Prices

     Everything has a price. It needn’t be printed on a label or concealed in a bar code. The price is there – and if you want it, you must pay.

     Time was, we realized that. We called it “reality.” Hey, that’s the root of “realize,” isn’t it? To confront an immutable fact and acknowledge that it’s independent of our desires and opinions? My word, what insights spring from a little thought, even at this hour!

     Smith wants a raise. What’s the price? How should he proffer it? Why, by being more valuable to his employer than he is today. Then he must demonstrate that fact to his supervisor and ask, nicely, for the appropriate compensation.

     Jones wants a promotion. What’s the price? That’s harder, since that promotion would entail exercising authority that Jones doesn’t yet have. But Jones can distinguish himself by the excellence of his organization and the management of his responsibilities. Management above his head is likely to notice – and if it doesn’t, he can always pursue the position he wants at another firm.

     Davis wants love: the love of a good, attractive, affectionate, loyal woman. What’s the price? This one comes in stages. First, he must become the sort of man a good woman would love. Then he must “put himself out there,” accepting the inconvenience and enduring the indifference of many in the hope that one will notice. When one does notice, he must accept that she’s not the fantasy creature that lurks in his dreams.

     Marie wants her husband to pay more attention to her: to stay home at night, to oblige her desire for his company, and to show her affection. What’s the price? Well, she could stop wearing stained and baggy sweat clothes all the time. She could take more care with her hair and skin. She could resist the urge to nag him. She could show him the woman he courted – the woman whose appeal he found impossible to resist.

     Those prices aren’t dollar-denominated. They’re simply what the above-named must do to get what they want. Yet they’re as real as any amount of any currency proffered for an item on a store shelf.

     Common knowledge? Folk wisdom? Perhaps. But a lot of people seem not to know it. Whatever you want, it will come at a price. Wanting isn’t enough. Demanding isn’t enough. You must discern the price – possibly negotiate it – and you must contrive to pay it.

     And of course, there’s always the possibility that the price will be beyond your means.

* * *

     It’s usual when I’m off on such a tirade that some Gentle Reader will ask why this subject at this time. It’s simple: I’ve been listening to unhappy people. They don’t have what they want and have been whining about it. I resist the urge to lecture them; I’ve learned from long and painful experience that it seldom does any good. Instead I come here and write it down.

     Time was, I wrote a few pieces about “sturdy wisdoms:” bits of knowledge that have proved themselves over the centuries. The most reliable of all such wisdoms is this one:

Know what you want.
Know its price.
Make ready to pay or forgo it.

     Herewith, an old story of mine.

---

Prices

     It was Alex's habit to arrive early for class, especially a class where he expected to be conspicuous. Analysis II might be one such, attended mostly by Chinese who had been sent to the university because of its reputation in mathematics. He might well be the only Caucasian enrolled in it. It had been that way in Analysis I, the semester before.
     There were only two others in the classroom when he arrived. He took a seat against the windows, near the front, and busied himself arranging his notebook and writing tools. The classroom filled steadily with students and the low gabble characteristic of an as-yet-unconvened lecture class. He paid no attention.
     The last student to arrive was a young Chinese woman, the only female in the class. She was beautiful in the subtle, delicate way of her people, with flawless features, porcelain skin, a gently curved figure, and straight, shiny black hair that fell just past her shoulders. Alex looked up just as she walked in. Her eyes met his briefly; then she turned away and took one of the few seats remaining, on the far side of the room.
     As he'd expected, the class was entirely Chinese except for himself. He had nothing against the Chinese, but it grieved him that his countrymen showed so little interest in the queen of the sciences. As he surveyed the room, he noticed that the young woman was looking at him. Their eyes met again for an instant. He felt a pang pass through him that was unrelated to the study of mathematics. Most of the other students were appraising the young woman as well.
     The instructor swept in and tossed a large briefcase on the table at the front of the classroom. Alex collected himself and made ready to concentrate.

#

     Alex arrived early for the next meeting of the class as well, and settled again into a seat against the windows. He was startled when the girl walked in thirty seconds later.
     At the previous session, her clothes and grooming had been college-student normal: denim and loafers, and no makeup at all. Today she was garbed in a black silk blouse with a cowl collar, a black leather skirt that came to just above the knee, sheer stockings, and black leather high heels. More than that, she had made herself up. Her face, which had been beautiful even without cosmetics, had become a glowing song of subtle reds and yellows. It was a look a woman might take hours to perfect, and it was unheard of among the Chinese.
     Alex watched the young woman in fascination as she scanned the almost empty classroom, found him, and walked directly toward him. She took the seat at his elbow. She seated herself in silence and extracted a notebook and pen from her large purse. Alex noticed that she was also wearing fragrance, a light but musky scent that would be impossible to ignore. When the instructor arrived ten minutes later, it was all Alex could do to tear his eyes and thoughts away from her.
     An hour later, as the class dispersed, he tried to shovel his materials into his backpack and exit without looking at her again. She did not permit it.
     "Excuse me?"
     "Yes?" He hoped his internal turmoil was not evident from his face or voice.
     "What was the reading assignment again, please?" Though her English was perfect, the lilt on her words made it plain that she had not been born in America.
     He waved toward the blackboard, where the assignment was still on display, and started away, hoping to lose himself in the rush of bodies seeking nothing but the next class of the day.
     She laid a hand on his arm. The gentle touch rocked him more than any blow could have done.
     "Have I made you uncomfortable? Please tell me how." Midnight black eyes opened wide looked straight into his own, threatening to drown him.
     He felt himself becoming light-headed, losing control not only of events but of his rationality. His breath seemed caught in his chest. He was able to produce only the falsest of smiles, no poise in it at all.
     "No, it's all right, really, excuse me please, I have to go." He turned and tried to hurry away, but the strap of his pack caught on the arm of the chair. The chair went over with a crash, and the contents of the pack distributed themselves over the classroom floor. Heedless of everything but the need to escape, he scooped up his belongings, jammed them into his pack, and darted for the door, not daring to try for a more dignified exit. The other students tittered at his back.

#

     She continued to arrive just after he did and to seat herself next to him. He could have sworn she was following him. When he chose a seat at the back of the room, so did she. She also continued to dress as if she were on her way to a high-society dinner party. A number of the Chinese men tried to attract her interest. She disregarded them completely.
     She made no attempt to conceal her interest in him. He could not help sneaking glances her way. Almost always, she would be doing the same.
     Alex began to dread the class. Mathematics, his major, was becoming his least favorite subject, for he could no longer think of it without thinking of her. She began to intrude upon his thoughts at all hours and occasions. He, who had prided himself upon his ability to focus, was having trouble clearing his thoughts of a young woman whose name he did not know.
     After a month he could bear it no longer. Instead of hurrying from the class at its conclusion, as had become his habit, he steeled himself and turned toward her, and found her already looking at him. She showed no sign of surprise.
     "Why?"
     He hated himself for the tremor in his voice. He had never had any luck with girls in the past, but at least he could be proud that he had never lost his head over one. Now it was all going wrong.
     "Will you come and talk with me?"
     There was no special intensity in the words. She seemed to have been waiting for this. He clenched his teeth and nodded once.
     She rose and reached out toward him. He took her hand and allowed her to lead him from the room, acutely conscious of the many pairs of eyes that followed.

#

     The coffeehouse was almost empty that afternoon. Alex and the girl had seated themselves in a corner recess. Even had the shop been filled with patrons, they would have been hidden from most and turned away from the rest. A single waitress sat at the counter, reading a romance novel. Soft folk music issued from an unseen source.
     "Will you tell me why? Please?"
     She looked down at the table and the untouched cinnamon roll he had bought her. "It's not easy to explain."
     He waited in silence. She looked up and said, "Have you ever been to China?"
     "No, of course not."
     She smiled sadly. " 'Of course not' ? But you are an American and can go anywhere, while I am only here because the People's Republic of China thinks I am likely to repay its investment."
     He said nothing, fingers playing idly with his sticky bun.
     "Most Americans know very little of my country. Women are not respected there as they are here."
     He grinned at that. "You might hear a different opinion from some of the feminists."
     She sneered, and his grin slipped away. "Then they are fools. They do not appreciate America. One week in the People's Republic would teach them to love it."
     She looked down. "More than anything else in the world, I want to be an American girl. I want to feel the freedom they feel, and have the same sense of possibilities." She hesitated, then looked directly into his eyes. "At least, I want an American boyfriend."
     Alex sat motionless, hands folded before him on the table, as he groped for some purchase on this incredible conversation.
     "You want . . . me."
     She nodded, face serious. "Yes."
     You'd like to remain in America, wouldn't you?
     "You haven't told me your name, you know."
     "Chen Hsiao-ling."
     "Hsiao-ling, my name is Alex Betancourt." He wiped his hand clean of frosting on his jeans, then extended it across the table for her to shake. She did not shake it. She clutched at it with both of her own and pulled it to her cheek. Her expression was absurdly, dreamily blissful. After a moment's hesitation, he pulled their joined hands down to the surface of the table and waited for her to calm down.
     "Hsiao-ling, have you ever dated? Anybody?"
     She shook her head.
     His grin returned. "Neither have I, really. Why did you choose me?"
     The question seemed to puzzle her.
     "Why should I not choose you? You are bright, handsome, and a good mathematician. Are you damaged in some way that does not show?"
     He had no answer to that.

