Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff's Blog: #42 Pencil: A Writer's Life, the Universe, and Everything, page 9

Orlando, False Flags and False Logic

Once again, we have are enduring a national tragedyâthe worst mass shooting in the history of our country. Fifty souls suddenly and unexpectedly severed from this world in a place they felt safe and welcome.

Naturally, the first thing some folks want to do is assign blame. On the list of “blamees”: President Obama, Hillary Clinton, Muslims, the LGBT community. And naturally, there are those who immediately leapt to the conclusion that this was yet another “false flag” event staged by the libe...

The MERI is back in print!

My debut novel, THE MERIâBook One of the Mer Cycleâwhich has been available only as an eBook, is coming back into print with a new cover and a new publisherâBook View Cafe.

June 3rd is the day, fantasy fans. So, mark your calendars and, if you’re the sort of reader that loves the scent and feel of a book, you can purchase a new print copy of THE MERI through Book View Cafe, or at Amazon.

What’s THE MERI about, you ask? Well, here’s what the back of the book says:

In the twenty-fifth year of t...

Trajectories: Stories of Exploration Has Arrived!

What is TRAJECTORIES? It’s aÂnew anthology from Hydra Publications (no Avengers or Shield jokes) that contains stories by a variety of SF and F authors including me.

Where can you get it? Today was its Amazon release as a Kindle eBook. It will soon be out in print. I shall, of course, alert the media.

My entry in this anthology is a follow-up on the career of one of the characters from my second Analog storyâ”A Little Bit of an Eclipse”. The novelette “A Matter of Timing” features the storyt...

Wrong + Wrong does not equal Right

There’s an idea making the rounds of social media, blogs and news reports that all Muslims in a given area know about any jihadists among them and simply aren’t talking.

As one public figure put it, “everybody from that area knew [a recently capturedÂjihadist] was there â nobody turned him in. Thereâs something going on, and thereâs something wrong.â

It is not important who made this inarticulate, but highly charged, assertion. What’s important is that it is being repeated ad nauseam.

Yes,...

Please Don’t Feed the Animals/Children

The following is an official commentary that appeared on a politician’sÂFacebook page recently:

âThe Food Stamp Program, administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is proud to be distributing this year the greatest amount of free Meals and Food Stamps ever, to 46 million people.

âMeanwhile, the National Park Service, administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior, asks us âPlease Do Not Feed the Animals.â Their stated reason for the policy is because âThe animals will grow depen...

Grrr … Argh … Rhetoric and Reality

Let’s write a reality check.

I’ve heard a number of times over the past several months from news sources trusted by a great number of Americans, from pundits and political operatives and from a moderator at Âa recent debate, that the unemployment rate in the US is not 4.9 percent as official numbers state, but closer to 42 percent.

Here’s the way a debate moderatorÂ(surely a misnomer) put it: “…almost 40 percent of Americans are without a job and are not looking. Many have given up. That’s wh...

“I Remember the Rain” Releases This Weekend!

The sixth Bohnhoff CD—IRemember the Rain—releases officially this weekend at Consonance, THE San Francisco Bay Area Filk Convention.

This is our third original music CD, containsmusic ranging from rootsy folk to rock ‘n’ roll and features the talents of thesewonderfully talented friends:Dr. Mary Crowell on keyboards and vocals, Jared Norris and Igor Len on keyboards, Mike Mallory and Tony Levin on bass, Vixy Dockrey, Kristoph Klover and Kristine Bohnhoff on vocals.

We have such awesome friend...

Figs & Thistles: What is a Christian?

“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not in the gospel.” — Pope Francis on a presidential candidate’sproposals tocompletely seal the US southern border.

This statement raised eyebrows in some quarters and incited a riot in the Twitterverse. For many folks, I hope, it alsoraised the question: What is a Christian?

The Pope’s comments suggest that a Christian is known by how well their thought, word, and deed a...

Fox News and Journalistic Anemia

“Islamophobia is the accepted form of racism in America. Leaders …show us that you can take a potshot at Muslims and get away with it.” — Arsalan Iftikhar, human rights lawyer.

February 4 on Fox News’ The Five, in the aftermath of President Obama’s speech at a Baltimore mosque, three of the show’s fivehosts that evening jumped in to interrupt afourth (Juan Williams) as he was remarking on “the spike in attacks, hate crimes against Muslims in the United States” and on a proposed ban promoted...

Just Listening to NPR

I was just listening to a dialogue on our local NPR station involving experts from “both sides” of the “gun debate”. This was, of course, in response to the President’s speech outlining his latest push to decrease gun violence in America.

The participants were Adam Winkler, a constitutional law professor from the UCLA School of Law and author of Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America, and Roger Pilon, vice president for Legal Affairs & Director of the Center for Constitut...