Andrew Sweet's Blog: Reality Gradient

Christmas and Community

Hey parents, don’t read this around your children if you want them to believe in Santa. There are a few spoilers in here, not just of Santa, but of other traditions as well. I hope, however, that you will continue to read through, as these wandering thoughts do come together toward the end. So…without further ado…much ado about Christmas…

A long time ago, there was this fledgling little religion, an upstart really, in the heart of Rome. This religion is called Christianity, and was a brand new tome added to the already established religious repertoire, which at the time, was the Roman hierarchy of gods (itself adapted from Greek religious tradition). Let’s sit with that for a minute, because this is too often glossed over.

There was an established religious tradition in ancient Rome, and it was the worship of the pantheon of gods and goddesses, ranging from Jupiter (or Zeus) down to Hades, and so on. This was the normal state of the Roman empire at the time. The people worshiped multiple deities, that’s what they taught their children, and that’s what drove the holidays they celebrated. They had what to us would be weird festivals for all the gods, like the celebration of Saturnalia, and my personal favorite, Lemuralia, where they spent their energies exorcising “demons,” which would be entities like the vengeful spirit of Remus, Romulus’ twin who was murdered upon the founding of Rome. (Sometime in the early 7th century, Lemuralia was finally taken over by Christianity, allegedly, by All Saints’ Day.) My point here is only that there were many, many religious traditions established and in place, and along came this little religion that simply would not die.

Back then, there was another religion that would not die just beneath the surface of Roman life at the time. Trust me, this comes back to Christmas, I promise! But this religion is Judaism, which still lasts to this day. As a child, I was taught that the main difference between Jewish and Christian faiths was that the Jewish people worshipped a god called Yaweh, and the Christians believed that Jesus was the son of god. To me at the time, this was all the difference in the world, until I eventually learned that Yaweh is just another way to express Christianity, and that the Talmud is really just the old testament. So in a very real sense, Christianity is, from my understanding today, an evolution of Judaism, as opposed to something starkly different.

My, how things have changed! With the advent of prosperity gospel, and the downplay of Jesus’ influence (on the religion named after the man, as if that makes sense), I would argue that the religion has continued to evolve over the years. To be clear, one of the chief differences between Christianity and Jewish religions from a morality perspective is that Judaism requires participants to perform certain acts, whereas Christianity, especially today, requires nothing of the participants that can be reviewed and confirmed in the outside world. In other words, if I say I’m a Christian, you have no way of knowing whether or not that’s true, no matter how it is that I conduct myself in the world. (In my opinion, without the separation of acts from religious commitment, prosperity gospel would never have become possible.)

The situation is redeemable though. Ever since Martin Luther, Christians (read: ley-people) have been in charge of the protestant church. So through the people, people like you, the religion can be evolved back. And this is where Christmas comes in, folks, as well as a confession: I am not a Christian. If you know me, you know this, but you should also know that I do celebrate Christmas. There’s a good reason for it.

Finally, to the point!

I can think of no other holiday in modern America, or perhaps even in the entirety of western civilization, where the emphasis is placed as much on actions, external to self. Christmas is a day when it’s not enough to have that “personal relationship with god,” but when it’s important to act, to let others know how you feel about them, and that you care. It’s an act that builds community, and brings people closer together. So I celebrate. It doesn’t matter to me much that there’s a Winter Solstice that the holiday supplants, or that it, by tradition, follows along with Saturnalia, the Roman holiday in which people did exchange gifts. Christmas is, despite the commercialization, despite the over-eager advertisers trying to start the holiday months earlier, is a community-building event.

In fact, I think that it’s more special because of these historical connections. I think that Christmas transcends one religion, transcends ideology, and has the capacity to unwind a lot of the hurt we’ve been through in recent years. But to do it, we have to understand it, and not simply go through the motions. The gift we give, the most important of which is always time, is how we come together. The importance is not, nor will it ever be, what those gifts are (although I do love my Cocktail Smoking Kit I got as an early present). What really matters is that they are from other people in our lives, families, and society, and they very much mean that someone is thinking of you.

And that’s what we really need, especially now that there seems to be so much other-ing happening. We need someone to be thinking of us. So Merry Christmas, and if you’re reading this, know that someone is thinking of you, whether you know it or not. I hope for you the best, and I will forever believe in the power of community to change the world. Your gift giving, in so many ways, is an act of power by strengthening those ties with others.

Innovation and Economy

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about Bernie Sanders. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about the Social Democrats, Socialism, and the arguments that distinguish between them. I’ve also been reading up on the shenanigans surrounding the death of the pension, a large part of which happened between 1970 and 2010. What do these have in common? Well, innovation, of course.

Let me stake my position so that you know where I’m coming from. I began many years ago as a sort of idealist, eagerly consuming literature about the founding of the United States, the rise and subsequent fall of communism, and the petty dictators mixed throughout. Of the types of economic systems, I’ve always loved the emphasis that socialism puts on protecting the individual, over the capitalist model, which is seemingly in a perpetual battle to determine exactly how “laissez- faire” the economic activity should be, and whether the government should play any role in the economy. But, from my perspective and over the years, I’ve yet to see a single example of a successful socialist economy that has survived. And on paper, that’s a huge endictment. But lately, as of the last ten years or so, I’ve been engaging in that dangerous passtime of thinking. And it’s in this process that I challenged some of my own assumptions.

