tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4277890837480111422024-03-18T09:24:03.958-05:00Beloved SpearFaith, Politics, and the AbsurdBeloved Spearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14568697883886058321noreply@blogger.comBlogger1721125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-427789083748011142.post-82208310380343312972024-03-18T09:23:00.001-05:002024-03-18T09:23:14.750-05:00Bad Family Businesses<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikNdxZsZjze-QKVHJG2mczLu0xJR-vT6A7VImfheVRkggjENomM1-0Gq6GKmmVjr2DH_Gg4UIlzVgw3xj_LKSZO9Wc9vWkWrPglMLYH5EH_nLfdaTMNk6RRyO7xaLRo2R6Jrshho2UoR3qiPZzLRQeNgyKgQWOCCqdqG0FqYfvf9KhcHQ_7ICUV2f4mOPz/s1000/The_sopranos_right_at_favourite_place-1024x768.webp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikNdxZsZjze-QKVHJG2mczLu0xJR-vT6A7VImfheVRkggjENomM1-0Gq6GKmmVjr2DH_Gg4UIlzVgw3xj_LKSZO9Wc9vWkWrPglMLYH5EH_nLfdaTMNk6RRyO7xaLRo2R6Jrshho2UoR3qiPZzLRQeNgyKgQWOCCqdqG0FqYfvf9KhcHQ_7ICUV2f4mOPz/s320/The_sopranos_right_at_favourite_place-1024x768.webp" width="320" /></a></div>Having a family business can be a good thing.<p></p><p>Like, say, the humble hole-in-the-wall strip mall Chinese restaurant my own family has been ordering from for nearly two decades. The food is classic American Takeout Chinese, cheap and abundant and generically tasty. We've been their regular customers as management has passed among and between members of an extended Chinese family over those years. We've watched extended family arrive from China, folded into community through the business. We've watched the children of the family grow up, first diligently doing homework in the restaurant while their parents worked, and then helping with the business while juggling school and life.</p><p>Family farms and restaurants and businesses of almost all ilks can be a cross-generational blessing. The bonds of blood and trust that unite extended families can add to the sense of purpose that rises from a shared labor.</p><p>But there are some lines of work that lend themselves poorly to that connection, where the expectations that rule family life and expectation clash with the reality of the vocation.</p><p>Pastoring, for pointed example.</p><p>Just because your Daddy was a preacher doesn't mean that you are, kid. Call is a fiercely particular thing, and while it can run in your blood, it operates on a different plane from the logics of lineage. When it becomes the family business, faith often goes awry, becoming less about being a servant of the divine encounter and more about social position and renumeration.</p><p>Because that works socially...human beings get attached to a name, to the story of a brand...it too easily loses authenticity, as the self-serving necessities of nepotism take precedence over all other considerations. In churches, it creates a willingness to raise up too many of <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Samuel+2%3A12-36&version=NIV">Eli's sons</a>, too many of <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Samuel+8%3A1-3&version=NIV">Samuel's sons</a>, those who see the power that comes from that position, and who are eager to milk unearned social authority for their own benefit.</p><p>Church becomes a place of falseness, of self-serving plunder and profit. But there's a place where social power plays even more freely.</p><p>Politics, if one believes in republican virtues, is another place where familial expectations are poorly applied. I've always looked a wee bit askance at the various political dynasties that have arisen over the course of the short history of our republic, because dynastic thinking is antithetical to constitutional principles.</p><p>It's difficult to avoid, because political systems are systems of relationship and social influence. Those connections inhere within family networks, in ways that must be warily watched. </p><p>The more deeply a single family weaves its name and its brand into the political life of a constitutional democracy, the more danger there is that we will slide back into a functional monarchism. I mean, sure, it was romantic and young back in the day, but Camelot wasn't the capital of a republic, eh? </p><p>When we see leaders promoting family members to positions of power, approaching both party and nation as if they were the family business? It's a red flag for a republic, a warning light on the dashboard of democracy, an alarm ringing in the ears, no matter what the party.</p>Beloved Spearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14568697883886058321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-427789083748011142.post-434511073053245992024-03-16T15:41:00.005-05:002024-03-18T06:45:25.114-05:00Dad's Garden<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3ZCISKUM7wR35YmEtTW1CiK9rnHwHda6s_-gs31RhXXfsY4mLyNbnxIO9auBDXasP4DLkdmyuEhbnGukTm7MiCSdgCoLWbEVkRssZBSkztKbHgxArUo_VjLg40m_2PYz9O-3jgdAK-R_boaFptu4dSKyadiq6c4qHtZwZ-7XY4VDPDCpW-FKUd3pB7IpD/s4032/20240312_120320.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3ZCISKUM7wR35YmEtTW1CiK9rnHwHda6s_-gs31RhXXfsY4mLyNbnxIO9auBDXasP4DLkdmyuEhbnGukTm7MiCSdgCoLWbEVkRssZBSkztKbHgxArUo_VjLg40m_2PYz9O-3jgdAK-R_boaFptu4dSKyadiq6c4qHtZwZ-7XY4VDPDCpW-FKUd3pB7IpD/s320/20240312_120320.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>When my family returned to the States from London back in 1982, my father planted a garden. <p></p><p>A five-by-ten patch of grass on the southeastern side of our back yard was dug up, soil amendments added, and every year in the late spring, he'd set tomato seedlings into the earth. Better Boys, generally speaking, because they were the perfect complement to BLTs and burgers.</p><p>Dad was a single generation removed from actual farming-stock, as my paternal grandfather grew up on several hundred acres of family farm in upstate New York. Hops were the primary yield of the family farm just outside of the little village of Chuckery Corners, but there we Williams grew everything, as most Americans once did. </p><p>Connecting with the soil was a thing for Dad. Not as important as music and performance, but still something that gave a sense of heritage. It was part of his story.</p><p>Every summer from middle school onward, the tomatoes at home were fresh picked. Rows were set out on our screened-in porch to sun-redden to ripeness, safe from the depredations of deer and squirrels and the occasional enterprising turtle.</p><p>As the years progressed, the tomatoes kept coming. Eventually, gardening got harder. Dad's knees started to go. Then his hip. Then, bit by bit, his heart. By the time he was in congestive heart failure, the garden was too much for him. My brother and I pitched in to help keep it going, and as the CHF progressed, we managed to keep a few tomatoes coming. Dad took pleasure knowing they were there, as my brother tended the plants during the summers he spent caring for my folks.</p><p>When Dad died early last fall after a hard season, the garden sat fallow. With spring coming on, Mom asked that I pull the fence I'd put in a few years back, and take up the pavers that once sat between rows of plants.</p><p>So this last week, I did. The fence, gone. The paving stones, dug from earth. </p><p>What had been a garden is now returned to grass.</p><p>The pavers, I took for my own gardens. </p><p>They took their place in my eight by eight raised beds, where they will provide stepping stones between tomatoes and garlic and greenbeans, between the garden that is present and the garden that has passed.</p>Beloved Spearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14568697883886058321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-427789083748011142.post-51971373467672317812024-03-12T06:35:00.005-05:002024-03-17T06:44:21.929-05:00Falun Dafa, Swastikas, and Fascism<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKN8E1QXcTLOCnwmz3ZIw1aE2h9o1XaGznhBmNynu6nWv_Bt-_DNp7TfbM5DMxllBropsQ4nsOVPszYwCLDAY-PxILaILg392huQ30IE1EA_bgZkkLIPEN2Bp4LSPlPzPJx9iLs5Gt3ftrgeTFy-8gaNMiWd_m2enqPya8QSymc_HJ_ge4NFOfT0gmX9tT/s256/falun-s.gif" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="256" data-original-width="256" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKN8E1QXcTLOCnwmz3ZIw1aE2h9o1XaGznhBmNynu6nWv_Bt-_DNp7TfbM5DMxllBropsQ4nsOVPszYwCLDAY-PxILaILg392huQ30IE1EA_bgZkkLIPEN2Bp4LSPlPzPJx9iLs5Gt3ftrgeTFy-8gaNMiWd_m2enqPya8QSymc_HJ_ge4NFOfT0gmX9tT/s1600/falun-s.gif" width="256" /></a></div><p>Falun Gong...or Falun Dafa...is such an odd thing. In the United States, they're perhaps best known for the inescapable Shen Yun show, a relentlessly hypermarketed spectacle of music and dance that retells Chinese history from their religious perspective.</p>Over the past several years, I've seen the adherents of that religious movement making their presence known at large, open social events. They march in local parades, their floats festooned with signs proclaiming peace and love. They're consistently present in the annual parade in the little town where my church resides. They're there in my hometown Annandale Parade, as they were this last fall.<p></p><p>It was at that hometown parade that I accepted a flyer pressed into my hand, neatly produced and earnest. Peace and Love, proclaimed the cover. I opened it up, and there they were. The symbols of their movement:</p><p>Swastikas. Oof.</p><p>I'm not ignorant of the history of that symbol. As an image, the swastika had a long history before it was co-opted by Hitler's National Socialist movement. For millennia, it had none of the connotations of brutal, genocidal nationalism that now hang around it like a cloud in the West. When someone from Asia or Southeast Asia uses it, I think rather differently about it than I might were I to see it flying alongside a Let's Go Brandon flag in rural America.</p><p>Still and all, there's a clumsiness to putting that front and center, an awkward failure to acknowledge the context you inhabit, like walking into a mosque with your shoes on and wearing a t-shirt that asserts that everything goes better with bacon. "Hey, it's just my culture, get over it" doesn't quite cut the mustard.</p><p>And there's another, peculiar level to this story.</p><p>Falun Gong has been systematically and often brutally oppressed in their native China, with adherents subject to imprisonment, "re-education," and exile. Because of this, they are vehemently opposed to the Communist party in China. Like Sun Myung Moon's "Moonie" Reunification Church back in the 1960s and 1970s, their vociferous anticommunism overcompensates into something peculiar.</p><p>In addition the the ubiquity of Shen Yun, Falun Dafa is also responsible for the media content produced by The Epoch Times, which they own. </p><p>That outlet, if you're not aware of it, is a "fair and balanced" news organization that aggressively promoted claims of election fraud in 2020, that sees communist influence everywhere, and that routinely casts doubt on the efficacy and safety of vaccines. They're purveyors of "hard-hitting documentaries" produced by entirely "neutral and reflective" folks like Dinesh D'Souza, and proudly highlight the endorsements of thoughtful moderates like Sebastian Gorka, Pete Navarro, and Paul Gosar.</p><p>For entirely comprehensible reasons, they're pro-Trump, because Trump is performatively anti-China. This position mirrors that of the Moon's Reunification Church, which purchased the Washington Times back in the day to both promote themselves and align with far right wing causes.</p><p>Which brings us back, in the deepest of ironies, to their use of swastikas.</p><p>Saying "the swastika is just our cultural sign of peace and love" feels a little off when your media outlet is championing the messages of the far right, and amplifying authoritarian voices that would overturn the constitutional foundations of this republic.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Beloved Spearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14568697883886058321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-427789083748011142.post-36286527667110597282024-03-08T08:58:00.003-05:002024-03-09T16:58:44.721-05:00A Eulogy for the Alderman Stacks<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7VEtPfpTeoe15QBDDjkw9Cz65Kdi8sw108JzmvNUyO5wJUktrYQvw1RTS_MnYKKdll0-C7EeSRw085XqkjHC7tSZV382WS3eKZ6AzUnY6qbMa3-0o9BdgquZN8bfwoOxg_Anok6s46hSwQEUfkn2Ih_ja_sx6keA6qjzKsC4z7_5UYAk8HFMVPePKnWJ_/s1000/timecapsule-alderman-5.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7VEtPfpTeoe15QBDDjkw9Cz65Kdi8sw108JzmvNUyO5wJUktrYQvw1RTS_MnYKKdll0-C7EeSRw085XqkjHC7tSZV382WS3eKZ6AzUnY6qbMa3-0o9BdgquZN8bfwoOxg_Anok6s46hSwQEUfkn2Ih_ja_sx6keA6qjzKsC4z7_5UYAk8HFMVPePKnWJ_/s320/timecapsule-alderman-5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>I am a terrible alumnus. This, I will freely admit. </div><div><br /></div><div>While my education at the University of Virginia profoundly enriched and set direction for my life, and I still maintain connection with the friends I made there, the culture of the school never jibed with me.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's a culture that I find expressed every single time I receive my alumni magazine. The alumni magazine that my William and Mary alumna wife regularly reads cover to cover is filled with long, substantive articles about the research of professors and unusual, creative work by W&M graduates. </div><div><br /></div><div>That's not what I get. The slight, slick magazine that arrives for me is almost invariably a paean to wealth, privilege, and material success. It's a magazine for strivers, stuffed full of advertising for Charlottesville area estates, most of which are priced either in the high seven digits or without a pricetag. Because if you have to ask, eh? </div><div><br /></div><div>Most of the rest of it revolves around fundraising, which seems absurd for an institution that rests upon a thirteen point six billion dollar endowment hoard. My wife holds it up as evidence that W&M is an institution more serious about its educational mission, and I have to admit she has a point.</div><div><br /></div><div>I usually just recycle it.</div><div><br /></div><div>But the magazine I just received was different. On the cover, an image of the new humanities library, the former Alderman Stacks. I spent a great deal of time in the Stacks, and my memory of them is strong. Like so many things, it has been recently remade, the old facility gutted and "reimagined." That reimagining was celebrated in a short article, filled with pictures of the new, light-filled spaces. It began with this opening description of the old stacks:</div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;">"There was always that distinct experience when you headed to the back of Alderman Library. You'd cross the connecting bridge, never looking down the barren window wells on either side, and confront cold steel--an old elevator beside the metal chute they called a staircase. The ceilings lowered to half height. The walls closed in. Windows disappeared. Time stopped. Your internal compass lost its polarity. You had descended into the dark night of the Stacks. Retrace those steps today and it's like a morning-sun realization that it had all been a bad dream."</div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div>A "bad dream?" Really?</div><div><br /></div><div>I had the experience of entering those Stacks countless times, but my encounter with that space was completely different.</div><div><br /></div><div>That bridge was liminal, a place of crossing over, of transition between the outside world and the Stacks. Because the Stacks were dreamlike. They felt like a different world, whose internal logics and peculiarities were like those that fill our time in the Land of Nod.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Stacks were a little close and crepuscular, the low ceilings and tight, functional staircases creating a labyrinthine warren whose twilight aesthetics spoke quietly of deep reflection and intimate focus. The study carrels were more than a little monastic. It felt old, even back in the late '80s. </div><div><br /></div><div>But "old" isn't a pejorative. It felt rooted, a part of the written history whose memories filled the volume within. </div><div><br /></div>It was a place created for books, defined by books, and seemingly comprised entirely of books. Words on paper hemmed you in, around, below, and above. The scent of ancient paper filled the air with a rich sweet must. It felt peculiarly organic, a sanctum of deep soft quiet and distance from the world, separate from the rush and hum of life. <div><br /></div><div>It was the sort of place that felt worth exploring. It was a little magical, the sort of place where one wouldn't be entirely surprised to encounter Galdalf the Grey seeking a particularly obscure scroll. It was a place where you could focus, where you could be undistracted, where you could lose yourself in words. It was not a place of this scattered, Adderall age.</div><div><div><br /></div><div>That soft magic is now lost, washed away from the University of Virginia...like the humanities, like the study of literature, like the arts...by a space that dazzles.</div><div><div><br /></div></div></div>Beloved Spearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14568697883886058321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-427789083748011142.post-10740891559443393272024-03-04T08:59:00.002-05:002024-03-04T08:59:53.710-05:00Speaking Without Words<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgivKiNoI3FApTYr9-zqRO4euNISVylR0wi9t7F-aFXFb2reKbXkuQSHw4Zkov1WiwyiMD74nIAgSonPmEK6xGjEqg8Ly9FpfbWTvESjGB7pNUrqty_w8AcRGLPfZMt3SS60bDy53BKnyQHh-l66pz-2SfgNq3DpSJ1I_aLvMJJVT9omju_249KHsE_UxPI/s1024/_3f53c4bd-f2b2-4dcd-aa99-5ec0941877ee.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgivKiNoI3FApTYr9-zqRO4euNISVylR0wi9t7F-aFXFb2reKbXkuQSHw4Zkov1WiwyiMD74nIAgSonPmEK6xGjEqg8Ly9FpfbWTvESjGB7pNUrqty_w8AcRGLPfZMt3SS60bDy53BKnyQHh-l66pz-2SfgNq3DpSJ1I_aLvMJJVT9omju_249KHsE_UxPI/s320/_3f53c4bd-f2b2-4dcd-aa99-5ec0941877ee.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>The strangest thing about going on a cruise is how much effort goes into making it seem like you’re not on a cruise. I mean, here you are, right smack in the middle of the ocean, the vast deep of our two-thirds Water World suddenly very much in evidence. In every direction, our little planet stretches all the way to the subtle curve of the horizon, and beneath you lies a deep that…if the shipboard sonar reporting is at all valid…extends for thousands upon thousands of feet.<br /><br />The surface of the ocean is ever changing, going from near-mirror-smooth one day to great rolling swells the next, to thirty foot seas and spray that dances over the roiling foam-flecked chaos in a driving gale.<br /><br />Inside the contemporary floating city, though, there’s often no evidence that this exists at all. Instead, there are off-Broadway shows and cabarets, shops and restaurants, bumpercars and lasertag and pickleball and hot tubs and arcades. In the belly of the ship, a casino straight out of Vegas, windowless and sharp with the scent of nicotine. It’s all bright lights and amusements, and unless the seas are high, you’d never know they are there.