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A review of my novel, from “Dabooda”

[This is a review of the 192000 word version of West of ’89, available from Smashwords.com, courtesy of “Dabooda”, followed by my response.  These comments were first posted on The Daily Paul.]

You said you’d like to hear my comments on your book West of 89, so here goes.
There’s good news and bad news. First the good news: Things I particularly liked:
1. You handle narrative and dialogue well – professional quality work.
2. I liked the overall libertarian sensibility you brought to the book, and would look forward to reading more of your stuff.
3. It kept me reading – you didn’t let narrative tension lapse at all. Very well done.
4. I particularly liked the Donnie Fleming character: you let him GROW. Everybody else in the book was pretty much unchanging in terms of character, but Donnie discovered “something worth doing,” which, as Heinlein wrote, is the secret of happiness. (“Happiness lies in being privileged to work hard for long hours at whatever you think is worth doing”) It redeemed him, and it was good to see.
5. I liked your use of the gold vs. fiat money issue. Also your portrayal of a restitution-based justice system – those might stir your readers’ brain cells in a worthwhile direction.
I’m afraid there’s a lot of bad news, too.
1. The overall concept of your alternate history really isn’t very interesting. So our continent is infested by a bunch of smaller governments, rather than three large ones? This is interesting – why? You don’t go into enough detail about the nature of the different governments for the reader to know if one is really better than the others – or better than our present ones. Schickler is obviously Evil Incarnate – but that doesn’t automatically make the governments he attacks “the good guys.” Reminds me of the reason I DON”T watch professional sports: I need a REASON to root for one team over another, and geography doesn’t do the trick for me.
2. There’s no theme. Racism and assault and slavery are bad things? Is this news to anyone? I kept hoping that you would come out with a pitch for the PRINCIPLES that men ought to strive for, instead of government-as-usual, but no luck.
3. With the exception of Donnie Fleming, your characters are one-dimensional. Some are likeable, some are hateful, but none of them develop. They don’t learn, they don’t discover any new truths about themselves or their world – and, most disappointingly, neither will the reader of your book.
4. Your villains are cartoons of villainy, not real people. “No man is a villain in his own eyes.” (Heinlein) You should keep that in mind, and try to figure out what makes REAL evil people tick. I’d suggest two reading assignments to help you with that. First, read David Friedman’s essay “Love Is Not Enough,” from his book The Machinery of Freedom. It’s free to read online here (starting down on Page 12)
The second is Larken Rose’s book, The Most Dangerous Superstition.
Friedman’s insight is that there are ONLY three ways to get stuff from other people: love, trade and force. Think about it. People have a gazillion different moral systems, but they have only THREE basic ethical choices, when it comes to dealing with other people. Do some thinking about what allows some people to believe that naked, unprovoked coercion can be a righteous way to treat others.
Larken Rose’s book explores the reasons that governments can wreak such enormous evil in the world – why people go along with monsters like Hitler and Schickler. Hint: It is NOT because people are resentful, envious monsters looking for a way to victimize their neighbors.
5. Nitpicky stuff:
* I’ve never seen “okay” spelled “okeh” before – yes, I found it in a dictionary as a legitimate variant spelling, but it’s very rarely used, and it annoyed me.
* You’re creating an alternate America – why refer to Schinkler as “Herr” and why, at one point, does a character sneeringly refer to him as “Schicklgruber”? (Yes, I know that was Hitler’s father’s original name) But you make no mention of Hitler himself in your story! Why would “Schicklgruber” be used as an insult? Why use the Germanic “Herr” when referring to American Schickler?? In your alternate world, Germany is not even mentioned. Why do you want to imply that all racism is somehow Germanic?
*Anything you put at the beginning of your book is a “prologue”, not an “epilogue”. Doesn’t matter that the events take place after the balance of your story. When I reached your second and third epilogues, you had me scratching my head and turning pages, trying to find the first one.
*Why is the title “West of 89″ ? West of a year? What does THAT mean?
*At one point somewhere in the middle of the book, you have this jarring little cosmological essay with no relationship to anything else in the story, before or after. I’d cut that out, myself.
All in all, the book was not a terrible first effort, and I’d gladly read another . . .
—
Recommended reading: The Most Dangerous Superstition,

And from me:  Please accept my most earnest thanks for the precious gift of your irreplaceable time. Not only the time you expended in actually reading the monstrosity, of course but, more benefit to me, actually articulating what you found in it. I am multiply in your debt, particularly since you are not asking for your money back. I wisely did not guarantee the work.

There seems to be no limit to the amount of stroking that my ego can soak up, so I found your first burst of praise to rush by much too quickly. Nevertheless, I thank you for the kindnesses. While I will make no futile effort to redeem my novel, believing that things must fail on their own merits, I am happy to offer a little post hoc illumination, since much of your insightful, dispassionate, and over-all objective review did include a number of question marks.

The book is not intended to be a touchy feely personal growth coming of age piece, though I realize that SOME of that can serve a story, and too little leaves it a little lacking. That type of stuff is clearly not my strength, and I don’t blanch at your pointing it out. The intent, and I hope I wasn’t too far from the mark, was to be an adventure story with comic elements, with a little mental stimulus and a few historical and cultural tropes thrown in for fun.

