Circa24's Blog, page 5
August 27, 2023
Goodreads Gave away of 100 copies of Silent Consent
Between August 28 and Sept 9, 2023, we gave away 100 copies of Silent Consent in a Goodreads Giveaway promotion. We thank all of you who entered and hope you enjoyed the book
If you don’t have a Goodreads account, you’re missing out on some great deals.
Goodreads Giveaway of 100 copies of Silent Consent
Between August 28 and Sept 9, 2023, we’re giving away 100 copies of Silent Consent in a Goodreads Giveaway promotion. We hope you’ll enter to win a copy. Our link for the promotion is:
Enter to win one of 100 copies of Silent Consent by Circa24
If you’re like me and distrustful of links on websites, just sign into you’re Goodreads account and check out our promotion of Silent Consent and the books of many other emerging and established authors. You may just find your new favorite book there.
If you don’t have a Goodreads account, you’re missing out on some great deals.
August 21, 2023
Chemicals in Everyday Products Link to Infertility
Every day products, such as phthalates (a plastic softener) effect fertility. These compounds are also found in many air fresheners, cosmetics and many fragranced products. Bisphenols alter estrogen levels and also can interfere with fertility, as can many pesticides and flame retardants. As a result, we can see reduced fertility not just in humans but in wildlife.
Microplastics and Male Fertility
Plastics have built modern civilization over the past century, but the price of that wonder may be higher than we thought. Minimata disease, caused by the mercury used to make PVCs, was an early warning that something was amiss. More recently, we learned how exposure to plastics can alter our physiology. PVC and PUR products have potential links to obesity, and microplastics are linked to male infertility. Silent Consent by Circa24 uses these findings to set the stage for a future in which love levels of male fertility make “gannies” (fertile males) a marketable commodity targeted by corrupt criminal enterprises. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9134445/
June 17, 2023
Parasitic Birds Blend into Their Nests
Be they protists, worms, or vertebrates, parasites depend on their ability to deceive. The nest parasites, like the cowbird and cuckoo, mimic the offspring of their host birds. Their eggs often look like the eggs of a host bird (at least within the visual world of the host), and when they hatch they imitate the hunger calls of the baby host birds. Some can imitate the calls of a nest full of hungry chicks. Although their eggs and offspring are usually larger than their host, the adoptive parents don’t care. In fact, birds favor large offspring because it signals health. The parasite takes advantage of the inability of the host to overcome their preference for large healthy babies. When an animal gives the same response to a stimulus and can’t vary it, we call the stimulus-response behavior “fixed,” and we call it a Fixed Action Pattern.
The Wisdom of Loki, by Ptera Hunter, explores patterns of deceit in the natural world, including predator-prey, parasitic, and molecular deceits.
April 4, 2022
Civility in Discourse: Should We Always Endure a Silenced Heart?
By Circa24 (author of Silent Consent)
When I heard that Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars, I felt dismayed by the violence. Then, I heard about the cruel and thoughtless joke that Mr. Rock made at the expense of Mr. Smith’s beloved wife.
How dare someone bully a person with a medical condition and call it “comedy?” I place Mr. Rock’s “humor” on par with President Trump’s when he mocked Serge F. Kovaleski, the reporter with a muscular disability.
Although I abhor violence, I re-evaluated my initial response. Smith sat there and listened as Rock publicly humiliated someone he loved. Then, he went to the stage, and rather than punching him, he had enough restraint to limit his blow to a slap. Mr. Smith, if you read this, I am not sure I would have had the same self-restraint if someone verbally and publicly bullied a person whom I loved. I doubt that I would have endured a silenced heart.
Discourse had become increasingly uncivil. The cheap and hurtful laughs of bullying now pass for mainstream comedy. Mr. Smith reminded us that violations of personal boundaries and toying with our emotions can have consequences. When pushed beyond reason, people will respond.
The immediate cause of the altercation lies not with Will Smith but with Chris Rock’s abusive and goading attempts at humor. However, the ultimate cause lies with us, a society that has increasingly tolerated and accepted cheap laughs at the expense of someone’s person rather than their actions.
—Circa24
The Silenced Heart, Copyright Circa24, 2017
February 2, 2022
Kudos to a Great Graphic Artist Rubin Bolling: Alternative MAUS Hits Home
-by Ptera Hunter
Among the best responses that I have seen to date about the recent mashugana decision by the Tennessee School Board to ban a book about the holocaust (because a cartoon mouse shows a breast) comes from graphic artist Ruben Bolling (a.k.a., Tom the Dancing Bug.) One of Mr. Bolling’s most recent parodies, the Approved Maus, features two mice desperate to be themselves in a world that demands masks and vaccines. In lieu of a license to post it, I am providing a link to his blog and cartoon:
https://boingboing.net/author/ruben_bolling
As the author of a book on deceit, I feel compelled to ask the school board, “Are you kidding me? –Or, is your intent more malignant?”
Mashugana (adj, n. ): Yiddish expression that describes someone or something as crazy, nonsensical or bizarre. E.g.: (1)The mashugana school board think eight graders will be scarred for life by seeing a dead cartoon mouse with an exposed breast. (2) The mashuganas think we’ll believe that they banned Maus is over a fake mouse’s breast to protect children, even as the threats from bullying continue to haunt LGBTQ and Jewish kids.