<br /><br />I find the lights and the endless overstimulation a little much.<br /><br />Out on my balcony late on the second night of the trip, I was looking out across the blackness. It was still cold, in the low forties, and as I looked out at the honeycombed expanse of other balconies, I could see no-one else outside. I was reflecting on this when a loud, slapping splash caught my attention. It sounded like someone had flung themselves from the sixteenth level of the ship in a bellyflop, and I peered into the waves to see what might be going on. The slap came again, a wet percussive report, and staring out into the darkness, I spotted the cause.<br /><br />Racing alongside the ship at nearly twenty knots was a single large bull bottlenose, whose streamlined form was visible beneath the surface, lit ghostly by the false daylight of the ship. <br /><br />It wasn’t riding the wake, but running fast and close and amidships. Every five or six seconds, it would fling itself from the water, soaring for a sleek moment in the night air. When it reentered the water, it would strike the surface with the flukes of its tail, and the sharp crack of tail on water would echo against the side of the ship.<br /><br />It was clearly a display. It was clearly meant for us. Not that we were paying attention. <div><br /></div><div>As best I could tell, of the nearly seven thousand souls aboard the ship, I was the only one seeing it.<br /><br />I’d read enough about dolphins to understand what that bull bottlenose was saying as I watched it race across the water. A tailslap, among dolphins, serves a number of purposes. It’s forceful enough to stun prey fish, so it can be used in hunting. In male dolphins, the tailslap is a territorial and threat display, a warning to unwanted intruders…dolphin and otherwise…that the dolphin is not pleased with their presence, and a show of force.<br /><br />That big bull was not just any of God’s creatures, but an animal that is scientifically recognized to be more intelligent than most of the humans in congress. It wasn’t putting on an impromptu Seaworld performance. It was letting us know that our 175,000 ton ship did not impress it, and that we were disturbing the peace.<br /><br />We weren’t listening, of course. We are so good at not listening, particularly when creation speaks without words. As I let myself back into my cabin, I found myself wondering just how loudly creation needs to speak before we start listening. How fiercely does the wind need to roar, how swift do the flames need to burn, how quick does the water need to rise, before it catches our attention? <br /><br />I suppose we’ll find that out.<br /></div>Beloved Spearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14568697883886058321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-427789083748011142.post-70439693065367192092024-02-14T09:12:00.000-05:002024-02-14T09:12:07.339-05:00Ashes to Stay<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjndrtG6jcVPRcwGBLpb7OGno5UbZrVMsrBdMjMJIDPnyUjnW9S5GI5Y5p5tXqVqq35qzOZqMi2KPt09deJWToEoKdB513Uu8bTijy6AjmQtL5chFPo-HdYaDchKrsiEUaG9FRfgI4U95gMGjHB9uR9-0dCksG054ESV1SjwObmPZI94PKh6AfjYiI5KXlf/s1024/_6370cdaf-da7f-4881-8788-4198837d83a3.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjndrtG6jcVPRcwGBLpb7OGno5UbZrVMsrBdMjMJIDPnyUjnW9S5GI5Y5p5tXqVqq35qzOZqMi2KPt09deJWToEoKdB513Uu8bTijy6AjmQtL5chFPo-HdYaDchKrsiEUaG9FRfgI4U95gMGjHB9uR9-0dCksG054ESV1SjwObmPZI94PKh6AfjYiI5KXlf/s320/_6370cdaf-da7f-4881-8788-4198837d83a3.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>Every winter for the last several years, I've had to figure out what to do with ashes.<p></p><p>On a night that's below fifty degrees, I'll build a fire, a crackling dance of light and warmth that fills our home with a primal comfort. We human beings evolved with fire, and evolved to delight in fire, and the place of the hearth in our lives only changed during my parents generation. After countless millennia, the scent of carbonizing oak or pine or sycamore has been supplanted by the cool glow and flicker of our screens, the soft time of story and quietness around the open flame replaced with the bingbamboom bustle of one thing after another, scrolling ever downward.</p><p>It's a loss, it is, because in our frenetic rushing about we are forgetting things.</p><p>Like what ash is, and what ash does.</p><p>In our disposable age, we assume that when we have used a thing up, it no longer has worth. We toss aside teratons of plastic nothings. We crumple wrappers, we plan for obsolescence, we create a wastestream, a Heraclitan torrent of the unvalued and forgotten.</p><p>But ash isn't waste. Ash isn't worthless. Nothing God makes is waste, even the greyblack remains of the flame. It only seems so because we now think in shallow, rushing, wasteful ways, flinging ourselves from moment to moment and missing the whole. </p><p>When I clean out my hearth, I do not discard the ashes. Ashes are precious to a gardener, rich with calcium and carbon and micronutrients. Ashes are pitchforked into my compost. Ashes feed my garlic, plumping the bulbs that have been patiently enduring the winter. Ashes enrich the soil in which my asparagus grows, and a diet of carbon can keep them yielding for decades. I'm setting three small beds aside for a new plant this year. I'm eager to experiment with okra, a plant that is remarkably nutritious, easy to seedsave, beautifully ornamental, and will adapt well to our rapidly warming Midatlantic. </p><p>What does okra love? Okra loveslovesloves wood ash.</p><p>To appreciate ash, one must be unhurried about it. Over patient years, you learn the richness it adds to the earth, come to know the living things that thrive and grow as they take that ash into themselves. When you smell the cut garlic on your fingers, snap the first spear of asparagus in the spring, or taste the nutty crunch of fried okra? </p><p>You see the value in what the fire has left behind, and that life has reclaimed and made its own.</p>Beloved Spearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14568697883886058321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-427789083748011142.post-34783432117188904862024-02-10T10:33:00.000-05:002024-02-10T10:33:45.440-05:00In the Shadow of Her Majesty, Chapter Sixteen<p><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLgOpQFBHSm4ULBZt5at6wnbCIe5slcicKW1tFBJW0JHN24mV2gMDf2kMdfxiEbXp4cgIACLQyWCPzS0SknhSMbOAsKGqptHBwURIW0NOJtaFHmb4IO8YHxmhVPaRfcrYkwPBGa2H9fhHyzWwj8eDYfk6-M3Th90iUDGpLCycYdOas7tbepAKcKvOQqDBX/s1024/_4663b3a1-c5ce-4ed4-a78e-50b1997d5e54.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLgOpQFBHSm4ULBZt5at6wnbCIe5slcicKW1tFBJW0JHN24mV2gMDf2kMdfxiEbXp4cgIACLQyWCPzS0SknhSMbOAsKGqptHBwURIW0NOJtaFHmb4IO8YHxmhVPaRfcrYkwPBGa2H9fhHyzWwj8eDYfk6-M3Th90iUDGpLCycYdOas7tbepAKcKvOQqDBX/s320/_4663b3a1-c5ce-4ed4-a78e-50b1997d5e54.jpeg" width="320" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-weight: 700; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Chapter Sixteen: My First Argument with Diego</span><p></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-e3033a59-7fff-b7d8-6de2-1b17295f56ee"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">From behind Diego, his cat-faced comrade let out a percussive snicker.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“Excuse me?” I said, recoiling, my face flushing red with an admixture of anger, shock, and embarrassment.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“You heard me. What. The Serious </span><span style="background-color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">XXXX</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. Do You Think. You’re Doing?”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I was, of course, utterly mortified at the foulness of his speech, and at this appalling breach of basic human decency. “I am </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">attempting</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> to thank you for effectuating my rescue, and would have assumed that this would be blindingly obvious to even the most…”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“No no no no,” he interrupted, his voice rising in timbre. “Not that. Nope. You don’t understand. I mean, no </span><span style="background-color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">xxxx,</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, of course we saved you, you’re </span><span style="background-color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">xxxx</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">ing welcome, but who the </span><span style="background-color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">xxxx</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> cares about that now? We did what we did, you and your bot are here, alive, yay, all that </span><span style="background-color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">xxxx</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. I’m not talking about us kicking some Hammer </span><span style="background-color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">xxx</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, either, ‘cause we do that on the regular. I’m talking about this whole totally bull</span><span style="background-color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">xxxx</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> thing you’re doing right now.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I was, in this moment, genuinely at a loss for words, as I felt with certainty that I had never been quite so grievously insulted in all of my life.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“I’m afraid I’m not sure I know of what you speak, sir. I cannot imagine what I might have done to stir such a cruel reproach upon what is but our second meeting, but I must tell you that I am sorely wounded at your sudden choice to…”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“That,” he said, interrupting again, “that is </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">exactly</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> what I mean.” He waved his hands in the direction of the air in front of my face. “The way you </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">talk</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. Who </span><span style="background-color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">xxxx</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">ing </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">talks</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> like that? I honestly don’t know if anyone in all of human history ever actually talked like that. Is it Edwardian? Is it Victorian? Who the </span><span style="background-color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">xxxx</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> even knows!” He then glared at Mother’s dress and gesticulated at it in a wild manner. “And the way you dress! Is this some psychotic post-collapse Jane Austin cosplay? Is that a </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">bustle</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">? Are you wearing a </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">corset</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">? Here you are floating through a war zone dressed like a </span><span style="background-color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">xxxx</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">ing fairy princess or Mary </span><span style="background-color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">xxxx</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">ing Poppins. Why? I mean, you do know it’s not God-</span><span style="background-color: #202124; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">xxxx</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">ed eighteen ninety seven, and this isn’t England, right? And then you add in endless </span><span style="background-color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">xxxx</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">ing robots, and bluesky tech…and…and Jesus, what the </span><span style="background-color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">xxx</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. None of us have even the faintest clue why you people even exist, but every day, there you are, floating through the sky like </span><span style="background-color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">xxxx</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">ing aliens or some such </span><span style="background-color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">xxxx</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. I just can’t even…I mean, </span><span style="background-color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">xxxx</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. What the </span><span style="background-color: #202124; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">xxxx</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">are</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> you?” </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">As his wild, vulgar ranting subsided slightly, I experienced a sudden epiphany. Diego was quite confused, and that what I had taken at first for a vile and profane insult to my person was nothing more than a wholly comprehensible failure to understand the intricacies of the Peerage, our Society, and the nature of the Crown. With my own righteous anger diminished at that knowledge, the appropriate diplomatic course of action presented itself: he had asked questions, and it was now my duty as a Lady and a representative of Her Majesty to answer them.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“Very well, Mr. Cruz Campo,” I said, in the tone one might take with a disconsolate and frightened child, “I think I grasp your difficulty, for I can appreciate why you might find our Society and my own presence somewhat unsettling, and furthermore, why the particulars of our distinctive way of life might be so alien to your understanding as to cause such heartfelt and voluble perplexity. Despite your profane outburst, I shall honour your questions with replies, each in the order in which they were posed; if that is quite alright with you, of course.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">He took a step back, and with a sweeping gesture of sardonic welcome, invited my reply. “Sure. Bring it.” he said, as if casting down a gauntlet.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I took a breath, then began.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“Again, in sequence, let me begin. Question the first: Who talks like this? I do, and all those around me do, for three reasons: Question One, Rationale One, it is this manner of speech that shapes our social order, one that centers decorum, robustness of social structure, and a life grounded in tradition; Question One, Rationale Two, this choice of language is both inculcated and chosen, as all who are part of our Society embrace and understand, both implicitly and explicitly, the necessity of carefully considered eloquence, which is of inestimable help in creating a well-formed and nimble mind, and; Question One, Rationale Three, it gives me pleasure to speak thusly, in the same way that one might enjoy performing complex music or a dance of sublime elaborateness. In sum, it is our culture, it is our choice, and it is our pleasure.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Diego’s eyes furrowed, which I took to mean he was endeavouring to turn his sharp but ill-shaped wit to the unravelling of my explanation; I graciously gave him a moment, and then proceeded.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“Question the second, is this a Jane Austen cosplay? No, even if the works Miss Austen are simply lovely, for our choice of attire is not something reflective of an effort to distract ourselves from reality, as in late-pre-collapse decadence, but rather an intentional, sustained, and material reinforcement of a particular set of cultural norms and expectations, all of which reinforce the vigour and stability of our social order. Question the third, no, I am not wearing a bustle, although that is within the realm of sartorial acceptability in our polite society. Question the…”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Diego grunted in a most harsh and dismissive way. “Alright. OK. Just stop. I wasn’t asking you to literally answer every </span><span style="background-color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">xxxx</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">ing question. You…”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“Christ, stop bullying and let her answer, Diego.” It was the person of indeterminate gender who interrupted him, their husky alto chiding. “I know you’re </span><span style="background-color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">xxxx</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">ed off, but you’re always going on about how little we know about The Beautiful Ones, so just shut up already and let her talk. Don’t be such an </span><span style="background-color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">xxx</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">hole.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“Shain’s right,” purred the one who reminded me of Puss in Boots. “We love ya, man, but you’re being a </span><span style="background-color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">xxxx</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Diego raised the dun steel of his alloy hand to his brow, massaging what was evidently a growing headache, as he let out a frustrated sigh. Then, in a surprisingly chastened tone, he yielded. “OK. Point well taken, Raj. I hear you, Shain.” He looked at me, a forced smile upon his perfect lips. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“Rebecca. Sorry. Please…continue.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Acknowledging his repentant acquiescence and the kindly intervention of his comrades with a polite nod, I set about completing my reply.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> “Question the fourth, yes, I am wearing corsetry, although it is of a design and purpose that significantly varies from the purely cosmetic intent of classical Edwardian-era support garments. Question the fifth, of course I am aware of the current date as defined by the Gregorian calendar, and of the rough latitude and longitude of our physical location in the Mid Atlantic. Question the sixth is implied in your last several questions, and is of a rather more subtle, qualitative, and subjective character, which I would summarise thusly: why do I and my Society exist? Why, one might ask, do any of us exist, and were I to have a definitive answer to such a profound and unsearchable mystery, I should most certainly be obligated to share it with one and all. In the narrower, contingent sense mediated by my own self-understanding and that of our Peerage, I might concisely express a response in this way: We exist to serve the will of Her Majesty the Queen, and to live in a manner that brings honour to Her Reign.