Donnie is one of my favorites, too. I started out hating the little weasel, but he kind of took on a life of his own. Fact is, neither Donnie nor Lena were intended for particular greatness in the story, but once I had — not created — channeled?– Once I had fleshed them out they pretty much took over. With most characters I find I have to make a deliberate effort to distinguish them. Because I am lazy, I tend to model my protagonists after me. Harry is me. Clark is me. Sugar is me. Heywood and Brian and Lem are all me. Less so, Lem, of course, as I don’t share his faith, and more so Clark, though still a theist, but we do share a strong female chauvinism. Mostly I’m Harry and Sugar, albeit at different stages of my life, and of course, I never had to escape from an Islamo-Christian-Commie-Death-Cult.

Alternate history not interesting? Everybody‘s right about what he likes. I found it to be a useful device to re-render a blank canvas of the North American continent with many of the same forces contesting it again, and used it as an opportunity to explore different structures of governments. I tried to spice it up with references to separatist and fusion movements throughout history, as well as a few thinly veiled references to people we might think we already know. (Do you think “Rusty Sharpe” or “Fightin’ Fidel” might recognize themselves?) Maybe too ambitious? I went into greater detail in earlier drafts. You think it‘s didactic now? It was positively turgid earlier. You got off easy, even though you may have felt a little adrift at times. Even as it was I think I was a bit heavy handed in pounding my drum vis a‘ vis hard money, human bondage, and bigotry. No defense but, “I‘m still learning?” And faster with your generous guidance.

If there is a “theme“ to the story, I guess it is that history is preposterous and life is precarious. I had hoped that de Tocqueville would have set that tone up front.

Okeh? English orthography has not been formalized for very long and in its brief lifetime has undergone some mutations. I wanted to pepper the text with constant reminders of the “alien-ness“ of my particular California Confederacy. Again, earlier drafts were lousy with variant spellings, but as one alpha reader pointed out, “Whenever I read about someone using his sabre to cut a grey fibre in the theatre my brain skips.” So again, you got off easy. I’m sorry you tripped over okeh. When I “invented” that spelling I didn’t know that it was already an “acceptable” alternative, I just thought it made internal sense. I still do, and you don’t, and we get to disagree, and so far you, at least, have not been disagreeable about it.

In an effort not to club the reader over the head, I may have ended up being too vague, As far as never mentioning Hitler, however, Adam does relate to his guests that his grandfather, after having served his Kaiser, was exiled to German held (formerly British) Guyana (Gaijana). The elder Schickler was hounded out of Europe by “Slavs and Jews”, and then out of Dixie by the christo-commie-muslim revolutionaries. Harry was never casting cultural slurs at Teuts per se, he simply alluded to Schickler’s personal and family history. It may be schoolyard juvenilia to refer to someone inaccurately, either to mispronounce his name, or to hark back to an earlier variant, but if I’m an arrested adolescent, then perhaps Harry can’t help it either. Nevertheless, I thank you for the observation, and I’ll give it a little more thought. While many of my characters are vile and racist and misogynistic, I hope that I am not, nor thought to be.

West of 89? Why not? The dimensional dissonance flags the counterfactual historical aspect of that particular branch of spec-fic., and I thought The Coefficient of Restitution might fallute a little too highly. Other contenders were Hamurabe’s Farm, Death Camp California, and Black Adam.

Cosmological essay. I think you refer to my (poetically pretentious?) recapitulation of the recent geologic history of the Cascadian (Republic of Idaho in the “World of West of ’89” and eastern Oregon and Washington in ours) high desert. I was trying to set up the science behind Harry’s final solution to California’s Aryan problem. I may have overplayed it. You clearly thought so, but I found it rather satisfying. Again, de gustibus non disputandum, ne-c’est pas?

You coaxed me in with kindness, gave me the hearty slapping around I so richly deserved, and then eased me back out with your assurance that on balance you found my effort to be worthy of your time. I couldn’t be more tickled unless I started selling LOTS more copies.

Once again, thank you for your valuable time. I will cherish your good wishes and ponder your pronouncements.

Your comrade for liberty,
Gene Greigh
(aka Professor Bernardo de la Paz)
DP101010

update 180703: Since Dabooda’s kind suggestions, I’ve cut some 35000 words (some whole scenes), KEPT the poetically pretentious geological interlude, and added two prologues, and STILL haven’t re-titled “Epilogue One” which appears immediately before Chapter One. Epilogues Two and Three continue to follow Chapter Twenty-five.

You can get your own hard copy, post paid, from Greigh Area Associates or Piracy Press for Fifteen United $tates Legal Tender Federal Reserve “Dollars” (U$LT) in check or money order, or Three Quarters of a Silver Dollar, in silver coin.  Send your U$LT to Gene Greigh, c/o Greigh Area Associates    //   401 Rio Concho Drive, #105; San Angelo, Texas; 76903    //    An earlier version of this novel, weighing in at a tedious and didactic 192000 words, can be had in digital format from smashwords.com for $1.99 Fe’ral Reserve Digits.

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Capital Crime

9 March 2018

“It’s only money. You can always get some more.”

