Defining Terms

September 29, 2022September 29, 2022

Defining Terms

With the election of Giorgia Meloni as Italy’s new prime minister, the terms “fascist” and “fascism” are being tossed around even more than they were when Trump was president. In almost every case these terms are wrongly defined. Reading all the ignorant garbage “reporting” about Meloni and her “far right-wing” party with its “fascist” ideology, has brought out the political science professor in me. For those who don’t know… yes, I have a Ph.D. in political science. I spent over twenty years teaching college students about not only the American political system, but about political systems throughout the world and over the last two hundred years or so. I worked hard to be this pedantic and sarcastic.

September 27, 2022September 27, 2022

New Sensations

Abbie sighed and stared into her coffee. “Okay. Owen Hopkins. Like I said, he’s a witch who has always been an asshole, and lately seems to be moving in a darker direction. As in, he’s been dropping major hints that he’s increasing his power through dark means.”

September 26, 2022September 26, 2022

Book Review: “Tales Yet Unsung” by Denton Salle

Tales Yet Unsung is a collection of short stories and almost novella length stories that provide history or backstory and fill in some gaps in Denton Salle’s Avatar Wizard series. Some of the stories take place before the first book in the series, Sworn to the Light. In Tales Yet Unsung, we are gifted with ten stories. Two take place before Book 1, one tells us what happened in Book 3 while Jeremy and his friends were in Krali Marko’s black mountain, one takes place immediately after the events in Book 4, and the remaining six are set after Book 5… which has yet to be published.

September 22, 2022September 22, 2022

True Science Demands Dissent

Lately we’ve been deluged with proclamations that the science of climate change, vaccines, greenhouse gases, the viability of nuclear power, the effectiveness of coal-generated power, the practicality of solar power, you name it, is settled and the answers trumpeted in the press and other public venues is the one true answer to any problems within these areas. I call shenanigans and bullshit.

September 20, 2022September 20, 2022

Strange Visitors

A couple of days later, Lina stood in the living room of her grandmother’s, now her, house. She shook her head. How had this happened? Just a few weeks ago she was a wildly successful lawyer, on track to make partner next year, and now, she was finishing up the paperwork to open her own law office in the small town of Hidden River. Even though she’d grown up here, she’d never expected that she would give up city life and Big Law to come back and deal with the much less momentous problems of a small town population.

September 13, 2022September 13, 2022

There’s More to the Roses

“What’s that?” Abbie asked Lina as they walked arm-in-arm into the kitchen.

Lina’s eyes tracked up, following Abbie’s pointing finger. On the wall above the arched entrance to the kitchen, were the words

Let all who enter under this arch rejoice!

Done in black in a fanciful swirling calligraphy, the phrase gave an aura of blessing to the kitchen door.

September 7, 2022September 12, 2022

Paper Roses

The house smelled musty. Lina thought it could have been worse considering the place had been shut up for about a month. Hopefully there wasn’t anything growing in the fridge. She glanced around the entry hall. She marveled at how it all looked just the same, but nothing was the same. Gran was gone and not coming back. Her chest heaved and she braced against the wall until she regained her equilibrium. No, Gran wasn’t coming back and she couldn’t change that.