#

     At first Alex assumed that it would not last more than a week or two. He might be only nineteen, but he was a realist. He knew nothing of her, and it seemed obvious that her fancy for him was based on her fantasy of life in America, not on any attributes he possessed. Nevertheless, he took it, and her, seriously; it was his nature.
     He saw her as often as possible, and took her everywhere he could think of. The coffeehouse during the week. Museums, restaurants and movies on the weekends. When the weather warmed, they began to sojourn into New York City, sometimes to shop, sometimes simply to stroll, enjoying the pulse of so much human activity. The income provided by his part-time job was not large, but his tuition was covered by a scholarship, and he had practiced thrift all his life. He could afford to entertain her in these and other ways, and so he did.
     They talked of many things. She told him of her upbringing in China, of the bleak years of her childhood on a tea farm where there was always too much work and seldom enough to eat, of her slow discovery of her intellect and her love for mathematics. Then came the glimmer of hope: the competition to be selected to go to college in America and drink of the intellectual riches of the West, to bring them back to the parched and destitute East. It was not easy to gain permission to leave the People's Republic. One had to promise many things. But no promise would be considered sufficient if there were not at least one living relative from the immediate family to remain behind as surety for one's eventual return. Family feeling being as strong as it was among the Chinese, it was an inducement to return that few could resist.
     Hsiao-ling's surety was her mother. A widow at fifty-two, she now worked the tea farm with occasional assistance from two distant cousins and continuous obstruction from two government-provided "helpers."
     He told her of his own childhood, which seemed banal and carefree when compared to hers. Only the loss of his father when he was fifteen could match the least of her stories in poignancy. Yet she listened with complete attention. She probed for details, always relating them to her own experiences. She marveled that there were no ideological monitors in the grade schools. She reeled in shock upon being told that the State permitted schools other than its own to exist. And she could not quite believe that upon graduation, Alex was not to be assigned willy-nilly to a post of the State's choosing.
     He came to know and admire her with a speed as uncanny as the manner of their connection. Soon he had ceased to think about that at all. Their time together passed swiftly.

#

     The assaults began shortly thereafter.
     At first he paid no mind to the jostlings and impacts, assuming they were only the usual consequence of the press of bodies one had to endure just before and after a large class. But the frequency and severity of the incidents increased, and became difficult to ignore.
     He was tripped many times. He suffered several sharp blows to his back and to the back of his head. Two of them were powerful and unexpected enough to send him sprawling to the floor. When he looked about for an explanation, none was evident. No one stood there to confront him. He would find himself standing apart, the faces of his classmates turned away from him, as if he were the least noteworthy thing in the room.
     Once it happened in the open, as he was going from one building to another. The impact was to his lower back, near his kidneys, and was sharp enough to pitch him face-first into a patch of mud. He turned without rising, and saw a tall male figure receding from him at good speed. The young man's shoulders were hunched forward, denying Alex the sight of his face. His skin was Oriental in tone, and his short, glossy black hair was hardly disturbed by the early spring breeze.
     He thought about telling Hsiao-ling, and decided against it.

#

     She was always radiant when he was with her. He could not imagine a more beautiful, more vital, or happier woman. She continued to dress and make herself up for every meeting with him as if they were headed to a White House ball. Once he asked her why.
     "It's for you."
     "It's not necessary, you know."
     She smiled. "Yes, Alex, I know. But do you like it?"
     He stared at her. "What's the superlative of 'Christ, yes' ?"
     Despite a powerful reluctance to draw attention to himself, he resolved to try to match her. Over a period of weeks, the contents of his closet changed completely. A barber cut and tamed his rough blond hair. A manicurist brought refinement to his hands. He added cologne to his morning grooming ritual. She said nothing, but there was no concealing the delight she took in his efforts to make himself over for her.
     On the night of his twentieth birthday, after they had been seeing one another for about three months, they were walking back from their restaurant to his car, when she bade him to stop and look at an image on a television in a store window. It was of the two of them, captured by a video camera trained on the sidewalk.
     The tall young man in the picture was the image of youthful male elegance. He wore his navy blue blazer, his sharply creased gray trousers and his highly polished black Oxfords as if he'd been born to them. His grooming was immaculate, and his bearing was rich with self-assurance and pride. Alex could hardly believe that it was he.
     The young woman who held his hand and rested her cheek against his shoulder was the essence of youthful female beauty. Her gaze was not upon the image in the monitor, but upon him. It spoke of a devotion that bordered on adoration.
     He turned to face her, and she slid into his arms, face uptilted. When their lips met, the current that surged through him made him press the length of her body against his own. Her arms tightened around him in response. Neither of them noticed that dozens of passers-by had stopped to watch that kiss.
     She came back with him to his room that night, and they made love for the first time. He had never before done more than hold her hand. He could not bring himself to tell her that he was a virgin. He could hardly bring himself to think about what it would be like or what he would have to do. She guided him silently, her manner more comforting than any words.
     Afterward they held one another, weeping softly from pleasure and relief. Presently he said three words, in a voice that quivered only a little. Without inflection, she said them back to him, and the world was made new.

#

     "Hello?"
     "Hi, Mom."
     "Alex! How are you, dear?"
     "Terrific." He paused. "Mom, I'm in love."
     There was a moment's silence on the line.
     "That's wonderful, dear. Where did you meet her?"
     "In class. She's a math major too."
     "How long have you been seeing one another?"
     "About four months now."
     "Well? Aren't you going to tell me about her? What's her name?"
     "Hsiao-ling." He did his best to pronounce it as she would have.
     "Charlene? A very pretty name. What does her family do?"
     "Uh, they're in . . . agriculture."
     Another pause. "Farmers, Alex?"
     "Well, yes."
     "I suppose it's respectable enough. But you said she's headed into mathematics, too?"
     "Yes, she's really smart."
     Mrs. Andrew Betancourt of Washington, D.C., nee Angela Tessier of Niagara Falls, New York, chuckled dryly. "I don't suppose you'll be willing to consider medical school now, if there'll be another mathematician in the family?"
     "Mom—!"
     She chuckled again. "I've missed you, Alex. I've even missed that tone of exasperation of yours. I only ask because your father wanted it so much. But even he wouldn't have tried too hard to talk you out of mathematics. He knew how much you loved it, and I do too."
     He sighed. "I know, Mom. It's okay."
     "But let's get to the important matters now. Is your Charlene a Catholic? And will I get to meet her soon?"

#

     As the end of the semester approached, Alex found himself unwilling to face the prospect of a separation from Hsiao-ling. Yet it seemed inevitable. He would return to Washington, and she would return to the People's Republic of China. It took him a long time to work up the courage to ask her if she could contrive a way to stay.
     "I will be back in September, Alex, just as you will."
     They were seated on his bed, having passed the afternoon in study. Textbooks and notes were spread all around them.
     "Are you sure?"
     She shrugged. "Not perfectly sure. Sometimes the government changes its mind. But it has no reason to do that to me. My grades are good, and I have shown no sign of disloyalty."
     "Oh, you haven't? What about your relationship with me?"
     She said nothing.
     "Well, how would they know about anything you've done here?"
     She pursed her lips. "One or two of the students from the People's Republic are monitors. I don't know which ones, of course. Their duties include keeping watch on the rest of us. They would report any indication that I was about to request political asylum, or had filed for permanent residence, or..."
     "Or had gotten involved with an American?"
     She sat unmoving for a moment, then nodded. "Perhaps, if they knew."
     He took her hands between his own. "Hsiao-ling, when we first met, I assumed that what you liked best about me was that I'm an American citizen. That may have been callous of me, but a lot of girls from other countries do marry American men just for the right to stay here. That never occurred to you . . . did it?"
     Her eyes had gone very wide. Mutely, she shook her head. After a moment she tried to pull her hands from his. He did not permit it. She looked down into her lap, face red with shame she did not deserve.
     He began to speak, and found that his tongue had cleaved to the bottom of his mouth. His throat had gone completely dry, and his pulse had begun to pound in his ears.
     "Hsiao-ling, will you marry me?" It came out as a croak.
     She looked up at him, astonished. "What did you say?"
     Without releasing her hands, he rose from the bed, moved to face her, and sank awkwardly to his knees. Her eyes were riveted to his.
     "Chen Hsiao-ling, will you marry me and be my wife? Come live with me and be my love for all the days and nights of our lives? Share my successes and failures? Bear my children? Grow old with me? For ever and ever, till death do us part?"
     He had never seen a human being so taken by surprise. Her eyes had opened so wide that her epicanthic folds had disappeared. Her mouth was open, but no sound issued forth. She was shaking from head to toe.
     "Hsiao-ling, will you marry me? I won't ask again."
     Her voice was the faintest of whispers.
     "Yes."
     He rose and pulled her into his arms. She continued to shake. He waited, holding her close. Presently she spoke again, her voice still whisper-faint but piercing from grief.
     "My mother."