One of my assuptions was that socialism is doomed to fail. This may be true, or may not be, but there’s one thing that we must admit: socialism never had a fair shake. The problem with most of the socialist systems is that the revolutions, soft or hard, didn’t occur in a vaccuum. These events occurred in a world in which other, more established nations, lingered on the sidelines waiting, and sometimes not waiting, but in any event hoping for the experiments to fail. And, as with the ever evasive position of the electron, the very act of observing these things drove certain outcomes. I’m convinced at this point that the western world, which I love being a part of and I do lover our rich history, interfered extensively in the potential of any socialist economy. But also, revolutionary leaders, feeling the very real external threat, transitioned so quickly that they overburdened the systems for feeding people, and for maintaining stability, and thus generated things like the Great Leap Forward, for one example (there are many). I’m not suggesting socialism is the evolution of the economic system that we all should strive for, but only that it’s not the bogeyman that people seem to believe, and not inherently doomed to failure. Socialism, in a very real sense, is an innovation in itself though, and that fact is definitely interesting.

One point I have yet to convince myself on, and am researching currently, is innovation. The claim that I hear made the most whenever I hear someone attempt to discredit socialism is that socialism fails innovation. An easy thing to do is drag out the cars in cuba, decades old and many gas guzzlers. Aside from technically being an authoritarian government, which I should point out is independent of economic policy (i.e. authoritarian socialist and capitalist countries both exist today), there’s one thing Cuba caught my attention on regarding the topic of innovation: a lung cancer vaccine. This is something I can’t imagine even being attempted to develop in the United States, for fairly obvious reasons. This is what brought me to my first serious question about innovation: what innovation are we talking about when we discuss innovation in the United States?

After all, sub-prime mortgages were technically correctly called innovations. Machine-learning instant trades in the stock market are also examples of innovations. So are PEP (Pooled Employee Retirement Plans) and Cash-Account retirement plans. Three of these last four innovations disrupted the lives of millions, and all four were at play when the nation went through the Great Recession. Does the direction of innovation matter? It’s one thing to claim to innovate, and an entirely different thing to claim innovation at the good of society. For example, right now, artificial intelligence is being used to generate books en masse, which generally lowers the price that individual authors can charge, and makes readers more skeptical of quality as the quality of artificially generated books is not, as of this typing, up to par with actual authors. Expect that to change soon. And then an entire industry is at risk to disappear.

In both socialist and capitalist claiming economies (most are somewhere in between), it takes government intervention to reign in innovations that have gone off the rails. Also, it’s important to note that innovation comes from individuals, and, from what I can tell, a mixture of knowledge and opportunity, and room to fail. There is nothing about socialism or capitalism, either, that indicates to me that innovation is more likely in one versus the other. Between China’s rapid emergence of capabilities in space and autonomous vehicles and the entire Cold War, among other things, it’s safe to say that innovation is not chiefly an American thing, but a human thing. Where there are humans, there will be innovation. Freedom to fail is definitely a contributor, as experimentation contributes innovation too, and where such freedom is allowed (either by strategic experimentation or generally in the public), then innovation will follow.

As such, I’m sticking to my guns: it is not the economic system that causes a state to stagnate and fail, but the all-too-common propensity for corruption. I’ll talk more on the concept of corruption later, and have done so before. But the economic system isn’t the determiner, from my understanding. Corruption is much more the problem, and in a single-party system, as strict socialist states have tended to be, corruption may easily take hold, as it does in many of our states which have single-party rule. More on that later.

An Open Letter to Our Publishers

This letter was sent to the distro of Authors Against Book Bans, and republished here for posterity.

from Authors Against Book Bans

With the election of the Trump administration and its policies as embodied in Project 2025, we authors have deep concerns about how our publishers will be operating and how publishers will advocate for and protect authors. Trump's agenda explicitly calls for the criminalization of authors, teachers, librarians, and publishing professionals with consequences including, “imprison[ment],” and being “classed as registered sex offenders” (Pg 4, Project 2025). For authors who are not citizens, this could also result in deportation. This promises to be a pro-censorship, pro-book-banning administration, and the successful implementation of its policies will require willing compliance of America's institutions, including its corporations.

The freedom to write is as important as the freedom to read. We have been heartened by many publishers' willingness to engage in legal and legislative pathways to fight book banning, and want to be sure that you will double-down on your fight during this consequential time.

This past week, AABB held open forums with authors from all genres and age levels to better understand author concerns and needs. While this may not be a complete list due to the rapid turnaround, we know we have a short time before January to prepare for what is to come, and we want to start this conversation sooner rather than later.

As authors, we need you to:

Continue to acquire and promote books by LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC voices. We are concerned that these voices under particular attack will be silenced or discouraged, directly and/or indirectly.

Be unequivocal in your support of LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC authors. We need to know that no author will be asked to “tone down” or erase elements in their books to please potential censors or to avoid being targeted by unjust laws in certain states. Authors need to know that we can continue to speak our truths in our works and remarks.

Guarantee the safety and confidentiality of all personal information that exists in your portals, or that has been shared for book promotion. We need publishers to refuse to provide lists of:

Authors or staff they know to be immigrants, Muslims, individuals with backgrounds from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Yemen, Gaza et al (targeted under Trump's promise to expand the “Muslim ban”)

All books by queer or trans authors, or that include queer or trans characters or content

Authors and their citizenship, birthplace, and/or other personal information

Books that reference diversity, equity, inclusion, sexual orientation, gender identity, racism, privilege, or “critical race theory” etc as defined or listed on page 4 of Project 2025

Refuse to provide “ratings” of books that goes beyond the current industry standard categorization of books by age group.

Resist requests for authors to sign contractual language for appearances that impinges upon our free speech in ways including but not limited to: written or spoken language, personal expenditures, personal advocacy.

