Which Way, Indies?

     The question of the hour among those of us who write and self-publish fiction is what to do about piracy… if anything. Here’s a typically impassioned statement on the matter:

Do not pirate books. Respect the work of the people who spend hundreds to thousands of hours writing, refining, rethinking, and revising their work—and especially those trying to create something different. pic.twitter.com/ta5rpf4VLg

— DanNeo S.S. ✮ 𓂃🖊 (@DanNEO_SS) July 8, 2026

     Piracy is indeed dismissive of the author’s work and rights. But there are other perspectives, chief among them this one:

Would you rather make money or be read?

     And it is not to be fliply dismissed.

* * *

     When I started writing fiction, I had a spread of reasons, including the need to know whether I could do it. But paramount among those reasons was this one: I had stories to tell that I felt deserved an audience. Whether I could tell them effectively, affectingly, was to be determined.

     Now, a story worthy of adults’ attention must involve things adults care about. Were the stories in my head of that sort, or were they inane juvenilia fit only for children? (Let’s leave out that a lot of them have adult characters doing adult things.) There was only one way to know: I had to write them and find an audience for them.

     In my review of Martin McPhillips’s brilliant first novel Corpse in Armor, I wrote:

     Many fiction writers claim to write for the sheer pleasure of it. Some claim they only write for the revenue – "to buy groceries," as the late Robert A. Heinlein put it. But all of us, without exception, write to be read. Anyone who claims otherwise deserves no more of your time.

     And so it is. Yet the tension between wanting one’s book to be read – or at least, wanting to believe that one’s book is being read – and the desire for a tangible return from all the effort that went into it can be agonizing.

     I have no idea how other writers feel. Why do I write? See previous answer. Why do they write? You’d have to ask them. I haven’t done much of that. But I’d bet heavily that it does a lot for them when a reader writes to thank them for their books. It’s more or less what I live for.

     What’s noxious is when other people manage to profit from the writer’s efforts. I don’t know how many book pirates manage to do that. I doubt there are many; if we indies can’t pull it off, why would anyone else be able to manage it? Yet the problem is not illusory; piracy is rife.

     Can anyone think of a way to poll book pirates for their motivations? Has anyone ever buttonholed a book pirate and tortured an answer out of him? If any of my Gentle Readers can think of a way, please let me have it! After all, there might be a book in it.

The Great Men Of Our Time Have Their Own Fears

     Consider this one:

“Communities”

     BREAKING NEWS! It has come to my attention, which, yes, has been slipping a bit, that a large percentage of the Gentle Readers of Liberty’s Torch are stressed. It’s perfectly understandable, what with conditions these days. High prices, racial and ethnic strife, government surveillance, Gerrit Cole’s uneven mound performances… I must admit that I’ve been feeling a touch stressed myself.

     But this is America, where there’s a supply for every demand. Yes, friends, here you can find relief for… well, for some of your troubles, at least. For the rest, there’s always alcohol. Anyway, if you feel that your ability to cope is slipping, take a minute to watch this video, and enjoy an admittedly ephemeral moment of relaxation:

     There, wasn’t that pleasant? Now, on to the topic of the day.

---

     We hear about various communities rather frequently these days. The black community. The homosexual community. The transgender community. The community of brain-damaged Russo-Turkic welders. Communities, it seems, are everywhere.

     Why don’t I see them? Many voices prattle about these communities, yet all I can see are individuals. The media harp on them, especially after some distressing event. You know, like the senseless murder of a White teenager by a black thug, or a transgender somebody shooting up a tavern.

     With the conviction and sentencing of Karmelo Anthony, we got a lot of pontificating about the “reaction of the black community.” Tell us, oh omniscient media pundits, where is The Black Community headquartered? Did you go there and interview a spokesblack? Or did the organization issue a formal press release to be aired on the six o’clock news?

     Nope. Just individuals. Some are horrified that “one of ours” did such a heinous thing and got caught, while others jump up and down screaming that a black kid who killed a White boy shouldn’t have to do time for it. (A lot of time, I hope, but that’s a subject for another tirade.)

     When a pedophile rapes a child of the same sex, the media immediately leap to proclaim that the “gay community” – they’re homosexuals, but that word has some negative implications, so they’ve adopted “gay” as a synonym in hope of averting mention of those implications – is utterly opposed to such practices and shouldn’t be tarred with them. Once again, I’m unable to find The Gay Community in the Yellow Pages. Nor does Directory Assistance have a number at which they can be reached. Puzzling.

     Once again, just individuals. Some homosexuals live quietly and keep their business to themselves; others parade around in all manner of dress (and undress), wailing about how “invisible” they are. We hear a lot about their “community,” but when I raise my gaze to the passing scene, all I see are individuals.

     What are these communities of which the press so confidently speaks? Are they occupational groupings? Social associations? Voting blocs? Are there subjects on which these communities have official positions? Do they all support the same charities, or the same volleyball teams? Answer comes there none.

     Media promotion of such communities is intended to make them seem larger and more unified than they really are. When some pundit proclaims that the Z Community is outraged over some unpleasant event, it’s an attempt to efface the divergences and divisions among Zs. This is especially important when an issue routinely associated with Zs is in the news, and an election is looming. It’s the ink-on-newsprint version of whipping the vote.