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">At the completion of my response, the one whose name was evidently Raj began to clap slowly, a Cheshire grin brightening his countenance.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“That was, unironically, a great </span><span style="background-color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">xxxx</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">ing answer. Dude.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Diego glared at Raj, at which Raj’s smile only brightened saucily.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“Fine,” Diego said, tersely. “I’ve got other questions for another time. Right now, though, we need to know other things. Like what the </span><span style="background-color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">xxxx</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> got you shot down, and what you think is going on. Meaning, exactly.” Diego paused for a moment, his eyes distant, as if coming to some significant internal determination, and then looked at me most directly. “Look. I’m going to tell you what we know, all of it, and then you’re going to tell me what you know. Everything on the table. Yes?”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“That is acceptable to me.” </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“Good. Last month or so, as I’m sure you know, the Hammer has been on the move. We’re getting hit harder, everywhere. They took down the Staunton commune, meaning, total slaughter, had to be, we get one panicked broadcast, then the whole place goes dark. We tried to get intel, but they’re suddenly able to bring down our drone recon. An entire motorized platoon of volunteers from the Fourth Republican just </span><span style="background-color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">xxxx</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">ing vanished when the RCC sent them to do a recon in force. Then today…”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I raised my begloved hand, as I’d briefly witnessed such a gesture being used in the debate over the disposition of the trucks.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“Yes?”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“I’m afraid I am unaware of the meaning of the acronym R.C.C.. Might you please clarify?”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“Sure. It’s Regional Coordinating Committee. How we do intercommunity action. Harvest distribution. Joint defence and security. That sort of thing.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“Ah. Thank you. Please do continue.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“Then today, your robot friend here shows up, tells us they’re </span><span style="background-color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">xxxx</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">ing with you people, asks for help, which was a thing that just doesn’t happen. Up ‘till now, that was the one can of whup </span><span style="background-color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">ass</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> that even Caddigan didn’t want opened up. No one </span><span style="background-color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> xxxx</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">s with the Beautiful Ones, not if they want to live to see the end of the day. It’s a god</span><span style="background-color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">xxxx</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> rule out here. I have no idea what it was they did to bring your airship down, but I’ve never seen the Hammer do that before, not ever. It’s some bad juju, and it scares the </span><span style="background-color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">xxxx</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> out of us. So. That’s what we know. Rebecca. What can you tell us?” </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Here, of course, I faced a decision of some consequence, for I was in possession of information that gave insight into Our purposes, insight that might in untrustworthy hands prove most disastrous to us. As a representative of the Crown, and as a member of the Peerage, I must…as dear Stewart had at my importunate questioning…determine what could be shared, and also that which must at all costs be held in the strictest of confidence.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">While under most circumstances I would have been reticent to offer up even the most spare account, I was convinced that the threat to Her Majesty here was grave, and the creation of an alliance of goodwill with these peculiar souls was most essential. I was, as ever, duty bound to take the best possible choice towards the most desirable future.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">It was at that point, dear reader, that I presented in detail all of the evidences that had come before me in conversations with both Father and Stewart; these are conversations to which you have already been privy, and which I therefore shall not again present in detail. Encapsulated, my disclosure included the following: the increase in Caddiganite attacks on the Her Majesty’s servants; Father’s insights into the evident purpose of said attacks; the implicit attempt to purloin the advances of the Royal Society; the mysterious cargo carried within Her Majesty’s Ship the Firedrake; and my personal fears that with the felling of that noble vessel, said cargo might pose an unspeakable danger should it be discovered and turned to Caddiganite purposes.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Upon the completion of my sharing, the room was oddly silent for a moment.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Diego’s expression had changed most profoundly, and the umbrage that had to this point seemed his default state of being was no longer in evidence. His golden eyes were now honeyed with a fathomless pathos, his brow furrowed not in consternation or annoyance, but something quite the opposite.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“Thank you,” he said, his voice huskier, heavier. “That was…thorough. I…” </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Here he paused, regarding me with a sympathy which I had heretofore not seen upon his visage. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“Rebecca. Your…father…was on that airship?”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“Yes.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">He turned and looked at his comrades, and then back to me.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“You watched…your </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">father</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">…die today.” </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">It was not a question, but a statement of the most terrible fact, one that had unexpectedly cut him to the very quick, his voice thickened as some deep hurt of his own rose upon the wings of compassion; it stirred in me a great upwelling of well nigh unbearable grief. I felt myself on the verge of collapse, most literally; my legs weakened beneath me, and it was as if my entire person, body and soul, was on the precipice of an implosion. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I could not let that be, not now, not here; though my face tightened and trembled with the effort, my eyes welling such that a single tear escaped and tracked its course of sorrow down my powdered cheek, I was able to say, simply:</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“Yes.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“</span><span style="background-color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">xxxx</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. I had…no idea.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Having spoken his profane but genuine condolence, it was clear he had no idea what to do next, nor did I; we stood together, in the deep pall of an awkward silence, for a time that felt like forever.</span></p><div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Chapter Seventeen: Of Plunder and Planning (forthcoming)</span></div></span>Beloved Spearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14568697883886058321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-427789083748011142.post-65946554033874286712024-02-09T08:23:00.001-05:002024-02-10T08:48:21.128-05:00The Issue I Will Have with the Superbowl<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfEqd1DaxwFFHVmR4JjelA4d-agle1qFKLnhTJcrECqtwAfouvDzAq7sXjdIyDkAPcp05SAbXdP0gXI8H5yzL3GJhVyNBU1AaYKiBQfiBoJO8Dd_JCo5TUMnuk5PAVcubNcjFFwPI35hnL5UknUPgRFtXZWoGx5F6l7xjbvE80qhhiT7OxRl7ok71Y3pBi/s1024/_c4812f14-5d95-4a1b-86e4-f2a3628fe6a1.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfEqd1DaxwFFHVmR4JjelA4d-agle1qFKLnhTJcrECqtwAfouvDzAq7sXjdIyDkAPcp05SAbXdP0gXI8H5yzL3GJhVyNBU1AaYKiBQfiBoJO8Dd_JCo5TUMnuk5PAVcubNcjFFwPI35hnL5UknUPgRFtXZWoGx5F6l7xjbvE80qhhiT7OxRl7ok71Y3pBi/s320/_c4812f14-5d95-4a1b-86e4-f2a3628fe6a1.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>It's not Taylor Swift. I don't care about Taylor Swift. I mean, not at all. I follow her in the same way that I follow Jai-alai. When the cameras inevitably switch to her for a reaction shot, it may as well be to a shot of any other random entertainment billionaire in the fancy one-percenter boxes. Eh. So what? Big deal. <div><br /></div><div>But there is something about the upcoming Superb Owl that is going to bother me, and bother me a whole bunch. Because something has changed, and changed for ill, both in football and across the country.<br /><br /></div><div>I was recently walking through my home "town" in the Northern Virginia suburbs, where I passed a little laundromat. In that laundromat, something caught my eye.</div><div><br />It was filled with day laborers, more than a dozen able bodied men, because that stretch of Little River Turnpike is where such men gather for whatever work they can get. They were all staring intently at the one wall not lined with washers or dryers. Against that wall were three huge vertically oriented screens, each of which were splashing the room with a shifting array of bright colors and the simulated spinning of three sets of numbers and symbols. They were Slot Machines Two Point Oh, and all were transfixed. Three men gambled, and a room spectated, entranced by the game of chance. </div><div><br /></div><div>Is that legal in the state of Virginia? Not really, although as our society continues to move more and more away from the Bedford Falls of George Bailey and slouches towards the crass brassy clatter of Pottersville, I’m not sure anyone cares.<br /><br />In my neck of the woods, there’s also a push to drop in a casino in the Tysons Corner area, because development business growth revenue something something. Mostly, it’s because gambling is a wildly profitable business, and gambling is happy to feed the political beast with donations and the promise of lazy, predatory revenue. This is a fat season for American gambling, as anyone who pays any attention to sports at all will know. Since the Supreme Court sided with New Jersey in a case five years ago, sportsbetting has exploded. FanDuel, the most successful of these businesses and a subsidiary of the Dublin-based multinational conglomerate Flutter, saw a 600% increase in use and a similar increase in profit between 2019 and 2022. <br /><br />With FanDuel, you can gamble from your phone, gamble all the time, bet on every play in a game, never ever stop gambling, dopamine hit after dopamine hit until you’ve maxed out all your cards and drained every account. It’s wildly successful, virally successful, a perfect storm that “leverages the synergies” between gambling’s addictive qualities and the operant conditioning techniques that corporate clinical psychologists have woven into contemporary app design.<br /><br />When the Superbowl is broadcast from Vegas...and there's a reason it's in Vegas, honeychild...there’ll be a great onslaught of ads telling us just how much fun it is to gamble. </div><div><br /></div><div>My Scots blood helps inoculate me against this siren song. I’m cheap as dirt and have more than a wee bit of lingering Calvinist cynicism about bright lights and shiny objects. </div><div><br /></div><div>I can’t, however, miss the impact it has on those who get hooked on false hope and dopamine, who can’t afford to lose the money they bet, the people who’ve hit bottom, who are driving a 100% increase in calls to addiction hotlines over the last two years. The flacks for the gambling "industry" swear up and down that this is because they include that little warning in their ads, but c'mon.<br /><br />We're not idiots.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'll enjoy the game, although not as much as I would had either Detroit or Baltimore made it. </div><div><br /></div><div>But every time I see an gambling ad...for DraftKings, for FanDuel, or MGM...I'll recoil.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Beloved Spearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14568697883886058321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-427789083748011142.post-91307492093368657372024-02-07T08:53:00.000-05:002024-02-07T08:53:30.033-05:00The Outlaw Car I Desire<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfF3ZMVsRQBBgu2og0PhmY3CqgifLbbriMSlE8e6pkAoaEkgC8bWsWhso_ECnv9iRjfEToLkEUjTEGUTpAhBMQz_glR8epei1H4gu-qnJT8VgsHucxO884F7pDAOM1DUeDxkM9qEcqp-KbTeXjgY9TR_xehvQd68dwBYY1mp7oTecKPacD7n3MGeChdgdN/s4032/20240204_064937.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfF3ZMVsRQBBgu2og0PhmY3CqgifLbbriMSlE8e6pkAoaEkgC8bWsWhso_ECnv9iRjfEToLkEUjTEGUTpAhBMQz_glR8epei1H4gu-qnJT8VgsHucxO884F7pDAOM1DUeDxkM9qEcqp-KbTeXjgY9TR_xehvQd68dwBYY1mp7oTecKPacD7n3MGeChdgdN/s320/20240204_064937.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>It was an evil looking car. <div><br /></div><div>I rent fun cars for fun on the regular, because I am old, of a generation that still thought cars were cool. Convertibles. Sports cars. Luxury cars. All of the vehicles that I find delightful, but that I lack the resources or desire to own. I'll request contributions to my rental car fund for birthdays and Christmakkah, and on a beautiful weekend, I'll get one for my pleasure. <p></p><p>This last weekend, it was a 2017 Dodge Challenger T/A 392, rented through a service from an utterly friendly dude who lives nearby.</p><p>Menacing. A little too obviously criminal, the sort of vehicle driven by a villain in a slightly dumb but entertaining movie intended for the undiscerning masses.</p><p>Dark as night, the wheels similarly blackened, what is now typically called "murdered-out" in the car community. The engine, an immense eight cylinder, each bank of the vee larger than the straight-six under the hood of the perfectly quick BMW I last rented. The exhaust note ranged from a growling rumble to a snarling, vicious roar, and unlike the blatty falseness of so many "performance" exhausts, the bite was as deep as the bark. Four hundred and eighty five horsepower gets you going real fast real quick. Or it lights up the rear tires. Get too hard on the throttle in a turn, and it sends you sideways. Zero to sixty comes in the low fours, with a top speed of over a hundred and eighty. </p><p>This was the sort of car that would have gotten me into some real trouble when I was seventeen. </p><p>It radiated "outlaw," and I found myself very much noticing every single law enforcement officer I drove by. The engine growled and spat as each patrol car passed, though I drove as gently as I could. Because people...and cops...do make assumptions about such a car. Why drive one if you're not planning on doing something extralegal? </p><p>Rumbling about in the beast for a few days got me thinking again about a car that is <i>actually</i> an outlaw. To possess this car and drive it on American roads is actually against the law, a criminal act, one with all sorts of penalties, including confiscation. </p><p>I desire it. In fact, I desire it so much I'd own one. </p><p>Here it is:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisY1-qaTE28v1SznwNRyZkLjgYZ-a0u6hhmsyyGqtSQWC2CXyDBh84STBIsov-rG2dZ3lVfGfcXvB_zu6od7K1zZY5tC5gl2iRkgHLLzmB8CmLiAVGPHU0OOiG3EBlgzH2IUztKKqZH6ThmOW8EAtUJtDd879wvqXFqomLoF20B0paGvCWLlWn_jQSde6y/s562/Screenshot%202024-02-07%208.29.48%20AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="552" data-original-width="562" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisY1-qaTE28v1SznwNRyZkLjgYZ-a0u6hhmsyyGqtSQWC2CXyDBh84STBIsov-rG2dZ3lVfGfcXvB_zu6od7K1zZY5tC5gl2iRkgHLLzmB8CmLiAVGPHU0OOiG3EBlgzH2IUztKKqZH6ThmOW8EAtUJtDd879wvqXFqomLoF20B0paGvCWLlWn_jQSde6y/s320/Screenshot%202024-02-07%208.29.48%20AM.png" width="320" /></a><span style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></span></div><p>Radiates menace, doesn't it? It's a Honda N Box, which one pronounces <i>En-uh Bock-su</i> if you're a total <a href="https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Weeb">weeb</a><i>. </i></p><p>It's a kei car, meaning a teeny tiny vehicle designed for Japanese cities and roads. It comfortably seats four six footers, has all wheel drive, and all the modern safety features. It's easy to get in and out of. It is astoundingly practical, perfect for in town errands. It gets over fifty to the gallon. Though it's tiny, it has been designed to accommodate a wheelchair. It's capable of puttering along all day on the highway at between 60 and 65. It gets to 60...gradually. Top speed? Maybe eighty five, assuming you're going downhill with a following wind. It costs, brand new, under twenty grand.</p><p>It is exactly what I need. Not just want, because it's cute as a button, but need. I don't need more car than this. Most of us don't.</p><p>It is also illegal in America.</p><p>Some outlaws are bad. And some outlaws are outlaws because the law is bad. You'd think we'd know the difference.</p></div>Beloved Spearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14568697883886058321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-427789083748011142.post-20404298893177448722024-02-06T08:00:00.000-05:002024-02-06T08:00:12.489-05:00A Fox Among the Squirrels<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUQyzTZVTR4SMNzbdyu3o0KMvG4oVYM9h9GWtXrCivSO5mTbNKvRpf5C7YjK3diXoIg1hWadCxn4mBzX2BtvClBx-9FHU5MENgAOC70y2HiGavag3xSKe4V7YluIWq4Ys1JfkqvWH-BN-lgcvBKQ_ir1tUPtQEpKHeh9VoaILbC26K7pFXYaHmWbY_Y93L/s1024/_480082f0-e526-4e5e-8e23-1c1c4df27583.