book might have been more use to you readers than all those fantasy novels, especially for those who had yet to finish the Harry Potter and Tolkien books, but publishers went for the money and cranked out lots and lots and lots of genre fiction first, so that is what you now have to read. Well, you can always order an Advance Reader Copy of Two Thousand or Less right here at this web site. My mother's not going to have a chance to brag about my big fat nonfiction book anyway; it can wait until a Real Publisher wants to print it.
Meanwhile there's a mob of frustrated writers out there begging for somebody, anybody, to read their books, please, after they went to all the trouble of writing and editing and publishing these shiny new books just for you, pick a format, free of charge, they'll send you whatever you want just for a review....
"Isn't that a sure sign of a wannabee writer who should be gently encouraged to get back to bussing tables?" you ask. Sorry, it's not, any more. What I've seen with the free review copies I've read is that some of them are unrecommendable, as you would have guessed, and some are at best for the tiny micro-niche market the Internet ought to serve...and then some of them really are good. C. Gockel, who got me onto several freebie newsletters, is as prolific and about as talented as Andre Norton, Barb Taub has the same delicious mix of laugh-out-loud jokes and heartwarming thoughts that people loved about Erma Bombeck. K. Ashcomb is a voice of her own, with a style inspired by the genius Terry Pratchett's but ideas and a fantasy all of her very own.
And Luke Tarashenko's latest e-mail documented that by now there are enough new books by new writers Out There that several more Real Pearls are awash in the wave of books you and I are never going to have the time to read. Each of these books is at least an oyster but there's no way of knowing which ones are the Pearls. Get on a few Book Funnel mailing lists and you'll see what I mean. Tarashenko literally forwarded to his readers list a collection of over 100 new books, a few of which I know for sure are print publication quality, being offered for five dollars, or one dollar, or free for a review. His list is heavy on fantasy since that's what he writes but includes other genres too. Not romance, which is merciful...one of these days I'm going to open a free romance and recognize one I ghost-wrote.
I appeal to you, Gentle Readers. Become a book reviewer. Cyberspace needs more clearheaded book reviewers...people who can let readers know something about the reading level, political slant if any, type of humor, etc., that a book contains, without being judgmental and mean. Help other readers discover the books that really deserve to be printed, in hard covers, sewn not glued.
And if you want to assess the extent of the awfulness, consider that traditional publishers--like Penguin, which has been bought by Europeans--tend to be dominated by the Loony Left. Can you take a Clinton staffer's word on this? P.c. suppot for global tyranny on all fronts, at all costs, is required or they won't even publish a book of landscape pictures. Read how harshly this clique locked out one of its own.
We badly need more people reading the books these publishers reject (and ignoring the ones they push), creating a market for books that don't have to echo our thoughts but don't have to echo anyone else's either. All perspectives other than the Saturday-morning-cartoon-villains' global socialism need support in this strangely challenging year.
Glyphosate Awareness
Remember the weekend link on this topic, where the haterboy said that "if glyphosate were dangerous there'd be an increased risk of health problems for farmers"? Long story short: as any farmers Out There will know (especially those who may have tried to take out insurance, there IS an increased risk of a lot of medical prolems for farmers. The trouble is, nobody seems to be comparing genuinely organic farmers with chemical-dependent farmers. It's convenient to rememer that PAR-aquat causes PAR-kinson's Disease while GL-yphosate causes GL-uten-intolerance-type reactions, but both chemicals are associated with other conditions too. For many of those diseases, nobody's been really studying whether conditions like skin cancer are associated just with excessive exposure to the sun, or whether excessive sun plus chemical sprays increases the risk of skin cancer, etc. etc. ad nauseam.
Here's a study that tries to quantify the degree to which "farmers," generally, are at greater risk for diabetes. Without even reading it we can be sure that huge-scale farmers who depend on motorized machines to cultivate, spray, and harvest are at greater risk for diabetes than small farmers who walk around their fields and hoeing, weeding, and picking by hand. Why? Because exercise is known to reduce everyone's risk for diabetes. But does the study even mention that? Well, actually, because the study cited is a review of multiple more direct studies, it sort of does, but...it leaves room for more thorough investigation.
for the haterboys, let's type slowly to make this clear. This is a summary of the study's findings written to a ninth grade reading level, which is adequate for most people's needs. You can read it free of charge.
This, for those who are too hostile to find and click on the link in the popular article, is the Science Direct abstract of the original study. You can read it free of charge, too, just to confirm that the CHD writers aren't misrepresenting what the scientists actually wrote:
And if you happen to be at school, or if you want to pay for it (right away), there's another link at the Science Direct site that you can use to read the complete study. It will contain more links to other studies. There is no shortage whatsoever of material that's been checked out by full-time professional scientists...the university kind, not the corporation kind. More information is more conveniently available at the CHD article but, if you can get funding even to the extent of a college scholarship to do any of the follow-up studies for which this one is begging, you can and should go to school and read all of those papers.