     Bless their shriveled little hearts! As insubstantial as they are, such communities are staples for promulgation and prognostication. The statements of a vocal few are presented to us as the voice of their community. We accept it without question… unless we’re members of the relevant group and know better. Then we’re told to sit down and shut up. For the greater good of the community, of course.

     It’s amusing and tiring, but it never seems to end.

     For myself, I have no community. Not even the neighborhood in which I’ve lived for 46 years. No one speaks for me but me. I’d venture to guess that other software engineers, writers of fiction and nonfiction, Americans of Irish and Italian descent, and persons who share my Zip code would say the same. But when some “issue” that involves one of those groups rises to public attention, I won’t be surprised when the regional media proclaim what my position must be, on the grounds of affiliation.

     Do you belong to any notional communities, Gentle Reader? Make sure you know how to cancel your membership. It might prove to be important. Especially if you’re behind on your dues.

Our Invisible Servants

     Happy Saint Patrick’s Day, Gentle Reader! As befits one who has “green blood,” here at the Fortress it’s a day of celebration. Bet you didn’t know that Patrick was born in Scotland, kidnapped by Irish raiders, and sold as a slave to a Druid priest. Or that missionaries he ordained were deemed responsible for converting much of Europe to Christianity. But that’s why Patrick is considered high in the Church’s hagiography.

     However, I’m not here to rhapsodize about ol’ Paddy. I’ve been thinking about what most of us take for granted nearly all the time. We hardly ever see it. We almost never think about it. Yet it makes our lives possible and pleasant… until it doesn’t.

     On Sunday evening, the Fortress suffered a “backup.” Water that was intended to run down the kitchen sink drain and thence to the cesspool came back up through the shower drain instead. Very unpleasant. But one doesn’t call a plumber on Sunday, especially after 6:00 PM.

     Monday dawned bright and early. Thank God, Roto-Rooter of Long Island was answering its phone. By 9:00 AM, a tech was here to deal with the problem – and what a problem it was! A significant segment of outfall pipe had clogged so completely that water could no longer pass through it. To compound the damage, that pipe – originally installed in 1959 when the house was built – was close to rotting through. The tech had to take down a piece of wall, cut into the pipe, remove and replace it. He managed it, and before 11 AM, at that. Moreover, he put the wall back up and cleaned up after himself. I wanted to applaud.

     No, it wasn’t cheap. $1500! But that’s the sort of thing one faces when plumbing from 1959 goes bad.

     But it got me thinking about our invisible servants. Plumbing is certainly one such. When it’s working more or less to specification, there’s no reason to think about it. When it fails, as ours did Sunday evening, we start to froth at the mouth. We don’t thank the failed parts for their service as they’re hauled away. Then there’s the cost, about which let no more be said here.

     Plumbing. Heating systems. Floor joists. The foundation itself. The roof overhead. All doing what they were designed to do, continuously, whether or not we take notice. Until they don’t, of course. Then the swearing begins.

     I steeled myself and said a prayer of gratitude. I gave thanks for them all, and promised that I would henceforth try not to take them for granted. I also gave thanks that I could afford the repairs. And I think I’ll be doing more of that in the future.

     God didn’t provide those things to us directly, of course. Rather, He equipped generations of men with the imagination to conceive of them, the skills to design them, the power to fabricate and install them, and – insert extra thanks here – the talent required to diagnose and repair them when they fail. Those men are the “proximate causes” for our invisible servants and why they serve us so faithfully for such long stretches of time. They too deserve our gratitude, even if we have no idea of their names, faces, or the lives they led.

     Other men with talents other than ours are gifts to us. The division-of-labor economy that makes their specialties viable is a gift, as well. The free market economy that smoothly provides them in the necessary quantities is beneath it all, of course… and let’s give special thanks that the Big Parasite (you know what I’m talking about), for all its attempts, hasn’t yet managed to destroy that completely.

     No, it’s not cheap. Neither the products nor the services come to us for free. But let’s also give thanks that, with a few pitiable exceptions, we can afford both to purchase them and to service them when they fail us. That, too, is a gift, for who among us, were he transported to North Korea, Cambodia, Burma, or Laos, would be able to maintain an American standard of living and all the servants that go with it?

     Enough of that for now. My cesspool service has just arrived. I must brace myself for his exactions. If the week continues in this vein, I expect to be bankrupt by this coming Sunday. Pray for me. When you’re finished giving thanks for your plumbing et cetera, that is.

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?

This Greenland Thing

     Greenland in the news! Contention over Greenland! NATO roiled by tensions over Greenland! War threatens! Film at eleven!

     I know, I know: you’ve been there. Actually, for those with short memories, I too have been there, and if the tune is the same, the words differ somewhat:

     President Donald Trump and his top officials have framed their drive for Greenland — a semi-autonomous Danish territory — as all about U.S. national security, broader NATO footprints in the increasingly competitive Arctic and grabbing critical minerals.
     This is a somewhat thin justification. The U.S. has for many decades had a defense agreement with Copenhagen to keep a military presence in Greenland.
     Plus, much of the concern plaguing Europe for the last year is built on a fear of the U.S. pulling away from the continent — not committing more American troops to a region NATO is desperate to safeguard against growing Russian and Chinese influence.

