John C.A. Manley's Blog, page 2

7 images that will make you question the assassination of Charlie Kirk

Here are seven images from Charlie Kirk's assassination that will make you doubt the official story (and may even make you question whether Kirk is really dead at all). As a speculative fiction author, I find this a fascinating mystery to unravel.

Check out the seven images here: https://blazingpinecone.com/news/2025/09/20/#photos

John C.A. Manley

How JK Rowling lost her billionaire status

An article from The Huffington Post explains that "JK Rowling, the first female novelist billionaire, recently lost her exclusive status because of some very good deeds."

Forbes explains that, "New information about Rowling's estimated $160 million in charitable giving combined with Britain's high tax rates bumped the Harry Potter scribe from our list this year."

In his book, Dignity & Decency, psychotherapist Sterlin Lujan cites Rowling's generosity as his response to the common argument that, "Under anarchy, the poor and impoverished suffer the most due to this disorder caused by freedom since no one will help them because everyone is greedy."

Lujan elaborates:

Already — without government — millions benefit from the generosity of kind people. To say that the poor and infirm will continue to suffer under anarchy is to say that people are incapable of helping. The argument suggests that without authority, people suddenly become less philanthropic — that people need a government gun to their heads to force them to share. More frighteningly, this position suggests that only the angelic men with political power maintain the ability to aid the suffering. But government consists of criminals, not angels.

J.K. Rowling is proof of this. Despite the British government stealing (through taxation) probably half her wealth, she still donates hundreds of millions of dollars to charity. Imagine how generous she’d be if the Ministry of Magic didn’t keep raiding Gringotts.

John C.A. Manley

PS I've recently started reading Sterlin Lujan's Dignity and Decency: Rhapsodic Musings of a Modern Anarchist and can't recommend it enough. It's a quasi-poetic and deeply human look at why we would be healthier, wealthier and more cooperative without any monarchs, politicians, bureaucrats, presidents or government functionaries restricting our actions and stealing our income. You can purchase a copy through my blazing bookshop (check out the awesome cover).

John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona, All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of philosophical fiction that are "so completely engaging that you find yourself alternately laughing, gasping, hanging on for dear life." Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber.

Bill Gates doesn't want you to see this...

Bill Gates, the bumbling technocratic madman. I can never figure out if the bumbling part is an act or who he really is.

This 27-second video is a prime example of his insanity disguised as eccentricity.

He starts by sputtering, "we should have free speech."

All right, I'm with you so far, Bill...

Then he adds, but not "if you're inciting violence...."

Actually, I'm all for people having the freedom to express criminal intentions out loud. It's a lot easier to nail them for attempted murder, assault or theft.

But here's where Bill starts sounding like a madman...

"If you're causing people not to take vaccines..."

Okay, so if you say something that results in someone not taking a vaccine... well, that shouldn't be allowed. It's in the same category as inciting violence.

The irony is that when you look at how much harm and death vaccines cause, speaking out against them is actually preventing violence, not inciting it.

But even if vaccines were safe and effective, I still think people should have the freedom to say whatever they want about them. Otherwise, what's next? People being arrested for discouraging the use of kettlebells?

Gates takes his totalitarian rant to a climactic finish by suggesting we can now use AI to make sure no one says anything negative about vaccines.

I wonder what Bill Gates thinks of this new peer reviewed article in the prestigious Journal for American Physicians and Surgeons that states that his COVID shots "have unleashed profound harm, disrupting nearly every system in the human body and contributing to unprecedented levels of morbidity and mortality."

The article's eleven authors go as far as to say that the injection is a violation of the Biological Weapons Convention.

Maybe that's why Gates doesn't want people talking about vaccines.

John C.A. Manley

P.S. If Gates got his way, it means both my books (for a highly biased example) would be tossed into a Fahrenheit 451 incinerator. Ironically, my second novel, All the Humans are Sleeping (a story about a farmer, a robot and the end of the world), is far more critical of vaccines than even Much Ado About Corona.