Generally true. It is not a disaster of pestilential proportions to lose your wallet or to have your purse snatched, but it’s NOT “only money.” Money is just the most convenient form that you can manage to make of your talents, your efforts, and your IRREPLACEABLE TIME. Time is all we ever get, ultimately, to experience and create and savor life. When we are robbed, then, we are robbed of life. Admittedly small fractions, but finite nevertheless, and they add up. I’m not about to get all Ye Olde Testament on ya’ll and propose the gallows for purse snatchers and second story men, but, well… there is a limit.

Why do we punish homicide more than most other crimes? More than taxation, which is fractional (if persistent and cumulative), homicide is complete. It is the deprivation of an entire lifetime of experience and wonder and joy. Whether it’s for profit or pleasure or because of egregious and depraved indifference, if you kill it is not unreasonable to expect some communities to string you up or lock you up or otherwise contain the clear and present danger you present.

If we punish homicide to answer the loss of an entire lifetime, we might ask, “What exactly is an entire lifetime?” Let’s get metrical and let’s be generous. In contracts and statutes, terms are specific. Let’s say a lifetime is one million hours. That’s a nice round number and it works out to about 114 years. Not common, but not unprecedented either, and medicos continue to refine their craft.

Ever been in a traffic jam? Now multiply your anguish by the legions around you. Some severe traffic jams can add up to thousands of lost manhours. No fun time, but no hanging offense, either. Most of us feel for the poor schmuck whose tire blew out up ‘round the next bend. Besides, we make allowances for accidents. Now blow up a major bridge over the Ohio River during rush hour  —  and amazingly not kill a single motorist in the doing so. Even without immediate fatality, the resulting mess would back up literally for miles and hours. Along such a presumed major traffic corridor the loss of irreplaceable time could easily go into the millions of manhours.

Ever suffer a cyber attack? Virus infect your desk top? How much time did you spend recovering (or recreating) files? Were you alone in your experience or was this one of the notorious wide scale infestations? These deliberate acts of sabotage could easily end up squandering several megamanhours, even if the concomitant damage doesn’t result in any crashed aircraft or botched surgeries. These destructive and dangerous programs are launched intentionally for purposes of enrichment, amusement, and self-aggrandizement.

I’d say “Hangin’s too quick fer ‘em” if I weren’t so tender-hearted.
It is for just such tricks that we want Ol’ Sparky at the ready.
Due process first, please.

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Neologisms

23 February 2018

The English language is evolving as we speak. In fact, that’s one of the ways that it evolves. Some old words don’t quite fit new concepts, and some carry unnecessary baggage (see “Tselphisch Tovarisch?” for amplification.) When the need arises, we create new expressions.
Some of the following are my own invention, some are not.

Confabulation — Well, actually, I didn’t coin this word, but I thought I did, just as I thought I’d discovered the Binomial Theorem in senior juniorhigh. Turns out someone beat me to it. Anyway, the psychology types got there first and decided it’s some sort of detailed delusion. Sure. But when the “Editorial I” wanted to hype The Kree-Skrull War and wrote, “This Cosmic Confabulation has it all! Rockets! Robots! Romance! Rick Jones!” I thought it meant a story created by collaboration. So that was one attempt.

Cyberlogue — The language of IT weasels. It sounds a lot like English, the grammar and syntax, particularly, but the vocabulary is heavy with acronyms and a veritable Niagara of neologisms of their own.

Seriagraphy — Serial Pictures. “Sequential Art” says Will Eisner. “Graphic Novels” say the effete. “Comic Books” or “Panel Art” say most, and “Illustrated Stories” say some. I prefer Seriagraphy.
Serigraphy (“seh rig ruh fee” with just the one A) is silk screening.
Seriagraphy (“sear ee ah gruh fee”) would be the process. A seriagraph (“sear ee uh graph”) would be the finished product. “Comic Books” is a slur to many of us, as the medium is so much more than Richie Rich and Archie Andrews. Many “comix” are far from comical. And Graphic NOVEL? Sometimes, sure, but not always. Even Eisner’s own A Contract With God, hailed by many as [“the barrier shattering graphic novel that brought the funny pages out of the ghetto“], wasn’t a novel at all. It was an anthology with four separate (albeit thematically linked) can-stand-up-all-by-themselves stories. So nothing wrong with “graphic novel,” if it’s a novel, or “graphic anthology,” if it’s an anthology, but in general, “Seriagraph.” Practice saying it with me.

Softsmith — Programmer, a writer of software products.
“That’s just elegant!” (as The Girl in the Kaufmans’ Apartment would say.) I’m surprised no one’s beaten me to this, it just seems so obvious. A silversmith creates things out of silver, so… “Programmers” on the other hand might put together “mix tapes” for their friends, or book entertainers for cruise lines. It’s a little too broad, I think, like “Federal Agent.”

Unteamly — How I behaved at every school I ever attended and on every job I ever held. Although I may be often told that Together Everyone Accomplishes More, I know that Trite Euphemisms Are Meaningless. Of course, when I was actually engaged in a sporting activity with friends or classmates (baseball, volleyball, football, or real football), then I WAS a team player. Because we were PLAYING. If I have to be paid in order to do it, it’s not “playing.”