     Please read the rest. It’s not bad for a Newsweek article. But most of the salient points are already part of public discourse.

     There’s a strange feel to President Trump’s desire that Greenland become a part of the U.S. Since this is the second time around for this initiative, I have to wonder whether America’s national interests are his real reasons for pursuing it.

     A few things that Greenland is not:

• It’s not arable.
• It’s not “living space.”
• It’s not easily exploitable.

     I’m told it’s valuable for military purposes. I’ll accept that; many harsh places stand guard over strategic travel routes, and the North Atlantic is forever full of vessels, both surface and subsurface, that bear watching. But the U.S. already has military bases on Greenland. Denmark, which claims sovereignty over Greenland, has expressed willingness that American military exploitation of Greenland should increase.

     I’m also told that Greenland is rich in natural resources. That may be so, but again, the Danish government has been accommodating toward commercial exploitation of Greenland’s resources. We must ask why the formal acquisition of Greenland – its transfer from Denmark’s jurisdiction to ours – matters so greatly to President Trump.

     The simplest explanation may be the correct one: Trump’s a real-estate man. Any real-estate man would rather own than lease. And there are possible advantages in not having to bargain with another power for the use of Greenland. But responsibility for the people of Greenland would come with it.

     Another, somewhat darker explanation, would be that contention over Greenland makes an ideal lever by which to pull the U.S. out of NATO. NATO is the conduit through which American resources are pulled into Europe. The drain NATO places on American military power and funding was the original reason that President Nixon ended the redeemability of the dollar in gold. Fomenting discord over Greenland might be an indirect method for ending NATO, an alliance long overdue for dissolution.

     There’s been talk about a morphing of the Monroe Doctrine into a “Donroe Doctrine,” under which American authority and responsibility for the Western Hemisphere would justify enfolding Greenland. That’s a bit thin. Greenland isn’t really part of the Western Hemisphere, and as previously stated, our military is already there.

     A minor possibility is that the matter is ego-driven: President Trump may envision American acquisition of Greenland as securing his place in the history books. It would be America’s largest territorial acquisition, edging out the Louisiana Purchase. That would be an impressive enlargement of the U.S., but in practical terms it would change almost nothing. Anyway, President Trump’s place in the books is already secure for other reasons, and I’m sure he knows it.

     Finally, there’s this: Back in the days of the Plantagenets, it was a common practice for the king to “give” a province to a brother or son. If President Trump is thinking of Greenland as a college-graduation gift for Barron, I’d suggest a snowglobe instead. Young men don’t often cherish such gifts for long. They thank Dad for them, but soon enough they stick them in the back of the closet and forget them. There they languish until their wives-to-be decree a “cleanup” that sees them left at the curb for the recyclers. No one would want to see Greenland suffer that fate. Especially the Greenlanders.

     Anyway, I still think if we’re going to go national-real-estate shopping, we should buy Canada. The National Hockey League Hall Of Fame really belongs in America, don’t you think?

Conversations

     Today’s showers are usually equipped with mixing valves attached to a single-lever control. The user moves the lever to set the flow of water to his preferred temperature and leaves it there. But the earliest mixing valves were designed with little or no frictional resistance to movement. That made them prone to changing the setting without the user’s approval, which resulted in a number of scalding victims. Mixing valves were redesigned to incorporate significant friction.

     The C.S.O., though no weakling, has a hard time getting the temperature of her shower just the way she likes it. Apparently the valve’s friction is a little too stiff for her fine motor skills. That forces her to jog the lever back and forth until by sheer chance the Malevolence of the Inanimate relents and the lever settles at just the right temperature for a nice shower. She was complaining about that just this morning, which resulted in the following exchange:

FWP: (Explains the changes to mixing valves)
CSO: We didn’t have that in Queens. We had separate hot and cold taps.

FWP: (becomes expansive) Those were the days! Men were men, back then. You took what you could get, by God! Then you went out to play with your stick.
CSO: And your rock.

FWP: (stunned) You had a rock, too?
CSO: Yeah, we were one of the better-off families.

FWP: I never knew I married into money!
CSO: Ahh, it was nothing. I used to date a guy from Bensonhurst who had two rocks.
FWP: (too astounded to continue)

     (Yes, Gentle Reader. These conversations actually happen.)

Your Inspirational Thought For Today

This is Pluto. Be like Pluto! pic.twitter.com/q0TqTInt0y

— Curiosity (@MAstronomers) December 8, 2025

     Who cares whether Pluto clears its orbit? It’s having fun!

A Treasure That Must Be Shared

     I could not take the smallest chance that my Gentle Readers might miss out on this gem:

This is the greatest description ever, from a bootleg video in China. pic.twitter.com/yCHzeYu3Mq

— Sandy Petersen 🪔 (@SandyofCthulhu) December 3, 2025

     The movie, for any whippersnappers in this old Curmudgeon’s readership, is of course Alien.

Loneliness

     There’s been some back-and-forth over this subject recently: men asserting that women have become impossible to please; women countering that men have very little to offer; and so forth. Meanwhile men seek women with perfect bodies who’ll cook, clean, and meet them at the door in lingerie and heels at the end of the workday. The women, of course, seek Adonises of chiseled perfection who earn seven figure incomes and never ask them to wash a dish. It’s all very sad, especially as I’m no longer on the market and neither is the C.S.O.