Beyond politics: How "holistic voluntaryism" could end the authoritarian chess match

Derrick Brooze, of the Conscious Resistance Network, posted a message about the hatred bubbling up over the assassination of Charlie Kirk. In it, he writes:

Rather than listening to the provocateurs calling for more violence or using this as an excuse to score political points against the "other side", I pray people will instead opt to use this moment as an opportunity to come together. To cool down the rhetoric and the hate.

To be clear, I am not attempting to diminish the reality that both sides of the American corporate parties have authoritarian tendencies. This is a reality we cannot ignore.

The Democrats wanted to round up and force-vaccinate people during COVID1984. They also have a problem with free speech. The Republicans have their own nationalist authoritarian streak as well, as we are seeing with Trump. And they are willing to silence speech when it suits them too.

I agree with Derrick. The "left" and "right" are playing the same dangerous totalitarian chess game, and people are getting psy-oped into sacrificing themselves as pawns on the board. The narratives from both sides are a push towards censorship and control, taking away people's ability to speak and bear arms.

I also agree with Derrick that there is no political solution for this political problem. If anything, the more top-down control we see, the worse it'll get. Instead, I'd encourage you to read Derrick Brooze's book, The Conscious Resistance Trilogy, where he offers a detailed non-political approach. He argues for "holistic voluntaryism" (or "relational anarchism") as the only non-violent, non-coercive and non-divisive path to lasting peace and unity.

John C.A. Manley

John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona, All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of philosophical fiction that are "so completely engaging that you find yourself alternately laughing, gasping, hanging on for dear life." Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber.

Did TikTok kill Charlie Kirk?

Cal Newport, in a blog he posted Friday, blames social media platforms for the assassination of Charlie Kirk. He describes X, Bluesky (which I'd never heard of before) and TikTok as "toxic and dehumanizing," claiming that they "are responsible, as much as any other force, for the unravelling of civil society that seems to be accelerating."

While obviously not the sole cause, I do believe he has a point. Last year, I abandoned X and Facebook, finding them relatively useless for generating new readers for my novels. The environment fosters an attention span shorter than a gnat's hiccup (such people make lousy readers of thick novels).

Worse, it's a place where people make sweeping judgments about people like Charlie Kirk after watching a 30-second clip, followed by 30 hateful comments. They ignore the hour-long videos he has on his YouTube channel, where he has unabridged debates with people who disagree with him.

Henry Zebrowski, for example, has posted a meme of Charlie Kirk just before he was shot with the words "Anti-Vaxxer Finally Gets Shot." It takes a lot of dehumanization to say something like that on a public forum.

Cal Newport describes social media as "an attention factory" where people are "toiling anonymously" while "billionaire overseers mock your efforts and celebrate their growing net worths."

When its current overseer, Elon Musk, bought Twitter and turned it into a free speech platform with a really strange name, freedom-fighters cheered. Instead, he may have done freedom a better service by burning it to the ground.

John C.A. Manley

P.S. You can read Cal Newport's post, "On Charlie Kirk and Saving Civil Society," over at CalNewport.com

P.P.S. The only "social media" platform that I do use to promote my work is GoodReads. It's a great place to discuss books with other book lovers. You can join GoodReads and follow me here.

John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona, All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of philosophical fiction that are "so completely engaging that you find yourself alternately laughing, gasping, hanging on for dear life." Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber.

September 11, 2041

In my novel All the Humans are Sleeping, World War III begins on September 11, 2041. Each of its chapters opens with an epigraph by historian Dr. Marta Wink, providing some backdrop. Here's a sample from Chapter "4.02: Stay Safe, Stay Asleep":

Excavation of tens of thousands of Metaverse hubs had begun on January 1st, 2035. Their construction was completed a mere forty days before the first bomb fell on September 11, 2045. Some said it was miraculous timing; others said it was conspiratorial.