#

     The next day was the final examination for Analysis II. Alex and Hsiao-ling arrived together and were heading for their usual seats when he received a savage blow in the small of the back.
     Rage too long repressed flared within him. He whirled and flailed a tightly balled fist. By luck he caught his assailant across the face. The young Chinese staggered back and righted himself, but the target who had been so passive until now charged and took him by the throat.
     Alex gave the thug no time to react. He shoved the young man's head into the wall of the classroom with all his strength. The crack of the impact rang through the room. The Chinese slid down the wall and lay there, slumped against its base.
     "Get up."
     The boy didn't move. Perhaps he was too dazed to make sense of the words. While the rest of the class watched, Alex reached down and grabbed his attacker's shirt front, hoisted and heaved him into a vacant seat at the front of the room.
     Alex breathed once deeply, pulled himself upright and turned to face the rest of the class.
     "Is there anyone else here who'd like to lay his hands on me?"
     Silence gripped the room. At that moment the instructor arrived. He stopped in the doorway, examination papers clutched in one hand. Alex ignored him.
     "I have been struck from behind too many times this semester for this piece of garbage to be the only one who was doing it. Who else is involved? Are you willing to face me openly, or is your government unable to afford the services of men?"
     After a moment, a student near the back of the room rose.
     "We are not in the employ of our government. We are only students."
     Alex scowled as contempt rose within him.
     "That would only make it worse. That would mean that all of this has been because you don't want your countrywoman to be involved with a white man."
     The boy sat. Alex went to where Hsiao-ling stood, well away from where the violence had occurred, and led her by the hand to stand before their classmates.
     "This lady is my fiancée. In a week she'll be my wife. If any of you have a problem with that for any reason at all, I'll be happy to give you satisfaction." He waved at his assailant, who had slumped forward in his seat. "I believe I've satisfied him."
     He waited a moment more before leading Hsiao-ling back to their seats. They sat and waited as the instructor, himself of Chinese birth, moved falteringly among them to distribute the examinations.

#

     She finished the examination before him and hurried from the classroom, leaving him to finish alone. Everyone else in the room turned to look at him. He ignored them.
     When he had finished, he went to her room. She admitted him in silence. She had begun to pack her belongings. Apart from her clothes, there wasn't much to pack.
     "Have I done something to offend you?"
     "No." She would not meet his eyes.
     "Are you frightened of something? Maybe of me?"
     "No."
     He moved forward and took her by the shoulders. "Hsiao-ling, I've grown accustomed to longer sentences. I should tell you that in this country, it's customary for husbands and wives to talk to one another. At least, I expect it."
     She looked up at him then. "You still mean to do that."
     "Of course I do!"
     "But the price is so high!"
     He started to expostulate, then stopped and forced calm upon himself.
     "Yes, it is. The prices of valuable things usually are. Even today, there's enough racism left in America to make trouble for us. A lot of people who think of themselves as tolerant sorts get all bent out of shape at the sight of an interracial couple. There probably won't be any more violence, but we'll have to deal with snide comments and gestures of contempt for as long as we live. We might have professional difficulties. There are neighborhoods in which we wouldn't be accepted and could never live. You're worth it to me."
     He heard his voice rise with his emotions, and forced himself to calm down once again.
     "It's worse among your people than mine. Much worse, or so I've been told. Am I worth it to you?"
     In response she wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his chest. Neither spoke for a long time.
     Presently he said, "You haven't heard about your wedding gift."
     She pulled back and looked up at him. "What?"
     "I've got a little something picked out for you. Hope you like it. I'm afraid it's going to be very hard to wrap."
     She sputtered. "I thought wedding presents came from the rest of the family."
     "Yes, and that's sort of where this one is coming from, too. Did I ever tell you that my father worked for the State Department his whole life?"
     She gaped. He smiled.
     "There are still quite a few people in State who knew Dad and liked him a lot. I've been in touch with a few of them. They've told me that an exit visa for your mother won't pose much of a problem, once we're married. And she'll automatically have permanent resident status here, too. So that part of the price you won't have to pay at all."
     He had thought her beautiful before, but it was as nothing to the light of joy that transfigured her features then.
     "Of course, there is another price we'll have to pay."
     She cocked her head, wary once more. "Another price?"
     He swallowed hard and forced a smile.
     "Hsiao-ling, have I ever told you about my mother?"

==<O>==

Copyright © 1995 Francis W. Porretto. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

On The Road Again

     That’s America. On the road and making music. Just like Willie Nelson. Though I don’t recall Willie deploying aircraft carriers or F-18s.

     I had a feeling a strike on Iran was coming. I’m only mildly surprised that Israel is taking a hand in it. They’ve demonstrated a knack for tactical air combat in the Middle East. But of course the anti-Israel crowd in the American media is already shouting that this action is being taken in Israel’s interests and not America’s.

     HOT FLASH TO THE SEMI-SOMNOLENT: Iran is the largest single backer of Islamic terrorism worldwide. A hefty fraction of the regime’s oil revenues goes to funding Islamic terror groups and their strikes. The United States is the principal antagonist of Islamic terror. Ergo, eliminating its largest source of funding is very much in America’s interests. And that’s to say nothing of the support for the Iranian people, who’ve suffered badly under the ayatollahs’ rule.

     Iran’s interference with sea passage in its region has become quite annoying too. And I seem to remember a rather unpleasant photo of American sailors being held at gunpoint by Iranian hijackers. The ayatollahs couldn’t reasonably have expected the “Great Satan” to sit passively forever as they kept ramping up their aggressions, could they? Surely they were aware that Donald John Trump, not Barack Hussein Obama nor Joseph Robinette Biden, is now our commander-in-chief! This president doesn’t just talk; he acts.

     This won’t be quite as surgical and sanitary as the enforcement of our invitation to Nicolas Maduro. There will be casualties. And of course, war always costs big money. But I’ll bet you a dollar that the majority of our forces are enthused about the strike and eager to participate.

     War is Hell, but there are deeper circles to Hell than this one. We can get out of this one. The ayatollahs won’t.

     As the saying goes, now we wait. Not only for reports from the combat. We also wait for reports of the reactions of Muslims in America. Note that I didn’t say “American Muslims.” A Muslim is forbidden to hold an allegiance to anything but Islam and the worldwide ummah. I don’t expect that to change, unless it’s under the cloak of taqiyya.

     Remember Black Tuesday: September 11, 2001? Muslims in New Jersey were seen celebrating the atrocities. Do you think they’ll celebrate our liberation of the longsuffering people of Iran?

     Have a nice day.

Minimum Requirements

     I’ve been in love with the English language all my life. It’s the most versatile and powerful tool for communication ever to arise among men. Now that it’s the de facto international language, it provides that power to anyone who has the time, energy, and brain matter to learn it. (No, that’s not everyone, but it’s enough of Mankind to keep things moving.)

     Now, just as there are specific properties that make a commodity suitable for use as a money, there are specific properties that make a language suitable for communication among large numbers of persons. I could go into gruesome detail about this. Perhaps I will, some day when I’m feeling cruel. But this morning a specific characteristic of languages is much in my thoughts: the capacity for precision.

     If tongue A makes it possible to convey an idea more clearly than does tongue B, then over time A will prevail in common discourse. For clarity is possible only if precision in expression is available. That tends to privilege languages that have large vocabularies and whose constructions, both formal and idiomatic, are broadly understood. There are many fine aspects to this, including how relations and time are expressed in particular languages. The capable speaker / writer is one who appreciates those things and is careful about them.

     I’ve occasionally wielded a barbed flail about certain sins common among fiction writers. This isn’t the time for that, nor am I in the mood for it anyway. Rather, I’d like to emphasize something that a lot of writers, excessively concerned with being “creative,” have managed to miss:

Clarity is more important than creativity.
Above all else, the reader must know what’s going on.

     The very worst writers completely discard clarity in an attempt to impress with involutions and vermiculations. I’ve called that literary masturbation before this, and in retrospect, that’s exactly the right term for it. The storyteller must serve the story, not the other way around. If he serves the story, he serves the reader… and the reader will love him for it.

     Mind you, I’m not talking about deliberate ambiguity after the manner of Gene Wolfe in his early work The Fifth Head of Cerberus. That’s a choice to tell a particular kind of tale: one I wouldn’t tell, but such stories do have their aficionados. My shafts are aimed at the writer who puts his ego above the stories he tells.