     Life is like that. The higher your standards for a mate, the fewer the people who’ll meet them. But I’m not here to tell you stuff you already know.

     Loneliness is also prevalent within marriages. Yes, I said prevalent. After they’ve been together for a while, romantic partners don’t provide one another with a lot of companionship. (Never mind sex.) If you’re married or in a long-term / live-together relationship:

• How long has it been since you and the Significant Other had a conversation about anything but the week’s shopping list or Junior’s problems with school?
• What percentage of the day do the two of you spend in the same room?
• When you’re in the same room, what’s your focus? The food? The TV? Making the bed?

     Don’t be alarmed by those questions or by your answers to them. More to the point, don’t think of your situation as a “problem” to be “solved.” Because the terrifying truth of the matter is that after the intoxication of romance begins to diminish, a space will naturally grow between the two of you. It always has. You won’t be exceptions.

     It won’t matter if John finds a Miss America contestant who loves housework and sex, or if Jane finds a Musk / Bezos-level entrepreneur with the physique of Michelangelo’s David (except in flesh rather than marble). Life is composed of many desires, needs, and challenges, especially in these United States. All of them demand attention. Alternately, as put by an old friend: You can’t spend your whole life in bed. Trust me on that; I’ve tried.

     Yes, anything can be overdone; that’s why we have the word obsession. The goal is to find a satisfactory blend. If that involves spending a large fraction of your time alone, what of it? If you genuinely wanted some other proportion of activities that would involve you more often with your S.O., you’d be working on it. Wouldn’t you, you highly adaptable problem-solving demon, you?

     Time was, you would call your partner “needy” if he strove to have more of your attention than you wanted to give him. So the loneliness condition has an inverse: a lack of sufficient privacy, or in the happenin’-right-now argot of the cell phone generation, “no me-time.” And yes, I know of people who complain about exactly that. They talk about their S.O.s as if they were leeches they yearned to detach... when their S.O.s can be induced to be elsewhere, of course.

     This is on my mind for a simple reason: these past two weeks, interleaved with all the usual burdens the Fortress of Crankitude lays on me, I’ve been compelled to adjust to the near-constant presence of the C.S.O. in my office, where I write the crap my Gentle Readers come here to savor. Owing to a siege of intense sciatic pain, she tested every seat in the house and discovered that my office recliner is ideal. Sitting in it relieves her sciatica so completely that she’s fallen in love with it. So she’s camped out in my office for two unending weeks. That might not have been so hard to take, except that she brought the dogs, the cats, her cell phone, her laptop, her Kindle, her water bottle and her Salty Snack Of The Day, and Big Fuzzy, her enormous nappy blanket which I bought for her, not forseeing that it would take over her life. It’s made my day’s usual activities much more difficult, and not because she’s always looking over my shoulder.

     I used to sit in that recliner myself, now and then. I’d read, or nap, or jot down notes about some novel I’d probably never write. Ah, those halcyon days of yore. Right up there with the lingerie-and-heels days, I tell you.

     So there can be too much togetherness in a relationship. But you already knew that, didn’t you? Enough of that, for I too am a highly adaptable problem-solving demon. I’ve ordered a duplicate of my recliner for her office. I’m also researching colorless chemical repellants that will keep Joy the Newf and Sophie the German Shepherd / Husky mix on the other side of the house. And can anyone introduce me to music that makes the listener want to be alone? Nothing too coarse or whiny, please. Thanks in advance.

A Day To Remember

     There are many dates on our calendars with historical events attached: the birthdays of presidents; the birthdays of nations; the anniversaries of invasions and the conclusions of the wars they started; and the day Harvey Glumph finally got Jeannie Frizzkopf to agree to go out with him. We celebrate on such days in remembrance of those mighty events and the men who brought them about. That’s part of what it means to know the history of your people. But not every event of great import has a day associated with it. Some such days are forgotten, except for the few fortunate souls who were directly involved in them.

     November 14 in this Year of Our Lord 2025 was such a day:

today I used a wire I’ve kept in my box of cables since 2011. please applaud pic.twitter.com/JRUE94A9IT

— Peyman Milanfar (@docmilanfar) November 15, 2025

     This hero of technology has shown us the fruits of foresight and endurance. We who have our own boxes of cables, and who cherish the memories that reside therein, should praise him. We salute you, Peyman Milanfar! The Fourteenth of November shall be your day henceforth and forevermore.

Important Truths Dept.

     Did you know that millions of people will believe anything at all, however absurd, if it begins with “Did you know that...” -- ?