The hubs were buried deep into the frozen landscapes of northern Canada, Alaska, Greenland, Iceland, Scandinavia and Russia, along with another thousand situated along the coast of the Antarctic. They were subterranean prisons for all the humans who were unfortunate enough to survive.

—Dr. Marta Wink, PhD,
The Rise and Fall of 21st Century Man,
volume 3, page 247, Rebirth Press, 2291

Rather than a dystopian tale about death and destruction, after this doomsday opening, the plot shifts to one of life and reconstruction, telling the story of one farmer who refuses to escape into the metaverse. Instead of being buried beneath the earth, he retreats to a mountain in Northern Norway, with his teenage daughter, a few hundred robots and a few thousand seeds.

Get a free sample or buy the book (or audiobook) at: AlltheHumansAreSleeping.com

John C.A. Manley

Charlie Kirk on why people believe the "other side is so evil that they lose their humanity"

In mid-sentence, talking to a crowd of students about gang violence, Charlie Kirk was shot in the throat.

His assassination shocks and saddens me.

While I didn't agree with everything Charlie Kirk espoused, I loved the way he shared his ideas. His open-mic "prove me wrong" discussions and debates on college campuses were always respectful, no matter how rude or insulting his hecklers could be. In a time when "tolerance" and "fairness" are words much-abused, he was an example of their true meaning.

His book, College Is a Scam, should be essential reading for every high school student.

He'd never attended college himself, yet he was more well-read than most graduates and more articulate than many professors.

Charlie Kirk famously said (on multiple occasions), “When people stop talking, that’s when you get violence; that’s when civil war happens, because you start to think the other side is so evil that they lose their humanity.”

I pray people keep talking and trying to understand each other, even if Charlie Kirk's voice will no longer be a part of the discussion.

John C.A. Manley

P.S. For a snapshot of Charlie Kirk's love of respectful dialogue, open debate and free speech, check out this three-minute clip from a discussion he had with a college freshman in 2024.

Flashback: Premiere Cheescake's ”bake-at-home and save lives” gaslighting operation

Blazing Reader,

The novella I'm working on now, COVID Disobedience is partly set in Moosehead, Ontario, March 2020 — a week after Premier Doug "Cheesecake" Ford declared the first lockdown. Set a few months before my full-length novel, Much Ado About Corona, this shorter work brings back the novel's most popular character, Stefanie Müller. It's been nostalgic revisiting both her dissident character and that first chilling week of COVID mandates:

Here's an excerpt from chapter two:

Her eyes looked over at a Moosehead wall calendar held to the fridge door with a magnet. It was a gift Sandy Henderson had given her back in December, to welcome Stefanie and her bakery to Moosehead. March featured a photo of the iron “Moosehead” bust in front of town hall. On the page hanging below the photo were the days of the month, with 17 circled in red — the day when the province declared a provincial emergency under section 7.0.1 (1) of Ontario’s Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act.

“We are facing an unprecedented time in our history,” the plump Premier had said.

That was during the same press conference where he advised people to do more baking at home — even admitting that he’d already eaten “one too many cheesecakes — that’s my problem.”

Stefanie remembered how anxious he looked, informing Ontario’s 14 million citizens that they were now prisoners of the state. Maybe he was genuinely scared they wouldn’t buy into his ”bake-at-home and save lives” gaslighting operation.

Well, Premier Cheesecake, Stefanie thought to herself, you have nothing to fear.

Not only did people cheer on fourteen days of house arrest, but they were also asking for more. After all, what a comfy crisis: Stay at home, watch Netflix, eat cheesecake… and save the world.

Save the world. Sheesh...

As retired Constable Vincent Gircys (Ontario Provincial Police) said after reading my first novel, “History will be written to falsely show how our government ‘saved’ us from extinction. Much Ado About Corona slowly brings forward the invisible truth. The novel flows well, has an original story, maintained my attention and has an unexpected good ending.”