Swipe and hash tag — Neither of these are mine. In fact I reject them both. What idiot decided it was a good idea to encourage people to “swipe” things in a retail establishment? Sure, we all want to get paid, and submitting credit or debit data is one helpful way to get that done, but… To “swipe” means to steal, to pilfer, to kype, or to snatch. Do you really want your customers swiping stuff? Fortunately for the sane and the humane among us, the word “slide” already exists, is only one syllable, and ALREADY DESCRIBES THE ACTION! “Hash tag” is worse. “Hash tag” is an abomination. The # has existed for several decades (preceding my involvement in typography) and for all that time it has been known as the pound or the number symbol. Why invent a two syllable word to substitute for an already existing one syllable word? Who has so much extra time that doubling the work load seems like a good idea?

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Conan and the Frost Giants created by Robert E Howard. this particular presentation of Pan was earlier seen in the House of Mystery, property of Detective Comics and Warner Communications.  Kirk Douglas as Spartacus by unknown photographer.  These images are reproduced by Piracy Press for purposes of analysis and scholarship.

Stories are selected with the greatest of discrimination, but even numbered issues of Daring Love are specifically edited with the prurient interests of atavistic fanboys in mind.  Reader discretion is advised.

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Salute and Thanks to Tom Woods (who still gives me WAAAAAAAY too much credit.)

September 23, 2017

Five minutes, he says, five minutes and I’m supposedly ’b logging. About an hour into this trauma and it’s still not fun.

update 170925: Into day three of my “five minute” ordeal. Obviously I can get in and edit, and probably even post, but still only through the handy e-mail portal that blue host sent me. And roundaboutly at that! However, I still cannot get in through the site itself… lower right of the screen… META… Log in… you’d think that’s where they’d take my e-dress and (ridiculously complicated) passcode…

Heavy sigh…

update 171112: Posting again… After six weeks I’ve cracked PART of the secret code; now I can get in other than accidentally, albeit through blue host’s “convenient” e-portal. Remote access is still a no go. I may have to suffer the “help” desk again. And graphics? That could be years away…

Also Tom, by explicit contextual definition, since I have not yet monetized this trauma, I remain a schmuck. (Maybe the reason “nobody ever does anything” is because “nothing ever works.”)

I hope you’re bearing with me. I have long been challenged by syntactical disciplines. It began, I am told (by parents and an older brother who were all there), with the English language. I did not speak for well past the expected period, and folks were beginning to wonder, “Is there something wrong with that boy?” As it turned out, there was. Nevertheless, one day at dinner I suddenly spewed forth both proper grammar and genteel table etiquette. (“Please pass the potatoes.”)

The painfully embarrassing cognitive debility extended to junior high French also, constituting my single scholastic failure, as well as to Les Mysteres Cybernetique.

correspondent TE (180111):
“Please understand: I want to help you. But you have to help me help you. I need an About page that is extremely straightforward. No jokes, no wit. Just plain Jane: this is what this site is. These are the opinions you can expect to find here. Otherwise, I am unable to promote your site effectively.”

update 180115: Composed and drafted an “About page” (sober complement to my “The Greigh Area…” description post), and while I sent the (implicitly) requested text and link, I still can’t figure out how to make it appear without loading “an about page” into the handy “Search” window. I suppose it doesn’t count if I don’t touch third base…
I hope this helps. It seems a little flat to me, but I’ll have to live with it for a while. I’m not sure how I’d find it again if I hadn’t recorded its address, as follows: http://thegreigharea.com/an-about-page/
I expect there are less cumbersome ways of going about this…

update 180119: WOW! I somehow tripped over the graphics switch, and after several hours of thumb-fingered fumbling, I now have illustrations!
I am tempted to find an unflattering photo of you, Tom, to post at the top of this rant, but I doubt that any exist.
My anger and frustration lie squarely on me. I’m sorry if I’ve allowed my careless wallowing to splash any of it out of my trough.
Oh! And look! I seem to have an “installed Plugin“. Where did that come from? Or was it always there? How did it happen? Did I trip over some new switch… ?

( from episode 1095 // 180215 — Tom’s late Valentine? )

“All right, now folks, you know that I promote websites that are created by people who listen to the show. And if they use my link to get their web hosting they get a good price on it, and they get free publicity from me and a bunch of other very very helpful bonuses that’ll get them free traffic, get them up and running quickly, get them help when they need it, they’re great bonuses, and you know you can get ‘em at Tom Woods dot com slash publicity.