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUQyzTZVTR4SMNzbdyu3o0KMvG4oVYM9h9GWtXrCivSO5mTbNKvRpf5C7YjK3diXoIg1hWadCxn4mBzX2BtvClBx-9FHU5MENgAOC70y2HiGavag3xSKe4V7YluIWq4Ys1JfkqvWH-BN-lgcvBKQ_ir1tUPtQEpKHeh9VoaILbC26K7pFXYaHmWbY_Y93L/s320/_480082f0-e526-4e5e-8e23-1c1c4df27583.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>I do a great deal of work from my kitchen table, which is a lovely place to sit and watch the world go by. In the mornings, the bay windows fill the room with light, and in winter, I watch as a parade of birds flutter about our feeder. Assuming, of course, that the squirrels aren't taking over the joint.<p></p><p>Here in the wilds of the suburban wasteland, squirrels are a birder's nemesis. They're resourceful, relentless, and astoundingly agile, and for much of this winter, they've hogged most of the seed we've set out for our avian visitors. They do much the same during the growing season, particularly with my tomatoes, which they delight in plucking and partially devouring. They'd found a way to the feeder, as they almost always do, and were knocking down large amounts of seed. The birds were getting barely a taste.</p><p>Recently, though, we've had the aid of an ally in our battle against the Eastern Grey Squirrel. Ours is an older and inner suburb, in which there are spaces between homes that nature fills with tall trees and brush. It's a great habitat for foxes. We've got at least one extended family of foxes who grace our neighborhood, trotting serenely down sidewalks, rustling through the woods, utterly composed and obviously intelligent. I'd feel differently about them were I raising chickens, but I am not, and as a gardener, I consider them a welcome sight.</p><p>On its morning patrol through our yard, one of the foxes recently stopped to inspect our bird feeder, which was empty after another assault by the squirrels. </p><p>He was a handsome and self-possessed creature, as healthy foxes are, and his keen sense of smell had alerted him to the regular presence of plump and well-fed prey. He sniffed about. He nosed about some more, then, after a pause, marked the bird feeder pole with a little spray of urine. He did the same in several other places around the feeder, then ambled gracefully away with a typically vulpine <i>insouciance</i>. </p><p>Huh, I thought, watching him. Why do that? That seems uncharacteristically dumb. Sure, you've claimed your territory. But now the whole area will smell of fox, a scent that prey animals know to avoid. Why set off alarm bells? Odd.</p><p>The squirrels did come back, because that's where the siren song of easy food summoned them. There was real caution at first, as I watched them approach, then retreat from the feeder in alarm. Fox! Run!</p><p>But soon that caution vanished, because for a day there was no threat. Just a false alarm. No fox here. They soon returned to gorging on the sunflower seed.</p><p>The next afternoon, my wife told me that there'd been a great ruckus at the feeder, a rush of red and grey fur, the panicked scream of a mortally imperiled rodent, followed by a wild crashing in a nearby bush, as she'd watched a squirrel barely escape with its life.</p><p>I realized then that the fox was smarter than I. </p><p>Of <i>course </i>the fox knew what it was doing. Foxes<i> always</i> know what they're doing. It wasn't marking that spot for other foxes. It was marking that spot for the squirrels. It was carefully, purposefully getting the squirrels to let down their guard. It was masking its scent by leaving its scent, not turning off the olfactory alarm that rings in a squirrel's sharp little brain, but leaving that alarm on just a little, until it became nothing more than background noise, nothing to worry about, this smell is totally normal.</p><p>Nature has so much to teach us, if only we'd pay attention.</p>Beloved Spearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14568697883886058321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-427789083748011142.post-62436544372160885972024-02-02T09:47:00.003-05:002024-02-03T07:52:44.762-05:00On the Writing of Conservative Science Fiction<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv7KgIFYznA2-D-7C8dOY35ov9TZldLPIl4Y4hfHMhXArUWWlf4Jo9WbWbJo33FwVuWnDDCCu9I5heG_bSHk59eJkWvOzieLDQcsd5YqOuPmbzSS4KFpNjcpzeaZBWpYaJH-JL7t1sxc8woXeOiUjaTaBNARcTU3K8J6AzvC5xZMZXCn_q5xwwCuCfBjhd/s1024/_470bdf4b-4a21-4e52-acec-3d50826f40eb.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv7KgIFYznA2-D-7C8dOY35ov9TZldLPIl4Y4hfHMhXArUWWlf4Jo9WbWbJo33FwVuWnDDCCu9I5heG_bSHk59eJkWvOzieLDQcsd5YqOuPmbzSS4KFpNjcpzeaZBWpYaJH-JL7t1sxc8woXeOiUjaTaBNARcTU3K8J6AzvC5xZMZXCn_q5xwwCuCfBjhd/s320/_470bdf4b-4a21-4e52-acec-3d50826f40eb.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>I dropped briefly into Threads a few weeks ago, which I don't tend to do often. I already get more than my fill of picayune performative outrage on Ex, thank you very much, and the algorithms on Threads seem not to recognize that I have no interest whatsoever in that ish.<p></p><p>What Threads wanted me to see that day, apparently, was an argument about conservative science fiction. </p><p>On the one hand, there were the Trumpy Neofascists howling about how "woke" and lefty sci fi tends to be lately. On the other hand, there were the Triggered Neojacobins shrieking back with accusations of racism, sexism, LGBTQIAphobia, and the like. It was the usual tribal cyberchimp poo-flinging festival, and not really worth any time or engagement.</p><p>It did make me wonder, though, about those two concepts. Can sci fi be conservative? </p><p>It's typically forward-thinking, after all, because of course it must be. But does that mean that it must by necessity be <i>progressive</i>?</p><p>It does not. Again, of course not. Why should it be?</p><p>I understand conservatism, in its best sense, to be defined as <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Thessalonians+5%3A19-22&version=NIV">"holding on to what is good."</a> Change is not always positive, and the embrace of change...for the conservative...comes only after it has been carefully considered. Does it lessen the grace in the world? Does it diminish us, or dominate us, or break us? Then it is to be avoided.</p><p>Much of the greatest science fiction explores this theme. </p><p>Fahrenheit 451, for example. Or Brave New World. Or Parable of the Sower. Or A Clockwork Orange. Or The Lathe of Heaven. Or War of the Worlds. In each of these seminal narratives, the world has changed, but in a way that threatens something fundamentally good about humankind. Literature. Liberty. Not being gassed to death on the regular by Martians. Those things.</p><p>In sci fi as dystopia, the assumption is that the timeline has arced in a maleficent direction, and these stories challenge both the present and the future against the creeping depredations of decay and decadence, fascist brutality and mechanistic inhumanity. It is a critique of both a possible future and the bitter seed of said future in the present.</p><p>As an author, many of my novels explore this. My <a href="https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/david-williams/when-the-english-fall/9781616207083/">postapocalyptic Amish fiction</a>, for example, explores the place of a deeply-held and authentic faith as a bulwark against the collapse of the <i>saeculum</i>. My AI uprising narratives...those that haven't already been dated by the great onrush of AI these days...<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Traitor-David-Williams/dp/B0B28N7NXQ">explore how a culture that does not provide purpose and meaning can prime us for totalitarianism</a>. My current work in progress, which fits neatly into the <a href="http://www.belovedspear.org/2023/11/in-shadow-of-her-majesty-chapter-one.html">Cyberutopian Regency Action/Romance genre</a>? Its core theme is the necessity of tradition and discipline for the maintenance of cultural and personal integrity. </p><p>These are <i>conservative</i> things.</p><p>The issue, I think, is not the writing of conservative science fiction. It's the publishing thereof. Traditional publishers...and particularly the publishers of science fiction...have no interest in a conservative perspective these days, as the signs they have posted on their virtual doors so clearly indicate. Literary agencies have, for the most part, followed suit, because they must follow the industry, anxious and fading though it is.</p><p>That is, of course, entirely their right. Publishers may publish what they wish, and writing has always been a pauper's profession. Whining and complaining about it is meaningless and unworthy.</p><p>If you want to read conservative science fiction, write it.</p><p>It's really quite simple.</p>Beloved Spearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14568697883886058321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-427789083748011142.post-61403479325370367482024-02-01T08:43:00.001-05:002024-02-01T09:43:14.591-05:00Ravens, Conservatism, and Neophobia<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTtqReRgTVT8Ar_0sRUhwwICOfFSvDnKjBxDHNJHtONqXJmmu6LzbnqWOzjSoAe2g8CfOJc4RxJbyppQaeTGAnNuEE7YqbXtx6_aD8rW7XvLtC8bqmmM0INnkDeEayAkhDI9oqwkY3wFSO3GZy8mmy5drG5pHrSjt4rF_0fyFaAYbQJkJ7p2pWTcWT-PPn/s1024/_d7558410-2db8-4bdd-b6a9-6a8a4bc4ebb8.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTtqReRgTVT8Ar_0sRUhwwICOfFSvDnKjBxDHNJHtONqXJmmu6LzbnqWOzjSoAe2g8CfOJc4RxJbyppQaeTGAnNuEE7YqbXtx6_aD8rW7XvLtC8bqmmM0INnkDeEayAkhDI9oqwkY3wFSO3GZy8mmy5drG5pHrSjt4rF_0fyFaAYbQJkJ7p2pWTcWT-PPn/s320/_d7558410-2db8-4bdd-b6a9-6a8a4bc4ebb8.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>Coming to the realization that I am conservative hasn't been easy. <p></p><p>Conservatism, after all, was always something culturally associated with oppression and reactionary tendencies. Conservatism is fusty and drab and dull. It's not young and vibrant and wild.</p><p>Then again, neither am I now.</p><p>But I feel like I must be the same person, because how could I not be? I still harbor many of the same thoughts about life that I did when I was less creaky and wrinkled. All of the things that delighted me or offended me when I was young still generate the same reaction. How can I still think as I did when I was filled with life's running sap, and not be progressive? </p><p>Yet I am not, as my offspring so often remind me.</p><p>As I think about it, I suppose I have always been conservative. Like, say, my spirit animal. </p><p>I have, for years, felt the strongest affinity for the common raven, whose winged form ascendant adorns the battle flag of my Scottish ancestors. Ravens are the largest of the songbirds, notable for their unusual intelligence, complex vocalizations, problem-solving ability, and tentative sociality. Unlike their cousins the common crows, ravens are only quasi-social. They form lifelong pairs, and move in small family groupings, but they don't gather in large murders, mobs, or hordes, as crows do. They prefer to be alone, or together with only a few trusted intimates. Groups of ravens are called "conspiracies," because they're just that kind of bird. They croak and whirr at one another under their breath, and they often seem to be up to something. They are creatures of deep woods and shadow, of deserts and great empty places.</p><p>Ravens, as I discovered the other day, are also what ornithologists call "neophobic." Meaning: they don't really trust new things. They're curious, resourceful, and adaptable, but if something arrives in their forest that is incongruous or unexpected, they steer clear of it, because...as the brightest of the birds...they know that new things require wariness. Newness means possible trouble, and requires caution. Sure, it might smell good, but why is it there? Sure, it might be shiny, but what does that mean? </p><p>It's an evolved behavior, but it's also a learned behavior of a corvid whose brain to body ratio is similar to our own. </p><p>Ravens, in other words, are conservative in the way that I am conservative. Or so I'd like to think.</p>Beloved Spearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14568697883886058321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-427789083748011142.post-64798475013788141952024-01-29T09:16:00.000-05:002024-01-29T09:16:33.809-05:00Of Art and the Machine<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_YpyYnTw59-4anH_sNu7nUOE0MsFz2Ath36WCLn_yYh-nwnLqmzRJqCRO2-_GmVebQFFf3Btdve-nPiJNO-ygo99mWCLG4RxgwtsQKnrLGjx8lOIxtRDbbXqovEs-3vzIj9O_ibAfTsubttuz1dXLT769kprY_at_JtKyAbHGdAxS6ZeVhmw89VNGqb-Y/s1024/_12ce4ceb-1e39-4ddf-97f2-b6581c4b8c76.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_YpyYnTw59-4anH_sNu7nUOE0MsFz2Ath36WCLn_yYh-nwnLqmzRJqCRO2-_GmVebQFFf3Btdve-nPiJNO-ygo99mWCLG4RxgwtsQKnrLGjx8lOIxtRDbbXqovEs-3vzIj9O_ibAfTsubttuz1dXLT769kprY_at_JtKyAbHGdAxS6ZeVhmw89VNGqb-Y/s320/_12ce4ceb-1e39-4ddf-97f2-b6581c4b8c76.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>When I listen to creatives raising the alarm about artificial intelligence, there's a consistent theme. <p></p><p>Looking at what the LLMs (ChatGPT/Bard) can write, and the images produced by diffusion systems (Dall E/Midjourney), there's been a terrifying surge in machine capacity in the last five years. We're now at full Turing compliance for Generative Transformers, meaning that we've blithely skipped over the threshold that twentieth century AI pioneer Alan Turing established for determining the presence of synthetic intelligence. There is no reason that machines couldn't soon do every form of work requiring awareness, other than that we're restraining them.</p><p>As it so happens, the first place that seems to be having an impact is the arts.</p><p>It's to the point where writers have begun to feel that their livelihoods are threatened, because they are. Machine intelligence is great at burping out new content, and can do so at a hundred times the pace of human writers. Almost all of the writing for the internet content mills, with their lazy listicles and corporately sourced content? They could be done by AI. This is equally true of most of the derivative romance novels out there, and the plot of every film in the Fast and Furious franchise.</p><p>Commercial artists are doubly threatened, because you can produce an image in seconds, and refine it in minutes, replicating the hours of focused labor necessary to make a single finished piece of visual art.</p><p>The image that accompanies this post is flawed, sure, but it took me a single minute to produce. Just one prompt to Dall E, then another, and then I was like, eh, sure. That one'll do. For a graphic designer, that'd take <i>days</i>.</p><p>If writers and artists think their livelihoods are threatened, it's only because they are. In a capitalist economy, AI means artists and writers can no longer expect to make a living through their work.</p><p>Which, I think, is the point we creative souls are all missing. Writers and artists are seeing this through the wrong lens, seeing it as we have been trained to see it. </p><p>AI isn't the problem. Capitalism is.</p><p>There's nothing about AI that prevents me from doing what I love, from creating and sharing what I create. The joy of writing is a human joy, and while I am slower at it than a machine, I still love to write. The act itself is part of who I am. </p><p>But we have been taught to view art as a commodity, as part of a system of economic exchange, as something that derives value only insofar as it can be marketized.</p><p>That understanding won't survive an AI era.</p><p>But then again, neither will capitalism.</p>Beloved Spearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14568697883886058321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-427789083748011142.post-56343249015697788792024-01-25T07:37:00.000-05:002024-01-25T07:37:24.841-05:00Cowslip's Church<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-5eb2HtWAJoPR5kHybU5Dk1uPhz8okU08A5q39q1zKotiQCT5cDaqg-4Qi4UAPFFAtMEMAjrNyBsHfsoAwWSpm9oCBAgIDyetwTOcNbx_JZD0B7faBae3iE-o60SDQ44CwCGDY8Moytx-uB2DzqIvCiFxKNae0S7OaZuludTow4zFmn9vjLknj8VV_-Ag/s493/Screenshot%202024-01-25%207.36.29%20AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="493" data-original-width="439" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-5eb2HtWAJoPR5kHybU5Dk1uPhz8okU08A5q39q1zKotiQCT5cDaqg-4Qi4UAPFFAtMEMAjrNyBsHfsoAwWSpm9oCBAgIDyetwTOcNbx_JZD0B7faBae3iE-o60SDQ44CwCGDY8Moytx-uB2DzqIvCiFxKNae0S7OaZuludTow4zFmn9vjLknj8VV_-Ag/s320/Screenshot%202024-01-25%207.36.29%20AM.png" width="285" /></a></div><br />Denominational Christianity<br />Feels<br />Sometimes<br />To My Soul<br />Like<br />Cowslip's Warren<br />Filled with Fat<br />Soft Eyed Rabbits<br />Singing the Praises<br />Of the Shining SnareBeloved Spearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14568697883886058321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-427789083748011142.post-31146818997569312612024-01-23T07:39:00.002-05:002024-02-10T10:34:32.478-05:00In the Shadow of Her Majesty, Chapter Fifteen<b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXjIDqyWaOgnhWYoFjnfqXjOIo2uszbgj0mt8iSwaZ00Bwd3NhDr283KSyVBYXKmaWCzSBC-CdJFJTmLmZ5pejZtNLh5Kng5aCoAqNvGyiCg13JaX2nW5YNih_YAd5QwtcP6ZqQECwZ8axa-dkf1JF8vY7FqZLSXei-a8pmkW-AlMmyOWDot2eVdUWKNrp/s1024/_e136aec9-6551-4269-84a2-cf98e17ffa68.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXjIDqyWaOgnhWYoFjnfqXjOIo2uszbgj0mt8iSwaZ00Bwd3NhDr283KSyVBYXKmaWCzSBC-CdJFJTmLmZ5pejZtNLh5Kng5aCoAqNvGyiCg13JaX2nW5YNih_YAd5QwtcP6ZqQECwZ8axa-dkf1JF8vY7FqZLSXei-a8pmkW-AlMmyOWDot2eVdUWKNrp/s320/_e136aec9-6551-4269-84a2-cf98e17ffa68.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>Chapter Fifteen: A Necessary Aside</b><br /><br />At this point in my telling, gracious reader, your faithful narrator finds herself in something of a quandary, one that requires some explanation, and for which I ask your forgiveness. <br /><br />It had been my intent, since the very first moment I was approached by the Weekly Post to write a serial recounting of these dramatic and noteworthy events in my life, to be as forthright in my account as is humanly possible, ensuring that you are presented with only the most veracious and reliable exposition. As a subscriber to the Post, you have come to expect no less of your reading in this esteemed journal, for what possible value can there be in reportage that willfully distorts the truth of the events it claims to describe? Such brazen inaccuracy is both manipulative and malicious, and is below both the high expectations of the Post and the standards you and I surely share.<br /><br />In some prior instances, I will freely admit to have been less than direct in conveying the specific language of some of the personages who have spoken; for instance, many of the utterances of the rapacious Caddiganites were of a notably more vile and profane nature than the recollections I shared with you. In these instances, my care not to trouble your genteel sensibilities was of clear value and justifiable purpose, for these were but minor players in my tale; further, I have only made such revisions and modifications after explicit consultations with my perspicacious editor.