     No, really! 😉

The Storyteller’s Revenge

     Each of us should do what he’s best at. Hearken to one of my best-loved characters:

     “You know how new I am to all this. I understand about one word in twenty.” Holloway suppressed an urge to fidget. “Most of it goes right over my head. Like how the responsibilities get distributed.”
     Redmond flicked a hand. “We each do what we’re best at.”
     “And you’re best at this.”
     Redmond nodded.
     “It doesn’t bother you to get your marching orders from people who could never do what you do?”
     The young engineer’s grin became wider. “Should it?”
     “Well...”
     Redmond chuckled and rose from his chair. He studied the gray fabric wall of his cubicle for a moment, then leaned back against the edge of his desk.
     “They can’t do what I do—well, maybe Rolf could—but I wouldn’t do what they do. In business, people are placed both for their skills and their willingness to accept responsibilities. Rolf accepts responsibility for the productivity and well-being of the whole Simulations group. For that, he gets a title and a bigger cubicle than this one. Joe Brendel accepts responsibility for the whole Software department. For that, he gets a bigger title, a secretary, and an office with a door.” Muscles quivered in the young face. “Your uncle accepts responsibility for the whole Engineering division. For that, he gets a really big title and wood furniture. I might disagree with some of his decisions, but he takes the heat for them, not me.”

     A storyteller should stick to what he’s good at: telling stories. (This assumes that he is good at that, of course.) In our division-of-labor economy, that relegates certain other components of the business of telling stories to other persons with different (hopefully complementary) expertises. And in accordance with this distribution, some persons will adopt the guise of expertise and hawk themselves to us storytellers as the promoters we need.

     Trouble is, storytellers have a hard time distinguishing the con men from the genuine articles. The con men outnumber the gems by about ten to one. I’ve recently been targeted by several. All of them claim “years of experience.” All of them present skeletal promotional schemes designed to exploit the storyteller’s credulity and hope.

     Seining out the real thing from the con artists is a protracting and emotionally taxing process. An “administrator’s approximation” would be to assume that they’re all con artists, and to proceed on that basis. I’ve made that my working assumption.

     Of course, that assumption has implications that must be frankly faced. If an arbitrary writer – let’s call him Fran, for convenience – is confronted by a come-on from a con man, what’s the most appropriate response? From what response would Fran derive the most benefit and endure the least suffering and cost?

     Right! Fran would tell him a story. I’ve been doing exactly that. And it doesn’t feel like a waste of my time or energies. In fact, it’s been a hell of a lot of fun.

     It’s especially fun when you just know that your solicitor is “working from a template” and hasn’t the least sincere interest in your oeuvre. I have a slew of cold-contact emails in my “Promoters” folder that look as if they were generated from a template, perhaps with the help of an AI or a Microsoft Visual Basic for Word Adapt-o-Gram. I respond to each of them with a freshly generated tale of woe, in my best idiom.

     I told the first of them that I’m a church mouse, that my little family subsists on Scraped Icebox and Dishrag Soup, that we have to feed our dogs mice, squirrels, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. I could never justify spending a small fortune on her eminently worthy efforts! That didn’t quite do the trick; she came back with “Well, what could you afford?” I let her think I was considering it.

     I told another that I’m indifferent to the American market – that my books actually sell quite well in translation. That one wanted to know which nations, of course. I told her Iran, North Korea, and Papua New Guinea. I haven’t heard from her since.

     I told the most recent one that I’m not really the author of the books published under my name. In actuality, I said, I’m a “cut-out;” the author is a crazed Albanian dwarf with a harelip who avoids all publicity for obvious reasons. The dwarf doesn’t care whether his books sell. Indeed, the revenues from them go into a trust for his as-yet-unconceived grandchildren. I expected her to call me out on that one. To my surprise, she didn’t. Well, there’s time.

     They get a politely worded decline-of-service; I get a little exercise for my imagination. It works out for both of us... though I’m sure they’d have preferred a “Where have you been all my life?” response and an offer of riches beyond all avarice. Yes, it also means that if there were an honest workman in the bunch, who really, truly could and would apply himself to promoting my tales, I’ve turned him away all unknowing. Well, there has to be a downside for everything. But as a preservative for a storyteller’s sanity and bank balance, I highly recommend it.

History Always Begins Again

     This morning at X, Clay Travis of Outkick said:

There’s a strong argument America peaked around 1999. Everyone pretty much got along. Most people didn’t have cell phones. And if they did they had no cameras on them. https://t.co/5XH4fiNSPZ

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) October 7, 2025

     (Note in particular that cell phones were not yet common. Hm. If Clay is right, it’s time to look at the correlation between cell-phone proliferation and our more recent miseries. Maybe the radiation from cell-phone towers really does cook the brain. “They” have been talking about it for a long time, but I’ve persistently dismissed it.)

     For myself, I remember significant tensions between the races in 1999. I remember the ceaseless anti-capitalist agitation of the environmentalists and their BANANA (“Build absolutely nothing anywhere near anybody”) campaigns. I remember that the media were relentless promoters of government activism. I remember that taxes were high and getting steadily higher. And of course, Black Tuesday, September 11, 2001 was drawing near.

     Yet in some ways it was a better time. America wasn’t enmeshed in foreign wars. There was no open rioting in the cities. The explosion of several destructive themes in politics was still in the future. Interracial and homosexual couples weren’t yet obligatory in TV dramas. Microprocessors hadn’t yet taken over our toasters. White babies weren’t being vaccinated against dengue fever and schistosomiasis. And I was only 47, relatively fit, and relatively healthy.

     And this joke was still being told:

Joe the COBOL Programmer

     There was once a COBOL programmer in the mid to late 1990s. For the sake of this story, we'll call him Joe. After years of being taken for granted and treated as a technological dinosaur by all the UNIX programmers and Client/Server programmers and website developers, Joe was finally getting some respect. He'd become a private consultant specializing in Year 2000 conversions. He was working short-term assignments for prestige companies, traveling all over the world on different assignments, and making more money than he'd ever dreamed of.

