I have read and enjoyed many fiskings of articles over the years, but I’ve never done one myself. That changes today. I ran across this article from ABC News and the stats professor in me couldn’t resist (if you’re wondering, teaching stats really makes me ornery!) There is just sooo much wrong with this garbage, it will require a paragraph by paragraph discussion and fisking. This is the kind of thing I’m talking about when I say that the sole goal of the media, when “reporting” about the WuFlu (or Republicans, or Trump, or those who disagree with Biden, or anything else) is to stoke fear and anger.
Continue reading “Fisking WuFlu “News””Planet Found
The middle of July, middle of the year, it’s Week 28 of prompts at More Odds Than Ends. This year is not going as planned, so I’m no longer planning and simply going with the flow. No, it’s not a cop-out, it’s more of a recognition that the universe has its own plans for us and my life will be less stressful if I do what I need to do, quit worrying about the “what-ifs”. While I do remind the universe of my wishes, I am grateful to be doing what I’m doing right now.
Continue reading “Planet Found”Gatekeeping, Agenda-Setting, Censorship, and Tin-Foil Hats
Apparently only about 40% of Americans trust our media. Shocking, I know (that was sarcasm, by the way). Gallup reports that 60% of Americans have very little or no trust at all in the media. And, on top of that, the number reporting “no trust at all” is at a record high (33%) which is five points higher than 2019. That translates to almost an 18% increase in the number of people who say they have no trust. And that is pretty sad.
Continue reading “Gatekeeping, Agenda-Setting, Censorship, and Tin-Foil Hats”Friendly City
For Week 27 at More Odds Than Ends, My prompt came from Leigh Kimmel: On a distant world is a single city with people remarkably human, and astonishingly friendly. Yet when asked about their society and history, they give evasive answers. Anthropologists attempting an ethnographic study came to mind and with that I thought of Jake and Serena, the anthropologist and archaeologist couple who have started to occasionally wander through my head.
Continue reading “Friendly City”Deep Space Noir
Other Rhodes is a far-future, deep space noir detective story and another fun genre mash-up from Sarah A. Hoyt. Our heroine, Lily, finds a cyborg in her airlock when she expected her husband. Now she has no option except to team up with the completely illegal creation to locate her missing husband. Additionally, with no other allies, she has to trust that her husband’s long-time friend is also her friend and will give her the help she needs. The book combines elements of classic noir detective stories (Rex Stout, Nero Wolfe) within a space-faring and high-tech universe.
Continue reading “Deep Space Noir”Door to Door Invaders
The other day, Jen Psaki, Biden’s press secretary, said that in order to bring up the vaccination rate the government would be initiating a door-to-door campaign to try to get more people to accept the jab. This prompted a TON of blowback and rightly so. The government does not get to decide how citizens handle personal health issues. And stop with the “it’s a pandemic! Don’t you care about others? You’re going to kill us all!” This thing is a bad flu.
Continue reading “Door to Door Invaders”Advice and Riddles
Now we are halfway through 2021. Week 26 of Odd Prompts. and things are rolling along. I don’t want to jinx anything, so I’m not saying anything specific. Get thee behind me, Murphy! I have been writing along on Book #3 and I’m happy about that. These prompts are keeping my creativity stoked and I’m grateful to all the participants at More Odds Than Ends. They have kept me creative and mostly sane this last year plus. On the real life social side (just as important), husband and I had a lovely afternoon/evening with friends yesterday for Independence Day. Lots of good food, good company, swimming, bocce ball, and conversations. Great day. Back to the writing and creating today.
Continue reading “Advice and Riddles”Happy Independence Day!
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
Continue reading “Happy Independence Day!”Bring Back the Fear!
“It’s the Delta variant! Run for your lives!” That seems to be the mantra of CNN et al, the WHO (in the pocket of the CCP), Fauci (also in the pocket of the CCP), and a number of other individuals and organizations. I am torn between exasperation – just shut UP already! – and hysterical laughter at the insanely rapid spinning that the bureaucrats, media, and politicians are going through right now. Unless you are deliberately deluding yourself, it should be clear as day by now that the entire response to WuFlu was and always will be about power – the power to control and mold society into something unrecognizable to average Americans.
Continue reading “Bring Back the Fear!”