Well I have to confess I do not know how to promote this particular website. I’ve tried, I’ve talked to the guy. I just don’t know how to promote it. The website is The Greigh Area dot com, but it’s spelled G R E I G H, because his name is Gene Greigh, so the Greigh Area dot com. You just have to see Gene Greigh’s writing for yourself. That’s all I can say.
If I tried to explain it to you, I don’t think I’ll be able to do it justice. The site consists of excerpts from works of fiction, published and in progress, poetry, but also, and I would say primarily, commentary on cultural matters, political, historical, even personal matters, much of it intended to be humorous. I don’t know what else to say, other than, I’m just going to have you be surprised when you go to The Greigh Area dot com.

update 180216: In fact, as far as I can tell, Professor Woods has delivered everything he’s promised. All flaws rest with this miserable troglodyte, who continues to struggle, as arcana mystify and confrontation confounds…

update 180218: So was that remorse I detected in Tom’s voice? Or consternation or exasperation or impatience or pique? Irritation? I wouldn’t blame him. I suppose we can be a bit of a trial — but he asked for it! As a consequence of his trauma he deserves every scintilla of attention we’ll offer and every milliray of mammon he can collect.
Nevertheless, I for one, remain grateful and resolve to go back to the end of episode 1095 and listen to Tom’s intro to my poor efforts, and DIGEST. EVERY. WORD.
Then go back to those intimidating tutorial videos again.
Then maybe into my time machine so I can make a better first impression.

update 180222: Bluehost has locked me out again. This is very frustrating. It’s difficult enough to learn this stuff without having chaotic cyber tricks giving me different results, even though I KEEP. DOING. THE SAME. THING.! “Five minutes,” Tom? “FIVE MINUTES?” Look, it’s been almost FIVE MONTHS, and while I’ve managed to get a little text up on the screen (the whole point of this exercise in anguish), I still don’t know how to get in and out reliably. When it permits, I get in through the portal that was provided in September, but I still have no clue as to how to get in remotely. Presumably through the “META“ function, which solicits a “user name or e-mail address, which I provide, then it asks for the ridiculously cumbersome and difficult to remember passcode blue host requires (instead of the easy convenient one that I can remember), which I provide. Instead of letting me in, it rejects my efforts. Also, it would be nice to “stick” my “about page” somewhere near the top of the file, or at least give it a recoverable label so new visitors can readily call it up.. That would be nice.
Dang! I think I’m going to actually have to talk to these people. Please let the next one actually speak English, instead of Cyberlogue, which only sounds like English I’m also going to have to wait to post this diatribe until I can get back in, so it waits on “Word” until I can wake up “wordpress.”

update 180228: Aaaaaaand back in! Just in case I am banish-ed from your in box AND you happen to glance here…
Dr Woods,
You have been very gracious. I appreciate your enormous patience. (Perhaps I am the beneficiary of your training with five daughters.)
I am pleased that you’ve seen fit to post a link to my site even though some of my vocabulary is inconsistent with your “family-friendly” philosophy (as I understand it), so thank you for the extra-contractual kindness.
As if you haven’t done enough for us, I have two additional requests (although one might be convolved enough to count as more).
Because I am a dithering fool I’ve lost the link to the twenty-five tutorials which you were kind enough to send me lo these many months ago. May we refresh the link or am I out of luck? I have managed to get a little text up on the screen, and somehow tripped over some of the secrets of graphics. But now I am locked out again (as of 2/18?), so I’m actually going to have to talk to these people. At least so I can get back in, maybe even remotely. Then to study study study…
May I know your advertising criteria? (Bucks per time increment — prerecorded v Tom’s recitation, and whether the phrase “…and I’m only saying this because he’s paying me to” would require any premium beyond the time it takes you to read it.)
I remain eager for your response, a loyal fan, and hoping that I am not damaging our relationship with my clingy neediness or embarrassing ineptitude.

update 180804:
As usual, I am a problem.

I just sent you 27 bucks for your “HappyEarner” program, and cheerfully so, wishing that I’d done so on the 23rd of September last when I first opened up this “start blogging in five minutes” nightmare.

If it measures up to the hype attached then I am going to send you another 27 bucks to squander as foolishly as you wish (even on progressive rock, if you can stand it). I am skeptical, but not necessarily of your benign intent. It is possible that I am THE most cybernetically retarded libertarian on the planet. It’s unavoidable that it be someone. Why not me? Do you know any other alleged grownups who are LESS adept at this stuff? In fact, I’d try to impose intellectual property rights on the neologism “Etard” (or “Schmuck” in Woodsian dialect), except that, as an anarcho-materialist, I have no respect for “IP.”

Anyway, I just want to express to you that despite the snark, and my own frustration with my incompetence, I have great respect and high regard for you and your good works, and am convinced that your every commercial move is honorable.

You’ve alluded to some of your own earlier frustrations, so perhaps you might consider bundling your “HappyEarner” offer with your “start blogging in five minutes” offer.

update 180922: “Outside of comedy…”? OUTSIDE? Please, Tom, we are some of the funniest people on line who don’t get paid for it. I know, some of us are a bit juvenile, and a few rather profane, but still… “Outside of comedy…”? Even an extra-bad ‘b logger such as myself, a veritable digital doofus, can feel the sting! And while we are often not as funny as we think, we are also funnier than we realize.

Licking my wound…
Gene

update 181025: Having surrendered to my debility, as painfully mature as that sounds, I’ve dropped a few more Fe’ral Reserve Digits for the special hand-holding service offered by “wordpresslive” so that I might actually pull myself out of these pitiable depths of non-monetizing schmuckitude.

