JamesSavik

I wish I would have an epiphany and figure out why every story I write turns into a novella.

As an author, I am often bemused by the behavior of some of my characters.

Scientific Consensus Alfred 1 Wegener (1880-1930) was a German meteorologist who picked up an interest in geology. He wondered why some continents like Africa and South America fit together almost like a key? He began to wonder: do continents move? In Victorian times such an idea seemed ludicrous as every good Christian fundamentalist knew that the world was 10,000 years old. Anyone who might suggest processes like Wegener s or his contemporary James Hutton that took place over hundreds of millions of years was obviously daft. But Wegener’s suggestion that continents actually did move over time answered questions in biology. Why are there related species on the different continents but- they are obviously distant relatives. Obviously, well adapted for their environments, similar but obviously related. This did not prove Continental drift but, it certainly made a case for further investigation. Wegener suffered for his outlandish theory. No one in the scientific community gave his ideas any credence, and he didn’t get tenure at a prestigious university. In fact, he was a laughingstock. He died at the age of fifty doing field work in Greenland. His theory did not die. It didn’t come back as a coherent theory until the technology was developed to gather the data needed to prove that continents did indeed move. The theory of Plate tectonics was born and still remains controversial in some circles, but it is now a theory with hard data to back it up. This is a theme repeated time after time in science. If someday someone will come up with a theory better than plate tectonics, then science will adopt it. Otherwise, it works, it explains how demonstrable phenomena works, and it can be measured. Always be skeptical when someone tells you that the science is settled. Skepticism is the way of science: someone has an idea (hypothesis), then we test, test, test it. If it works, it becomes a theory. If not, we go back to the drawing board. Science is never static. Our understanding of ourselves, our planet and our universe is always changing. Anyone who tells you the science is settled doesn’t have a clue how science works. If the history of science is any guide, the “consensus” is wrong more than its right. We need mavericks like Wegener to show us a new way of looking at our world. The big question now is our climate changing? Yes. It has changed numerous times. Climate in geological time has changed for a number of reasons from comet bombardment, volcanic out-gassing and variations in solar output. The question of the age is that climate change man made or is it a natural cycle like a Grand Solar minimum. This question is by no means settled. Both hypothesis have their merits. Pretending that we know this answer is the worst sort of scientific hubris. We don’t know. We need to know because both models will treat 7 billion humans harshly. Only one is the right answer and getting it wrong would be a disaster.

In February of 2020 many people at my church got “the crud”. It was headache, fever and aches. Everyone got over it in a week at most. It wasn’t until one of our members took a blood antibody test that we figured out we had it before it was fashionable. No one including our elderly got worse than a modest case.

My story The Summer Job wrapped this week. I was gratified to see a good review and many, many supportive comments.

Yes it is Narcotics Anonymous and Oct 1st I got my 18 year medallion

the Second Time Around 1978 I first met Randy when I was sixteen, and he was fifteen. I met him at Frank's house- a guy from my football team that I screwed around with from time to time. He enticed me to come over by telling me about a cute kid from his neighborhood that wanted to join in. Randy was a shy kid. He wasn't big, athletic or a jock. He was cute and a lot more feminine than most of the guys I previously messed around with. What caught my attention was his bright, intel

Some people might think that the 1st memes invented were Keyboard cat, Philosoraptor and the numa-numa guy. That would be very, very wrong. Imagine you lived in a Kingdom that was one of the most powerful and influential in the world but, it had fallen on hard times. The king was, by all accounts, a corrupt incompetent dolt. The people were hungry and the spoiled, foolish Queen, when told there was no bread for the peasants said let them eat cake. While this might sound uncomfortably familiar to modern Americans, this was the climate that gave rise to the French Revolution. It was also the fertile ground for the French satirists who I submit were early generation memers. What people fail to understand about memes is they are much more about ideas than humor but the combination of the two makes them that much more powerful. What we call memes is an evolution of an ancient idea called satire more succinctly defined as the illustration of the absurd with absurdity. Every middle schooler naturally knows about satire because that is when they inevitably meet an incompetent and bungling bureaucracy. One must take care with satire as to be a proper smart ass, you must first be smart. Otherwise, you are just an ass. There were many French satirists. I would like to focus on a gentleman named Voltaire. Voltaire and the French satirists used their wit to point out the myriad hypocrisies and inequities of their political and social situations. Like Charlie Hebdo, many of the French Revolutionary era satirists faced rather deadly blow-back from those that failed to see the humor in their work. This was an amazing era and one that the modern democracies owe much to because many of the things we see as foundations of democracy were first discussed by the thinkers during this era. They were seeing the end of the monarchy as a practical form of government and looked forward to imagine what the next step would look like. See if you recognize any of Voltaire’s ideas: I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. Judge a person by their questions, rather than their answers. To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize. It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong. Common sense is not so common. It is hard to free fools from the chains they revere. Prejudices are what fools use for reason. As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities. When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion. Superstition sets the whole world in flames; reason quenches them. Voltaire would have been hell on wheels if he had internet access. Be suspicious when you hear people in power discount the ideas of others. Those silly memers that poke them right in the hypocrisies have quite the history. So, when you see memers banned from facebook or twitter, what you are really seeing is da man swatting the Socratic gad-fly that stung him in a sore spot. Only a fearful tyrant censors speech. He is afraid that you will tell the people just what a putz he really is.

