Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.
As a general rule, I don’t care for fantasy. Far too much of it is derivative elf & dwarf crap, written by people trying to rip off Tolkien for a quick buck while having all the grounding in the other classics of your average D&D player who hasn’t read Appendix N. Feh, I say. Feh! Fortunately, a lot of really good writers have been writing fantasy lately that has nothing to do with Tolkien or (thank God) soft-core porn with werecritters, or “paranormal romance”, as Amazon would have it. One of the more notable such folks is former political blogger Moe Lane, who has been spinning tales of a post-apocalyptic America in which magic works, and that hasn’t turned out to be a good thing. So far there’s three novels, Frozen Dreams, Tinsel Rain, and Morgan Barod, as well as the collection Tales From The Fermi Resolution. The first two novels are weird variations on your standard noir detective tales, in which our hero, Tom Vargas, the resident Shamus of Cin City (where there are no magicians, just very talented stagehands & cleaning ladies) Closes Cases. Morgan Barod is a wee bit different. It’s set in the same universe as Vargas’ adventures, but on the other end of the continent in New Jersey…or what used to be New Jersey before everything changed. Barod wakes in a hospital, and very soon his medievalist predilections come in very handy as he has to fight his way past a whole mess of strange critters before reaching safety with the local outpost of the Federal Militia. So begins his journey home to the coast, but this is no post-apocalyptic barbarian we’re talking here – Barod uses his brain and his broadsword in equal measure to take care of problems along the way home, and boy, are there a lot of problems that need sorting. All of these are available on Kindle Unlimited if you want to check and see if these are your cup of tea; I personally enjoy Moe’s sense of humor, so I picked up all four.
On the other hand, we have Larry Correia’s Servants of War, co-written by Steve Diamond, which is so grimdark it makes Warhammer 40k look like My Little Pony in comparison. Set during a horrific century-long war between the Empire of Kolakolvia (a combination of the worst features of Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union) and Almacia (somewhat like Imperial Germany), it follows the former peasant Illarion Glaskov, who gets drafted into the Tsar’s army and sent to join The Wall – a unit of elite soldiers piloting crude mecha made from the parts of broken golems. While everything else seems to be on roughly a World War I tech level, there is magic, and there are gods, horrible unearthly monsters, and strong hints that this isn’t Earth. Not only does Glaskov have to contend with the Almacians trying to kill him, he also has to cope with backstage political skulduggery, commissars alert for wrongthink, and one of the Three Goddesses who has taken a hostile interest in him. Recommended.
I signed up for the Kickstarter to fund the graphic novel version of John Ringo’s Black Tide Rising, which is the only series of zombie novels I have ever liked, and I have to say that Chuck Dixon & company did an great job of translating Under A Graveyard Sky into a decent comic. Hopefully they’ll release an electronic version for folks who missed out on the crowdfunding effort.
Finally, we have Battle Brick Road, by Eric Weathers and Zeb Hatfield, which is a post-apocalyptic high-tech version of The Wizard of Oz. (Weird that there haven’t been more riffs on the classic series.) The Midwest is a dust bowl far worse than the calamitous drought-stricken region in the Depression, and Thea Gale is searching for her scientist father, lost somewhere in it. Her faithful robot TOTO (half air-ball, half Eyebot) at her side, she crashes into Oz – an island of fertility amidst all the desert wasteland. The first three chapters describe Thea’s arrival in Oz and her first steps on the Yellow Brick Road, but this is a much more violent tale than Frank Baum’s children’s tale. There is also a short story, “Meet Me In St. Louis”, whose art is not nearly as good as the first three chapters. So far there are copies available on Eric Weathers’ website, linked above.
Your beliefs, opinions and concerns have been derided as homophobic. But it turns out that facts are also homophobic:
A Georgia couple has been charged with using their two adopted children to record child pornography, police said.
Walton County Sheriff’s Office raided a home in Loganville July 27 on reports that a man there was downloading child porn.
After interviewing the suspect, who was not identified, police said they learned there was another suspect in the county who was “producing homemade child sexual abuse material with at least one child who lived in the home,” the sheriff’s office said Thursday.