     Some writers I’ve admired have slipped and fallen that way. The late Robert B. Parker, my favorite writer of detective thrillers, had a tendency to do so when Spenser, his series detective character, got into hand-to-hand combat with an antagonist. There’s a particularly painful case of that in his novel Chance. In an attempt to convey the speed and violence of desperate hand-to-hand combat, Parker discards all punctuation and several rules of grammar. We do get speed and violence, but we don’t get clarity.

     Heed me on this as on no other subject, storytellers and storytellers-to-be: Clarity comes first. No imaginative construction or special effect matters more than keeping the reader aware of what’s happening, as precisely as the English language will allow. Hew to that rule and your readers, however many they may be, will follow you to the ends of the thesaurus. Trust me on that.

Crossing Them Up

     In most eras, women’s choice of accessories and jewelry hasn’t been considered a political topic. Well, these aren’t most eras, are they? Still, when this rolled around:

     … it struck me as on the silly side. What, political appointees aren’t allowed to wear religious icons? Why not? Don’t they have the same First Amendment rights as anyone else? Are the leftists in the media making noise about this for lack of anything else to hector the Administration about?

     It does have a hint of the flavor of a thrust against Christianity and its symbols. But the attention on these two women has made me think it might be a more focused attack than the usual broadsides against the Christian faith. Karoline Leavitt and Pam Bondi have been important agents for the Administration’s initiatives, and therefore important targets for the Left. Being women, they’re presumedly more vulnerable than men would be. Bringing them down would hurt the Trump Administration. Attacking their religious jewelry is just the latest stroke.

     The Left and its boughten allies have been hostile to Christianity for some time. They persistently strive to accuse professed Christians of hypocrisy. The arguments hardly matter. Some of them have been so absurd as to be impossible to parody. Yet they persist, perhaps out of desperation.

     Remember John Ashcroft? Hell, remember George W. Bush! It wasn’t that long ago. They were openly Christian; never mind what you thought of their performance in office. It displeased the Left no end. Even leaving the Left’s hostility toward an alternative source of moral guidance aside, they could not bear to have respected men in high office share a belief system popular with the majority of Americans. It was a political asset the Left, whose distaste for Christianity had become open, could not overcome.

     Bondi and Leavitt look more vulnerable than Bush and Ashcroft; therefore, they’re drawing fire. It has nothing to do with a religious bias within the Administration, nor with the many underhanded accusations of “hypocrisy,” nor with the notion that Administration appointees being openly Christian somehow disenfranchises part of the American populace.

     The presence of Valerie Jarrett in Barack Obama’s inner circle made a lot of conservatives uneasy, as did Obama’s own Islamic background. But no one suggested that Jarrett was unfit to be an Administration advisor on the grounds of her faith.

     The tempest may be loud, but the import is small and easily confined to its teapot. Who was it who said when you get to some city or other, “there’s no there there” -- ? This is much the same sort of fracas.

Dealing With Them

     I’ve been encountering a fair number of graphics like the one below:

     We all know what the point is. Look at those plaintive faces! Look at the kids, so in terror of being deported, even if they don’t know what “deported” means. Such innocence! How could anyone want to kick such nice people out of the United States? What about Emma Lazarus’s poem!

     Yes, yes. It plucks the heartstrings. It makes us question ourselves. It forces a hard look at what it means to enforce the borders after-the-fact. All that and more for the price of a cheap graphic.

     We should ask ourselves all those questions. It’s ethically mandatory. When we set out to enforce a law that previous administrations allowed millions to break, we must know what we’re about: the challenges, the costs, the risks, and where to place the blame.

     An illegal alien is a lawbreaker ab initio. He gets no credit for not breaking any other laws. He gets no credit for being self-supporting and responsible, or for being a pillar of the Undocumented-American community. He should get a shred of sympathy for believing that the new administration would perpetuate the previous one’s folly. He should not be tortured or brutalized, just deported with all his kith and kin.

     That’s the law.

* * *

     One of my favorite writers, Greg Bear, gave us this powerful insight in his novel Anvil of Stars:

     “No villain comes in black, screaming obscenities. All evil has children, homes, regard for self, fear of enemies.”

     The enemy – for now, at least – is human. Vulnerable, fallible, and mortal. But he’s still the enemy. He must be dealt with. Bear’s novel is a masterpiece for depicting what that would mean on the largest imaginable scale. I can’t think of another fiction that brings it home so vividly.

     The lawbreaker is a special category of enemy. Perhaps he meant no harm to anyone. When the subject is illegal immigrants, that’s probably the case more often than not. But he’s a lawbreaker. If we believe in the law, and in enforcing the law evenhandedly, he must go: hopefully, without violence.

     Granted that the perfect enforcement of the law is beyond our abilities. Some illegal aliens will never be discovered, and so will remain within our borders. That is not an argument for declining to enforce the law as best we can. Those illegals we can identify must be expelled. Not only has the public demanded it; maintaining general respect for the law requires it.

     The late Gonzalo Lira spoke of “moral hazard:” the consequence of allowing oneself (or others) exceptions from the law. The concept applies not only to statute law but to the ethical laws that make a peaceful, civilized society possible. Moral hazard is what makes such exceptions dangerous, for they speak broadly: “If we can get away with it, why not?”

     If you’ve encountered the term weaponized empathy, this is where it’s most potent. That graphic and others much like it attempt to weaponize your empathy. “They look so innocent and defenseless! Let them stay.” It’s insidiously seductive. It invokes your compassionate nature in opposition to your interests and those of the whole nation.

     We are not somehow evil for insisting that the law be enforced as written. The evil resides with those who sought to nullify the law de facto by not enforcing it. They were trying to serve their interests: their desire for permanent power. We are not required to oblige them.

     Have a nice day.

Snow Day 2026-02-23

     I rise very early, by most people’s standards. Today, it was at 4:30. When you have two huge dogs that need to “do their business,” you don’t allow yourself to turn over and hope that they can “hold it.” Maybe they can… but think of the downside. Get your ass in gear, Fran.

     A blizzard has come to town. Long Island is stopped dead by this much snow. I haven’t checked the weather sites, but just now it looks like we got 14 to 16 inches. The Island will be paralyzed for today, and possibly for tomorrow. And the snow is still falling.

     So it’s a day for indoor activities... well, unless the power goes out. Then it will be a day for trudging back and forth to the woodshed and struggling to keep a fire going. Whatever comes, I imagine we’ll cope. I did our “blizzard shopping” yesterday, after Mass, so at least there’s milk for the coffee.

     On days such as this, the C.S.O. bakes. I read, write, and towel off the dogs after their numerous backyard sojourns. I imagine the Island’s three million other residents will be doing much the same. What else is there, really?

     Big storms always cause trouble. They usually take lives. Those of us who are safe in our homes should be grateful. When the skies clear, the reports of major calamities and lives lost will begin. Pray to God they aren’t too bad. We did have a lot of warning, so maybe we were better prepared than usual.

* * *

     I’m a sentimental old man. I spend a fair chunk of my time in the past, thinking about what’s come and gone. My assessment: too much. It gets worse on snow days; I have too much time to think.

     I just went to my archives and searched for “snow day.” I found more entries than I’d expected. So to my long-time Gentle Readers, you already know what sort of crap I write on days such as this. I’ll spare you any more of it. To newer readers: just use the search box to search for “snow day.” You’ll get your fill.

     Wherever you are in the Land of the Formerly Free, may you weather this day in comfort and safety. If you’re buried in snow as we are, I hope you’re surrounded by those you love. If you’re in a part of the country that’s unaffected by this blizzard, give thanks that you’ve been spared. And say a prayer for those whose condition is less fortunate.

     Time to shovel.

Remembrances

     Yes, yes: I’ve been lackadaisical about keeping this place hopping. So you’re not hopping. And this is my fault? You can’t hop on your own? C’mon! I expect more from a Gentle Reader of Liberty’s Torch! But let’s leave that to the side.

     I’m cursed with an unusually retentive memory. Immediate events often prompt reminiscences about times and events of many years ago. I’ve been reliving one this morning. You might find it interesting. If you don’t, well, them’s the breaks.

     When I was a young boy, I went to a Catholic grammar school: Saint Catherine of Alexandria in Blauvelt, New York. The teachers were habited Dominican nuns. The classes were very large: typically about fifty students in each. But they were orderly, at least compared to what goes on in primary school classrooms today. Disruptors were punished immediately and often harshly.

     The town I lived in was overwhelmingly Catholic. Whether or not they attended Saint Catherine’s, the kids were raised in the Catholic faith. We saw one another at Mass, and now and then at Saturday Confessions. We talked about what we’d been taught about God, Jesus, and the faith. And we assumed that that was the way it was everywhere.