Provide security in states or locations where an author may be under threat or has received threats. If an author is arrested for discussing their book in a public space, we need you to promise to provide legal aid. We need clear industry standards regarding author security and direct contact information for security and legal needs.

Stand against the blanket weaponization of “pornography,” “obscenity,” “triggering,” and “inappropriate” as they have been used in widespread book bans to target anything with queer content, sex, or references to racism, bigotry, misogyny, abortion, etc. Project 2025 states that people who produce or distribute anything deemed “pornographic” should be jailed, though it does not define pornographic, nor does it seem to adhere to the SCOTUS standard of pornography.

Ensure the freedom of every author to use the terms targeted on pages 4-5 of Project 2025 (which include but are not limited to: sexual orientation and gender identity, diversity, equity, and inclusion, gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, etc) freely in their works. We need to know you will continue to send LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC authors to schools, libraries, and festivals funded in whole or in part by federal grants.

Provide training on author safety and emergency contacts for situations when an author feels unsafe.

Be more aggressive and more public in fighting book bans and censorship at local, state, and the national level.

We approach all these needs with the assumption of your support, and we will be vigilant to make sure that any divergence on these crucial points will be noted and protested. It's imperative that publishers, like authors, do not obey in advance. We must be aligned against policies that promote censorship, book bans, and the criminalization of storytelling. We look forward to working together with you and with all the other organizations fighting for our fundamental freedoms to read and to write.

Sincerely,

Authors Against Book Bans

The Promise

Stephen was a normal enough fellow, and he followed a very predictable routine. A toymaker by trade, he woke in the morning, packed his tools, and went to his office to carry on the family business. The sign on the door read “Stephen and Sons,” but that was his father’s sign. His father had passed some time ago and left the store to him and his brother, Daniel. Eventually, Daniel had left to go work in a clock factory, adding to his wind-up toy knowledge ideas in advanced engineering to develop ever more complex clocks, some that only had to be wound once every fifteen years. One of these is what awoke Stephen this morning, chiming with the predictable call of the coo-coo bird. He arose, kissed his wife, once again packed his tools, and left to his modest, if not reliable, job in the little toy shop in the village.

This was his calling, and not some job in the big, bustling city. The gleams of joy on the faces of the children who came into his shop, wondering at every invention that he’d made, and every toy that he’d personally assembled by his own designs. The walls of his shop were adorned with shelves, altogether holding nearly a hundred years of toys. His shop had the fortunate location of being just on the corner of the only bridge leaving Evoation into the wider world beyond, and so a good number of his shoppers were visitors from other parts of the world. He liked the idea that his toys kept children happy outside of Evoation, as well as in the sleepy little town.

But he had a problem. Every year, the materials to build his toys became more and more expensive. He’d noticed it first five years before, when his wood went up to ten dollars a plank. After five years had passed, he was up to nearly twenty dollars a plank. This winter, as he went through his budget, he scratched his head and pushed up his glasses as he summed the profits of the last year. They were not equivalent to his expenses. In fact, he had spent almost half again what he’d earned. One glance at the line that showed his savings told him that he had at most another year or two before his shop would go under.

So on the blustery, snowy evening when the largest toy manufacturer in the known world came into his home, offering to annex his little shop to the toy manufacturer’s already massive empire, Stephen listened.

“You can do everything just as you do now,” promised the portly man with a laugh and a twinkle in his eye. “Just you send me ten percent of the profits, and I’ll send you the wood that I get. I have a massive discount because I use so much, you see, and you can be part of that. It’s an economy of scale.”

Stephen’s wife, Karen, sat next to him at the table, with worry across her brow. She gave him a glance that told him not to do it, and Stephen heeded her glance and said that he would think about it.

“A wise man,” said the boisterous man. “And you married well too, I can see that. I’ll give you a week to think it over, but I really must then retract my offer. Business awaits in other locations. I have only so much time and money, and it doesn’t do to not use both efficiently.”

Over the next week, Stephen tossed and turned, having dreams repeatedly about the man’s offer, and about the red ink on his balance sheets. By the time the week had passed, he’d convinced himself that the man’s offer was good. Stephen sent a letter to the man indicating as much, over his wife’s protestations. The man sent a contract back, and Stephen signed it straightaway, and for the first year, things were spectacular. The man sent the wood at pennies on the dollar, and Stephen made his toys, and sold his toys, and brought joy to the faces of the children.

The next year, the price of wood yet again went up. Along with a letter from the man that said how apologetic he was, and that the price had gone up on him as well. It was still cheaper than before, so Stephen felt that his deal had been a good one. The man also sent that year a few boxes of the man’s toys, manufactured somewhere Stephen had never been or seen, and asked that Stephen display them in the windows alongside his own toys. This Stephen did eagerly, as the man had helped him so much that Stephen thought it was still a bargain.

It was around this time that a different man brought his son in looking for toys for a Christmas celebration. That man, Albert, was a regular and lived on the other side of town, so hadn’t frequented the shop often. But as soon as he walked in, Albert noticed the toys in the window, and pulled Stephen aside.

“Those toys,” he said, pointing. “Those were made by Hinderson Toys, right?”

“Yes,” said Stephen, a bit concerned as to the man’s tone.

“You know I’m a woodworker. I used to chop down trees in the forest just beyond the church to the west. That is, until Hinderson put a fence up. A few years back, Hinderson bought the land back there, and now I have to buy wood from him. The price is so high that it keeps me barely able to feed my son. We saved for months to come buy a toy from you, but I don’t think we can. Not when you’re working with Hinderson.”