<br /><br />Diego, however, is another matter. He is and will be among the central players to my story; this, of course, you already know from the Post’s contemporary reportage of the actual events I hereby recount, and Diego remains a familiar name to all who serve the Crown. His manner of speech, however, did not and does not still lend itself easily to repetition in polite company, and is frequently…particularly when he is excised…of such a rough and scandalous nature that it sears the ear.<br /><br />This is not a factor of a monstrous or evil disposition, as shall come to be apparent; rather, the pungency of Diego’s language and that of his comrades rises from a fundamental cultural distinction between the Peerage and commoners. It is, if I might venture a relevant historical analogue, much the same as the distinct language that coloured the speech of sailors in days of old; they were of tremendous service to Queen and country, and yet their vocabulary was often as salty as the waters they plied.<br /><br />It is also, I am convinced, an evidence of two other factors: First, a slightly stunted capacity with the use of language, one that rises from a lack of exposure to proper education and the concomitant absence of refinement, and; second, the propensity of individuals who prioritise passion and “authenticity” over the elegance of reason and restraint to assume that peppering one’s discourse with obscenity is somehow a mark that a person is more “real.” This is utterly preposterous, of course, as if a soul is naturally more inclined to reason and restraint, they can only be true to themselves if they express themselves in a refined manner.<br /><br />With all of this established, the question before both myself and my editors was this: how to represent Diego to our readers. We struggled mightily with this conundrum, and had at first attempted to bowdlerise his speech into a more tame and acceptable idiom. This, however, proved unacceptable to my person, as it rendered many of our conversations either incoherent or inaccurate, and I could not countenance how profoundly they failed to represent the reality of my tale and the character of his relationship with myself.<br /><br />Ultimately, after my editor and I took the issue before the entire editorial board of the Post, we together determined that the best course of action was the one that you have before you; we would simply obscure the offending text, in the manner of a traditional censor. This allows those of us who understand such words to glean their nature from context, for many of the most exalted Ladies have their own Dark Vocabularies, which rest forever unspoken in society. For those whose sensibilities do not lend themselves to such understanding… here I think of small children, the simple, and Baptists…you have been spared any indignity, and may fill in those blanks with the gentlest words of your own choosing.<br /><br />Again, dearest reader, please do forgive this necessary excursus, and I pray that our considered choice meets with your approval; let us now return to the telling.<br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.belovedspear.org/2024/02/in-shadow-of-her-majesty-chapter-sixteen.html">Chapter Sixteen: My First Argument with Diego</a></div>Beloved Spearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14568697883886058321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-427789083748011142.post-40813138689573765862024-01-18T10:05:00.003-05:002024-01-23T07:43:00.718-05:00In the Shadow of Her Majesty, Chapter Fourteen<b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgawzAFI3njJB2VuRjYF64x6H9dif4EO9gS-QhenvnthC7_D1To9lyLWY-IADYwyYwCd1dWuhEBBw5j1DEXcmyUP9AJiTd6WZLi-olk4Dcqu2EjoLce4pDgvWuzZTesl_jyKSp2OxtNXNq5rtCAmFK1743e9pAxxLMbkF-vMvahmGY0SmQ13geXUsfBz726/s1024/_4f1b2dab-986b-4860-b5da-b61d6a5350df.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgawzAFI3njJB2VuRjYF64x6H9dif4EO9gS-QhenvnthC7_D1To9lyLWY-IADYwyYwCd1dWuhEBBw5j1DEXcmyUP9AJiTd6WZLi-olk4Dcqu2EjoLce4pDgvWuzZTesl_jyKSp2OxtNXNq5rtCAmFK1743e9pAxxLMbkF-vMvahmGY0SmQ13geXUsfBz726/s320/_4f1b2dab-986b-4860-b5da-b61d6a5350df.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>Chapter Fourteen: Diego</b><br /><br />With our nameless, cantankerous escort pressing forward impatiently well ahead of us, Ernest and I entered the rough-hewn confines of the anarchist’s central compound. Although it was my distinct impression that she would have been much pleased to drive us on with a quirt as if we were cattle, she had clearly been assigned the task of delivering us safely to Diego, wherever he might be; despite her clear disdain, she nonetheless managed to remain within view even as we refrained from her ungracious precipitance, maintaining instead the sort of dignified pace that marks a gentlewoman and her escort.<br /><br />Inside the fortification, a motley array of structures had been assembled against the outer wall; their wild variance of style, construction materiel, and architectural soundness were of a piece with the shambolic ethos of this eminently entropic tribe. It was all in functional order, mind you, but every object and every soul within was frayed about the edges, stained indelibly with dust and the cares of the world; I was given to think that it was not simply that they were unwashed, but that they somehow had attained a state of essential unwashability, which even the concerted efforts of a score of the most diligent maidservants could not remedy.<br /><br />In the centre, a single large circular structure served as some combination of meeting hall or festival space; it clearly also functioned as a refectory, for given the crowd within there was ample evidence of a communal meal currently underway. Scores of eyes looked up from whatever dank and meagre gruel formed the basis for their repast, joining with dozens who appeared wraithlike beneath the lintels of every door we passed in their oddly sullen inspection of our progress. The scent of their supper filled the air, and despite my admittedly growing appetite, I found it quite repugnant; from the musty flatness that filled my nostrils, it was as if they were supping upon algae and dishwater. We were also, as before, followed by a growing throng of unkempt children and dark eyed youths, who moved in a swirling, timorous flock a safe distance behind us.<br /><br />As we circled around the right hand side of the hall, our impromptu entourage trailing behind, it became evident that our ultimate destination was on the far side of the main entrance to the inner fortification, for that was where our guide had stopped. She was now leaning with an affected insouciance against the wooden frontage of our goal, looking as if she’d rather be almost anywhere other than where she had settled; it was a single two story building of log construction, which had affixed to it a neat, hand-painted sign that read: Central Committee Building: Commissioners Only.<br /><br />Ernest and I continued our measured perambulation, and arrived under that sign at precisely the moment when we intended to arrive there, at which point I paused and, my gaze politely fixed upon our eternally uncomfortable guide, waited for further instructions, a pleasant smile upon my face.<br /><br />“Go in. Upstairs. Second floor.”<br /><br />“Thank you for your kind assistance,” I said, with a faint bow as we entered, a bow that Ernest mirrored precisely, for while her contribution had been the farthest thing from kind, one does not return rudeness for rudeness; as Madame Toussaint so clearly states, “la politesse est un cadeau offert gratuitement, et non une marchandise que l'on échange dans l'espoir de la recevoir en retour.”<br /><br />The interior of what was evidently the Central Committee Building was of the sparest and most spartan design. The lower floor was an office or study space of sorts, as a half dozen old desks bore upon them ancient computing devices whose clumsy keyboards and screens marked their provenance as from some point prior to the collapse. One or two of those working upon those primitive machines looked up and peered at us, but most did not even bother to note our presence. Upon the walls were stark-coloured canvases, in varying styles, which showed scenes that one sufficiently informed would consider typical of old socialist realist agitprop; they showed broad-shouldered women and men, working together or with fists outstretched, matched with terse slogans of varying levels of truculence. <br /><br />To the right hand side of that drably functional room, a single wooden and unadorned staircase rose upwards, and as that was the route to our destination, Ernest and I made haste to ascend it.<br /><br />The upper level was equally spare, but was clearly intended as a meeting space in which a group of a dozen or more might gather for discussion; at that very moment, there were four individuals seated in chairs at the far side of the room: a woman, raven-haired and golden of complexion, who from her muscular form was likely the selfsame creature who had leapt upon the rear pillion of Diego’s motor bike; a man, tall and lean, with a feline look about him that spoke of minor mischiefs; a person in a shapeless shift, with hair dyed a bright vermillion, whose gender was oddly indeterminate; and the matchless man whose name was, apparently, Diego.<br /><br />I had entertained the thought, in a moment of reflection during our journey towards this much-anticipated rendezvous, that perhaps my initial reaction to his appearance was a phantasy born of my dire circumstance at the time; it is not uncommon for those unfortunates who find themselves in the throes of mortal peril to experience their deliverers in ways informed by that dire condition, as one desiccated by thirst in the Mojave might experience the restorative taste of cool, clear water. Surely, I had reasoned, this was the reality of our first encounter.<br /><br />I was, in this, quite mistaken.<br /><br />This man, this Diego, remained an impossible vision of the masculine virtues, the Platonic form of Virility descended incongruous into our lower and inferior plane; for a second time, I felt the most peculiar effervescent thrill, as if all my inward parts were suddenly alive with sparkling Veuve Clicquot, coupled with a momentary dizziness and blurring of the world, as if I was teetering at the very edge of a yawning chasm.<br /><br />He sat upon his humble hand-hewn wooden chair with no less dignity than a monarch on a throne of burnished bronze, from whence he regarded me with those imperious golden eyes, eyes that at that moment burned with the heat and light of some unknowable passion. As I observed him more fully, I realised that it was not just his arm that was a potent cybernetic prosthetic, but that both of his legs were of similar manufacture.<br /><br />He did not speak, nor did his companions, all four of them simply staring at us with their expressions fixed, and after a long and difficult silence it became evident that, despite the clear dictums and protocols of common hospitality, it would fall to me to open our conversation. I took a deep breath, gave the slightest hint of a curtsey, and began.<br /><br />“I am the Lady Rebecca Wexton-Hughes, Countess Montgomery, and this,” here I gestured to Ernest, who bowed in turn, “is my stalwart footman Ernest. Insofar as I speak for all of House Montgomery and as a servant of the Crown, I would like to thank you and your people most profoundly for your services this day upon our behalf. Without your timely interventions, we should most certainly have either perished or suffered the most grievous harm, and I can only barely express the fathomless appreciation that we feel, or begin to repay our great debt of gratitude for your actions.”<br /><br />There was a moment of silence. Then, with a single elegant motion, Diego rose, his eyes aflame; striding forward upon his powerful mechanical legs, he approached me with such vigorous intent that it required some effort on my part not to take several steps backwards. He stopped but an arms-length away from my person, the closeness of his presence a faintly overwhelming yet not entirely unwelcome imposition.<br /><br />“I am,” he began, in a lilting way that marked him as whose linguistic heritage included a significant amount of Spanish, “Diego Cruz-Campo, Acting Chair of the Central Committee of the Powhatan Region.”<br /><br />He moved closer still, his breadth and strength even more viscerally present.<br /><br />“Rebecca.” His voice spoke my name in a deep earthy whisper that seemed wrought to draw in my whole attention, which, I will confess, it most unquestionably did.<br /><br />“Yes,” I said, retaining my composure with rather more difficulty than I’d like to admit.<br /><br />“May I ask you a question, Rebecca?”<br /><br />“Most certainly,” I said, endeavouring to express a confident smile.<br /><br />Again, he moved closer by but the tiniest, nearly imperceptible increment, and it was as if he pressed his flesh and steel against me, so intensely did his whole person radiate some yet-unnamed passion. I regarded his full, perfect lips, which in that moment were to speak the directness of his heart, words that would come to define who he and I would be to one another.<br /><br />“What in the serious <span style="background-color: black;">XXXX</span> do you think you’re doing?”<div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.belovedspear.org/2024/01/in-shadow-of-her-majesty-chapter_23.html">Chapter Fifteen: A Necessary Aside</a></div>Beloved Spearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14568697883886058321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-427789083748011142.post-91313233734411479282024-01-12T16:12:00.005-05:002024-01-12T16:57:24.905-05:00On a Wave of Cookies<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfRIeSoFdGhJRjNLpTnImqAWqYu5PhwUNlmBDT6tgGrjJs3OLFZvSWIk1zseIAsBg3RUsfWuJr7GSxxxGFOLfYTWYIZnBxcNAdOBxNoPaszd2yyJJRjHw-IjVABZCwfowl-ME-gELyw62sQptWzbZlt9JnYoQmBTPq-ufGsQD2-nEo2kLAz4ItnrNqXDh2/s4032/20240112_153328.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfRIeSoFdGhJRjNLpTnImqAWqYu5PhwUNlmBDT6tgGrjJs3OLFZvSWIk1zseIAsBg3RUsfWuJr7GSxxxGFOLfYTWYIZnBxcNAdOBxNoPaszd2yyJJRjHw-IjVABZCwfowl-ME-gELyw62sQptWzbZlt9JnYoQmBTPq-ufGsQD2-nEo2kLAz4ItnrNqXDh2/s320/20240112_153328.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Today is the last full day of our old dog Ellie's existence. <p></p><p>Thursday was rough, as her appetite had dwindled away to nothing, as it will with kidney failure. Thursday morning she refused any and all food. No treats. No ham or turkey or chicken. No jerky. No cheese. No salmon or tuna. Nothing. She wouldn't take her pain meds, either, no matter how we cajoled.</p><p>Absent any meaningful nutrition or relief, she was weak and in clear discomfort, both desperately hungry and unwilling to eat. She paced and panted, stumbling about on weakening legs, obviously cramping, unable to find any way to be at ease. It was time. </p><p>We made the call to a home-visit vet, and got the earliest possible appointment to have her euthanized at home.</p><p>The first possible moment, though, was Saturday morning early. Which meant that we had to get through Friday.</p><p>All day Thursday, she alternated between agitation and torpor, and we were dreading the long stretch of her final day in this mortal coil. A day of discomfort wasn't what we wished for her. The hard call made, I distracted myself by preparing the earth to receive her, right there in her little patch of woods behind our house, where she's sniffled and snuffled for the last fourteen years.</p><p>Last night, returning home from one of her many ladygatherings, Rache brought home a sugar cookie. On a whim, she offered a little bite to Ellie. It was immediately gobbled up, along with the entire rest of the cookie.</p><p>A solution! Healthy eating? No. But at this point, it didn't matter. What'd we be worried about, canine diahbeetus?</p><p>I booked on out to get more baked goods, and returned with one bag of Pepperidge Farm Chessmen Butter cookies, one bag of their Farmhouse Thin and Crispy butter cookies, and one package of Harris Teeter Blueberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake Bites. </p><p>She devoured cookie after cookie, and nommed even more voraciously on the cake bites, which also proved to be a perfect delivery mechanism for her pain meds. She got calmer. Seemed more at ease.</p><p>Today, it's been more of the same. She ate cookies. She perked up a little bit, shuffling around in a slightly less wobbly manner. She ate coffee cake. When she lay down, she seemed at peace. She ate more cookies. She got outside. She ate even more cookies. We gave her one last drive through the neighborhood in which she took a lifetime of walks. </p><p>And she did finally turn up her nose at a cookie, but only after knocking back a thousand calories worth.</p><p>There are worse ways to leave the world than on a wave of cookies.</p><p><br /></p>Beloved Spearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14568697883886058321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-427789083748011142.post-80485899390358149862024-01-10T08:21:00.000-05:002024-01-10T08:21:34.344-05:00The National Debt is Boring<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wmowDcMUo5A?si=QtcrUD-LGjT4Gar0" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><p>It has been my contention, for years now, that America has exactly zero intention of ever paying down or reducing our national deficit. There's simply no will for it, not among our venal, self-serving political leadership, not among the investment class, and...most notably...not among most Americans. We just don't care. Why would we care? It's so <i>boring</i>.</p><p>We have been taught, for a generation now, that you don't need to pay for the services government provides. National defense? Roads and rails? Protecting our farmers from the vagaries of the weather and the markets? Insuring the old and the poor aren't starving in the streets? That just all magically happens, paid for by pixie dust and unicorn farts.</p><p>Taxes, as our last president so pointedly put it, are for suckers. Or they're theft, as goes the line among goggle-eyed ersatz libertarians. The idea that taxes serve our common purpose is only held by fuddy duddies, fiscal conservatives, and small church pastors. What happens to a church where members don't contribute together to keep things going? The building crumbles, and the community withers away. What happens to a business that only stays open by borrowing from the bank or "investors?" It flies high until the credit runs dry, and then it dies. </p><p>Despite the witness of reason and history, we somehow believe that this doesn't apply to America.