     Joe was working 70 and 80 and even 90 hour weeks, but it was worth it. Soon he could retire. But several years of such relentless, mind-numbing work took its toll on Joe. He had problems sleeping and began having anxiety dreams about the Year 2000. It reached a point where even the thought of the year 2000 made him nearly violent. He must have suffered some sort of breakdown, because all he could think about was how he could avoid the year 2000 and all that came with it.

     Finally, Joe decided to contact a company that specialized in cryogenics. He contracted to have himself frozen until March 15th, 2000. This was a very complex process, but totally automated and utterly reliable. He was thrilled. The next thing he would know, he'd wake up in the year 2000; after the New Year celebrations and computer debacles; after the leap day...nothing else to worry about except getting on with his life. He was put into his cryogenic capsule, the technicians set the revival date, he was given injections to slow his heartbeat to a bare minimum, and that was that.

     The next thing that Joe saw was an enormous and very modern room filled with excited people. They were all shouting, "I can't believe it!" and "It's a miracle" and "He's alive!" There were cameras unlike any he'd ever seen and equipment that looked like it came out of a science fiction movie.

     Someone who was obviously a spokesperson for the group stepped forward. Joe couldn't contain his enthusiasm. "It is over?" he asked. "Is 2000 already here? Are all the millennial parties and promotions and crises all over and done with?"

     The spokesman explained that 2000 had gone, but that there had been a problem with the programming of the timer on Joe's cryogenic receptacle - it hadn't been year 2000 compliant, and it was... well... a few years past that. But the spokesman told Joe that he shouldn't get excited as someone important wanted to speak to him.

     Suddenly a wall-sized projection screen displayed the image of a man that looked very much like Bill Gates. This man was Prime Minister of Earth. He told Joe not to be upset, that this was a wonderful time to be alive--that there was world peace and no more starvation--that the space program had been reinstated and there were colonies on the moon and on Mars--that technology had advanced to such a degree that everyone had virtual reality interfaces which allowed them to contact anyone else on the planet, or to watch any entertainment, or to hear any music recorded anywhere.

     "That sounds terrific," said Joe. "But I'm curious. Why is everybody so interested in me?"

     "Well," said the Prime Minister. "The year 10,000 is just around the corner, and it says in your files that you know COBOL.”

     <rimshot />

Conversations 2021-01-22

     Just a moment ago, the C.S.O. declared her intention to have meatball heroes for tonight’s dinner. Thereupon, she went to our freezer and extracted from it a loaf of Italian bread and a bag that contained four meatballs. She proceeded thence to arrange two meatballs and half a loaf of the aforementioned bread on each of two plates. And the conversation proceeded thus:

FWP: Thus are the limits of the ancient wisdom revealed.
CSO: Huh?

FWP: Well, each of us is getting two meatballs and a hunk of bread, right?
CSO: Yeah, so?

FWP: That clarifies the scope of an old, well known bit of folklore.
CSO: What are you thinking of?

FWP: “You get no bread with one meatball.”
CSO: (scowls in disgust) Oh, for... (unprintable)

     Sometimes I wonder how I’ve lived this long.

Day 365

     That’s today, Gentle Reader: the 30th day of December in this Year of Our Lord 2020 – and who’d like to bet that the Redeemer wouldn’t want his name attached to a year this bad? For all we know, He might be litigating the matter as we speak. But I digress.

     At the end of today we’ll have lived through a conventional calendar year. But 2020 is / was a “leap year,” in which a day is added to the calendar to correct for “sidereal drift:” the slow but steady separation of the calendar date from the sidereal reality. For the period of the Earth’s revolution around the Sun isn’t 365 days exactly; it’s about 365.24 days. That, as Pope Gregory XIII determined in 1582, means we need a “leap day” in our calendars to keep roughly in step with our planet’s position relative to the Sun. Otherwise, the seasons would slowly drift away from the meteorological conditions we expect from them.

     Think that’s unimportant? Umberto Eco would disagree. He founded a magnificent conspiracy novel on the ten day “October leap” – from 4 October 1582 directly to 15 October 1582 – that Pope Gregory decreed to get Christendom in step with the new calendar. (The book takes patience and endurance to read, but it rewards those qualities handsomely at the conclusion.) And yes, further minute adjustments must be made to bring our calendars as close as possible to the sidereal reality: the omission of leap day in years divisible by 100, except for those that are also divisible by 400. But that’s technicata of little interest to the typical Gentle Reader.

     Anyway, you’ve suffered through 365 days of this awful, horrible, no good, rotten, very bad year. You’re entitled to a little relief from its many trying vicissitudes. Herewith, the best your Curmudgeon can do at this early hour.

---

1. Errare Humanum Est.

     Some years ago, a midwestern newspaper editor became so disgusted with the frequency of errors in his publication that he resolved to produce a single article that would be printed completely free of errors. So he sat down and wrote an article about – you guessed it! – the problem of eliminating errors from published material.