That moment, the man took his son and left. The boy’s face was what impacted Stephen the most. He saw the longing, aching pain that he as a child had felt so often when he’d seen toys that he wanted but couldn’t have.

That year, he got another letter. This one said that soon, he would find an entire crate of toys from Hinderson that he was expected to put up. And, the letter continued, that the price of wood had gone up on him again. This time, the price was even higher than he had ever had before, and his entire savings would be wiped out if he made any more toys. So it was with a heavy heart that he replaced all of the displayed toys he’d made with love and affection for the machined things that were now in the window. And it was with an even heavier heart that he realized the truth. He wasn’t a toymaker any longer, as he couldn’t afford to make toys anymore.

The man he’d trusted, he realized, had been the same man who’d caused the price of wood to go up in the first place. He’d been tricked, but now, there was nothing to be done. As he talked it over with his wife, she asked why he didn’t just send the toys back and refuse to sell them. But it was too late. He hadn’t made any new toys to sell, and even if he had, they’d be more expensive to make and sell than anything Hinderson sent him. He told her they’d just have to make do, and for a while, they did.

The next year, another letter came from the man. This one said that things were bad for toys everywhere, and Stephen would have to pay for the Hinderson toys that he now sold in the window. Stephen couldn’t afford to pay for the toys for resale. He told the man this, and the man sent another letter. This letter said that if Stephen wanted to sell his shop, Stephen could stay and work it for a salary. Stephen didn’t see that he had a choice, so he did exactly that. For a while, Stephen and his wife lived off of the proceeds of that sale, but when his savings were used up, he found himself reliant on the money the man gave him for salary. 

When the man sent a letter the next year, saying that the toy business was still suffering, but he was sure that it would be better soon. However, in the meantime, Stephen would have to take a pay cut. Barely able to afford to feed himself and his wife, Stephen threw the letter into the fire in frustration. He packed his clothes and set off across the long bridge.

It took him some time to get to Hinderson Toys Headquarters, and when he did, he was appalled at what he saw. Warehouses were full to overflowing with wood, some of which looked as though it had been there for years. Three separate toy stores were connected to the property, each with lines of people out the door. Through one window, he saw the portly man and stormed in. The man didn’t appear to be suffering at all, despite this supposed blight on toy sales. He confronted the man, and the man only laughed in that boisterous way that made his belly bounce up and down.

“You believed me,” he said, snickering. “It’s not my fault you didn’t check first and find out who I am. How do you think I built my empire in the first place.”

It was then that Stephen realized he’d been tricked, and tricked completely. If you go into Evoation today, you’ll see Stephen and Sons toys, and a wall full of toys for sale, all at reasonable prices. There, however, is nobody named Stephen working there any longer. But just outside the front, under a sheet of newspapers, you may find him still, asleep under a bench, muttering seemingly nonsense words about promises broken.

Journal - 11.15.2024

I had a bad day yesterday.

Watching wholly unqualified and seemingly deliberately anti-qualified candidates being pitched to lead our nation has worn on me a bit. I can’t possibly see how someone like RFK JR can be good to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Can you? If you don’t know anything about him, and you think “oh, he’s a Kennedy,” then you’re falling for it. Would it do me any good to explain that genetics aren’t as strong as you think they are? Would it do you any good to tell you that the most qualified person to run any organization, out of 350 million, is rarely the offspring of someone who’s run that agency successfully in the past? This is not true. And Elon Musk as Department of Government Efficiency head is a bad joke. I won’t even mention that there are two folks heading that department—an even worse joke. I guess I just did.

Here’s what I’m really struggling with. As we watch these things unfold before our eyes, we’re so shocked that we’re not thinking strategically about the future. The Executive Branch is massive, you all. A lot of the information we get out of what the government is doing comes from Executive Branch functions, and this is what’s really at stake. Are we downloading and archiving those data? Because, when it comes to it, without reliable information, how can we make good decisions? We’ve seen what Trump did last time to “tweak” what he could of what comes out of the government. Are we ready for that again? Remember that research I’m also doing (posted the other day)? Guess how much data comes from the Executive Branch for that sort of project. A lot. And it’s typically good data because of the non-partisan nature of the civil servants that do that job.

If you know of an organization that’s pulling down federal data right now, please let me know. I’d love to help do that, and perhaps store it in a decentralized way so that we can be assured that we get access. I mean, for publicly available data anyway.

But what about government secrets that we’re not privvy to? There’s literally nothing I can do to help with that, so I’ve got to right now have a lot of faith that our feds are doing it.

Here’s the deal, folks. If running our country into the ground to gain power is what is happening (it is), then nothing is sacred to these people. And when, not if, Project 2025 get’s underway, guess what? Institutional non-partisans get replaced by lapdogs and lackeys, and any information that contradicts The Party’s message goes away. This isn’t me making stuff up. Read the document, and exactly why Project 2025 exists in the first place. Think about it. Even the bills maintained by Congress.gov may not survive with the Liar Party, which I will refer to the Trumpublicans as henceforth, when they take over Congress. If we think it’s hard to inform voters now, imagine what happens when that transparency evaporates.

This isn’t doom-and-gloom—it’s a call to action. There’s a lot of work to do to protect our democracy, and while our Federal Government structure is right now moving to do what they can, it’s a hefty task shoring up our institutions. I’m looking for a way to get involved, but I’m just one person. You need to as well. Even if it’s as little as, I don’t know, downloading demographic data from the last twenty years so that they can’t lie about the numbers, that’s a small thing that might help.