     But we grew up. As there was no nearby Catholic high school, we went from Saint Catherine’s to a “public” high school that drew its students from a larger area. Suddenly we found ourselves among Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and the occasional Mormon or Jew. It was disorienting, even a little upsetting. Could people that differ so greatly in their most fundamental beliefs get along?

     Sometimes we didn’t. Sometimes there were arguments. Some of those arguments were not resolved gracefully… or peacefully. And that was before the arrival in our district of any blacks or Hispanics.

     Fundamental differences beget conflicts that are hard to resolve. Yes, the great majority of us had been raised Christian, but there were cracks, fault lines that could give rise to trouble. It took a while for me to puzzle out why.

     Each of us had been taught that anyone who disagrees with us on religious matters is simply wrong. Even dangerously so. He had to be corrected, brought to the light, before matters got really serious.

     You see, we had not been taught a “faith.” We had been presented with “fact.” Anyone who dared to question any of it was severely dealt with.

     I’ve been musing over that recently. In various other settings, I’ve advanced my opinion that religious indoctrination of the young is a bad idea. The conflicts I remember from those early exposures to youngsters raised in other denominations are among my reasons.

     Indoctrination is all you can do to a young mind. He has hasn’t yet learned the rules of reason and evidence. He hasn’t yet grasped the critical distinction between the propositions of faith – any faith – and the propositions of spatiotemporal experience. So if you want him to accept religious teaching, you have to pound him with it relentlessly, make it so that it becomes omnipresent, inescapable. Sort of like God.

     Religious instruction of the young is characterized by repetition and memorization, just like the multiplication tables. The term catechism captures the essence of it. The teacher asks questions from a standard list; the students are expected to memorize the correct answers and repeat them when demanded. The treatment that the dismissive or indifferent ones get is supposed to inform the others that religion is a serious business.

     And it is, Gentle Reader. Just think about the religious wars of earlier days. A lot of people died in those wars. There’s an exchange from Richard Lester’s movie The Four Musketeers that’s apposite:

     Porthos: You know, it strikes me that we would be better employed wringing Milady's pretty neck than shooting these poor devils of Protestants. I mean, what are we killing them for? Because they sing psalms in French and we sing them in Latin?
     Aramis: Porthos, have you no education? What do you think religious wars are all about?

     The young indoctrinee quickly comes to understand that he’d better toe the line. Remember the questions and their answers. Give the answers when demanded. Go to church on Sunday and make sure you’re seen. Don’t forget the donation envelope with your name and address printed on it.

     It’s ultimately counterproductive. The inherent, coercive mindlessness of it is why so many kids reared in a religious faith abandon it completely once they’ve reached their majorities. It gives rise to conflicts that might otherwise be avoided.

     I’ve been talking about religious indoctrination and the resulting conflicts, but really, the same argument applies to indoctrination of any kind. The subject matter can be racial, ethnic, social, anthropological, political, even aesthetic. Hard positions on arguable matters create hard feelings.

     We often think we “know” things. Far more often we only believe them. They remain arguable, susceptible to exception, even refutation. Oftentimes we learn that to our sorrow, by alienating others whose good will had previously been ours.

     Once we’ve shuffled off this mortal coil, we’ll have all the answers and all the certainty we’ll ever need. I can wait. What about you?

     Just a few early-morning thoughts.

Your Morning Firebranding

     My admiration for the great Charles Murray grew by an order of magnitude after this recent episode. First, the windup:

I’ve stayed in hotel rooms over the past week and was wondering if anyone else wishes manufacturers would write “shampoo” and “conditioner” in a bigger font so we could read them in the shower without our glasses. FFS 😖

— Mike Bales 🫡🇺🇸 (@MikeBales) February 18, 2026

     And now the pitch:

Occasionally someone makes a point on X that I've been fretting about for years but was too timid to raise. But now that Mike has broken the ice, I also demand that the color of the font have more contrast with the color of the bottle. We've been victimized long enough. https://t.co/l00ol9tPSW

— Charles Murray (@charlesmurray) February 18, 2026

     To which I was compelled to respond:

     Yes! Ditto! And why isn't the music on hold Beethoven, Bach, or Chopin?
     We declare the Revolution!!

     Now, who will man the barricades alongside me?

Awakenings

     A lot has been written about “the living Earth,” “the spirit of Gaia,” and similar notions. Common to them is a conception of the inanimate as animate: a world alive and aware, not only of itself but of all that dwells upon it and in it. It’s a thesis I’ve touched very, very lightly in In Vino:

     The others hung back as Ottavio directed Fountain to the vat of unclarified Malbec. The Monti vats were made of aged wood bound in black iron bands. They were smaller than those at Broadhead. Their bases rested flat on the villa floor. The room was filled with the aromas of wine, yeast, and fermentation.
     Fountain imperceptibly took command of her host. She urged him close to the vat, took his hands and set them against its surface, moved to stand behind him, slid her arms around his chest, and rested her chin upon his shoulder. They stood thus in silence for perhaps half a minute. Within her embrace, Ottavio Monti trembled as if his strength were being tried to its limits.
     “What is it you feel?” she murmured against his cheek. “Tell me everything.”
     “Wood,” he said. “Rough, warm wood. And...the wine. And...” His voice dropped most of an octave. “And life.” He trembled in her embrace. “It is alive! But the vat is two hundred years old and the wine is grapes crushed to a sauce! How can this be?”
     “All things are alive,” Fountain whispered. “All things are aware. What else do you feel?”
     “I...” His tremor intensified.
     “Tell me, Ottavio Monti.” She squeezed him gently. “It is safe. It is right.”
     “Love,” he whispered incredulously. “Your love. And mine.”
     “All things know love,” she said in the voice of an oracle dispensing a mystical revelation. “And all things respond to love and return it in equal measure. Do you love the wine?”
     “Si, molto.”
     “Then tell it so,” Fountain said. She laid a hand over his heart. “From here, Ottavio. Use any words, any language you like, but tell it that you love it and listen for its answer.”
     The vintner of Villa Monti closed his eyes and bowed his head. Fountain held him snugly.
     Larry, Trish, and Domenico Monti stood transfixed. Ray murmured the Lord’s Prayer under his breath.
     “Gran Dio!” Ottavio whispered.
     He pulled his hands from the vat and dropped to his knees. Fountain released him, ascended the steps to the vat’s rim, took up the dipper that hung there, extracted a cup of wine, and descended. She knelt before Ottavio and offered him the dipper.
     “Taste it.”
     He did. His eyes brimmed over. He handed the dipper back to Fountain.
     “Now do you see?” she said.
     He smiled through his tears and nodded.
     She rose, brought the dipper to the others, and bade them taste it. They did, in turn.
     “Wow,” Larry said.
     “Oh my God,” Ray said.
     “As good as Broadhead’s, maybe even better,” Trish said.
     “Gloria a Dio,” Domenico said.
     Fountain nodded serenely.

     Now and then, I’m blind-sided by the idea. I certainly was when I wrote the above.

     If it’s true, which I doubt, we have no evidence of it. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be true someday. David Brin’s novel Earth toys with that possibility. It’s thematically related to his other “Uplift” tales, in which nonsentient creatures are “uplifted” to sentience through genetic engineering and selective breeding.

     No, I’m not saying I expect it. But the notion itself is appealing. A world alive and aware! What would it do? We worry about extraterrestrials finding us and proving unfriendly. How much worse an enemy would a living, sentient planet be, were it to weigh us in the balances and find us wanting?

     Hey, I’m a writer. Ideas like that one are both the tools of my trade and toys for my imagination. And I have to admit, the idea of uplifting the whole planet is more than moderately ambitious. One must ask who would see it as worth attempting, at what risks and at what cost.

     Anyway, the idea of awakening the Earth itself, calling forth the Weltgeist (or giving it one), found a remarkable expression in melody that I’ve only recently discovered. Hearken to the incredible, angelic voice of Ekaterina Shelehova:

     Did the souls of your ancestors cluster about you as you listened?

     Mine, too.

New For 2026!

What do you think, Gentle Reader?

Making It Clear

     Every now and then, someone will post a rendition of the following sort, somewhere on the Web – typically, these days, at X:

One year ago, I publicly came out in support of President Trump.

I had absolutely no idea how severe the backlash would be.

The Left tried to destroy everything good in my life.

My job. My family. Our safety.

We lost more friends than I ever could have imagined.

Politics is…

— Matt Van Swol (@mattvanswol) February 15, 2026

     Please read it in its entirety, Gentle Reader. It’s worth your time.

     The story isn’t a new one, of course. We’ve heard similar accounts before this. The commonalities among them are striking. But the differences among them are just as important. It’s worth noting them for general consideration.

     Matt Van Swol describes himself as “Former Nuclear Scientist for US Dept of Energy.” So we must suppose he has a few working brain cells. Despite that, it came as a surprise to him when those that he regarded as friends before he announced his support for President Trump turned against him as a person. Hadn’t he noticed the pattern? Or did he think it wouldn’t apply to him?