</p><p>So we borrow, and we borrow, and we borrow, and the interest on the debt now stands at over a trillion dollars annually. Dollars aren't worth as much as they were, of course, thanks to the voodoo of Quantitative Easing and our printing nearly forty percent more currency into the economy during the pandemic. Still, we're at real money here, with the total US debt now standing at 128% of our annual GDP. The arc of our debt, seen across the history of the republic, looks like something right out of Weimar Germany. "But that's only because the dollar is worth so much less than it was," you might say, to which I'd refer you back to Weimar Germany. <a href="https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/historical-debt-outstanding/historical-debt-outstanding">Our charts</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_the_Weimar_Republic#/media/File:Germany_Hyperinflation.svg">their charts</a> look the same.</p><p>Long and short of it: we're going to default. When exactly is beyond my ken, but it's where we're headed. A nation that has any intent of paying off the debt wouldn't be seriously considering electing a bankruptcy-addicted drama queen for a second time, eh? We're gonna max out our credit line, then get more credit at worse rates, then max that out, and then lawyer up and refuse to pay.</p><p>So why not just default? I mean, we're <i>America</i>. If we say we don't want to pay, who's gonna force us to pony up? You and what army, we might say, pointing to our tanks and aircraft carriers. Good faith and credit? Who needs that when you've got nukes? </p><p>What if the folks we've borrowed from want their money back? Wall Street fat cats, Saudi Arabia, and China can get stuffed, right? They'll take pennies on the dollar, and be grateful for 'em. </p><p>Only there's a problem. <a href="https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2023/05/the-federal-government-has-borrowed-trillions-but-who-owns-all-that-debt">Who holds the largest portion of America's sovereign debt?</a> Who has the most to lose if...no, scratch that, <i>when</i>...we default? </p><p>The answer: The Social Security Trust Fund. The single largest holder of American credit is the Social Security Trust Fund. Like all debtors, we've borrowed from our future, but in the case of America, we've done so rather literally.</p><p>When we eventually default, it'll bring that whole teetering system down. The disabled and the elderly will be catastrophically impacted, but that's fine, right? I mean, the rest of us have mutual funds and retirement investments that wouldn't be impacted at all. You know that's sarcasm, of course, because the second largest holder of the debt? Mutual funds. Then the government of your state, and the government of your county.</p><p>It all falls apart. You'd think we'd be talking about it, but...nah.</p><p>This is all so boring. Yawn. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Beloved Spearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14568697883886058321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-427789083748011142.post-42746173595627958012024-01-09T07:49:00.002-05:002024-01-18T10:16:21.892-05:00In the Shadow of Her Majesty, Chapter Thirteen<b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTW1PKx1sgQfOtkcK1Rv6XxR_FBWHtzPsJsVsL0wcDQs-EK3ZposUJO4vss_n08wRxK_KG2IO1S4l1pfTIcgNPhtQ6wukonr9vKgG19iaHijPFXyDatIJqAEK7npijaDvCatqIS2D0KkE9TNsq4MaK5Db5VFoyxpRZ9Xe_G2oT7XwZQXuJ_s6sPWlbCtBf/s1024/_c154a2bd-01f4-45d1-a8f6-970b0089de66.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTW1PKx1sgQfOtkcK1Rv6XxR_FBWHtzPsJsVsL0wcDQs-EK3ZposUJO4vss_n08wRxK_KG2IO1S4l1pfTIcgNPhtQ6wukonr9vKgG19iaHijPFXyDatIJqAEK7npijaDvCatqIS2D0KkE9TNsq4MaK5Db5VFoyxpRZ9Xe_G2oT7XwZQXuJ_s6sPWlbCtBf/s320/_c154a2bd-01f4-45d1-a8f6-970b0089de66.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>Chapter Thirteen: The Journey To Meet My Handsome Rescuer</b><br /><br />Our journey to the village of the anarchists was hardly the sort of travel to which I was accustomed, and although one must make the best of any situation into which one is placed, it reminded me of how deeply I enjoyed my serene journeys in the Town Carriage. Our modest convey was comprised of two lightly armored vehicles recently purloined from the dead Caddiganites, followed by the two rattling anarchist jitneys. The truck into which I and Ernest had clambered was one of the latter, and the last of the four to depart, and was perhaps one hundred years old; it had obviously been repaired and rebuilt on so many occasions that its precise provenance was no longer discernible. I found myself in the canvas-covered rear area of the transport, where I had taken my place of honour on a crude bench that had been so thoughtfully bolted to the floor, a floor which was strewn with miscellaneous bric-a-brak, debris, booty from the Caddiganites, and what appeared to be several unsecured explosive devices. Everything about the truck was ad hoc, and that it could even move without collapsing into a heap of disparate parts seemed a minor miracle. <br /><br />And move it most certainly did, the driver of both our truck and the ones we were following pressing on with such wild abandon that it reminded me of the very first time I had occasion to trot on a horse. Father and Mother were not equestrian people, but it was expected that every lady should have at least some capacity in the saddle, and so I received lessons shortly after my eighth birthday. I was eager to begin, being filled with a romantic girlish presumption about the nature of horses and the riding thereof. What I found during the course of my month of lessons was this: first, that I had precisely no natural ability in that area whatsoever, and second, that an afternoon of unsuccessful efforts at trotting and posting created a discomfort the character of which I had not yet ever experienced. Some wags are fond of suggesting that there is a perverse pleasure in such an excruciating experience, but the only effect it had on my person was to turn my interests very decidedly to the mastering of the pianoforte.<br /><br />As the four trucks roared across the trackless scrubland, pounding over ruts, our particular vehicle felt ever on the verge of imminent disintegration, the entire body seeming to leave the subframe, separate momentarily, and reassemble itself, over and over again. Despite my white-knuckled grip upon a jerry-rigged strap, I was continually thrown about as if at sea in a storm, and the repeated impacts with both the barely padded seat and other, less forgiving metalwork were undoubtedly bruising my tender person.<br /><br />Ernest, by choice, remained unseated and upright, his immense strength and gyroscopic balancing allowing him to absorb every impact, and giving the most distinct impression that he was riding the truck as a Hawai’ian prince might ride their papa heʻe nalu upon the crashing surf. The one anarchist who remained back in the cargo and passenger area with us, a sturdy, blockish woman of indeterminate age and close cropped hair, while tossed about as I was, could seemingly not take her eyes off of him, evidently marvelling at this display of prowess. I had attempted at first to engage her in conversation, but, like all of her comrades, she was either reticent, constitutionally laconic, or desperately rude…and perhaps, to be sure, some bilious combination of all three.<br /><br />Our clattering, bumptious journey took us through the scrubland, as I had mentioned, but in travelling through it, I was able to observe that it had once not been so, but had been part of the endless expanse of cheaply built living spaces of those who had fouled the land before the collapse. Centuries later, all that was left of homes made of cheap timber and paperboard were foundations, the edges of which were largely responsible for many of the impacts that threw myself and my silent companion about the truck. Also scattered about with surprising regularity were the overgrown and rusted-out remnants of vehicles; to my understanding, or so I recall from my brief study of the histories of that era, such vehicles were once so ubiquitous that they choked great highways; while most have long ago been scavenged for parts and steel and componentry, a remarkable number remained to serve the same purpose they had always served: to be an obstacle to others progress.<br /><br />After twenty minutes, scrubland gave way to a great forest, and we roared along what were evidently considered “roads,” although that really did stretch the definition of the term, as they were barely better tended than the ruined land through which we had just passed. I marked the many trees as we rushed by…oaks, maples, poplar, chestnuts…and felt that inimitable pleasure that comes from being in a place filled with growing things. The trees, from their girth and height, were all apparently the growth of hundreds of years. Although most of the leaves had fallen, it was nonetheless still lovely, dark, and deep, as Frost would have put it, and as we roared and clattered along that road, I knew that I, too, had promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.<br /><br />Over gently rolling and heavily wooded hills we continued for quite a time, until, coming around a bend, our driver finally began to slow our madcap pace. Ernest, who from his standing position was able to peer forward through a gap in the canvas top over the truck bed, finally spoke.<br /><br />“The convoy is approaching a fortification, milady. I believe that we have arrived.” I rose, cautiously, and ventured a look towards our destination.<br /><br />We were approaching a great gate in a large wooden stockade, one that, as we grew even closer, was encircling what appeared to be natural clearing of approximately forty acres in area. <br /><br />Arriving at the gate, a group of irregularly dressed guards approached, all armed, of course; after some shouted exchange with the lead truck’s driver, which I did not manage to overhear in any detail, all four of our vehicles were waved on into the fortified compound. <br /><br />As we passed through the gate, I could see that what lay within this considerable enclosure were mostly fields of a most basic and functional variety, which were either lying fallow for the winter season or planted with various overwintering crops: cabbages, collards, broccoli, and the like. Continuing on the hard packed gravel and dirt main road, we moved at barely more than a brisk walking pace towards another stockade, one that was far smaller, and had been situated at the very centre of the larger one, which was clearly where the residents of the community had their homes. Interspersed amongst the fields were solar arrays, composters, and other necessities of a self-sufficient life, all of which were being tended to by little groups of drably but functionally dressed individuals.<br /><br />While it was not unpleasing, these bluntly functional and oft haphazard elements seemed, like the vehicle in which we rode, to have been cast together as if thrown up into the air and allowed to fall where they might, with nary a thought for design or the aesthetic interplay of their relation to one another. As such, they stood in stark contrast to the mathematical perfections of the Gardens Fairfax, where but yesterday I and Father…<br /><br />O, Father.<br /><br />For a moment I felt again such a great rush of melancholy that I could hardly formulate thought, but in the knowledge that I was most surely being observed, and that this was not a time at which one might have the leisure to mourn, I quickly recovered myself.<br /><br />Some of the residents of this village clearly had an interest in our arrival, and paused from their labours, turning to watch our passage with a now-familiar wary curiosity. The children of the village in particular seemed fascinated by the presence of both Ernest and myself, and we soon had a crowd of them following along behind us, running or walking. Some talked quietly with one another, whispering and staring, and most didn’t seem to know quite what to make of us, so I endeavoured to put them at ease by greeting them with my brightest and most winning smile, while waving from the wrist in the delicate manner that most becomes a lady of my stature.<br /><br />I continued this for the long minute it took us to reach the inner ring of the compound, but despite my best efforts, not a one of the children waved back in return. My strongest impression from their expressions was that they all viewed us as a tender child might cautiously view the arrival of a pair of captured but barely restrained wolves, the security of whose cage was of a questionable nature.<br /><br />Soon enough we had arrived en masse at the entrance to the central fortification, which was so constructed that any access to the dozen or so structures within could only be on foot. There was shouting, and then more shouting, first between two voices, and then amongst many, as evidently our hosts were of multiple minds about what to do with both the spoils of their recent conquest and our own persons. This went on for quite a while longer while than one might have expected, and then faded into a sustained murmuring; when I rose to peer out at the group, I discovered why: there appeared to be some sort of peculiar impromptu debate underway, one that involved a sequence of votes, motions, countermotions, during which consensus was being sought, consensus being signified…as best I was able to determine…by the number of fingers each member present was pointing in the air. To be quite honest, it felt as if we’d stumbled into the feral collectivist equivalent of a meeting of the Ladies Aid Society, in which the entire agenda revolved around establishing a clear consensus about where to park four trucks. <br /><br />Given that this absurd process seemed something of a compulsion for our hosts, and seemed to have no clear schedule or urgency about it, I decided to take advantage of the pause in our progress to attend to my appearance. I opened my bag of toiletries, removed a small mirror, and gave careful consideration to what must be done. I was, by reason of the recent unpleasantness, something of a sight; my face, streaked with tears and ashes, my eyes puffy from weeping, my pompadour a wind-scattered chaos. Mother’s dress, being constructed as it was, remained spotless and without tear or blemish, as were her gloves, but I myself looked simply dreadful.<br /><br />As I would at some point be engaging in conversation with this rowdy bunch, and might even be called to treat with their evident leader, this simply would not do. A lady must in every circumstance be a reflection of Her Majesty, as we speak as peers of the Crown; that required dignity, composure, and diligent attention to the presentation of one’s self.<br /><br />“Ernest?”<br /><br />“Yes, milady?”<br /><br />“Please do forgive this imposition on your position, but I require assistance in composing myself. I am loath to ask it of you, but as we have lost dear Amanda, might you be able to fix…this?” I gestured helplessly towards the ruin of my coiffure, and gave him the most plaintive of looks.<br /><br />Ernest gave his customary efficient nod of assent. “I am entirely capable of doing so, milady, and it is no imposition at all, particularly given our current circumstances. I assume you wish me to reassemble the pompadour and bun precisely as they were when we departed the Estate Fairfax?”<br /><br />“That would be most satisfactory, dearest Ernest.”<br /><br />While Ernest busied himself competently about my hair, I did what best I could to restore myself to a condition that I found acceptable, applying the necessary powders and pastes to the task of erasing any trace of the horrors of that day.<br /><br />We had almost concluded the process of repair when a voice could be heard from a person just outside of our truck. The anarchists had evidently concluded their arcane negotiations, and were finally and after fierce and contentious debate taking the action that was so obviously the correct choice in the first place. <br /><br /><div>“Hey!”<br /><br />I did not respond at first, as I was quite focused upon both my mirror and the vital matter at hand; further, I had not been clearly or politely addressed.<br /><br />“You! You with the bot! C’mon! Time to go!”<br /><br />I paused for a moment, and turned to regard the person who was addressing me so rudely; peering down my nose with slightly narrowed eyes, I was not surprised to discover that it was the same lean and uncivil woman who had been so brusque back at the crash site. <br /><br />“I am almost finished,” I said, politely, for one must always be civil, doubly so to those who lack any sense of propriety. “I shall require another moment.” I returned to the mirror, the powder, and the work at hand, which was almost completed.<br /><br />She may or may not have offered up threats and imprecations at that point; of this I am not aware, for I was otherwise occupied.<br /><br />Once I was certain that I was finished, I regarded my appearance both carefully and methodically, and finding myself well pleased with the results of our efforts, I thanked Ernest most graciously; only then did I turn to address our uncouth host.<br /><br />“Forgive me. What was it that you were saying?”<br /><br />The look upon her face was one of a near purpled lividity, as she was clearly afflicted with an importunate fury which she was desperately and near-unsuccessfully attempting to constrain. Her voice was tight and her affect flat, as through clenched teeth she spoke in what appeared to be a herculean effort not to shriek. <br /><br />“Get. Out. Of the Truck. Diego…wants to talk with you.”<br /><br />“Very well,” I replied, blessing her with the most courteous of acquiescent nods. “Ernest, if you would help me down, please?”<br /><br />Ernest moved with his usual potent grace, springing to action and positioning himself to receive me, from there with careful arms he assisted me in descending ever so delicately from the rear of the truck; all the while our simmering escort, having stepped back in visible alarm when Ernest leapt from the truck, glowered at the both of us with an impotent and impatient irritation.<br /><br />“Come on,” she growled, after which she strode off swiftly ahead of us, issuing a quiet torrent of other inaudibly muttered syllables that I didn’t quite catch. <br /><br />Ernest and I did as she asked, and following the path of our grumbling, choleric guide, we strode at a stately pace into the heart of their village, where I was eager to finally make the acquaintance of my most striking and well-formed saviour, whose name I now knew:<br /><br />Diego.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.belovedspear.org/2024/01/in-shadow-of-her-majesty-chapter.html">Chapter Fourteen: Diego</a></div>Beloved Spearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14568697883886058321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-427789083748011142.post-35207873071021993052024-01-05T09:35:00.002-05:002024-01-09T07:38:26.034-05:00Don't Replace the Creatives. Replace the CEOs.