BTW, don’t let anyone convince you it was a mandate. That’s not what happened. What happened was that a lot of people who don’t really understand how government works, or why it should work that way, voting with their feelings. A lot of other people, who should understand how government works (looking at you, protest voters and equivocators) anti-voted with theirs. This was a repudiation, not a mandate. It was an endictment of our failing education system, and our profound, almost criminal, lack of understanding of history.

Freedom, Fraternity, Equality

Breathe.

Good. You’re doing great.

Now consider what I’m about to tell you, but as dispassionately as you can.

We are a nation struggling, and we’re making some poor choices because of it…but we can change it. What do I mean, and what does this have to do at all with the title?

Well, there’s something important that we don’t seem to have internalized yet. No, not equality as an overarching principal, but if you thought that then at least you’ve been paying attention to my facebook rants. That’s a good one. But I mean this truth: all of the stuff we want, we can get with equality. This also ties into why I dislike the concept of billionaires (not one in particular, but generally). But this is also why I continually focus on equality as an overarching goal—because it’s not snake oil. You want a better society? Fix inequality.

Let’s focus on income inequality for this article. You can read more about income inequality in the United States. I’ve mentioned before that income inequality creates more crime and establishes more career criminals. Note I didn’t say poverty, but income inequality. This isn’t new, or something I made up. I first did a short post about it on Facebook almost ten years ago. This is known. So known, in fact, that scientists are doing studies to figure out why this relationship exists. For those of us living it, it doesn’t matter why it exists, as much as it matters that it exists.

What you’re going to start seeing is a tightening up of laws as politicians scramble to save face. You’ll see people who rely on perception (politicians) hurt a lot of people pretending to be strong on immigration, for one thing. You’ll see homelessness treated more like a criminal offense than a result of society. A lot of stalwart politicians who you used to think were bastions of egalitarianism will show their true colors, not unlike the talented Mr. Musk. Oh, get it? It’s a reference to the Talented Mr. Ripley. (Brace yourself for that, because you’re probably not mentally prepared for the second round of betrayals yet.) What they’re doing is protecting themselves, so don’t judge them too harshly for it. My point in mentioning them at all is that these people will make things worse. While that’s going on, the tariffs and mass deportations, if they end up happening, will turn this country on its head as the bottom falls out for poor and middle-class people.

If you’re confused by that, let me explain. Tariffs are basically taxes. Level a tariff against a country means adding taxes on every good from that country. A brute force approach to tariffs means basically that a lot of goods are going to get a lot harder to get and a lot more expensive. Meanwhile, mass deportations mean that a lot of things we need migrants for, like picking food and construction where they’re over-represented, will make food and housing more expensive and harder to get at the same time. Basically, the combination of the two means sticking it to the poor, because the rich are rich enough already that they won’t feel it. Therefore, poor and middle-class people get poorer, widening economic inequality.

This is where you come in. While the federal government is up to their shenanigans, get involved on a state and/or local level, and work to put in place a safety net. Work on building up income equality, and your efforts will be rewarded with people who have the brain-space to think critically about the issues, and absorb the reality of what’s going on. Get out in your community and make yourself uncomfortable, not to get a vote, as we often do, but to make friends. And be supportive. Build community so that people have somewhere to go, and people to talk to. Bring people in.

Oh, that’s going to suck a lot. Because talking to people in person isn’t like talking to people on social media. You can’t just unfriend someone when they’re right in front of your face. In fact, talking to people in person is super-risky to your self-esteem and well-being. But if you do that, then you have a chance to bring attention to the inevitable rising inequality. And if you work toward building a safety net locally or statewide, you can reduce that inequality. As an added bonus? You talk to someone and get to know them, while they get to know you, and that matters because through relationships are where a lot of people get their news.

Nothing builds community like building community. And working toward income equality is one way to do it, with the added benefit that in doing so. What’s wrong with America isn’t its people, but human nature and the presence of such severe economic inequality. We’re at 45 on an index of 0 to 100, where higher is better. Norway is 27, for a reference point. We can do better at that, and a lot of that can start with us, personally. I point this out not to blame us, but to give us focus. The political conversations may be toxic to have, but everyone can have a conversation about the price of bread, which could lead to a conversation about the relative price of bread, near perfect segue into the topic of income inequality.

So yes, organize for political purposes. Definitely we need that. But also, don’t forget the human element. You’ll never convince someone trying to figure out how to feed their family and coming up empty of the importance of literally anything else. Fix the cause, and the rest will follow. There is a way forward, and you can be part of it.

Bobby’s Bridge

“What’s beyond the river?” Bobby asked his mother, Helen. He flicked his dark black hair over his shoulder. Curls tinged with amber fell against his red collarless shirt. Bobby had a way of turning up his head that made him look as though he were admonishing someone, especially when his curiosity caught the best of him, as it often did.

“Land,” was the quick response that Helen gave him back.

“I know that,” Bobby said. “What kind of land is it?”

“Nobody knows,” Helen replied. “I’ve never seen it myself.”

“Nobody’s seen it?” asked Bobby. His eyebrows narrowed as he latched onto that concept. Nobody knew what was beyond the Cryms. “I want to be a great explorer. I will discover what’s beyond the Cryms.”

“You’re barely twelve,” Helen said. “How do you plan to do that?”

“Ask, of course,” Bobby said, his eyes brightening. He wiped something brown on his coarse brown pants. “If we know there’s land, then someone’s seen it right?”

“Someone? Well, I suppose,” said Helen. She wore a crimson gown that flowed around her ankles like a river. It was a nightgown that Bobby always loved, because of the way the hem floated there. “That would be Roget and Nance. They’re the only two people who have been across.”

“I thought you said we don’t know?”