Obituary
Moment of silence in memory of Dianne Feinstein. She wanted to die in harness; she did.
Politics
The Democratic Party's one chance at the popular vote (assuming anything like honest elections) is to ditch their existing party machine, distance themselves from the Party of Lockdowns and Inflation and Censorship as far as possible--Fauci should be the one whose relatives don't want to invite him to holiday dinners--and back Robert Kennedy. He's not the last decent man in the party; he does seem to be the last decent man in the party who has the money and recognition to be electable. So what do the People of the Jackass do? Well...they've been bought, I think, and if so they deserve a little credit for staying bought. Vote'm out, I say. Not only out of office, but out of this country. Send them to live in the countries to which they've sold out. Sorry, China, we'll make it up to you somehow.
Religious Content
(At this level it's not a specific religion...) Scott Adams tweeted: "What happens when we realize God needs a creator?"
I tweeted:
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God doesn't need creators. God wants them. That's why God made us in that particular "imago Dei"--we're different from God in having physical bodies, but like God in our urge to create. Blessed be, SA, you old unbeliever you
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Sex & Scott Adams
No, this is not about me being interested in having sex with Scott Adams. If you thought it was, that's because the mere mention of sex tends to grab our attention away from the logic functions of our brains, especially if we are young men.
Seriously, I opened Twitter, or X, in a half-szed window just to post a Zazzle design, and there was SA's tweet about the probability that if Biden is reelected in 2024, Driving While Pro-Trump will become the new Driving While Black, and which country should he seek asylum in?
He could always move to Kingsport, I tweeted. Nobody there is going to arrest anybody for being pro-Trump. Most Kingsporters are pro-Trump themselves. Also they tend to believe that Black people can be socially accepted as upper-middle-class, because, hello, most of the Black people in Kingsport are, or were before the instant-slum housing project was stocked with the people the Knoxville and Chattanooga welfare offices most wanted to get rid of. Also they love successful writers.
I doubt he even saw the tweet. Celebrities get far too many tweets to read them all. When you reply to a tweet from a celebrity you're talking to the celebrity's other fans.
Anyway this morning's e-mail contained SA's vlog posts in which he said he was in favor of redcing the "rewards" for sports programs, generally, and restructuring sports programs so that team assignments were based on size and, y'know, game. It seems unfair for your 5'1" 14-year-old to have to play on the same field with some 6'4" 14-year-old, whether they're boys or girls.
People fret too much about the sexuality of tenagers who may be managing not to have any, I think.
I hope and pray I never have to work from a McDonald's again, though it's possible that I will While working at McDonald's I mentioned that one of the burger flippers there was a large flabby teenager who seemed to have a bit of a difficulty. It had a boy-type name, a boy-type haircut, wide-set fat-man-type breasts, a high-riding fat-man waistline, and a shrill voice/ Co-workers seemed to agree that it was a boy. Several people who came into the restaurant addressed it as "Miss."
I do not have lot of empathy for people who feel threatened by a kid like that. I feel protective of that kid. What kind of people can't see that a teenager who looks like that has enough to deal with? Have we forgotten how many cute little animals, adorable kittens and baby chickens and fluffy little bunnies, start out looking "too close to call," and we just wait and see if they grow up male or femal? If we can't show that much empathy toward a fellow human being, are we sure we're human beings?
"Well I don't want that for my grandchildren!" someone says. I'm glad it's not one of The Nephews, too. Many things about being a teenager are not fun, but usually teenagers get some compensation from the pleasure of reflections like "In a few years now I'll be a wo/man and be old enough to date somebody like THAT." It takes fortitude to survive being a teenager without that kind of compensation.
But it did seem to me, when SA wrapped up with "What's wrong with my position on this issue?", that something is wrong.
SA, like me, is thinking primarily of the genetic chimeras, the hormonally abnormal, and let's face it the steroidal, athletes of this world, who are honestly gender-confused. Not looking for trouble. Just wanting to play games, or whatever else, as other people do. Probably asexual. SA thinks they should be allowed to play on school teams where their sizs fit. I'd agree with that.
People seem to be seriously twisting their knickersabout an abnormal, but certianly not "unnatural" or immoral, reaction humans can share with other animals including fish, frogs, and insects. But if the transgender phenomenon bothers these people, there may be a reason for it. Research on glyphosate is enough of a burden for me. Possibly some people are experiencing a vocation to work on atrazine.
But what's wrong with SA's and my position here is that we're talkking about people who really are physically quirky, who want to be left in peace and allowed to behave like other people. In contrast to which, the people who fret about tehe Trans Menace seem to be responding to reports of haters who pretend to be trans in order to harass and bully the girls.
Zazzle
For whatever fall holidays are left on your calendar, here's a new Save The Butterflies gold-foil-enhanced greeting card design.
Not mine, but very nice:
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