Sarah A. Hoyt's Blog, page 320

Vignettes

This is entirely my fault. I know Mary sent me a vignette post, but thunderbird is even more frustrating than wordpress, and I can’t find it.

So, I’m taking over. In a hundred words or less, give me a story opening that gives character, setting and problem.

Make it live. Go.

Terrorists

I was going to call this post “What Do You Think Will Happen?” then I realized our problems are much, much bigger than that. But hold on to that thought, as it is what has been going through my mind these last three days, while watching tantrums and hectoring, fake hate incidents and real attacks on people whose only crime is being suspected of being Trump voters, and most of all while watching the parade of bullies scream “you scared my child by not voting the way I wanted you to.”

But that...

I Will Post Later

Right now conflicted on what to post about, but I found that Nicki Kenyon has a brilliant post entitled STOP SCARING YOUR CHILDREN.

I posted this on Facebook yesterday, and of course, this means I want to fry gay kids in oil, as you know. A close friend asked I just not serve him over arugula, or he’ll haunt me.

Okay, let’s posit Mike Pence is an actual homophobe (he’s not. He considers homosexuality a sin as do pretty much all evangelicals. OTOH evangelical Christianity doesn’t want them st...

This Was My First Election – E. Marshall Hoyt

This Was My First Election – E. Marshall Hoyt

This was my first election.

I’m not particularly happy about that, of course, I missed the chance to vote in 2012 by a mere couple of weeks. But I did my civic duty, and I voted. Voting did not instill me with the feeling I had hoped for, of course.

In 2012, I couldn’t escape the talk of politics if I tried. Everyone was involved, invested, and more importantly- passionate. Everyone. You can argue the faults of a two party system encouraging such...

The Good, The Bad, The Schadenfreude

Sorry this is so late. Last night, absolutely convinced we were stuck with the dowager empress for four years, we went out for “a truly American meal” of burgers and (exceptionally, and trust me, I’m paying for it this morning eczema wise) fries. Coming out of the restaurant, (where everyone was watching BASEBALL) I checked my phone and realized that Trump was now favored to win.

We dropped by home, then crashed the Vodkapundit’s home, where we stayed until Irene said goodnight… and I drank h...

Keeping the Faith

In honor of our election, the Merriam-Webster site changed the word of the day to Gotterdammerung.

I’d very much like to think they were joking.

I woke up feeling queasy. No matter who wins we lose. Even when I held my nose in previous times, I could think “my guy winning is so much better.” In this case, all I can tell you that if Trump wins, we MIGHT have a chance. I give it less than 25% chance that we actually do. If Hillary wins, we have no chance. We’re going to go down for the long co...

Nostalgie de la Boue

When my parents got married, the priest who married them gave them as a wedding gift the book he had written (and I think self-published. It had that look.) It was called Impious Men, and in it he had collected all the more salacious bits about historical horrors: Roman Emperors, other rulers who slept with horses or bathed in the blood of virgins, the craziest bits of the Aztecs, perhaps. I don’t know because I never finished the thing. I read a bit here and a bit there, in the sort of mood...

Sunday Vignettes by Mary Catelli, Luke and ‘nother Mike AND Some Books Promo by Free Range Oyster

Sunday Vignettes! – Luke, Mary Catelli, ‘Nother Mike

So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.

We recommend that if...

The Future Some Assembly Required — A Blast from the Past from May 2013

The Future Some Assembly Required — A Blast from the Past from May 2013

*First, I must be clairvoyant on how the economy would go. Maybe I should hang a shingle. Second, yeah, I’m fobbing you off with a BPF. Yesterday I ended up losing the say to cleaning carpets. Greebo has developed this trick of biting the head off catnip mice, then rolling on the catnip all over the carpet, and it REALLY had to be cleaned. Also, one of the cats (Euclid) is the pukamatic and the other two are sheddomatics....

No Running Back

Heinlein said if you must travel in time, do it forward, never to the past, because in general (with interludes) the future is better than the past.

I realized last night that one of the most unsatisfactory aspects of this election is that both main candidates are trying to run to the past.

Hillary’s whole plan “More government paying for things and more redistribution” is, as the left’s program has been for years, an attempt to return to the thirties when collective action was the future.

I’...