It’s not that I haven’t tried. I gave those tutorials a shot, but they are so heavy with jargon that I can’t seem to start. I keep running for the glossary and more often than not find obfuscation rather than clarification. It’s now been an additional thirteen months since I tried ’b logging “in five minutes” and this is how I‘m doing. So far I’ve had at least TWO VISITORS (that I can discern, because they bothered to comment.) Maybe more but I have no way of telling, as I still don‘t know how to count “hits.”. I hope with the tender technicians’ help I might break up this cumbersome column and make the screen a little more than just text text text.

update 181107: correspondent TE claims that, “People in academia are so lost in their own jargon and lexicon, they have no idea how difficult they’re making things on the ordinary Joe.”
Perfectly apt, of course, with two caveats.
One minor: You can substitute the name of just about any other cadre for “academia” and it rings just as true.
One major: Many in their respective cadres do indeed have a very good idea of how difficult they are making things, as they are doing it on purpose. After all, language reveals, slang conceals; language includes, slang excludes.

update 181208: And at long last I have an “About” page that is NOT INVISIBLE to visitors. Assuming one can read English, now when arriving at the site one will find a menu with the actual words “an ‘About’ page” listed. This is much more convenient than entering “about” in the search window which was one’s only recourse for the last five minutes or fourteen months. The original that the “helpful” tutorials instructed me to establish remains concealed at http://thegreigharea.com/an-about-page/

The bizarre text at the beginning was suggested by the Standard English Obfuscators at Yeost (alleged on-line vendors) as a way of improving my site’s visibility. I’m not sure it actually works, as I’m still unable to count visitors. It just looks ugly and I rather strongly suspect that I’ve been scammed again.

update 190111: It may be for the best. I lost my identification and bank card a month or so back. It was a fairly cheaply bought valuable lesson. They may have been disappeared or destroyed, but they were not charged before I canceled them. Still, trauma remained. Called the creditors who were expecting to lean on my account based on our monthly agreements, and got them up to date so I wasn‘t risking any serious lapses.

HOWever… while the bluehost billing department was perfectly willing to update and bill me for another year of hosting, the hand-holding tutorial section of the biz was unwilling to accept the word of their own accounting department to extend my “help“ subscription, demanding that I send them a mysteriously coded e-message instead. The two or three months of expensive “assistance“ resulted in a table of contents reflecting more coherent “categories.” I guess they no longer will honor my calls or accept my dough. So be it. I‘ll continue to stagger forward on the merits of my (spotty) ability to read and understand English toward a more “WoodsWorthyWebsite“ (trade name bounty?) or ‘b log. After the recent trauma, perhaps the alleged tutorials might seem a little less jargon heavy, and maybe even comprehensible. It doesn’t seem likely that they’d be LESS clear by now.

A WordPress Tutorial Videos Revue (stream of conscious commentaries accompanying the campaign to conquer a shallow learning curve)

190129: “How to Install a Theme”
jargon dump: theme… dashboard…
Start from “dashboard“?
“click on right here” — look for “right here” key? or “One Penny”?
Wait a minute… before “here on appearance, click on themes” there was motion on the screen as cursor moved onto tab, but…?
Again with “One Penny” Who is that? Do I find it near my “dashboard” Is this the secret starter program ya’ll won’t share?
“add new” and ignore talk of “if you’ve purchased a theme”
Should see display of six pictures of “themes”?
Okeh… I watched that video several times, took careful notes and went to my “dashboard” and COULD NOT FIND either the “One Penny” key or the “Right Here” key. So I’m blocked!
Well, reviewing the video, and looking at my site (such as it is) it may all be moot. I’m not sure, but I may have already somehow “selected a theme.” I do a lot of fumbling around at this ‘b logging, largely motivated by the threat of “touch that strange button and lose files!”
It does seem I have an “appearance” key, I just have to follow a different trail to get to it! Nevertheless, the screen it delivers is rather different from the tutorial’s allegations, so still not much help…


190130: “How to Install a Plugin”
jargon dump: plugin…
Start from dashboard… “over here” “plugin” “add new“
Now I could search for or upload a plug-in, or even buy one, apparently, but I still don‘t know why I‘d want to. What is it? What does it do? In what way does it make starting easier or faster?
It feels already like the trainer who starts with, “You need to remember to do e,f, and, g, but before that you should make sure that c and d are straight, but first…” Okeh, back to our program…
“HIDE POST?” “HIDE POST?” What’s all this? Why on earth would I want to HIDE my posts? The whole point of this is so the world can SEE my posts. Oy McVey! …ahem… now then…”Hiding posts…”
Okeh, “activate…” that makes a kind of sense. If I wanted it I’d probably want to activate it. But still… Why did I want this? To hide posts?
WHOA! Someone thinks I bought a LOT of plugins! That is one monumental megalith of a list! And I still have no clue why I might want ONE let alone such a selection as shown! And this is an early tutorial? Do they get even more ridiculous and confusing after this? Or am I being scammed here?
“open” and “install now” and “activate plugin” are all straightforward instructions. Thanks at least for that!
Not quite understanding what “themes“ or “plugins“ might be, I apparently need to master those ideas BEFORE I attempt the dark arts of “Home Pages.” I guess I was naively thinking that one would START with a home page, get an idea of what I wanted to say with it, AND THEN maybe discuss the possible advantages of “themes“ or “styles“ or “motifs“ and the possible additional utility of “plugins“ or “tools“ or “napps“ or “accessories.” But that appears to be anon, as this is has been enough frustration for one day.

update 21 December 2023 — Six Years and Five Minutes later…

I may be the stupidest of Tom Woods‘ fans. I may also (but less likely) be the smartest of his fans. That is not a contradiction because those are independent phenomena; neither is the absence of the other.

