Portals to Alternate Realities: painting

 Now for something quite different…

 People create all kinds of alternate realities these days. Not that this hasn’t happened before: fake moon landing, flat earth, lizard people… But creating an alternate reality for fiction’s sake, and to study it, is not as easy as one would think. It took me about 15 years to get my book Autocide where I needed it to be before the soft cover could be released: yesterday.
 OK, “ready” is a relative term. If I had waited for that blessed moment of absolute perfection I might still be deep down that editing black hole: stuck on the edge of ready: no light, no word, no escape. Instead, yesterday, books should have start being delivered, put out on out on some shelves. An exciting time. If not there, ask for it.
 As one of my songwriter friends said about writing back when I was selling my songs on Music Row, in Nashville, “Sometimes you have to sacrifice your babies.” If only people who come up with so many current alternate “facts” were as attentive to their constructs. I’m sure you know some, or at least think you do.
 There’s so much more to designing an alternate reality for readers. If you have a society that is ours, yet not, you have to micromanage to do it right. Like addressing what is politics like in this alternate timeline. Plotting it all out on a board or paper helps. Small changes gather bigger changes, like a suggestion Barack Obama was assassinated in my timeline. Joe Biden’s son dies earlier. Hillary become VP just before the assassination. Then she is Gerald Ford-ed: defeated by Sarah Palin.
 Sarah Palin??? Read more

  Think Q silly? Think those who attacked Congress can be squashed by indictments, or prison terms? Be aware: what once was mocked, squashed, tends to rise again. That’s true whether it was the small, local, ministry of Jesus, or Q and the worldwide wave of White Nationalism.

 Who imagined, during the time of Jesus, and especially after the crucifixion, the Empire would shift from mostly polytheists, and Jews, to a widespread Christian kingdom?
 Who imagined after WWI, or after Hitler’s putsch, that an all too cult-like movement would end up as ruling another empire with its blood thirsty mad Fuhrer, helped by cults of an Emperor and Mussolini. Together this Trinity almost conquered the world.
 Who thought, after a decisive WWII defeat, almost 100 years later, Nazis would proudly goosestep in Charlottesville claiming, “Jews will not replace us?” And a president call some “good people?”
 Who imagined, after last summer, the crowd that loudly condemned BLM and (supposed) Antifa violence in our streets; would violently attack Congress just a few months later. Beating cops with flag poles. Dragging them face down down cement stairs and beat them again. Plant pipe bombs. Constructing a gallows to hang, among others, their own VP?
 I am not saying all these groups are exactly the same. Just cults, or cult like, dismissed at first as less than consequential, groups that will just go away. When the Jews first did battle they too were considered much what we would now call a cult and dismissed. I am warning about how cults, and cult-like groups, are almost always under estimated.
 ”Cult” not necessarily bad nor good; just not orthodox, not accepted, often small. Historically what were once called cults often (not always by any means) became more mainstream, even considered orthodox. Beliefs many laughed at become dogma. Jesus wasn’t respected by anywhere near all in his faith (Judaism) during his time, though like Donald Trump people tend to think large gatherings proved such conclusions. Certainly not respected by most orthodox Jews, or Jewish leaders, during that time. A whole new religion had to be created. They packed his bags and moved their revised concepts of Jesus, and what they claimed he taught, claimed he said, to a new home called Christianity. And, eventually, an Empire was conquered. Just not as Messiah seeking Jews thought it would happen during his time and before. Read more

 Every once in a while I have to retype, or reedit, an old column that is one of my favorites. I have written this column so long, and bounced between different venues, I’m not surprised a lot has been lost. This one isn’t political, though when politics and religion merge: as they so often do these days, I suppose one might say it addresses politics in a odd way. And I like the fact every time I rewrite a column new thoughts, new perspectives, flow forth. It’s also been rewritten as a somewhat odd Christmas/seasonal edition.

 My father, Bill, was never a religious man until the very end. I guess the best description might have been an agnostic. But insisting on living in the middle of nowhere, known by his own choice as “The Ding-a-Ling Hermit of Twitchell Lake,” I’m sure he got lonely and started going to a church in Inlet, NY. The minister was Yogi Best. I knew Yogi when I was an ad salesman for for WADR in Remsen, NY: a station long gone.
 Anywhosie…
 The year before he died Dad and I were sitting in our home on Twitchell Lake and he was telling me about the miracle he learned about at church. “True” believers got lost in the Adirondacks: easy to do considering the vast amount forever wild. It was in a blinding snowstorm. They got down on their knees and prayed. The weather cleared and the way home became clear.
 ”How’s that for proof!?” Read more

 My wife and I don’t buy gifts anymore. Not even for each other. Maybe a good meal and a movie. Santa seems to respect that; or maybe too busy joy riding in his sleigh. I hear he does to tacky, bad, decorations what vandals do to mail boxes with a bat. Not a fan of misleading myths, like Jesus came to America, or that the tipping of the tables somehow wipes out all his kind, loving, messages.
 Jokes and seasonal rants aside, when you live far away from relatives, or most of them are gone, I think Christmas abandonment tends to happen. But this year I am telling my wife, Millie, AND Santa, I DO want something for Christmas…

 I don’t mean “our country back” in the same sense those who cry out, “We want our country back!” do. This is not the left’s country. This is not the right’s country. The country belongs to all citizens, not politically correct ones. No matter what your definition of “politically correct” is. It’s not some one sided problem. The concept doesn’t belong to one group of partisans.
 Any measurement other than “ALL” is no more than a demand for a one party dictatorship with, at best, a two party façade.
 I want my country back.
 I want YOUR country back.
 I want all citizen’s country back. Read more

                  Courtesy Avgeekery.com

 Let’s change the nature of the gifts we give ourselves as a nation! What we don’t need under our national Christmas tree is a lot more aircraft carriers, missiles, the kind of jets used for dogfights.

 No, I don’t mean “defund.”
 No, I don’t mean we owe anyone some massive refund.
 I mean, other than replacing very dated equipment, we need to refocus our military dollars, or “re-fund.” We need to do this before we decide more, or less, cut anything. This about is HOW we spend what’s allocated. How our military money is spent.
  I’m not advocating for any mass dumping of weapon systems. or mothballing. At least not right now, or the near future. Such decisions need long, careful, non-partisan consideration. I certainly don’t want a repeat of soldiers marching with wooden “guns,” like they did pre-WWII.
 But for now what we don’t need is another missile, another tank, another aircraft carrier, another fighter jet: unless we are updating very dated tech. However, we do need to get away from decisions based on an old cold war model. Of what use is an aircraft carrier against bands of terrorists? Of what use are missiles against a bomb vest? Of what use is an aircraft carrier against cyber hackers who can shut down vital services, hack into controls for a nuclear plant, misinform the public that leads them to attack: to provide one example, a pizza parlor that supposedly has a pedophile ring in a non-existent cellar? Read more