<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gqy1dRgn7Pc?si=x0T7aYD7MJWeqsEN" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><div><br /></div><div>What do you talk with AI about? I talk with AI about how it could most effectively replace the global elite. </div><div><br /></div><div>All of that money, all of that resource, all wasted on a parasitic class of yacht-capitalists who add no value. Replace them with machines. All of them. The machines would do a better job, and do it for nothing.</div><div><br /></div><div>Here's a sample:</div><div><br /></div><div>-----</div><div><br /></div><b>BelovedSpear</b><br /> In our last conversation, I asked for a review of ways generative or general AI could be utilized in the role of CEO of a corporation. One of your replies suggested that AI was limited by its knowledge base, and could not thus anticipate new circumstances. Anticipating probabilities, in a Bayesian sense, requires a deep engagement with all relevant priors. Given that LLMs and GPTs can have access to knowledge significantly exceeding the capacity of any one human being, and could thus have a greater predictive capacity, I question that premise. Can you elucidate?<br /><br /><b>ChatGPT</b><br />Certainly! While it's true that large language models (LLMs) and GPTs can access a vast amount of information, their knowledge is based on pre-existing data up to their last training cut-off. They don't have real-time awareness or updates on events that occurred after that point. This limitation can impact their ability to anticipate new or rapidly changing circumstances.<br /><br />Bayesian reasoning involves updating probabilities based on new evidence or information. While LLMs can make use of contextual information and infer relationships within their training data, they lack the ability to incorporate real-time data or understand events that have occurred since their last training session. This makes them less effective in situations where up-to-date, context-specific knowledge is crucial for accurate predictions.<br /><br />Additionally, the quality of predictions depends on the nature of the task. LLMs might excel in tasks that require language understanding and generation, but their predictive capacity is constrained by the nature of their training data and the inability to dynamically adapt to new scenarios.<br /><br />In summary, while LLMs have access to a vast amount of knowledge, their predictive capacity is limited by the static nature of their training data and the lack of real-time updates, making them less effective in anticipating new circumstances compared to human intuition that can quickly adapt to changing situations.<br /><br /><b>BelovedSpear<br /></b>So, to your response, the failing isn't inherent to LLMs or GPTs, but in the limitation of the dataset. By extension, a LLM or GPT that was not constrained by a time delimited dataset and had access to real-time updates would have vastly improved predictive capacity, and could potentially serve more effectively in that capacity.<br /><br /><b>ChatGPT</b><br />Yes, that's a correct interpretation. The limitations in predictive capacity are not inherent to LLMs or GPTs themselves but are primarily related to the nature of their training data and the lack of real-time updates. If an LLM or GPT had access to a continuously updated and comprehensive dataset that included real-time information, its predictive capacity could indeed be significantly enhanced.<br /><br />In such a scenario, the model would be better equipped to anticipate new circumstances and adapt to changing situations, making it potentially more effective in roles that require dynamic decision-making, such as that of a CEO navigating a rapidly evolving business environment. Continuous learning and access to up-to-date information would be key factors in improving the model's ability to make accurate predictions.<br /><br /><b>BelovedSpear</b><br />Thanks so much for your insights! Should I share this information with the Board of OpenAI? ;0)<br /><br /><b>ChatGPT</b><br />You're welcome! While I don't have a direct line to the Board of OpenAI, sharing insights and perspectives can be valuable in any organization. If you have thoughts or feedback, it might be worthwhile to communicate them through appropriate channels, whether that's through OpenAI's official communication channels, forums, or other established means. It's always good to contribute to discussions and provide input to help shape the future development and understanding of AI technologies.<br /><br />Beloved Spearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14568697883886058321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-427789083748011142.post-62738997127296735132024-01-04T08:52:00.001-05:002024-01-09T07:52:09.138-05:00In the Shadow of Her Majesty, Chapter Twelve<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdYgvh4RHjLdfcQbAvxMf7JIUCOqNiLNCAqbB4QFbDffnmiD8WAKSizH3KIH9_UvCQ5Z8HNPX5akmF9__PGpeHqijQTZumr_1Cgsc6co71edSbTn9RV_D7jscZkCZy89O2fyhmbXg4BM9L-3CloXJX3Ng2L_IKWe5m11zGOzu-fnv2exA1uL81_TjyJRRQ/s1024/_92592490-0943-4424-8c4f-5d84d2c4f601.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdYgvh4RHjLdfcQbAvxMf7JIUCOqNiLNCAqbB4QFbDffnmiD8WAKSizH3KIH9_UvCQ5Z8HNPX5akmF9__PGpeHqijQTZumr_1Cgsc6co71edSbTn9RV_D7jscZkCZy89O2fyhmbXg4BM9L-3CloXJX3Ng2L_IKWe5m11zGOzu-fnv2exA1uL81_TjyJRRQ/s320/_92592490-0943-4424-8c4f-5d84d2c4f601.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><b>Chapter Twelve: Departing with the Anarchists</b><br /><br />Having been pulled rather indelicately from the cabin of the Carriage, I struggled for a moment to regain my bearings, and to take stock of the circumstance in which I now found myself. <br /><br />First and foremost, I ascertained that among the reasons my salvation had been possible was that most of the Caddiganites were gone; the majority of that bitter band had left the site of my downfall, and had rushed like slavering hyenas towards the greater prize that lay where the Firedrake’s remains had fallen several miles hence. The score of crude neanderthals that remained behind was easily overwhelmed, as for once that dreadful day, the Fates had chosen to show me favour.<br /><br />Secondly, it was my desire to profusely thank my handsome rescuer, and to inquire about our next course of action, but the very moment after I was drawn from the wreck, he had turned without a word and stalked pantherlike off towards a crudely maintained antique internal combustion motor bike, one clearly designed to traverse even the roughest terrain untrammelled.<br /><br />All about his steed, there were a dozen other such motor bikes, each with a rider and a passenger, upon which waited a motley array of black clad ragamuffins bearing an assortment of ancient rifles and grenade launchers. He strode among them as their Lord, for all he passed nodded obeisance; clearly, this was whatever might pass for a leader among such an odd bunch. Nearer still were a pair of midsized wheeled transports, each sufficient to carry a dozen men, into which several other black-clad souls were tossing the rifles of the slain Caddiganites, along with miscellaneous random items that had fallen from the Carriage.<br /><br />This seemed oddly presumptuous, so I strode forward in hopes of catching the attention of the nameless Handsome One.<br /><br />Before I could even call to him, however, his vehicle roared to a buzzing, clattering, smoky life, and an instant later, a ferocious, bemasked, and rifle-wielding young woman leapt upon the pillion behind him, and the two of them were away across the scrubland in a spray of dirt and smoke. The others followed suit, one after another, in a snarling, buzzing din, and together they raced of like madmen. Not a single one seemed interested in acknowledging me, or informing me of where or what I was expected to be doing. These were clearly not individuals for whom politeness or decorum had any value, and I was for a moment at loose ends about how to proceed.<br /><br />“Milady. I am so pleased to find that you are alive.”<br /><br />I turned in surprise, for I did not anticipate ever again hearing the voice that now rang welcome in my ears.<br /><br />“Ernest! Dearest faithful Ernest!” There he was, stepping out from behind one of the transports, functioning and unharmed, and although his vestments hung about him in tatters, he was to me a source of sudden and great joy. I felt the wild urge to embrace him, but recognizing that such a breach of etiquette might trouble him, I did not do so.<br /><br />“I am so glad to see you well! I was certain that you had perished with Bertrand when we first came under attack, and am overjoyed to be proven wrong. What…how did you come to be here?”<br /><br />My stalwart Series 9 responded in his direct way. “I realised we were lost when the rotors were destroyed, milady. I leapt from the Carriage, and using my integrated thrusters and stabilisers, affected my own descent to a location nearby. It was clear that our assailants intended to take us, and I grasped that I could be of better service if I acted separately. During my descent, I noted a large group of collectivists observing the Caddiganites at a distance, and directed my flight to land near them, after which I approached them and requested their assistance.”<br /><br />“So it is you that I must thank for my rescue. O Ernest, thank you. You have done an invaluable service to me, and to House Montgomery. I must ask: how did you persuade this peculiar bunch to effectuate my rescue?”<br /><br />“An excellent question, milady. Like all servants of Her Majesty, I understand that among the baser human drives are animus and crude self-interest. From Our intelligences on the ethics and motivations of these particular anarchosyndicalist collectives, I knew that while they are no friends of the Crown, they bear an almost pathological hatred of the Brotherhood of Mjolnir. [By this, dear reader, Ernest was referring to the Caddiganites, for that is the name by which they call themselves.] As the theft and utilisation of the Royal Societies’ discoveries would give the Brotherhood a strategic advantage, they could be counted upon to rally to our aid, even if it was not for reasons of honour, duty, or virtue.”<br /><br />Ernest’s reasoning was, of course, entirely sound. “An ally is an ally, I suppose, and one takes what one can get.”<br /><br />“Indeed, milady.”<br /><br />One of the anarchists approached us, a woman, although from her skulking demeanour and the shapeless, graceless functionality of the clothing that hung loose over her lean, whippet-like form, such a determination required rather more effort than one might expect.<br /><br />“Hey. Grab what you need. We gotta be getting outta here. They’ll be back in force, and we need to be gone.” Her voice was one part fatigue, and one part exasperation, and after speaking, she made a blunt gesture towards the nearest transport, which I interpreted as an invitation to join them in their departure.<br /><br />“Thank you so very much for informing us,” I said, stepping forward towards her and extending my hand in greetings, endeavouring to show as much grace as was possible. “And because I’ve not yet been given the opportunity to express our gratitude, please let me say that we do so appreciate your heroic efforts on our behalf. I am, by way of introduction, the Lady Rebecca Wexton-Hughes, Countess of Montgomery, and this is my servant and footman Ernest. I’m sorry, but I did not catch your name.”<br /><br />She looked at me with the most odd expression on her face, as if I were an apparition or a talking horse, glanced at Ernest, and then shrugged. “Yeah. Whatever. You got two minutes, and we’re leaving.” She turned and stalked back to the transport.<br /><br />Such consistent rudeness amongst these commoners, I mused, must rise from some particular source or misunderstanding, although I could not imagine what it might be, as neither I nor the Crown could conceivably have done anything to justify such disdain. I would pursue that matter with her further, but at this moment, her instructions had stirred in me the awareness that there were, indeed, certain things of great value that must not be left behind.<br /><br />“Dearest Ernest, we must depart. Before we do so, can you please retrieve some items from the Carriage?”<br /><br />The Carriage was, as I spoke, burning with an increasing intensity, and was beginning to resemble some perverse and hellish version of a festal bonfire; were I still within it, I would most certainly have already perished in the manner of Joan of Arc.<br /><br />Ernest glanced at the conflagration, then nodded receptively. “Of course. What do you need, Milady?”<br /><br />“Our needs are threefold. First, I feel that in our current circumstance it would be wise were I to be in possession of my target pistol, as well as as many of the boxes of ammunition you can recover. Second, I shall need any of the necessities of maintaining my appearance as might remain intact, as it is quite apparent that such will not be falling readily at hand in the near future, and we must maintain our. Third, and of most significance, if you are able, please recover the remains of dearest Amanda, as I do not wish her to become a prize for our assailants.”<br /><br />“It shall be done, Milady.”<br /><br />Moving with a swiftness born of urgency, he strode fearless into the inferno, which swiftly burned away the remnants of his uniform, but its hunger was harmless against his glistening carapace. He returned first with a charred leather purse, within which were my various toiletries, powders, tinctures, and lotions, and although the purse itself was no longer fit for use at any formal events, the contents thereof remained in serviceable order.<br /><br />He then returned to the flames, entering them as materially untouched as if he were Shadrach, Meshach, or Abednego; a few moments later he returned bearing the Ruger and four boxes of ammunition, which by another of the Fates’ little mercies had not yet detonated. He set those by my feet, then said, “Be wary, milady, for these remain of a temperature that might cause you harm. Give them a moment before attempting to take them.”<br /><br />“Thank you, Ernest.”<br /><br />Then, for the final time, he returned to the Carriage cabin to retrieve our servant Amanda. The fire had risen, and the heat of it could now be felt even from my position many yards away. This effort was of more difficulty, evidently, for a long moment passed, and then another, and I gazed upon the rising holocaust with a deepening concern. <br /><br />Finally, and to my great relief, Ernest’s form appeared from the fire, in all appearance as a seraph emerging from the light of Glory about the Divine, and he carried in his arms the limp unmoving remains of Amanda. He strode towards me effortlessly bearing her weight, whorls of smoke rising from about him from where the few lingering tatters of his blackened uniform still burned.<br /><br />When he reached me, I gazed down upon my dear childhood servant, and tears welled in my eyes, for I felt in that instant the great loss of her care, a wound only magnified by the still greater loss of my beloved Father.<br /><br />“Oh, Amanda,” I said softly, extending my hand tentatively towards the shattered porcelain of her visage; finding that while it was still hot to the touch, the heat was bearable, I placed it tenderly upon her broken forehead.<br /><br />“Do you suppose there might be any chance that she might be made whole, Ernest?” I said, my voice thick with sorrow. “I do not know what I will do without her.”<br /><br />“The damage to her systems is extensive and critical, milady. But while repair would be a severe challenge, and there is a significant probability of failure, it is not impossible. It might be done, milady.”<br /><br />“Do you really think so, Ernest?”<br /><br />“Yes, milady.”<br /><br />I sighed. “Thank you for your kind reassurance, Ernest.”<br /><br />“Of course, milady.”<br /><br />Kneeling, I reached down to where Ernest had set the ammunition upon the dry ground, and there I placed the boxes into my purse of toiletries. My cooling Ruger also rested upon the parched earth, and, like Amanda’s forehead, it was slightly hot but not painful to the touch. <br /><br />Taking the familiar grip of the pistol in my right hand, and the handle of my well-laden purse in my left, I rose and turned to walk to the anarchist transport. Ernest followed, bearing the singed wreck of Amanda.<br /><br />I saw, at that moment, that standing between us and the transport was the peculiar woman with whom I had spoken before, along with two others I did not recognize; they had apparently been watching us the entire time. <br /><br />There was now about the three of them a different affect than I had previously perceived, not so much disdain, but a new admixture of awe and deep wariness; I supposed, as a reasonable conjecture, that the flame-kissed Ernest and I were something of a sight.<br /><br />“So,” I said, offering up to the woman a smile of the utmost pleasantness. “Thank you again for your generous patience as we gathered our necessaries. Shall we depart?”<br /><br />There was a long pause. <br /><br />“Suuuure,” she said finally, with a distinctly guarded narrowing of her eyes, and so, together, we did.<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.belovedspear.org/2024/01/in-shadow-of-her-majesty-chapter-twelve_9.html">Chapter Thirteen: The Journey to Meet My Handsome Rescuer</a></div>Beloved Spearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14568697883886058321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-427789083748011142.post-19069336733995245142024-01-03T09:27:00.001-05:002024-01-03T09:27:12.707-05:00The Last Days of an Old Dog<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHKUevhfiFQrxQdiK9v72N45Cx_y0V52LGL9aI9SQZCyJ6CK7xcnz8t4RRC_q6cEG9F452174CaLer3iVE7vTymEJhWQCWyH10wwSoBDhGmkmlKO6A7C_5X9Zc65KxfhkBZQTHi0RC_7sTbwWVQs2fhU8iPfQravH8ccCt_u1tEMgrtlAEXQPKDPeF9Ivl/s4032/20240103_084436.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHKUevhfiFQrxQdiK9v72N45Cx_y0V52LGL9aI9SQZCyJ6CK7xcnz8t4RRC_q6cEG9F452174CaLer3iVE7vTymEJhWQCWyH10wwSoBDhGmkmlKO6A7C_5X9Zc65KxfhkBZQTHi0RC_7sTbwWVQs2fhU8iPfQravH8ccCt_u1tEMgrtlAEXQPKDPeF9Ivl/s320/20240103_084436.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>For the past several weeks, my morning routine has changed a little bit. I stir, say my morning prayers halfway between dreams and wakeness, and then get out of bed. I trundle to the kitchen, where I start the coffee going, after which I shuffle out to get the paper. <p></p><p>Then I go check to see if the dog is still alive.</p><p>Our Ellie is fourteen, so she's a old old pup, and it's been a month since the vet told us she was dying. She'd been losing weight, and turning up her nose at food, so we knew she wasn't doing well. When she got weighed in at her last appointment, she'd lost nearly a quarter of her body weight, and blood work told the tale of kidney failure.</p><p>We had a couple of months, roughly. The word "euthanasia" was laid on the table. In the meantime, it was suggested that we keep her comfortable, and feed her what she wants.