     The article came to about 600 words, which he proofread several times, each time seining out one or more typos. He then handed it to his wife, who found several more errors. Not to be thwarted in his quest for perfection, he brought the article to an assistant editor, who found three more errors. Finally, the three of them agreed that the article was error-free, and the editor sent it to the printer for inclusion in the next edition.

     The paper was produced in a three-column format, which was popular at the time. So the printers’ editor formatted the article into three columns of roughly 200 words each, and sent the result to the linotypists.

     When the article appeared in the next day’s paper, it developed that linotypists had “pasted up” the article’s third 200-word segment between the first and second ones. Other than that...!

     True story, friends.

---

2. What’s In a Name?

     One day in the Fifties, a strikingly handsome young man walked into the office of a Hollywood Agent with his resume and portfolio in hand. The agent reviewed the young man's slim resume and small portfolio with the care that was deserving of this fine young specimen.

     "You have obvious good looks and the excellent demeanor of an actor. Tell me, have you had any roles that I might be aware of?"

     "Other than the requisite high school and college plays, no sir," said the handsome young man.

     "I dare say I know the reason why, with a name like yours," said the agent.

     "Sir?"

     "Your name. Penis Van Lesbian. That's not a name that will go far in Hollywood. I'd love to represent you, but you'll have to change your name."

     "Sir," the handsome young man protested. "The Van Lesbian name was my father's, my grandfather's and his father's name. We have carried this name for generations and I will not change it for Hollywood or any other reason."

     "Young man, if you won't change your name, I cannot represent you."

     "Then I bid you farewell, for my name will not change." With that, Penis Van Lesbian left the agent's office, never to return.

     Five Years Later... The Hollywood agent returned to his office after lunch with some Producers and shuffled through his mail. It was mostly junk mail, trade journals and the like. There was one letter. He opened the envelope and removed the letter. As he unfolded the fine linen paper, a check dropped from the folds and onto his desk. It was for fifty thousand dollars! He read the letter:

Dear Sir:

     Several years ago, I entered your office determined to become an actor. You refused to represent me unless I changed my name. I objected, saying that my name had been carried for generations, and left your office. However, upon leaving, I chanced to reconsider my hastiness and, after considerable reflection, I decided to heed your advice and endeavored to change my name. Now I am a famous actor with many roles and am known to millions worldwide. Having achieved this fame and fortune, it is often that I think back to my meeting with you and your insistence that I change my name. I owe you a debt of gratitude, so please accept this check with my humble thanks, for it was your wise counsel which has brought me such wealth and fame.

Very Sincerely Yours,
Dick Van Dyke

     Not a true story, friends.

---

3. The Prime Directive.

     Many years ago – I forget exactly how many – someone who thinks far too much of my brilliance asked me how one goes about having an affair “safely.” She was much younger than I, and therefore not well acquainted with the disillusionments and betrayals that so-called “casual” sex can occasion. But she had her eye on a married man – no, not myself – and apparently he was in accord with her hormones and intentions.

     I tried to counsel her against her intended course, but her gonads were aflame and could not be denied. So, after a day’s thought, I came up with the following, which I emailed to her (from an anonymous account created on a library computer):

     The solution, if you’re unconcerned about your prospects in the afterlife and believe that your marriage can withstand an outside involvement, is obeying the Prime Directive of Adultery:

EQUAL RISK!

• If you’re married, he must be married as well.
• If you have a middle-class income and existence, then so must he.
• If you have children, he must have children — preferably the same number and about the same ages.
• If you must travel a considerable distance to your trysts, then he should have to do the same.

     …and so on. Adultery’s potential consequences for the two of you should be well matched. Any kind of asymmetry represents both a source of stress on the affair and a potential lever for one of you to use against the other.

     Never, ever assume that something that begins with wine and roses can’t possibly devolve to pistols at dawn. Always equalize the risks!

     (This is not an endorsement of adultery, which remains forbidden by the Sixth Commandment and is still against the law in many jurisdictions. Neither is it an offer to commit adultery, which can only be done by formal prospectus. Adultery’s risks include legal, spiritual, physiological, and emotional consequences, not all of which are completely understood. Side effects include increased expenses on clothes, shoes, and perfume, frequent trips to the salon, aggressive dieting, cosmetic surgery, and excessive gazing into the mirror. Past performance is no guarantee of future performance. No spouses were harmed in the making of this feature. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer.)

     I never heard from her thereafter, so I can’t say how well she followed my rather tongue-in-cheek advice.

---

     That’s all for today, I think. There’s a fair amount of foofaurauw taking place at the Fortress just now, so expect me back tomorrow at the soonest. Until then, try to stay upbeat and enjoy Day 365 as much as possible. Remember Rachman’s Maxim:

“Everything is darkest just before it turns pitch black.”

     Toodle-oo!

For The “Clean Minded” (UPDATED)

     “Let's have no more talk of bestial orgasms and erotic tonguings. It burns high-voltage holes in the brain. It's been proved in oscillographs.” – Peter O’Toole as Jack Arnold Alexander Tancred Gurney, 14th Earl of Gurney in The Ruling Class

     I have another bone to chew over with you all, and – much like the previous one – it’s entirely inappropriate for the day and the season. After all, we’re about to commemorate the birth of the Son of God from the Blessed Virgin Mary: an even in which sex was not involved. Though eighty generations of Mankind have been produced by sexual congress since that blessed event, the thrust of that event was entirely asexual. So a discussion of anything that involves sex is...well...not quite in the Christmas spirit.