Around 11:30 p.m. that same night, executed a search warrant in Oxford at the home of William Dale Zulock, 32, and Zachary Jacoby Zulock, 35.
Walton County’s Division of Family and Child Services joined deputies in responding to the home to help protect the two brothers who lived there.
During their search, deputies found evidence the pair, who were the children’s adoptive fathers, “were engaging in sexually abusive acts and video documenting this abuse,” the sheriff’s office said.
Early the next morning, the Zulocks were both booked at the Walton County Jail. Both men were charged with aggravated child molestation, sexual exploitation of a child and enticing a child for indecent purposes, WSBTV reported. William Zulock was additionally charged with child molestation.
Police believe the pair had adopted the boy ‘‘for the sole purpose of exploitation’’. The abuse began just days after his birth and over six years the couple travelled the world, offering him up for sex with at least eight men, recording the abuse and uploading the footage to an international syndicate known as the Boy Lovers Network.
Yes, an “international syndicate” of gay pedophiles — two words that journalists never use together in the same sentence, you might have noticed, because gay pedophile describes a category that we are supposed to believe does not exist. The mere fact that someone identifies as homosexual means they cannot be a pedophile, we are expected to believe, because in the media lexicon, “gay” is a synonym for good
Liberals claim to be open-minded, but on close examination, we discover their mental rigidity, their categorical prejudices, and the astonishing lack of balance in their thinking about such issues as this. Having convinced themselves that gay people everywhere are victims of homophobia — hateful bigotry based upon ignorant stereotypes — liberals then mindlessly confine themselves to certain rigid beliefs, which are never subjected to critical examination. Seeing themselves as heroic opponents of “hate,” liberals make negative assumptions about anyone who doesn’t share their enthusiasm for “diversity” and “inclusion.” Disagree with a liberal, and you are automatically judged guilty of “hate” (despite the fact that liberals claim to be against “judgmentalism”).
For the record — it shouldn’t even be necessary to say this, but welcome to 2022 — I do not believe most gay men are pedophiles, and while I’ve seen some studies that suggest that gay men are more likely than straight men to commit such crimes, even such a statistic (if true) wouldn’t change the obvious fact that girls are more likely than boys to be victims of sexual abuse, simply because heterosexual men outnumber gay men at least 19-to-1. This disclaimer, as I say,shouldn’t be necessary, but the point must be emphasized that I have no interest in promoting false stereotypes intended as some kind of broad-brush anti-gay smear.
What I am interested in is balance in journalism, because the liberal media have assumed such a completely unbalanced attitude toward what is nowadays called “the LGBTQ community.” This see-no-evil mentality (e.g., ignoring or downplaying the role of gay orgies in spreading monkeypox) is an example of how identity politics warps American journalism, so that reporters and editors act as volunteer P.R. agents who see their task as guarding the “community” against homophobia. Because the reality of reckless promiscuity among gay men doesn’t advance the 100% positive image of the “community” which liberal journalists are committed to promoting, therefore one cannot expect to find relevant facts because reporters do not even ask the relevant questions: “Just how common is the behavior that led to this monkeypox outbreak? What is the average number of different sex partners annually for gay men ages 18-24,” etc.? That is to say, could we get some quantification — a bit of actual data — on the behavioral patterns involved? Because it is obvious that a certain segment of the “community” is having sex with a lot more partners than almost any heterosexual person ever does. Perhaps a prostitute trafficked in a roadside brothel somewhere is having this many partners, and maybe some professional athletes are getting jiggy with a dozen or more different women a month. However, these are statistical outliers whose behavior hasn’t yet produced the kind of pandemic we are witnessing with gay men and monkeypox. But I digress . . .
The liberal media will now be entirely silent about this gay pedophile scandal, because only by ignoring it can they maintain the politically correct fiction that there is no such thing as a gay pedophile. Did you know, however, that Zachary Jacoby Zulock had an Instagram account — still active, as of noon today — where he described himself in his profile as an “activist,” and proudly posted such photos as these?