He also read all five hundred pages in less than a week. If you haven't done the same, you can check out a free sample (including an audiobook version) or purchase a copy at MuchAdoAboutCorona.com

John C.A. Manley

PS And for more about my forthcoming novella, check out this post: One brave baker, a "14-day" lockdown and the ghost of Henry David Thoreau

Stephen King on how to deal with "highly subjective opinions"

Jordan Henderson's new painting "Contraindications," has received mixed reactions from my subscirbers after reading my critical review.

For example, one reader wrote, "I also agree, it was not one of his best. In fact, I found it a little concerning that it was so different in style and message."

While another praised it, saying, "Myself, I love the painting, it is a testament to the idiocy that is rampant within the mental health challenged communities!

Even Stephen King admits to receiving similar thumbs-up-thumbs-down reactions from test readers (but it hasn't stopped him from selling 350 million copies of his novels). Here's an excerpt from his how-to non-fiction book On Writing:

When you give out six or eight copies of a book, you get back six or eight highly subjective opinions about what’s good and what’s bad in it. If all your readers think you did a pretty good job, you probably did. This sort of unanimity does happen, but it’s rare, even with friends. More likely, they’ll think that some parts are good and some parts are... well, not so good. Some will feel Character A works but Character B is far-fetched. If others feel that Character B is believable but Character A is overdrawn, it’s a wash. You can safely relax and leave things the way they are (in baseball, tie goes to the runner; for novelists, it goes to the writer). If some people love your ending and others hate it, same deal — it’s a wash, and tie goes to the writer.

Well, in this case, the tie goes to the artist.

John C.A. Manley

P.S. I've had similar mixed reactions to my two novels. For example, my good friend, Paul Jackson, has never been able to finish reading Much Ado About Corona. But he had trouble putting down All the Humans Are Sleeping — even leaving this review on Amazon: "This book is a winner in my opinion, captures so much of the undercurrents now surging in all of our lives." Check out other absolutely positive reviews (I've actually not see any negative reviews yet) at AlltheHumansAreSleeping.com.

How to paint a square circle?

Blazing Reader,

As promised in yesterday's post, here is Jordan Henderson's explanation for why he relied so heavily on words instead of images in his latest painting, "Contraindications":

As to why I went ahead and broke the show don't tell rule (a rule with which I am in general agreement):

Well, on second thought, mostly actually I did want to show, not tell; I wanted to show protestors carrying signs with... slogans of their own choosing.

The idea being to juxtapose different feel-good progressive slogans to highlight contradictions in their prescriptions for society.

But protest signs generally tell rather than show. I mean, they write slogans on their signs, so really, I would argue that I'm showing them telling you with their signs.

The only area I would say where I directly tell the viewer, rather than show the protestors telling the viewer, is with the "2 + 2 = 5" and "War is Peace" signs. That was straight-up editorializing on my part, which I hesitated on but decided to do after showing the mock-up to a few people who didn't get that I was criticizing the protestors, because the slogans are so common [that] it didn't even phase them. They were just used to hearing progressives talk like that. So they were looking at my preliminary sketches and thinking, "Okay, a painting of a bunch of protesters, carrying signs for popular social justice causes, and...?"

So those "2 + 2 = 5" and "War is Peace" signs I put in to tip off the unsuspecting viewer who might think this painting is just a value-neutral portrayal of a protest, that I'm showing them something else about it.

Too bad Jordan couldn't have just painted a protest sign with a square circle.

But maybe that's exactly why he had to use so many words to convey the message behind "Contraindications." Words can be manipulated a lot more easily than visual reality.

John C.A. Manley

P.S. If you missed my review of Jordan's painting, you can check it out here: Why I'm disappointed with "Contraindication" (Jordan Henderson's latest sociopolitical painting)

P.P.S. Did you know that Jordan Henderson is the reincarnation of George Cruikshank — the man who illustrated the first edition of Oliver Twist? Here's the sketchy evidence.