“We don’t,” Helen assured him, shaking her head. “You’ll see why.”

Bobby thought about Roget and Nance. He knew that Roget lived closest, at the water’s edge, and thought that might be his best shot for an answer. And so, he set out that day in the shimmery sunlight to walk through the forest toward the water’s edge, where Roget’s house was.

When he broke through the clearing at the edge of the water, Bobby saw a little shack. It was half torn down, and around it were posts with painted rocks atop them, each decorated stone with an eyeball peering away from the house. At first, Bobby thought he might need to leave. He didn’t really know Roget. The man was rumored to shout at night random musings into the air, almost stream-of-consciousness stuff. Bobby knew this, but he had to find out what lay beyond the river, so he swallowed and pushed past the creepy structures toward an opening he hoped was the front entrance.

“Who’s there?” came a voice, quivering and full of bitterness.

“It’s me. Bobby,” Bobby said.

“Why are you here, Bobby?” asked Roget.

“To seek knowledge,” Bobby said. “I want to understand what’s beyond the Cryms.”

“Death,” said Roget. “Chaos. It’s a world that won’t be understood.”

Bobby sucked in his breath. “You’ve seen it?”

“The far shore? Indeed I have. I set foot upon it.”

“What happened?”

“I got back into my boat, and I returned.”

“And you saw—”

“Some say that there’s a jabber that lives in the woods there. Some say that it will sneak into homes at night and steal babies.”

“And you saw one when you were over there?”

“I saw trees that stretched into the sky, behind which jabbers could easily hide. I saw caves where jabbers like to roost.”

“What does a jabber look like? I mean, you know, when you saw one?”

“I saw a shadow move.”

“Shadow of a jabber?”

“Shadow of a bear. But it could have just as easily been a jabber. What if the bear ate the jabber?”

Bobby blinked. He mulled the conversation over in his mind, pulling at the strings of it and trying to weave something meaningful from the dribble. The truth, the best he could make it out, was that Roget had seen nothing. Maybe he’d stepped foot on the other side, maybe he hadn’t. But either way, he hadn’t seen anything at all, and yet, oozed this fear, the same fear that Bobby had heard repeated constantly in his village. But if it was only Roget, then what?

“Coffee?”

“I’m twelve.”

“Still. Would you like some? I could tell you about the time a jabber almost got me.”

His eyes popped open wide. “Really?”

“Yes. I heard it outside of my tent when I was sleeping.”

“How do you know it was a jabber?”

“Well, people say there are jabbers out there. I believe them. And I was in my tent and heard something, so it had to be a jabber.”

Bobby’s heart fell. Another non-jabber sighting.

“I’m going to talk to Nance.”

The old man wrinkled his nose at this. “What would you want to talk to her for? She doesn’t know anything. Like she’s ever been over the river.”

“Mom says—”

“Your mother doesn’t know anything. I never liked Nance. You can’t trust her. She doesn’t speak the truth.”

It was half a day between Roget’s shack and Nances little hut, farther down the river, and with a front porch covered in flowers. Bobby felt happy approaching the hut, just by virtue of the plethora of different colors that presented themselves there. He felt uplifted, as though there were something peaceful there that he might discover. He had no apprehension approaching, and even found a knocker on the door so he didn’t have to just wander in.

“Come in,” came the woman’s voice from inside. Bobby entered the hut, which sat against the river in very much the same way as Roget’s shack. As he passed through the little hut, he saw paintings adorning the walls, some of towers and high city walls that didn’t exist in Evoation. When he came out the other side, he saw a bridge extending a few feet into the water. An older woman leaned over it, hammering down a plank into place. When Bobby raised his eyes, he couldn’t see the opposite side of the river from where he stood.

“Nance?”

“Yes, child. I’m Nance. What can I do for you?” the woman said, brushing sweat from her eyes and her gray hair out of her face.

“I want to learn about what’s beyond the Cryms.”

“An entire world,” Nance said. “A world of trees and wonder and fruits we don’t know. It’s a world of splendor and potential trading partners. There are cities with streets laced with gold and paved with marble stones.”

“What about jabbers?”

“Those childhood stories? No, they don’t exist, Bobby. You’re old enough to know better than that, aren’t you?”

“Roget says—”

“Ah,” Nance commented. “Roget hasn’t been to the other side.”

“Helen said he has.”

“Roget’s told everyone that he has. Some people believe him. A lot of people believe him, in fact. So many, that I haven’t managed to convince anyone to help build a bridge and connect us to the world.”

“I’ll help,” Bobby said.

“Before you do,” Nance said, eyeing him up and down. “Before you do you should ask yourself if you trust me either. What if I’m lying to you and there’s nothing but death and destruction beyond the Cryms?”

“It seems to me that if that was the case, you wouldn’t be building a bridge.”

“Smart boy,” she said. “No, while Roget keeps his lies up, I can’t get anyone to help. So it’s just me, just working on this bridge.”

“Why?”

“To show them. Once I get it built, people will be able to see for themselves.”

“No, I mean why do people believe him?”

She shrugged.

“I’ve wondered that. Hand me that plank.”

Bobby dutifully grabbed a nearby plank. It was much heavier than he’d expected, but he managed to tug it over to Nance’s side. She wedged it into place, reached into an apron, and produced a handful of nails. She talked as she hammered.

“I think that maybe it’s too much for people. They can’t see it for themselves, so they have to believe someone. Roget’s convinced a lot of folks that I can’t be trusted, so they won’t even listen to me. Those are the people who keep coming by to try to sabatoge my bridge.” She pointed to an out of place plank that looked a little uneaven. “Had to replace that one yesterday. If anyone does discover what’s on the other side, then nobody would listen to Roget. He’d have no power, and we could be part of the world. Imagine the things we could discover.” Her eyes sparkled when she talked.