     Then there’s this part:

     There’s a specific kind of grief that comes from realizing people didn’t just disagree with you… ...they re-categorized you as "unsafe." Someone once told me that, in person. "We don't feel safe with you." Like you became a different species overnight.

     Now, in point of fact, Matt’s former, left-leaning “friends” don’t feel “unsafe” around him. They’re not worried that he might hurt them, steal from them, or kidnap their children. As an intelligent man who consciously changed his opinions, the threat he presents is to their assumption of righteousness. That’s the core of the Left’s appeal to its adherents: “Just adopt this political posture and you can preen yourself as being smarter and more moral than those Neanderthals in the Right!”

     This too is part of the pattern. It’s been on display throughout the Twenty-First Century… but one must see it to acknowledge it. And it speaks volumes… but one must hear it to comprehend it. Many people, including some highly intelligent ones, fail to do those things.

     This is not a major new revelation. Thomas Sowell covered it in detail in his masterpiece The Vision of the Anointed. Nearly every other significant aspect of the Left-Right divide flows from it. On June 28, it will be thirty years since the publication of that book, yet far too few people have read it.

     But I don’t mean to make heavy weather of that facet of things. Rather, allow me to note one more thing about Matt’s “transition:”

     We went to church for the first time ever, with our kids.

     Just twelve words. A simple declarative statement. But it says more than one might think upon first reading it.

     Conservatives tend to be practicing Christians. Religion of any sort mixes dubiously with politics, but the correlation between conservatism and Christianity among persons in the Right cannot be denied. Note that Matt and his family went to church “for the first time ever.” That’s a haymaker… but for the full impact one must ask “Why?”

     Allow me a snippet from an old Heinlein story, “The Man Who Sold the Moon:”

     "Ever read Carl Sandburg, George?"
     "I'm not much of a reader."
     "Try him some time. He tells a story about a man who started a rumor that they had struck oil in hell. Pretty soon everybody has left for hell, to get in on the boom. The man who started the rumor watches them all go, then scratches his head and says to himself that there just might be something in it, after all. So he left for hell, too."

     I have no doubt many of Matt’s family’s friends were practicing Christians. But he’d had no interest in such things… until he noted the correlation between conservative opinions, decency and courtesy in treating with others of divergent views, and Christian faith. He saw, and he wondered. Maybe he thought that there just might be something in it, after all.

     It’s happened before, hasn’t it?

     Spread Matt’s tale around, Gentle Reader. It has more punch than many thousands of my own words.

Valentine’s Day

     I got nuthin’, as they say, so have a few words about the saint whose deeds inspired this day:

     Saint Valentine, officially known as Saint Valentine of Rome, is a third-century Roman saint widely celebrated on February 14 and commonly associated with "courtly love."
     Although not much of St. Valentine's life is reliably known, and whether or not the stories involve two different saints by the same name is also not officially decided, it is highly agreed that St. Valentine was martyred and then buried on the Via Flaminia to the north of Rome.
     In 1969, the Roman Catholic Church removed St. Valentine from the General Roman Calendar, because so little is known about him. However, the church still recognizes him as a saint, listing him in the February 14 spot of Roman Martyrolgy.
     The legends attributed to the mysterious saint are as inconsistent as the actual identification of the man.
     One common story about St. Valentine is that in one point of his life, as the former Bishop of Terni, Narnia and Amelia, he was on house arrest with Judge Asterius. While discussing religion and faith with the Judge, Valentine pledged the validity of Jesus. The judge immediately put Valentine and his faith to the test.
     St. Valentine was presented with the judge's blind daughter and told to restore her sight. If he succeeded, the judge vowed to do anything for Valentine. Placing his hands onto her eyes, Valentine restored the child's vision.
     Judge Asterius was humbled and obeyed Valentine's requests. Asterius broke all the idols around his house, fasted for three days and became baptized, along with his family and entire 44 member household. The now faithful judge then freed all of his Christian inmates.
     St. Valentine was later arrested again for continuing to try to convert people to Christianity. He was sent to Rome under the emperor Claudius Gothicus (Claudius II). According to the popular hagiographical identity, and what is believed to be the first representation of St. Valentine, the Nuremberg Chronicle, St. Valentine was a Roman priest martyred during Claudius' reign. The story tells that St. Valentine was imprisoned for marrying Christian couples and aiding Christians being persecuted by Claudius in Rome. Both acts were considered serious crimes. A relationship between the saint and emperor began to grow, until Valentine attempted to convince Claudius of Christianity. Claudius became raged and sentenced Valentine to death, commanding him to renounce his faith or be beaten with clubs and beheaded.
     St. Valentine refused to renounce his faith and Christianity and was executed outside the Flaminian Gate on February 14, 269. However, other tales of St. Valentine's life claim he was executed either in the year 269, 270, 273 or 280. Other depictions of St. Valentine's arrests tell that he secretly married couples so husbands wouldn't have to go to war. Another variation of the legend of St. Valentine says he refused to sacrifice to pagan gods, was imprisoned and while imprisoned he healed the jailer's blind daughter. On the day of his execution, he left the girl a note signed, "Your Valentine."

     [From Catholic Online.]

     Happy Saint Valentine’s Day, Gentle Reader. Be with someone you love today. And may God bless and keep you both!

“Self-Government”

     Just recently, I stumbled upon this:

     If those percentages still hold, then once again we’re in the mystifying position where an overwhelming portion of the country is demanding a policy change that Congress is resisting with every trick at its disposal. Senate Majority Leader John Thune says one thing but does another. Several GOP Senators have pledged to oppose the SAVE Act anyway, so even were the filibuster barrier to be overcome, it probably wouldn’t garner a majority of the votes.

     Of course, it’s not the first time. A strong majority wanted Obamacare repealed; remember what happened to that? A strong majority wants federal taxation and spending slashed, the troops brought home from wherever, and Jeffrey Epstein’s porno-pedo clients hanged. Given those precedents plus what we know about the dynamic of power, the probability is that the SAVE Act – i.e., the act that would require voters to present proof of citizenship at the polls – will die aborning.

     Yes, that will allow the Democrats to steal future elections with fraudulent and otherwise illegal votes. Likely it will also cost the Republican Party both Houses of Congress in November. But so what? This is “the system.” You know, that nebulous but supremely important thing Pam Bondi has told us will collapse if Epstein’s associates are indicted and tried. Apparently that’s what Pam Bondi has sworn to protect.

     It’s out in the open, now. “The system” will defend itself and its allegiants a outrance against the nation itself. There’s no pretense of anything else any longer. “Self-government” has been revealed as a joke, an empty notion that regime propagandists have foisted upon us to pacify us. We are ruled by men whose aims run counter to our well-being, and they don’t care who knows it.

     Don’t mind me, Gentle Reader. I’m having “one of those days.” I’m sure that I’ll soon be numb enough to get back into step with the thing. I’ll get back to writing these screeds as if the details matter. It’s just that for the moment, I can’t believe any of it.

     Have a nice day.

The Fermi Paradox And Other Conjectures

     He who writes science fiction is regularly embroiled in certain arguments about what’s possible, what’s impossible, and what might be coming soon to a planet near you. He who writes far-future SF invariably resorts to “handwavium:” the postulation of imagined developments that would make possible the sort of events he wants to write about. One of the developments that’s frequently hand-waved into fictional existence is very rapid interstellar travel: i.e., travel at speeds faster than that of light.

     When I decided to write Which Art In Hope, I resolved to avoid postulating faster-than-light travel. That first volume of the Spooner Federation trilogy does a little hand-waving – e.g., it postulates developments in the biological sciences that would extend an individual life to span many centuries – but it does avoid the FTL premise. (Yes, the latter two volumes do “go FTL.” That was forced on me by the themes I sought to explore.)

     There’s much talk among SF writers about whether we’ll ever encounter other sentient species, or extraterrestrial life of any kind. Some make probabilistic arguments; others simply say “yeah, we’ll see.” But if our knowledge of physics today is accurate and sufficiently complete, we might never know.

     If we omit all hand-waving, what remains are the speed-of-light limitation and the problem of lifespan. For travel of any kind rests on two factors:

• The risks involved in undertaking that travel;
• The ratio of the time it will require to a human lifetime.

     For creatures with human-like longevity, interstellar travel is a non-starter. Let’s say Smith boards a vessel bound for Proxima Centauri, or any other “nearby” star. He will die en route. Perhaps descendants of his will get there; he won’t. And he will know that ab initio. So what’s his motivation for boarding?

     Yes, Smith could be under the pressures that motivated the Spoonerites. He’d know that he wouldn’t live to see the destination, but he might undertake the journey to perpetuate “his people.” Would any other motivation suffice?