Anyway, about two months ago I got hit by an unsolicited “upgrade” from WordHost or BluePress or more likely one of the cyberweasels working there. No flowers, no candy, no poetry, no lubricants, just straight brutal upgrade. I tried negotiating my way in, but they rejected my customary approach, which had theretofore worked just fine, which was probably the reason they had to sodomi– uh… “upgrade” me. I finally got through to an apparent human through “chat” and after a couple of hours of anguish, I finally wore him down enough for him to eschew the cyberlogue and to actually begin communicating in English. Obviously, I’m now back in, albeit through a newly confusing and circuitous route. But it works and I’m not fucking with it, at least not until the next unsolicited “upgrade.”

I’m not sure what’s more annoying: the arrogant condescension of the cognoscenti who’ve apparently forgotten that they too were born ignorant, or the arrogant presumption of team fans (they call themselves “sports fans,” but I’ve learned to see through that contemptible lie) who figure everybody they meet also MUST BE a team fan, too, and is therefore ready to discuss “the game” in excruciatingly mind-numbing detail.

Oy McFuckingVey!


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“SORTA” working for it?

Is it because politicians are tone-deaf and don’t realize how upsetting it is for tax victims to see their stolen money squandered? Or is it because our dear leaders realize how complacent we are that they believe they can reward failure (again) to the tune of a 17.5% salary hike for the bumbling bureaucrat who “SORTA” works for it? (“Amid problems, streetcar leader gets big raise” — Enquirer 18 February 18)

I’m gonna have to go with confident in our complacency. No one could be that tone-deaf or stupid. Except voters. After all, we keep reelecting Repucrats and Demoblicans, even though sober, rational, and viable Libertutionists and Constitarians appear on the ballot just about every election. But we can’t vote for them, because “they can’t win.” And why can’t they win? Because we only vote for Demoblicans and Repucrats, of course. It’s a tidy circle, and it is the rhetorical equivalent of the child’s “just because.”
180218

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We Are Doomed

22 November 2010 (Daily Paul)

The Federal Reserve Account Unit of Debt (aka the Federal Reserve Note fiat “dollar”) will tank. Let me repeat that. It WILL tank. The only question is: How fast, how catastrophically, and how much will it hurt?

If it continues its slow slide into oblivion, we will all be hurt, a little at a time, though the least able to afford it will be hurt the most. That’s what’s been happening for decades. In the history of fiat currencies, paper money ALWAYS disintegrates. If the decline accelerates (think Weimar Republic), the residue could be catastrophic, and tyranny will rush in through the window of opportunity.

If Dr Paul and the rest of the hard money advocates get our way, we will put the brakes on the Federal Reserve scam, restabilize the currency, and then we will be facing a mild to severe recession as misspent resources are reallocated into more rational and productive enterprises. Little people will get hurt while the dinosaurs thrash about in their death throes.

If we do nothing, then we face even greater danger (think of the immediate heirs to the Weimar Republic.)

That’s our challenge. We must try to sell immediate and certain economic discomfort as the only means to avoid greater and inevitable trauma. Promoting certain discomfort is an almost impossible political sell, but the only alternative to imminent discomfort is disaster, and the likeliest alternative to political correction is an orgy of violence not seen on this continent since the War Against the States.

I try to be optimistic and advocate for political salvation, but I’m also stocking up on gold, silver, canned goods, clean water, high test hootch, toilet paper, and ammunition.

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(Alissa Rosenbaum’s RENT)

20 February 2018

Ah RENT!
Great songs! Memorable characters!
A thoroughly loathsome premise!

[We] went out to see RENT the other night, and we had a simply wonderful time. No, we didn’t get into it with the other (likely leftie) theatre goers. We were all there just for the exuberance and the music and the joy.
Still, the “other side” must be heard…
So now I wonder, should I write this?

It is…RANDT ( –or– “Ayn Rand’s RENT” )

The valiant struggle of heroic property owners to capitalize their assets, stimulate the productive sector, and enrich all of humanity, in the face of fierce opposition by moochers, second-handers, the aesthete, and an authoritarian collective enforcing its corrupt notions of “renters’ rights.”

Plot: Ellsworth Mouch and Wesley Toohey are a progressive couple living in a rent controlled loft. She is an architectural critic writing for the New York Boast, and she is a social worker at the Dept of Family Services. They are five hundred twenty-seven thousand forty minutes (It’s a leap year!) arrears in their rent.

Building owners and business couple Howard Galt and Dominique Taggart want to evict the squatters and clear out the tent city in their adjacent lot so they can sell out to real estate brokers and business couple Frank Hedon and Dagny Francon, who intend to flip the property to GunCo, who plan on developing a manufactory and firing range.

Complications ensue when Dominique’s and Dagny’s old romance flairs up again while Ellsworth and Wesley struggle with the City to get the property declared a Homeless Sanctuary Organic Garden Child Care AIDS Clinic.