At the Atlanta Gay Pride Parade in 2017The Zulocks on their wedding dayZachary at the HRC headquarters in 2019
Perhaps you see my point: While the media wishes to pretend that there is no such thing as a gay pedophile — if you are gay, you cannot be a pedophile, and vice-versa — the Zulocks were very proud to identify themselves as part of the “LGBTQ community.” And I consider it my duty to make sure nobody ever forgets about this. Because balance matters.
Our long national nightmare is over – the Senators took two games from the New York Day Traders at RFK today, ending a miserable ten-game losing streak. Outfielder Pat Kelly, acquired from Pete’s Pilots along with southpaw Ron Bryant and a couple of draft picks for former franchise player Frank Howard, was a big contributor in helping set the table for Orlando “Baby Bull” Cepeda, who did not disappoint in his new role of cleanup hitter. All three games were close – the initial loss was 7-6 in twelve innings, the second was a 3-2 pitcher’s duel with Larry Dierker outdueling Hall of Famer Tom Seaver, and the third was an 11-10 slugfest won in the bottom of the 10th by Del Unser, who drove in utilityman Hal Lanier from second. In other trade news, the Senators acquired rookie third baseman Steve Garvey and a 5th round pick from the Dodgers in exchange for our first round pick; manager Ted Williams says young Garvey has a lot of potential and looks forward to having him in the lineup.
I don’t often talk about music, but I feel I should put in a special mention for today’s artist, John Foxx, who doesn’t get nearly enough credit for his influence on goth, electropop, synthpop, and a bunch of related genres. As main composer and lead singer of Ultravox on their first three albums, including Systems of Romance, he changed the band from raucous proto-homocore to a smoother, dreamy, surreal sound which led him to go solo. Gary Numan in particular cites him as an inspiration. Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.
A Baltimore ex-gang member who uses graffiti to designate ‘no shoot zones’ to discourage gun violence around the city was shot in his back, neck and jaw on Wednesday. ‘I was shot three times,’ Tyree Moorehead, 46, told reporters on Wednesday. ‘A bullet went through my jaw, my neck and one is still in my back.’
He is known for creating over 250 ‘no shoot zones’ across Baltimore in places where someone was shot and killed to raise awareness for the issue.
A former gang member himself, Moorehead has admitted to shooting up to 20 people as a teenager before serving 11 years in jail following a shootout with police at age 15.
In a video posted to what appears to be Moorehead’s Instagram page, he said he was shot near Monument Street while going to the store in central Baltimore.
Moorehead apparently made it home after the shooting before police arrived, and the injured 46-year-old can be heard saying to medics ‘I’ve been shot in my neck and my back, I think.’ . . .
Moorehead was then taken to hospital before leaving without being discharged. A video recorded by Fox45 showed him walking down a Baltimore street in hospital scrubs and a blue hair net.
He told a reporter he was ‘good,’ and also said ‘nothing went wrong, you just have someone that’s trying to protect a community that obviously doesn’t want to be protected.’
Lisa Graas has been diagnosed with cancer, and it’s very serious.
Longtime readers will recognize Lisa from 10 years ago when she was a leading online supporter of Sen. Rick Santorum’s primary campaign for the Republican nomination. When I was covering the Louisiana primary, and got busted in the notorious speed trap town of Livonia — they towed my rental car! — it was Lisa who drove all the way down from Kentucky to Louisiana to bring me back home. This also enabled her to be at the Santorum victory party in Harahan.
Lisa is a devout Catholic who is still blogging at Pierced Hearts which has a page with various ways you can contribute to support her. Lisa’s diagnosis sounds very serious and her chemo treatments will cost $10,000-$20,000 per month, some of which should be covered by insurance, but still this is an ordeal for her. Lisa helped me in my hour of need, so everything y’all could do for her would be greatly appreciated.
UPDATE: Lisa informs me that you guys contributed more than $1,500, for which she is very grateful. I’ll leave this post stickied to the top of the page until Tuesday morning, just in case anyone previously overlooked it.
Usual weekend deadlines for the usual weekend posts. I promise I’ll get the books & comics post up this weekend. Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.