Read his bio here. Pay attention to the part about his marital status and how Disney fucked him over at 21. Tommy Kirk's Bio in The Sun Was Tommy Kirk married? Kirk remained unmarried throughout his life. Despite being viewed as one of Disney's favorite kid actors, it was previously reported that the company fired him over being gay in 1964 when he was 21-years-old. According to TMZ, Kirk once said: "When I was about 17 or 18 years old, I finally admitted to myself that I wasn’t going to change. I didn’t know what the consequences would be, but I had the definite feeling that it was going to wreck my Disney career and maybe my whole acting career. It was all going to come to an end." The child star added: "Eventually, I became involved with somebody and I was fired."

This is why I stay in the South. Yes, in the summer it’s hotter than balls but we don’t get sastrugas.

Here's a little something to set the mood for Halloween!

After cookies, the younger kids began to slow down. They had been playing hard all day and by eleven-thirty, many were played out. The younger boys used the showers in the down-stairs locker rooms. Phillip’s plan was for the younger boys to bed down in the racquetball courts. Gym mats were laid out, and they unrolled their sleeping bags. By eleven-thirty most of the younger boys were lying on their sleeping bags in little clumps chatting with their friends. Mikie had been keeping an

If you are ever up for a truly classic yarn, Xenophon's March of the 10000 is a great story. It is an adventure that explores leadership in ways that keep modern readers coming back.

One of the most pernicious toxins to a republic is the enervating blend of cronyism and corruption. At some point, it transitions to a cronyocracy which serves not the republic but only itself.

Fun and games was the theme of the night. The boys wanted to play, and they had the gym to themselves for the night. Phillip and his minions had things well organized. Mikie was running the activities around the pool and Brice was supervising the three-on-three basketball tournament raging on the hardwood. Other games and activities had broken out at random. Some boys wanted to wrestle, play board games, watch movies and others were just fine with hanging out with their friends. The

In short stories, every jot and tittle matters. Every word must serve a purpose to drive the plot. Origin:

This word has a root most people won't get. There's a reason why classical education has been dismissed. Gentlemen like this and their words challenge people through the ages to THINK FOR YOURSELF and there are those who just can't have that. Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman Statesman, scholar, academia and skeptic. He said things like this.... "Do not blame Caesar, blame the people of Rome who have so enthusiastically acclaimed and adored him and rejoiced in their loss of freedom and danced in his path and gave him triumphal processions. Blame the people who hail him when he speaks in the Forum of the 'new, wonderful good society' which shall now be Rome, interpreted to mean 'more money, more ease, more security, more living fatly at the expense of the industrious.'" ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero "Politicians are not born; they are excreted." ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero "Six mistakes mankind keeps making century after century: Believing that personal gain is made by crushing others; Worrying about things that cannot be changed or corrected; Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it; Refusing to set aside trivial preferences; Neglecting development and refinement of the mind; Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do." ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero "A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself." ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero "Poor is the nation that has no heroes, but poorer still is the nation that having heroes, fails to remember and honor them." ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero "Though liberty is established by law, we must be vigilant, for liberty to enslave us is always present under that very liberty. Our Constitution speaks of the "general welfare of the people." Under that phrase all sorts of excesses can be employed by lusting tyrants to make us bondsmen." ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero For more about him ==> Marcus Tullius Cicero There is nothing truly new under the sun. All the same mistakes have been made before. So swallow your god-awful red pill and wake up.