“My mother doesn’t believe Roget.”

“Helen doesn’t, you’re right. If she had, she wouldn’t have mentioned me,” Nance said, smiling, though Bobby could see a pain in her eyes.

“Why are you sad?”

“Because she won’t support me either. Do you see her here, helping? Hand me another plank, will you?”

Bobby ran to grab another plank.

“I’m helping,” Bobby said. “And she sent me.”

“Fair,” Nance said, chuckling as she nailed the plank into place. “As long as you remember to come back, you’ll be a great help.”

“But don’t some people believe you?”

“Some do,” she said, nodding. “But most have decided that Roget’s story and my story are too different. They can’t believe that the world could be as beautiful as I’ve described it, and their fear keeps them from wanting to find out. They build walls around their own hearts and minds. Whether they believe me, or believe Roget, their inaction supports Roget. After all, if you want to find out what’s beyond the river, you really have to look, don’t you?”

“I will,” said Bobby, laying a plank down for himself. Nance handed him the hammer and a few nails.

“The hard part will be setting the next post,” she said. “The one after that is even harder.”

“When will the bridge be finished?” Bobby asked, staring out over the water.

“I don’t know,” she said. “But as long as we keep laying planks, it’ll get to the other side.”

So Bobby helped. Every day, for the rest of his life, he helped work on the bridge, one plank at a time, until it stretched nearly halfway across. Nance died before the bridge was completed, and Bobby inherited the hut. His mother, eventually, began to use the bridge building as an excuse for them to stay close, and Bobby liked that. But eventually, his mother died too. Bobby kept working. It was when Bobby was as old as Roget that he finally reached the other side, and laid the final plank. As he stepped foot over, he felt a warm gust of air caress his leathery skin, which he likened to the gentleness of Nance, thanking him for the work he’d done.

The bridge was the first of twelve to be built over the next few decades. Trade flourished for Evoation, and visitors from all over came to the little village, turning it from a village, into a town, and then from a town into a city. All of the growth was possible because of the little bridge that Nance had started, a tool that allowed the people of Evoation to see the truth, despite being inundated with lies. And once it was finished, and the people could see for themselves what lay beyond the water, then all the talk of jabbers became resigned truly to the storybooks and children’s tales from which they’d come.

Societal Traps

(a.k.a. How to Racism without even Trying)

Over the course of the next few months, I’m going to be merging my blogging for http://www.rightandfreedom.com, my socially-conscious website that a couple of my former Marine buddies work with me on. I separated these at first because I thought that perhaps my particular social leaning might scare people away from my entertainment novels, which do, if you’ve been paying attention, follow along with some of the social problems that we see today (in a very entertaining way).

Except Drift, published under my pen name Roman Hawthorne. That’s a total escapist horrorfest. Get your copy for Halloween! Thank me later!

Back to more serious topics though. I might lose some folks with this, but it’s close to my heart so I’m going to do it anyway. Buckle up!

So I was listening to a podcast today that was discussing a couple of things that, really, seemed quite innocuous on the face of it. One of them was the recent rollback of affirmative action’s ability to use race on admission applications. This bothers me, but it’s kind of hard to describe why. The other thing that they talked about was the recent Louisiana court case that rolled back environmental protections supporting marginalized communities. This is the one that got to the Supreme Court and basically said that states can’t consider race when considering where to put industrial facilities. But it was kind of sneaky. What the decision really said was that the Legislative Branch wasn’t prescriptive enough about the what they wanted the Executive Branch to do about racial disparity.

By now, your eyelids are drooping and you’re slowly dozing off. Yes, this stuff is dry. But it’s also super-important, so WAKE UP!

There’s more. They said that it would be unfair to consider race at all when determining where to put factories and industrial complexes. At this point, you’re probably like, well…so what? Isn’t making decisions about where to put factories and industrial complexes…racism? Yes. You’re right. If we were dropped into a world where all races historically have been treated equally. You’d be surprised at the current situation, and just how much more exposure minorities have to cancer-causing agents. And if you think about it, it makes sense, right? For a long time, our zoning laws and home sales strategies in this country were flat-out racist (explicitly so, in many cases). So as a collective, we basically funneled black and brown people into industrial districts, where they are more likely to be exposed to toxic chemicals. And then, like in Flynt, Michigan, we just kind of forget about them until someone finally complains loudly enough that they can’t be ignored. Fix one site. Move on.

What the Supreme Court did was took away the systemic fix that Congress had put in place. By requiring intent (as they indicated) and limiting the Executive Branch to only address intentional racism as opposed to looking at disparate outcomes, as the Executive Branch used to do, the runaway Supreme Court knee-capped the governments ability to affect systemic change around this topic. Again, it wouldn’t be a big deal…if we were all on the same playing field already. But I think we all know that’s not the case (yes, all of us, even if we don’t admit it out loud). So if we’re already in a bad situation that past racism produced and perpetuates, there is no way out of anymore.

Know your role. Shut your mouth.

That’s basically what the Supreme Court implied with this ruling. Yes, I take it personally. Being half-black, I take a lot of things personally that others might scoff at, but it’s important. Who was it that said if you don’t cry out when you’re being hurt, they’ll kill you and say you liked it? Paraphrase anyway.