Featured numbers include:
“No A, but is A” — “Take Me or Make Me” — “La Vie Agore” —
“Today 4 I” — and — “The Tango Francon”

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It may have SEEMED obvious…

020704 — To the Diva: If being gone was the problem, how is coming home not the solution?

190719 — To the Coach:  If doing too little work was the problem, how come doing more wasn’t the solution?

210109 — To the Axis:  If telling the truth caused the problem, how come lies don’t help?

211023 — The Difference:  I try to answer darkness with light; you try to answer with darker darkness.

from Jackson Browne, 1976 —  At the moment the music began, and you heard the guitar player starting to sing.  You were filled with the beauty that ran through what you were imagining.  Dreaming of scenes from those songs of love.  I was the endless sky, and you were my Mexican dove.  Now the music that played in your ears grows a little bit fainter each day.  And you find yourself looking through tears at the love you feel slipping away.  But it’s not the kind of love you might hope to find,  if tears could release the heart from the shadows preferred by the mind.    

Like a wind that comes up in the night caressing your face while you sleep, love will fill your eyes with the sights of a world you can’t hope to keep.  Dreaming on after that moment’s gone, the light in your lover’s eyes disappears in the light of the dawn.  But the morning brings strength to your restless wings and some other lover sings to the sun’s bright corona.  I know all about these things, linda paloma.

He reliably nails me every time.
I don’t need to write any of my own poetry.
211024

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Great Expectorations

11 December 2016 — The Purpose of Junior Juniorhigh

If I were an objective, empirical person, I would conclude, based on the evidence, that the purpose of Junior Juniorhigh is to prepare us for Senior Juniorhigh, and that the purpose of Senior Juniorhigh is to prepare us for Eternal Juniorhigh. The mores, traditions, and ethics of Eternal Juniorhigh are designed to convince fading former Prom Queens and their plagues of pestiferous Princesses that they are still way cooler than the nerdy techies that they, or their (ex?)husbands, now work for.

14 September 2022

I have elected to stiff you this month. (Try to relax and don’t clench up. They say it’s easier that way.) Based on cash flow and other exigencies, I decided it would be prudent (and far safer) to pay “Kitawg‘s Main Street Automotive” instead. After discerning that I’d been putting more brake fluid into my car in the last two months than in the prior five or six years, I decided I preferred brake work in my immediate future to charges of vehicular homicide. Kitawg confirmed my suspicions about the effect of twenty winters of Cincinnatistan’s salted roads on exposed metals. It seems I’d been expressing brake fluid out of corroded brake lines at every intersection. Fortunately, the closest Texas comes to salted roads would be along the Gulf Coast, which is nowhere near me these days. I am always delighted to give money to skilled craftsmen when it makes me better off than the mere cash could, and I will be delighted to resume payments to you anon, generally believing that paying debts is the best “investment.” Meanwhile, your monthly status report:

Beginning balance: $5756.90
CPI for August 2022 reported to be 8.30% annualized.
interest: $40.82
payment: $0.00
balance remaining: $5797.72

14 October 2022

Not surprising that an heroic “woman of color” would finally get fed up with the Party of slavery, Jim Crow, the KKK, and elective war, and also not surprising that venal Democrats are now scorching their former “rising star” Lt Col Gabbard.

The car, and its newly rebuilt brake system, is now in safe working order, and while reparations have not yet kicked in (I’m still lingering over applying for Social “Security” as I’m taking an actuarial chance, based on relative health, family history, and lifestyle, that waiting a little more will enhance the stipend sufficiently to overcome the delay and then some.) my modest income from the local QuikkStopp allows me to resume my preferred payment schedule.
Once again, your monthly status report:

Beginning balance: $5797.72
CPI for September 2022 reported to be 8.17% annualized.
interest: $39.47
payment: $400.00
balance remaining: $5437.19

14 March 2023

Happy Pi Day AND Happy Equal Pay Day, a fitting confluence of events denoting opportunities for arrogant solons to attempt de-legislating reality.  History is amusingly replete with examples of Pi being redefined (to 22/7, typically, though I’m partial to 355/113 myself) so that it is no longer irrational (and therefore presumably an abomination unto the Lord), forgetting that real engineers and electricians never use pi (or e or phi) anyway, because no one’s paying for all that extra accuracy.  Silly Demoblicans and Repucrats also like to try to legislate away the real differences in lifelong choices made by majorities of men and women that result in their achieving different stations in the market vis a vis productivity and reward.  I expect if men also took about a decade off from their career tracks to raise children, AND if women were more inclined to risky (and therefore more handsomely compensated) behavior, there’d probably be no such gap.  This fantastical 73% or 79% comparison is evidence of the adage, “Figures don’t lie, but liars do figure.”

A new low on the CPI (at least for the life of this loan) is certainly good news for me, most of the rest of humanity, as well as your own tender conscience.  (Apropos of which, have you sponsored a worthy stripper yet?)

Herewith, your (regular?) bimonthly check-free statement.

Beginning balance: $4700.15
CPI for year ending February 2023 reported to be 5.5%
interest: $21.53
payment: $0.00
balance remaining: $4721.68