One of the writing tropes of the fifties that I would love to see resurrected is Heinlein's "Competent Man". In writing and culture, there are forces at work that attempt to portray men as weak and incompetent as possible. This has all sorts of negative consequences as nations are only as strong as their men. Every man is capable of being a polymath. It is merely a matter of backbone and confidence.

That has been the problem since ~2000 when people that have never been readers started making movies. They order a screenplay from the 10,000 Typing Monkeys's Script Shop which gets the cliff notes version of the novel, adds some bullshit and before long you've got Verhoeven's Starship Troopers or Marc Forster's World War Z. The only thing the movies have in common with the novels is the name and a few characters. From what I understand, the new Dune is cut from different cloth. They are actually staying very close to the source material. I am cautiously optimistic. Fair warning. If they f* this up, when I die, I'll come back and haunt the bastards.

If you're lucky, you'll get to bask in a truly hot guy's refulgence.

Nothing works without a scientific basis. The science behind astrology actually works at the time of conception, not birth. The combination of the electromagnetic background of the universe and the sun leave a quantum stamp on your DNA at conception. All the other stuff about rising signs, planets and stuff are so much junk. That's why it sort of works in generalities but breaks down when you try to get specific. Anyone that tells you that you are going to have a good week because Jupiter is in Leo is full of it. Now if they tell you that Scorpios are sexy and Leos are sweet, they might be right.

There are some people that need to be frog-marched to a guillotine, so we can see the expressions on their privileged faces as their heads roll into the basket. Vive la révolution!

This legendary skater... ...is now a legendary guitarist Tommy Guerrero and his Soul Food Taqueria is serving up a mix of spicy rifts extra smooth. Muy Bueno!

COVID-19 is a modified Coronavirus(1). Coronaviruses are first cousin to the Rhinovirus which cause the lions share of head colds. One guess which family causes the rest of them: coronaviruses. Coronavirus and Rhinovirus are positive stranded RNA virus which means their genetic material is the single stranded RiboNucleaic Acid (RNA). They differ significantly from DioxyNucleaic Acid (DNA) based viruses. RNA viruses do not have double-stranded genetic material of DNA viruses and are much smaller than their more evolved cousins. As a consequence, RNA viruses do not have the error correcting mechanism built into dual stranded DNA, and are apt to mutate at the drop of a hat. These mutations happen very rapidly, and soon a population with and Alpha RNA virus will soon have Beta, Gamma, and Delta strains. It is possible to create a vaccine for a specific Rhino or Coronavirus, but the problem is that each mutation Serotype will differ enough from the original that the probability that the vaccine will work decreases with generational mutation. This is why there has never been a vaccine for the common cold. There are literally hundreds of thousands of Rhinoviruses and Coronaviruses each with a unique protein shell. It is that serotype that vaccines use to train our immune systems to look out for. This is also why the COVID-19 vaccine is of very limited efficacy. Most of them do a reasonable job of inoculating against the original COVID strain, it is only partially effective against current sub-strains of COVID like Delta and Gamma. It will be completely useless against future substrains as they diverge further and further from the baseline COVID serotype. Without hysteria, consider what Coronaviruses and Rhinoviruses actually do: they cause mild respiratory illness. In patients who are elderly, present with pre-existing conditions or compromised immune systems, this can escalate to a viral pneumonia. Nothing has really changed other than we have a wide-spread virus with shadowy origins that make us all very nervous. The way that it has been handled on a national and international level is extremely questionable. Why destroy national economies for a virus with a 99.8%+ recovery rate? Why force vaccinations when natural herd immunity is better for actually killing the damn thing eventually? A much more rational policy is to protect vulnerable populations like the elderly, people with pre-existing conditions and compromised immune systems than to inflict vaccination on an entire population. One of the dirty little secrets of vaccination is that the tiny rate of Vaccine Injury when applied over a large enough population may eventually kill more people than the virus itself. It's not ignorance alone that has people looking askance at the mass vaccination for COVID. I have had both doses of the Pziefer vaccine. I took it because I am around many elderly people. Knowing what I know now, I won't be taking anymore. This entire COVID phenomenon has been managed fear and hysteria which has been leveraged by sharp operators and oppertunists for political advantage, and to enrich themselves by the billions while spreading misery and economic disaster to the rest of us. It is past time to JUST SAY NO to the overreach. __________________________ 1- https://centerforsecuritypolicy.org/nih-funded-chinas-gain-of-function-research-at-the-wuhan-institute-of-virology/x