Turtle Doves and Trebuchets

Second to last MOTE prompt for 2021…week 51. Wow. It’s been another, well, let’s say interesting, year. And once again the prompts helped keep me going. I have (finally) created a weekly schedule that should help me keep on track with all my writing – prompts, blog posts, and more importantly books and short stories. I am determined to make 2022 a productive year (and not the pessimistic redux of 2020-too).

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A New Home for Christmas

Today is Christmas Eve and we’re in a new home for the first time in eighteen years. Not that we spent every Christmas there, not by a long shot. But this is the first time in eighteen years that our home base has changed. We got most of the boxes unpacked and as soon as things were looking settled, I pulled out the Christmas box and started in on the holiday decorating. And discovered I don’t have nearly enough stuff for this house!

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A-Fisking We Will Go!

Oh, look – it’s another stupid article purporting to be journalism. That means I’m gonna do another fisking (fisking is fun!) This time, we’re going to be looking at the significant difference between the terms anti-vax and anti-mandate. These are two (obviously) completely different terms, yet these propagandists masquerading as objective journalists would have us believe that they mean the same thing. This time the less-than-gifted “reporter” is Kelly Weill at the Daily Beast (yeah, yeah, I know, but let’s give it a go anyway).

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Striking Differences

We are settling in here in Texas and I am constantly struck by how different and yet similar our life here is, compared to our life in Philadelphia. The most obvious thing is the weather. I grew up in San Diego, so I’m familiar with warm winters. But it’s been twenty years since I lived in southern California. And, those twenty years have been filled with snow, freezing rain, sleet, ice storms, and just plain damn cold weather every winter.

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A Path Will Rise to Meet Us

The first principle of non-violent action is that of non-cooperation with everything humiliating. – Mohandas K. Gandhi I once read an account of bullying in rural America in the early 20th century. The narrator said, “If a victim did not stand up to them, there was no limit to how far the bullies would go.” He described them tying another child to the train tracks as a train approached (on the parallel track). There was no appeasing the bullies. Each capitulation only whetted their appetite for new and crueler humiliations.

Source: A Path Will Rise to Meet Us

Read the whole thing. This is important. You cannot wait for others to resist the absolute power grab, you must stand and resist it.

Christmas S’mores!

Olivia jumped up and down in anticipation. Grampa was making s’mores! And not just any s’mores, but the ones with his special toasted fractal marshmallows! Those were the best marshmallows. She hovered as close to the fire pit as she dared. Very light snow was drifting down, she could see the Christmas tree through the windows, and Grampa had put colored lights all around the back patio. Olivia felt like she was at the North Pole.

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Real Grassroots Action

The left really has no idea what exactly is meant by grassroots activism and action. I was reading an opinion piece this morning from the Boston Herald’s Joe Battenfield titled “Biden tormented by Republican guerilla action and ‘I did it’ stickers.” It’s a short piece, but it’s highly illustrative of the monstrously large blind spot the left has for anybody who opposes their policies, and the definition of grassroots action.

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