     The enthusiast now waves his hands: “What about suspended animation?” Well, we don’t know how to do that just yet. “What about relativistic time dilation?” That would require propulsion of a magnitude that’s beyond us today and possibly tomorrow. Besides, where’s the reaction mass to come from? Newton’s Third Law can’t be suspended by Congressional decree. So present conditions continuing, Mankind will likely be confined to the Solar System.

     This makes me sad. I’d love for Mankind to “go interstellar.” The adventures our progeny would have are beyond anyone’s imagination. But physics will have the last word. Unless some currently unborn or unrecognized genius can break the lightspeed barrier, or can extend a man’s life to many centuries in length, we’ll be “staying home.”

     But let’s imagine that there are other sentient species in the universe. Might they be equal to the challenge, by virtue of extreme longevity? A species whose members expect to live a millennium or two would look at the matter differently, especially if they could solve the propulsion problem. Yes, it’s hand-waving again, albeit of a different kind, but that desire to believe in interstellar travel, galactic confraternity, and so forth is very strong. Maybe, rather than humans going to them, they might come to us.

     Maybe. The famous Green Bank Equation suggests that there’s life elsewhere in the Milky Way – if we set its variables to the “right” values. But we’re hand-waving again. How would they get here? What would they necessarily be able to do that we aren’t, to make that possible? Given the costs, the risks, and the difficulties, what would their motivation be?

     We don’t know enough to be certain of anything. We don’t know whether there’s a way to slip past the lightspeed barrier. We don’t know whether there are methods of propulsion superior to what we possess today, or whether Man or any other sentient creature is capable of living long enough to survive an interstellar journey. Even if the trip should become possible, we have absolutely no idea whether there’s a reason to undertake it other than sheer curiosity.

     The Fermi Paradox is summarized thus:

     The Fermi paradox is the discrepancy between the lack of conclusive evidence of advanced extraterrestrial life and the apparently high likelihood of its existence.

     That “paradox” is only worth consideration if:

• There’s another sentient species “out there;”
• There are ways to communicate reliably over the intervening distance.

     But even communication over interstellar distances is dubious. Ultra-collimated, ultra-powerful lasers? Modulated gravity waves? Using the resonant frequencies of stars to encode messages? It’s all hand-waving. Physics as we know it today says it won’t happen.

     But what if we “know differently” somewhere down the timestream? What if the lightspeed limitation is just a misunderstanding that some future Einstein will dismiss with a grin and a wave of his whiteboard marker? What if we manage to “cure death,” or extend human life far beyond what’s currently possible? Don’t get me waving my hands. I write this stuff for the entertainment value!

The Pressure

     The technophiles and space-travel enthusiasts are moderately agog that Elon Musk has shifted his focus from colonizing Mars to colonizing the Moon. For my part, I’m pleased. It was always the more sensible first step, if less glamorous. It’s also a necessary one: the Moon is the low-gravity resource base from which to continue on to the rest of the Solar System.

     But questions have arisen, with this one front and center: Why would anyone want to live on Mars / the Moon? A lot of people appear to be entertaining it, which suggests that there’s been a fall-off in Americans’ imagination and drive.

     I can think of two reasons to remove my elderly carcass from this ball of mud:

• The sheer adventure of the thing;
• To live in freedom.

     While I’m no longer of an age or fitness to go adventuring in the classical sense, neither were a lot of the European migrants who populated North America. They went anyway, often entire clans at a stroke. Some of them believed that the choice was between migration and extinction. In the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, for some of them that was demonstrably the case.

     But is that the case for anyone today? Are there subpopulations for whom the hardship of Lunar living would be preferable to remaining in the grip of an implacable fist that’s threatening to squeeze them to death? Perhaps we should ask the dwindling Christian populations of the Islam-dominated hellholes of the Middle East.

     We of the Western nations have begun to sense similar threats. Hostility to freedom is the central forward pressure of the Left. The elimination of all resistance is its aim. And it will never relax or relent.

     Eight years ago, I wrote:

     For a while I was cheered by the rapid development of privately owned and operated orbital transport. It seemed that free enterprise had at last accepted the challenge of taking Man to the ultimate frontier from which the U.S. government had retreated. And indeed, companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin have made considerable strides toward more economical (albeit still too expensive for a holiday weekend) access to Earth orbit. Perhaps, in another decade or two, we’d see construction begin on space habitats, and perhaps on some persistent human-occupied installations on the Moon.
     Maybe...but more likely not. The principal customers for orbital access are national governments. It would be in those governments’ interest to squash any private effort to colonize space or any of the other bodies in the Solar System. They could do so rather easily, either by terminating all contracts with the company that tries it or by invoking “national security” laws to forbid the effort altogether. Of those two paths, the latter is the more likely. Any government with a “national security” statute could claim that its “security” depends on not being bombed from orbit – and never mind that the owners of a privately-operated space station would have neither a reason nor an incentive to do so.

     The political dynamic continues to operate in its time-honored fashion. Power still attracts the worst members of our species. Governments are still inherently totalitarian: “Oh no, there’s no law against it. You just have to get our permission. It’s just that there’s a little red tape to get through. Please be patient.” They don’t like competition, and they don’t like for anyone to get beyond their reach:

     On the morning of the fourth day, also, a delegation of high-ranking government officials, including a three-star general from the Pentagon and a gentleman from the President’s office, called on [Spacecraft CEO Theodor] Deane.
     The gentleman from the President s office was brief and to the point. Deane was forbidden to undertake any venture whatsoever in space without the permission and control of the Federal Government. To do so would be a violation of national security equivalent to treason. Injunctions would be issued at once if Deane so much as lifted a finger to put an unauthorized satellite into orbit.
     “Do I understand,” Deane demanded, “that a law has just been passed to that specific effect?”
     “Don’t talk foolish, boy,” the general said. “We can make the existing security laws fit you like a straitjacket. Try us and see!”

     [J. W. Schutz, “The Bubble”]

     SpaceX is now racing the clock. Colonizing the Moon is far more feasible in the near term than colonizing Mars. You can bet the rent money that the cleverer folks in Washington know that too. Unless SpaceX establishes a proprietary Lunar colony before the power-mongers in D.C. can get their forces mobilized, the federal government will make such a thing impossible.

     The same pressure that propelled the Puritans to board wind-powered wooden vessels to reach the New World is at work today. The possibility of colonizing other worlds is the last remaining hope for human freedom. Many of us, young and old, would risk all that we have for the chance to be free. The States of Earth will not be pleased should the Moon become a place where we can go to escape them.

Undiscussed

     I was maundering over the rising White Identity movement, and the fierce resistance to it on the Left, when a memory from long ago returned to visit.

     The year was 1967. I was a senior year in high school at the time. There was a scholarship available to seniors who’d expressed an interest in becoming teachers. My school submitted me as its contestant. The award decision would be made by a committee of three, after meeting and conversing with all the contestants as a group. The get-together was held in New Paltz, a “college town” in Ulster County, New York, on the western side of the Hudson River.

     There were a dozen contestants. There were three on the award committee. I was the only one from a “downstate” school. I was also the only male present.

     Needless to say, I found the atmosphere somewhat intimidating. What was I, a mere male, doing among all these women? Conversation among the women, young and old, continued freely for over an hour without anyone addressing or even looking at me. Finally one of the committee members turned and addressed me directly: “What about you, Fran? Don’t you have anything to say?”

     I can’t remember what I said. No doubt it was something bland. I don’t remember what followed. About fifteen minutes later I was on my way home.

     Though I didn’t participate, I do remember the thrust of the conversation. It was about dealing with “colored students.” Everyone in the room agreed that they were a taxing problem, both pedagogically and behaviorally, and were becoming ever more so.

     I suppose I should include that all of us present were White.

     Now, that was what we of today fatuously call “the Civil Rights Era.” Which is to say: We had been propagandized out of our natural rights, such as freedom of association, in favor of “civil rights” defined by legislators and courts. We didn’t grasp the implications of having politicians tell us what our “rights” would be. We would find out soon enough.

     But “civil rights” or no, the eleven “upstate” young women in that discussion group were tacitly unanimous that educational institutions’ problems with non-Whites were real and rising. They had no solutions. Their unstated premise made a solution impossible. It was just something, they quietly agreed, with which future teachers would have to cope as best they could.

     Most of that was indirectly expressed, sotto voce. Yet there could be no doubt about the consensus. It bewildered me somewhat, but then, there were only three “colored” out of the two thousand students in my high school. The problem had yet to become visible in Rockland County, New York.

* * *

     Nothing reveals group differences as effectively as forcing disparate groups together. Fifty-nine years after that group talkfest, the quiet prognostications of those young women have proved accurate. America’s “public” schools have largely been reduced to daytime housing for minors, some of whom are determined to fight with others and abuse the rest. White kids in such an environment are in peril throughout the day. Many don’t make it home unscathed.