Think of racism as it truly was: a system. It was a systematic way to disenfranchise a huge swath of Americans for many years. Just like the interstate highway system makes it easier to get to certain destinations, and harder to get to others, racism has paved over two-hundred years of roads that lead black and brown people to destitution and poverty. You can take all the “no blacks allowed” signs you want down, but the roads are already there. People will take them. They will just not know why the roads are there. And if you can’t address why the roads are there (racism), then do you also not acknowledge the outcome? And if you don’t acknowledge the outcome, do you even make an effort to fix it? Or do you just tell the people in Cancer Alley, Louisiana that they’re SOL, because there’s no racism, and they should just move. Despite…all the things that keep them there in the first place?

Man, racism sucks. Ugh.

The Stories of Inertia and Momentum

Okay here goes. You’re going to see a lot of advertising as we move forward around my upcoming Kickstarter campaign for Inertia and Momentum. Some of it may make sense, others won’t at first. But it all comes together, and I’ll let you in on a little secret: this novel is ties my Virtual Wars series even closer to Reality Gradient. Let me explain.

The novel traces two main storylines. The first is Larken’s, of course. She’s been through the ringer a couple of times, only she’s much better positioned this time than she was before. She’s got a thriving if not somewhat rudderless anti-extremist organization, and she’s a little immature still to be completely effective at running it. But she’s doing it, with the help of her android assistant Dandelion Lemaire. The two are inseparable, which becomes something of a plot point in this story arc. It’s not entirely clear if their relationship is reciprocated between the two of them, or if its unbalanced.

The other storyline is about Amanda Briggs. You might remember her from my short story Ms. Barnett’s Favorite I wrote back in 2021 for a Reedsy contest. Yes, her storyline has been bouncing around in my head for three long years. The law which dictates that models (clones) aren’t really citizens is about to be repealed…at least many people think so. That has one important implication for Amanda and her ilk: there has been a stay on Reclamations, the process by which clones are “recycled” and their constituent proteins used to make the next generation (gross). As a result, she is stuck at Emergent Biotechnology headquarters doing time-wasting jobs like clean a hallway that’s not used often enough to actually get dirty. Worse, the executives have their sights on her as the next information, their eyes and ears in the clones’ quarters.

These storylines connect through another character you haven’t yet met, named Angela Brody, the District Attorney of New York City. She’s trying to help resettle the clones, or at least have a plan for when the aforementioned law is overturned. She seeks out Larken’s advice, which unfortunately for Ms. Brody, amounts to “have rich friends.” (If you’ll recall from books 1 and 2, Larken has developed some pretty significant connections with the independently-wealthy Aiden, friend of Harper Rawls). See? It’s all coming together!

So even though Virtual Wars is an entirely different series, there are story elements that flesh out some of what happened in my already-published trilogy, Reality Gradient. The way I see them is as ice cream and cobbler. Either is delicious without the other, but they’re so, so much better when you pile vanilla ice cream onto your piping-hot peach cobbler.

Oh yeah! The tie-in. No, Harper isn’t it. I mean, she does offer a connection, but it’s not the one I was referring to before. The one I was referring to is Amanda’s daughter, and when I say her name, it’ll give away the game—but only if you’ve read my first series! Her name…drum roll please…is not Briggs, but Lothian. Her first name is Aida, and she’s there in all of her neuro-divergent glory! If you don’t know what that means, read (or re-read) Libera, Goddess of Worlds from Reality Gradient.

Choosing Day

What does a truly utopian future look like for us a thousand, or even ten thousand, years from now? Many of the things that divide us today will have been diminished to trivial non-issues. Climate Change? Solved. Culture Wars? Moot. Technology? Advanced to the point of being completely organic and indistinguishable from magic. Inter-group violence (i.e. war)? Why bother.

Humans live in hills called tupes, like the hobbits in the shire. Humans don't wear clothes because they've mastered the climate and themselves, so there’s no longer a need. And anyway, they see exquisite beauty in the variety of human forms, from stocky to skin-and-bones, to varying racial compositions, and everything in between. Moreover, after years of intentional and some unintentional bioengineering, humans have generic sexual organs at birth, undifferentiated, and remain that way until they are in their 20s. Anyone under that age is considered a child, as longevity has extended childhood. At the end of this time, usually on their twentieth birthday, humans undertake Choosing Day, which means they pick their sex and gender for the next 4 years. After that, they can switch back and forth more-or-less as desired, but its those four years that are the focus of this novel.

Jad, whose Choosing Day rapidly approaches, is struggling to decide. Their best friend Kel doesn't Choose for 6 more months, and due to hormonal imbalances, those who Choose are, strictly speaking, not supposed to mingle with nascents (those who haven't chosen). So the conflict is multi-part:

Which does Jad choose to become for the next 4 years of their life, and fallout from that decision?

What does Kel choose, and how does that play into the decision that Jad made? (I suspect their friendship won't survive, but haven't written it yet. But it's a coming of age story, so whichever way it goes, it'll be the right way).

How does Kel and Jad's relationship change during the 6 month abstinence period and as a consequence of #1 and #2?

Jad's slow realization that everything about their life did change. They are not a nascent (child) any longer, and so must ease into adulthood, suffering the loss of innocence we all do and realizing their greater part in society.

Subtext to this drama is the deep exploration of the utopian society in which they live, with a dose of the transition from today to that future in snippets of backstory and hints at the Tumultuous Times (current day) from before. At its core, it's a story about the resilience of humanity and our ability to bounce back from difficult times. I think I really need to write a story like this right about now, in all its goodness! This book will be about kindness, overcoming self, and caring!

(Don't worry Dystopian Lovers, it's just one book. Once I'm finished, I'll be right back into the dark stuff ;) ).