     Actually, this tirade isn’t about sex per se; it’s about terminology.

     I subscribe to a couple of services that publicize new eBook releases. As you might expect, these services categorize the eBooks they promote according to genre, so the client can go directly to the group of new eBooks that he’s most likely to want to read. There are sections for every genre one might care to read, including a few even I was unaware of until I encountered them through one or another of these services. I’ve also used such services to promote my own new releases.

     One of those services recently repartitioned its Romance category into several subsectors, including “Clean Romance” and “Steamy Romance.” As you might have anticipated, novels in the former group are sex-free; those in the latter are sex-heavy. There’s a gray zone category simply called “Romance.” That probably embraces works that include a little sex. How little that should be to qualify, I cannot say; the service leaves the categorization decision to the author.

     I must ask: Is clean the antonym of steamy? They don’t strike me as proper opposites. Among other things, we use steam to clean certain garments, steam mops to clean certain kinds of flooring, and steam jennies to clean automobile engines. The terms might be easily enough understood in context, but counterpoising them this way does a certain violence to the language.

     Once again I must ask: Why not Clean and Dirty Romance? That is, if the service wants to give clients the impression that it’s run by old Grundyites who pretend to be above all that grubby grunting, moaning, and emission of fluids. Or perhaps they would prefer to call the categories Steamy and Cool Romance, for an improved appearance of sophistication? In either case, the terms would be closer to antonymic. That way, when the kiddies sneak books out of our private stashes to goggle at under their bedcovers with flashlights, their minds might be warped but at least their vocabularies wouldn’t be bruised.

     Television, texting, and the public schools are already doing enough to miseducate our progeny. The fiction industry must not give them aid and comfort with inappropriate word choices. Take your stand today!

     [UPDATE: An old friend has just written to suggest an even better pair of adjectives: Decent Romance versus Indecent Romance! As another old friend once observed, “If it’s in hard enough and deep enough, it’s in decent.” But I digress.]

Writs

     I’ve long been interested in the history of the English legal system, particularly in the centuries after the Norman Conquest. It had many aspects that would look unfamiliar even to a well-educated lawyer of our time. Among the ones I find most interesting are the “forms of action” available to judges and litigants in Norman courts. These took the shape of writs: documents that were required to conform to exact specifications, and which therefore limited the scope of judicial activism. Each writ had a Latin name descriptive of the kind of action sought and / or granted by the court. I am aware of twenty such writs; there may be others.

     Persons familiar with the Constitution will already know about the writ of habeas corpus (“You may have the body”): the action by which a gaoler is commanded to show cause for the imprisonment of a named party. There are only a few “valid replies” to a habeas corpus petition. Unless one of those replies is made and substantiated, the imprisoned party must be freed.

     Another writ of importance in American jurisprudence is the writ of certiorari (“To be determined”): A certiorari petition requests the attention of an appellate court to a particular case or pleading. If the appellate court agrees to hear the case, it’s said to have “granted cert;” to refuse to hear the case is to “deny cert.” The U.S. Supreme Court is barraged each year with such “cert petitions.”

     Just now there’s a controversy swirling around the Supreme Court owing to its denial of cert to the Trump Campaign’s case against several states concerning the theft of the presidential election. The Court denied cert on the grounds of “no standing,” which many legal authorities have deplored as a dishonest way to avoid involvement in the largest legal controversy in American history. Some have suggested that Chief Justice John Roberts compelled his colleagues to deny cert out of fear, though fear of what is left open to speculation.

     To remedy this unsatisfactory situation, I suggest that the Trump Campaign refile under the little known but magnificently effective writ of habemus in te magnum stercore. This writ, unknown to the Normans, can be of great power in a situation where contending pressure groups are straining to bend a judge or a Justice toward one or another side’s contention. Indeed, it can sometimes determine the verdict all by itself. Some think the Left has made use of this writ to bend Chief Justice Roberts in previous cases.

     What do you think, Gentle Readers who are also legal scholars?

Conversations

     The C.S.O. recently – i.e., about ten days ago – ordered a case of wine from a winery of which we’re part owners. As of yesterday morning, we still hadn’t been given a shipping date, much less a delivery date. This has given rise to some consternation:

FWP: Why are they unable to tell us that the wine has been shipped, at least?
CSO: (shrugs) It’s that way all over. Anyone who does business over the Web is having a problem.

FWP: I can’t see why that should be. After all, we’ve been dealing with this WuFlu crap since March!
CSO: It’s not the virus, it’s Christmas season. Shipping is always tougher in December.

FWP: I still don’t get it. It’s not like we don’t know Christmas is coming on December 25 every year. Or did UPS and FedEx think the government would cancel that, too?
CSO: The bottleneck isn’t at the delivery services, sweetie; it’s at the retailers themselves. Their shipping departments can’t cope with the surge of orders.

FWP: Makes no sense. If anyone should know how to get wine through a bottleneck, surely a winery would. I mean, we do it every evening!
CSO: (Unprintable)

A Sermonette For The Digital Age

     If you die laughing, don’t blame me. (Or have your heirs sue me.)

     That says it all, I think.