Click to access Tennessee_Snapshot_2017_0.pdf
(study published in 2019)
https://forward.com/fast-forward/424366/nazi-salute-heil-hitler-tennessee-11-year-old-girl/
(Article from 2019)
The sales of Maus have skyrocketed since the ban was announced. Please, ladies and gentlemen of the Tennessee School Board, please ban my books! I need the income.
January 30, 2022
The Downside of the Growth Curve?
Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, human populations have sky-rocked. In 1800, approximately one billion people lived on our planet. At that time, we lived on the energy of the sunlight that came down each year or stored in trees and crops over a few years to decades. Once we learned to exploit fossilized fuels (= the sun energy trapped in coal and oil), our population levels began to soar. They turned upward again as we learned about plant nutrition and how to improve crop yields.
In nature, the rate at which populations grow begins to slow (the inflection point) when they exceed the ability of a habitat to provide enough resources to maintain their growth rate. By the time the numbers stabilize (the stationary phase), by the time that the death rate and the birth rates are equal, this point has passed.
Humans can reduce their population growth through education campaigns and birth control measures.
They can also do it the old-fashioned way by passing the inflection point for growth, and suffering from increased competition for resources has increased and will grow worse. At such a point, societies will do what they need to do to survive. If they lack food, they will take measures to obtain it. If they lack energy, they will do what they need to do to get it. The quest for the energy in fossil fuels has led to wars and discord. It can also radically alter our perception of others, increase xenophobia, and reverse our intolerance for the enslavement of others as units of energy.
Many countries are now suffering from more deaths than births, and few of these have happened through voluntary programs of birth reductions.
https://www.statista.com/chart/26634/start-year-of-negative-net-births-by-country/
Although dystopian novels date at least as far back as the reformation (Thomas Moore’s Utopia),
Although dystopian stories date at least as far back as Thomas Moore’s 1551 book Utopia, the first block-buster modern dystopian book is probably Margaret Atwood’s 1985 book, A Handmaid’s Tale. This book describes a dystopian world where an intolerant sect gains power and reduces women to enslavement.
Silent Consent, by Circa24, envisions a world with dwindled resources, one in which the population has collapsed. It has resorted to a brutal system of enslavement. Although some form of forced labour is the punishment for any violations of the law, the most severe form of debasement, “demotion,” is reserved for the most severe offences, including smutting (violent pornography), nepotism or “energy crimes.” These punishments can extend to relatives, and the practice serves as a weapon of terror that keeps the lower castes in their place while providing a ready energy source for those in power.
Tennessee School Board Bans MAUS Over a Naked Mouse.
an editorial by our writer, Circa24, author of Silent Consent
Now, in 2022, the Tennessee school board wishes to ban Maus by Art Spiegelman (1980). It claims that it doesn’t mind people learning about the Shoah, as long as it’s sanitized! “A naked” picture in the Pulitzer-winning graphic novel Maus displays one character after her suicide, naked in the bathtub with a breast showing.
Did I mention that the offending character is a mouse? A cartoon mouse?
They objected to the profanity in the book. I doubt that the board members could believe that any of the language in the book remains unknown to their children. Perhaps they think that the Nazis were always polite and refined as they humiliated and tortured people.
Apparently, they don’t mind teaching about the holocaust, as long as it is sanitized to hide the true horrors of what happened. May I suggest that if they are that concerned with the comfort and sheltering of children that they turn their efforts to reducing the endemic of bullying in schools? It could be far more significant to their welfare if they addressed the current humiliations of children rather than preventing them from knowing about history through a culturally accessible medium.
Right after I heard the news, I ordered my fresh copy on Amazon.
Given the great sales that bans the work created for Maus (A. Spiegelman), and the television show Lucifer (based on Neil Gaiman’s graphic novel), I can only hope that our current bonfire of the vanities gives Silent Consent the same free publicity boost. It too contains graphic descriptions of the indignities endured by enslaved people, and as in Margaret Atwood’s A Handmaids Tale (also banned in places for its sexual and violent content), Silent Consent’s indignities are based on historical atrocities committed against enslaved peoples.
(Personal note to the members of the Tennessee school board: if you are turned on by the breast of a cartoon mouse, get help now! You might have a very kinky fetish that you are projecting onto kids.)
Read Banned Books– Circa24
October 4, 2021
Snake in the Hole, Harding Co., SD.
Unlike the hognose snake, which mimics a rattler, this little snake depends upon discretion. Rather than advertising venom, it tries to blend into its surroundings—mimicking its background rather than a dangerous predator.
Racer/ Whipsnake; by Ptera Hunter 2001This little snake is so confident in her green camouflage and cryptic behaviors that she can look upon the approaching photographer as if to say, “Wow, it’s a giant hairless primate!”
Wait! How do I know it is a “she?” I don’t. But I don’t know it’s a “he” either. I just flipped a coin. Learn more about deceit in the natural world. Read The Wisdom of Loki by Ptera Hunter.
