Sarah A. Hoyt's Blog, page 347

MONSTERS FROM THE ID

*This post is unusually typo-ey and has missing words. Sorry. Written between one and two am. Those of you who program, this is like midnight code. Sorry. We’re headed out for TVIW and will be gone till Wednesday. And I’ve been getting things ready.*

I’m not a Freudian, though I spent a lot of time studying Freudian theory when I was young and stupid. My sympathies were always closer to Carl Jung, until of course I realized that both Freudianism and Jungism were just-so-stories to explain how...

This Is Not The End

I know almost everyone here — this blog being full of people who know history and how societies work — has been frozen in horror watching as a deep field of liberty-loving candidates is getting reduced to one old narcissist who frankly has always, for sixty eight years, supported the most big-government, socialist ideas he could find.

I’m here to tell you this is not the end. It’s not the end because of what America is and who Americans are.

Unfortunately yes, it is a type of American that is...

The Time is Now to be an Adult – Amanda Green

The Time is Now to be an Adult – Amanda Green

Yesterday, during a break from work, I hit Facebook like so many others do and came across a couple of articles that not only had me shaking my head but I have no doubt had my father spinning in his grave. There were any number of things he and I disagreed about, not the least of which was politics. One thing we did agree upon, however, was our love of books. He, even more than my mother, believed that the best way to educate yourself wasn’t to g...

Live by the Narrative

I find it bizarre — way beyond astonishing — that no one has done a study into how soaked in narrative our age is, well beyond any other age before us. And how much that narrative is fictional.

I’m not talking here of politics, though it will tie in, eventually. I’m talking our daily life and “narrative” — aka story.

It wasn’t so long ago that fiction by itself was considered a weird and possibly pernicious form of entertainment. A couple of centuries, AT MOST. Which in evolutionary terms is...

Moral Majority 2.0 – Brad Torgersen

Moral Majority 2.0 – Brad Torgersen

Let’s talk about original sin, shall we?

In the beginning, there was Adam, and there was Eve. And they partook of the forbidden fruit, and were cast out of the Garden. Thus becoming mortal, and knowing the difference between good and evil. Their lives became short, and painful. And so too were the lives of their children made short, and painful. The sin of the father (Adam) was passed to all of his descendants. None were clean, because all were born into a...

The Carol Of The Bells – A Blast From The Past, 2/20/2014

*And so it looks like it’s going to be Trump — a conventional democrat, which is to say a socialist — which is to say we’re not going to be given a choice at all, and that the chances of this country escaping moderately free, moderately intact and without a massive butcher’s bill are slim. All I can tell you is not to give up. Keep ringing the bells. The minute we give up, we have lost.*

There is a scene in one of Giovanni Guareschi’s books (I think The Little World Of Don Camillo) in which t...

I Say, I believe there’s a promo post on this blog – Jason Dyck

I Say, I believe there’s a promo post on this blog – Jason Dyck

Salutations! I hope you all have a lovely weekend ahead of you (or ahead and behind you, for Shadow and Mr. Freer and any other Huns across the Date Line). To help make it lovely, we have some great books for you! As a rare case, I’m going to add my personal recommendation to one of them: Touchstone by Sonia Lyris. It’s a free novelette tied to her upcoming novel from Baen. I read it when I was supposed to be compiling this post...

Conspiracies

Shhh. Did you know there’s a secret cabal that runs the world?

I don’t know why but this idea is hardwired into the human brain as plausible, and also as cool. Things like the Da Vinci Code owe no small part of their success to the fact that people want to believe that some unseen, all-powerful force is behind history.

I could give you a guess as to why. It’s a guess and a just so story, but it has some merit. After all humans owe no small part of their recent (say last 100 thousand years) su...

Nice Prizes For Good Little Girls

I was never a good little girl. It wasn’t that I was bad, exactly, or at least I never had evil intent. But I was never very good at obeying, or at doing what I was expected to do, expressed or assumed.

I could adduce several reasons, including the fact that I lived at odds with my strong willed mother, but I don’t think that’s it. I think it’s more a fault in ourselves — or in this case, in myself — that I was not put together right from early on.

Oh, sure, I liked baby dolls — for a while,...

Freedom’s Never Easy – Amanda Green

Freedom’s Never Easy – Amanda Green

Last week, I read a comment from someone on Facebook that brought back memories. Not good memories, not by a long shot, but not terrible ones either. No, the memories were of a time when the nation had been beaten down emotionally and psychologically. It was also a time when I saw up close for the first time just how dedicated so many of my fellow Americans are to the continued survival of this country. It is a memory I mean to hold onto and not let be over...