     But let’s leave the disorder and violence problems to the side. In an attempt to achieve some education, at least, the schools have steadily “dumbed down” their curricula. What was fifth-grade material a century ago is now being taught in high schools. The scandals about schools where no student meets grade literacy or numeracy standards, and about college entrants being unable to read, write in cursive, or do simple algebra, are legion.

     The few “colored” with a real interest in learning are intimidated out of it by their fellows: “Why you actin’ White?” The important subjects are to which gang you belong, how to deal with the members of other gangs, and how to treat the White kids. Better take those subjects seriously; the tests are frequent.

     But hearken to our political class! Do any of our Establishmentarians even hint that there might be a problem with all this “diversity?” Not to my knowledge. But let anyone mention the rising White-identity movement, and the condemnations are immediate and plentiful. Apparently the worst thing one can be is White and proud of it.

     If the cries of “Racist!” and “Xenophobe!” are losing their effect, it’s not yet evident from their frequency of use. Demographic-geographic trends tell us that some Whites are “voting with their feet.” An unfortunate number of us are pinned in place by occupational or familial considerations. These must be prepared to cope with being members of a shrinking community.

     Fifty-nine years ago, a group of young women in their senior year in high school could clearly see what was coming. Their voices were soft. Their words were measured. But their opinions were unanimous and clear. They foresaw what would happen to the trade they sought to enter.

     Those that are still on the sunny side of the sod would be in their mid-seventies today. I should remember to pray for them.

Consciousness And Conscience

     An old story came to mind a little earlier, as I was doing my morning tarantella (i.e., brushing my teeth, feeding the dogs and cats, making and drinking coffee, and cleaning up the detritus of the previous evening): “The Cage,” by A. Bertram Chandler. It involved a group of human spacefarers captured and caged by an alien race. At first that other race isn’t aware that humans are intelligent, purposeful creatures. What clues them in is when one of the humans captures a vermin creature and builds a cage for it. The final line of the story: Only intelligent beings put other beings in cages.

     Striking, isn’t it? Communication alone isn’t guaranteed to be possible with the completely alien. Actions must fill the gap. If the Other can deduce one’s intelligence from one’s actions, that can unlock the cage door. But that opens another door as well: the nature of purposive consciousness.

* * *

     Consciousness is the beginning; purposive consciousness – what I’ll henceforth call sentience — is the end. Sentience is born from simple consciousness when the conscious one turns his awareness on himself:

I am something specific, distinct from all other things.

     In facing that realization and the questions it compels upon him, the individual’s capacity for abstraction is unleashed. It has broached the threshold to reasoning. In particular, it becomes capable of categorization: the assembly of real things into abstract groups, according to the properties they possess.

     Let’s pause here to simplify the rest of the discussion. The individual under discussion shall henceforward be called Smith. Smith is not alone in the world. There are others like him. As he encounters them, he becomes aware of the commonalities and distinctions among them.

     One property Smith quickly perceives is his own purposiveness. Some of the things he does are automatic, but not all. Those other actions are taken to fulfill a purpose. That purpose may not last long, but while it does, it determines his non-automatic thoughts and deeds.

     From his purposiveness Smith infers that property in others like him. This is the germ of another property soon to impinge upon his consciousness: his conscience.

* * *

     The above is semi-fanciful. We don’t know very much about the development of the intellectual primitives. What we do know is that sentience precedes conscience. Only the sentient can have a sense of what Clarence Carson called “the moral order of the universe.” We believe nonhuman animals to lack sentience – i.e., that their actions are guided by commands embedded in their flesh, which we call instincts.

     Now and then a departure from our assumptions will arise to trouble us. We deem ourselves superior to “the lower orders” by dint of our sentience and our consciences. Animals, we tell ourselves, have no concepts; therefore they can make no distinctions between right and wrong. But then we hear of a dog sacrificing himself to protect his human, and we wonder. We learn of a brute torturing or killing a parent, sibling, or child, and we wonder further.

     My surmise is that some animals can be “ennobled” (C. S. Lewis) by the affection that springs from a long association with and care by a human. It’s more difficult to explain why some humans behave as if they lack consciences. Suffice it to say that our understanding is less than perfect.

     For conscience, in a purely secular and spatiotemporal view, arises from the perception of humans as a category: conscious animals with reasoning powers and purposes. That evokes species-kinship, sometimes expressed by the phrase “We are all brothers.” Adam Smith called it “fellow-feeling.” Today we call it compassion or empathy.

     Conscience – the product of self-awareness and our common possession thereof – underpins all the rest.

* * *

     Hillel’s dictum “What is hateful to you, do not do to another” is the foundation layer of conscience. There’s more, of course. Conscience doesn’t just restrain us; it also impels us to help one another, to do good and charitable works. Christ’s decree “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” embeds Hillel’s rule and extends it. Yet our consciences get many of us there long before we encounter either Hillel or Christ.

     But there are still those questions: Why don’t all humans respond to their consciences? Why do some animals act as if they have consciences of their own? No one has a watertight explanation for psychopathy or sociopathy. No one has a convincing explanation for a dog’s protectiveness over his master. We can’t communicate reliably with sociopaths or dogs, though we can, and often do, put them in cages.

     We need those questions answered.

The Epstein Files

     I haven’t read them. I don’t intend to. I don’t need more misery or darkness, thanks. But the following caught and held my attention:

People are now openly stating:

"If even a small fraction of what the Epstein files imply is true...

...the good guys lost WWII 💀"

We urgently need full disclosure and many arrests to nip such speculations in the bud.

The entire liberal world order depends on it.

Godspeed!

— Erik Dale 🇳🇴 (@EuroDale) February 4, 2026

     Whoever this gentleman is, I’m certain his heart is in the right place. But is he quite sure what “the entire world liberal order” is? One should know what one has set out to defend.

     The world, partitioned as it is into States that don’t recognize the concept of freedom, does not qualify as “liberal” in the dictionary sense. Not one of the nearly 200 States that exist today respects the rights of the individual. Rather, they assert supremacy – sovereignty, if you prefer – over all persons and things. You must ask their permission for damned near everything.

     Can there be a “liberal world order” when the States that dominate the world are unanimously illiberal?

     But let’s pass on to the Epstein files. From what I’ve read – all of it secondhand, of course – those files implicate many powerful, wealthy, and famous individuals in the most horrific crimes Mankind has ever known. The Iceberg Premise – i.e., that what we can see is only a tiny fraction of what there is – suggests that virtually the entire “upper crust” of American society is vile beyond imagining. That includes the national political class: everyone who wields power at the national level, or who has significant influence over the power wielders’ decisions.

     The word corruption pales beside the monstrousness of what the files have revealed. Yet though Lord Acton is probably spinning in his grave, I must admit that none of it surprises me.

     Visualize me shrugging as I write: So what now?

* * *

     Except for the ministry of Christ, the United States of America was the grandest effort in all of history. A dear friend has called America “the crowning glory of human civilization.” He’s right. Even in our decayed and tottering state, we outshine anything else any nation can offer. That’s why the rest of the world seeks to batten on us; what excellence and virtue remain belong to America and Americans.

     Yet we teeter at the edge of the abyss. We’ve gone badly wrong, and we know it. Some of us can even tell you why: We put our trust in princes.

     Outside the narrow bounds of the family, for any man to claim and wield power over another is evil. There are no escapes; it’s an arrogance that merits scourging or worse. So why do we tolerate it when it calls itself government?

     The lust for power is a lust that cannot be sated. It always demands more. And it demands proof as well. The proof is provided by power’s victims:

     ‘How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?’
     Winston thought. ‘By making him suffer,’ he said.
     ‘Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.’

     How many times have I cited that passage? Its insight into power-lust is unequaled. Yet even those who praise George Orwell’s masterwork to the heavens shy back from its full implications. The great majority of Mankind insists, vocally or silently, that the State is “a necessary evil.”

     What other evils would you deem “necessary,” Gentle Reader?

* * *

     “Utopia is not one of the options.” – David Bergland

     For as long as there are men, there will be evil men. Human free will and our susceptibility to temptation guarantee it. But the great majority of us are, if sinners, at least aware of the dividing line between what we can get away with and what will get us invited to a necktie party as guest of honor.

     It’s when evil men have access to power over others that the worst problems arise and proliferate. For over time, the dynamic of power operates to bring evil men to power. They have a natural advantage over good men in pursuing it: they want it more.

     It doesn’t matter what form the State is given: autocratic, oligarchical, republican, democratic, what have you. The State is where the power is, and therefore where those who most want power will go. Could it be any clearer?

     But we were talking about the Epstein files, weren’t we?

     What those files reveal are the foulest deeds of the evilest men of our time. Should it come as a surprise that those evildoers were power-wielders, elite members of the Establishment? It seems perfectly in keeping with their villainy. Yet millions of people are in shock: How could they? Look at all they have, all they were given!

     Shock can be useful. It can shake the scales from our eyes. I submit that it’s time and long past time. Don’t let this moment pass unrecognized for what it really tells us.