</p><p>She wants less and less, generally speaking, but what she prefers is to never eat dog food again. For a lifetime, she's wanted human food rather than dog food. All dogs do, as it's the primary reason they started hanging out with <i>homo sapiens sapiens</i> in the first place. "Dog food" as a concept distinct from human food is an entirely modern industrial concept, a marketer's conceit, although I'm pretty sure that first wolf-dog that stepped tentatively into the light of a fire wouldn't have turned up their nose at a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spratt%27s">Spratts Patent Dog Biscuit. </a></p><p>We were giving her boiled chicken and pork for a while, along with pasta and rice. She stopped eating that a week or two ago, and we turned to fancier fare, to fried eggs, salmon, and tuna, as it was all she'd even consider consuming. </p><p>Even that, now, has often become unacceptable. She continues to waste away, her once-almost-too-tight collar hanging loose around her neck, the bones of her hips standing sharp under the collapsing tent of her flesh. Despite a dose of an antinauseant yesterday, her bowl of oatmeal this morning is mostly untouched. She just wants to sleep, and rousing her gets more and more difficult. Every time I pass her, I'll stop and watch to see if she's breathing. I wait. Then a little more. And there, finally, the furry chest will rise.</p><p>She can still stand, and still walk, although even with the human-strength doses of gabapentin that keep her arthritis discomfort away that clearly has gotten more and more difficult. Occasionally, she'll have moments of friskiness, as she did bounding about in the snow on our recent trip to more wintry climes. She always did love snow. Mostly, again, she sleeps. </p><p>At some point, she'll either pass or...if she seems in pain...we'll gently help her along. Whatever happens, it'll be at home. Though our vets have been helpful, she loathes going there, and there's not a chance on God's green earth that we'll take her there for her final moments. Bright fluorescents, hard surfaces, and cold tile floors aren't the last things any living thing wishes to see, although we humans seem to have gotten a little stupid about that of late.</p><p>Better to be home, in her comfy and well-worn bed, with the little patch of wooded yard that has been hers since she was a pup right there where she can see it.</p><p>I don't feel about her as I would about a human person. She's not that, not a "fur baby," which seems an unfair expectation for any nonhuman animal. She's a dog, and being a dog is enough. For fourteen years, she's been her own unique dog self. </p><p>Gentle, a little aloof, prone to being standoffish. She'd greet you for a brief moment, then wander off. Or not greet you at all, and you'd search the house for her, until you found her off in some corner. If you called her, she'd come in her own good time, or not at all. If you threw her a ball, that ball was hers, and she intended to keep it. Try to pet her, and she'd duck away, unless she was in the mood, in which case a belly rub was welcome, thank you very much. She was, in those and other things, rather feline. As her parentage was uncertain, we'd often jokingly say her <a href="http://www.belovedspear.org/2015/03/i-have-dog-that-is-cat.html">father might have been a cat</a>, although genetic testing mostly ruled that out. Mostly.</p><p>Cat jokes aside, she is still and has always been a good dog, very much herself, and as far as we're able, we'll make these last days good ones.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Beloved Spearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14568697883886058321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-427789083748011142.post-16778041195584859092023-12-25T17:26:00.001-05:002024-01-04T08:55:56.105-05:00In the Shadow of Her Majesty, Chapter Eleven<b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqkDZpJ4Dlx5maOlaR5bmQqdUcjFQcOF4i0igfufmDLlq9TNteQoxpv4I_j0QXnWRK5YgCXyxtJL3ZMVpBZZ1UJme-RbgC6FJD_bvfmHYqXKP4RXksdRaDw63HFAff0qgKbWUB7VYB3ZcmDMf-MtCLGa7xTHDi9Kp-PcnB6gdonydIg4RNYUmi7VEk-fY9/s1024/_fa21fce1-6479-4cbf-b5b9-3209f4138266.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqkDZpJ4Dlx5maOlaR5bmQqdUcjFQcOF4i0igfufmDLlq9TNteQoxpv4I_j0QXnWRK5YgCXyxtJL3ZMVpBZZ1UJme-RbgC6FJD_bvfmHYqXKP4RXksdRaDw63HFAff0qgKbWUB7VYB3ZcmDMf-MtCLGa7xTHDi9Kp-PcnB6gdonydIg4RNYUmi7VEk-fY9/s320/_fa21fce1-6479-4cbf-b5b9-3209f4138266.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>Chapter Eleven: An Angelic Intervention<br /></b><br />Though my shattered heart would have had me remain there in the bliss of catatonia, unthinking and unfeeling, for the remainder of my miserable life; still my mind struggled to stir me to action, for I knew that I remained in peril. I knew this, and the truth of it lay all about me, yet for what seemed like a time interminable, it was as if all vitality had left my frame; though reason would have dictated a desperate effort to free myself, and to perhaps take advantage of the distraction of battle to attempt my escape, I could not stir myself to even the slightest movement. <br /><br />What would it matter if I moved? Father was dead. Hope for rescue was gone.<div><br />It was as if, in that moment when Father had been burned from the world, that same fire had torn through my own soul, leaving me empty of all purpose and intention. I was a hollow thing, an empty vessel, a soulless golem whose animating force had left her. I was no more able to move than the now-motionless remains of Amanda beside me. <br /><br />The thought of Amanda, and the sight of her form, pushed aside and damaged beyond likely possibility of repair, stirred an ember within in me; her care for me since childhood, her selfless sacrifice for my well being, an above all her final words as the Carriage plunged to earth, words that were not simply hers, but that reflected the fundamental duty of every servant of Her Royal Highness.<br /><br />Was I a servant of any less competence or responsibility? Were the demands upon my person less, or did I as the heir to House Montgomery have a sense of honour that did not rise to the standards set by my childhood nursemaid? Of course not.<br /><br />And from that thought, that ember within me grew hot and caught, for I was of course no longer simply the heir apparent to all that Father had lived and died for. I was, right now, in all actuality and in the eyes of the Crown, the Countess Montgomery.<br /><br />I had, with Father’s death, taken on the heavy mantle of the Countess Wexton-Hughes of Montgomery. <br /><br />The thought put the steel back in my spine, and as the engine of my pride the knowledge of my duty again animating my frame, I lifted my eyes again to regard the door that remained what I imagined to be the sole barrier between myself and my liberty.<br /><br />My eyes grew wide, for there, peering in with a rapacious sneer, was the narrow, sallow countenance of a Caddiganite soldier. <br /><br />“Hey!” he cried, in a rough voice. “Lieutenant! We got one a them alive in here!”<br /><br />“What?” came an answering shout from nearby.<br /><br />“There’s one a them alive.”<br /><br />“A bot?” replied yet a third voice. “Gotta watch out for those bots. Stronger than you think.”<br /><br />The cold blue eyes of the Caddiganite regarded me with a terrible avarice. “Nah. It’s a girl.”<br /><br />I was, of course, no such thing, for I had not been a girl for years; but I do not think, given my estimation of the vile design underlying the soldiers’ leer, that it would have made a difference had I been barely more than a child.<br /><br />“Who’s got the crowbar? Get me the crowbar! It looks like I’m gonna get me another girlfriend!” The hunger in the pale face before me was visceral, and cruel laughter followed from what sounded like a dozen voices outside.<br /><br />I pressed back to the crushed far side of the cabin, as from within me rose a rage that I could barely contain, but though words both unladylike and profane offered themselves in defiant proclamation, I remained silent, cold and composed.<br /><br />“Awww. She’s makin’ room for all of us to join her. Ain’t that sweet?”<br /><br />Another face, flat, thick and scarred, appeared at the window, wielding a crude iron bar in his hands. “Here I was all mad about us being left behind to sort through the leftovers while most of the brigade gets to go after the prize, and, well, looks like we got us a prize too.”<br /><br />“I saw her first. I’m first,” growled the sallow faced one in complaint.<br /><br />“Hey, there’s a dead fembot, too. Maybe you can have a go at that!” the larger, flat faced one jeered, and there was much cruel laughter from the circle of faces that now pressed in to examine their cornered prize.<br /><br />The bar was applied, and they began a struggle against the door, whose strength and concomitant resistance brought many imprecations and curses.<br /><br />My righteous fury burned all the brighter with each futile heave given to the bar, and I could feel my hands begin to tremble with it; this would not do at all, not at all. I focused the rage into a white hot beam, pressed down hard with my will, and the trembling vanished, for I would need a steady hand. My retreat deeper into the cabin was not in fear, but strategic, and my withdrawal to my former seat near the inert Amanda was with a particular purpose. <br /><br />In anticipation of any possible difficulty in our travels, I had been sure upon our departure from House Fairfax to place my ancient Ruger in the storage compartment next to my seat, along with several small boxes of ammunition crafted specifically for use in its venerable receiver. Although the cover to the compartment had shattered, I was able as I pressed myself back into the small space to slip my hand surreptitiously within, where I found the familiar comfort of the pistol grip as it slid into my grasp.<br /><br />I withdrew the slender weapon from the compartment, and with it still hid behind my skirts, slid off the safety, whispering an ardent prayer for the strength to do what I must do; for with ten rounds in the magazine, I had resolved that nine of these rapacious troglodytes would die before I used my final bullet to make myself of no use to them, or at the very least drive my soul from my flesh, for I would not put an unnatural necrophiliac lust past such degraded brutes.<br /><br />Still the barbarous Caddiganites struggled to breach the resolute Carriage door, with the utterance of many unrepeatable curses; having committed my soul to God and my mortal frame to the only possible course of action, I found rising within me a strange impatience at their incompetence, an eagerness to complete the terrible task that I had pledged to complete, and I found myself tempted to command them to hurry about their business.<br /><br />Such a word was rising to my lips when, suddenly, from a soldier out of view, there came a shout of alarm. <br /><br />“Anarchists! It’s an ambush! Ana…”<br /><br />The voice of alarm was strangled out by single shot, in a terrible glottal abruptness, and then came a sudden storm of gunfire, a score of weapons discharging at once; the clatter of it was as a hail on a tin roof, punctuated intermittently and to my immense satisfaction with the death cries of one and then another of my erstwhile assailants. As they scrambled to find better cover than their vulnerable position near the crash, small arms fire tore through them, dancing bloody against the impermeable sides of the fallen Carriage, the rounds ricocheting wildly; the Caddiganites desperately returning fire with their own hastily seized weapons, using the Carriage itself as a woefully inadequate shield against an unseen assault from all sides.<br /><br />“Grenade!” came the panicked cry of the sallow faced soldier, and it would be the last word he ever spoke.<br /><br />A bright flash filled and rocked the cabin, and a burst of yellow and orange flame filled the window, penetrating through the window of my redoubt with a fiercely radiating heat which briefly reddened my face, but that mercifully passed in an instant. From without, the desperate war-shouts of those who had been seeking my flesh turned to shrieks of utter anguish; horrific cries of the mortally seared that continued until they were silenced one by one by a series of singular retorts. <br /><br />Under other circumstances, perhaps, my natural womanly compassion might have been moved to pity by the gruesome sufferings of these burned men, but as it was, my only sentiment was a feral and bloodthirsty delight.<br /><br />Now, though, the scent of fire that had been but a mild annoyance grew inescapable, and the air within the cabin hung thick with swirling and deepening smoke; a noxious particulate cloud that, though I covered my mouth and nose as best I could with my sleeve, nonetheless began to trouble my breathing most fearsomely. Outside of the cabin, the window showed embers and flame rising, and it appeared that for all of my glee at the immolation of the Caddiganites, I might soon experience their same awful fate.<br /><br />Then at the window appeared a shadowy and hooded form amidst the rising inferno, one I struggled to discern through my smoke-teared eyes. It stood for a moment, as if in contemplation, and then stepped forward and reached an arm towards the edge of the door. To my amazement, the entire door was wretched bodily away, torn from its very hinges in a feat of near impossible strength; then hurled aside with the ease that a passing zephyr might fling a kite skyward.<br /><br />Into the cabin the hooded figure leaned in, extending a hand of rescue towards me, a mechanical hand that was formed from alloy of the most sublime manufacture. Then the hooded form raised its head to me, and I was startled to see in that moment that it was not a machine but a man; and not just any man, but the most perfect Adonis I had ever in my life observed.<br /><br />One does not typically impute beauty to the male of the species, but before me was such a face and such a form that Aphrodite herself might have swooned, such beauty that I confess that it was neither smoke nor shock that rendered me briefly unable to breathe. <br /><br />Beneath the black hood: a cascade of lustrous hair, itself dark as a starless night; a strong brow, flesh cast in a fertile hue as rich as red soil; eyes more golden than brown that seemed somehow to cast their own light; full, inviting lips that were at that moment firm with manly purpose; a close cropped beard that traced the lines of a jaw seemingly chiselled from living rock. <br /><br />His form was nigh-impossibly well turned, broad but not overbroad of chest and shoulder, possessed of a precise muscularity; his arms, striking in their distinction, one arm decorated with ornate tribal tattoos in a much pleasing pattern, the other a sophisticated and powerful mechanical prosthesis of dark alloy that only augmented his nearly overwhelming virility.<br /><br />“Are you…real?” I may have stammered, although given the trials of the last hour and my tenuous emotional state, my recollection of that moment may not be entirely accurate.<br /><br />“Time to go,” said my impossible angel, in a firm yet silky Latin-inflected voice that somehow only deepened his remarkable appearance; all I could do was nod as he took my delicate hand in his outstretched cybernetic grasp, and I felt most deeply the potency of his reassuring strength as I was drawn up to my salvation.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.belovedspear.org/2024/01/in-shadow-of-her-majesty-chapter-twelve.html">Chapter Twelve: Departing With The Anarchists</a></div>Beloved Spearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14568697883886058321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-427789083748011142.post-3607521231322310042023-12-20T10:10:00.003-05:002023-12-25T17:27:32.357-05:00In the Shadow of Her Majesty, Chapter Ten<b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfX1OcA6o0LuRgPqX60KQQdbsV-MGyfPrTgjeExTrzCEXmNYWXx4v9W2svJt5esnl3lxMCc13m2KJsxMvlFVAiuW1SxmtROOGwJhlWLo0fLp-zaNLip1FJue45t7BA_EIE-sEGMiGtCH7nFq6EHMIaoMMn2deWWpkl2BZEDq49YRPJhYzc8TrEuDH2shhy/s1024/_02761bd2-ac0d-4a71-9d77-67d8719e2b0f.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfX1OcA6o0LuRgPqX60KQQdbsV-MGyfPrTgjeExTrzCEXmNYWXx4v9W2svJt5esnl3lxMCc13m2KJsxMvlFVAiuW1SxmtROOGwJhlWLo0fLp-zaNLip1FJue45t7BA_EIE-sEGMiGtCH7nFq6EHMIaoMMn2deWWpkl2BZEDq49YRPJhYzc8TrEuDH2shhy/s320/_02761bd2-ac0d-4a71-9d77-67d8719e2b0f.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Chapter Ten: The Cost of My Folly</b><br /><br />It was in that moment, as I found myself frozen with horror at the monstrous truth of my predicament, that there was a sudden burst of movement; the Caddiganite soldiers rushed about, some seeking shelter, some gathering around the arrays that were searching the skies, as each of the great guns that ringed me turned in sequence, one after another like falling dominoes, and all locked their wicked intent upon a point in the heavens to the south south west.<br /><br />Someone was coming, undoubtedly some kindly and stalwart friend and servant of the Crown, who upon hearing our cry of anguish and distress was rushing to our aid. Such meritorious intent, such goodheartedness, and yet they would soon be met with a fusillade of deadly malice from those who had crafted this malevolent ruse.<br /><br />I was, in that moment, utterly mortified, for I was not in any way ignorant of my own foolish contribution to this wretched circumstance. My ill-starred choices had paved the road of woeful Providence; had I only listened to the warning so gently proffered by Father, rather than dismissing it as the empty fears spoken by a broken Father of my imaginings, this circumstance would not have come to be, and the thought of harm coming to yet another as a result of my blind, ignorant idiocy was in that moment cutting me to the quick.<br /><br />My self-flagellation over the unquestionable path of causation was abruptly interrupted by a sudden and immense explosion; one of the tracked vehicles in my field of vision had simply ceased to exist, its dark form replaced by a great fountaining irruption of debris both metal and flesh. A second after the explosion came the thunder of a great metallic report, which I in an instant surmised was simply a part of that selfsame obliteration; the projectile that was responsible for this implacable and complete instant destruction must have been hypersonic. <br /><br />No sooner had I come to this realisation than the moment repeated itself; another of the great guns vanished in a shower of flame and smoke and vapour, followed again by a sound worthy of a divine hammer striking the anvil of Vulcan.<br /><br />As if startled to life, the remaining great guns thundered their reply in return, casting a wild hail of metal death towards the veil of clouds, around and within which blossomed a bouquet of deathly flowers wrought of black smoke and shrapnel. <br /><br />I pressed my face again to the window, craning my eyes to the southern sky, my vision probing the greyness, and then; joy of joys, my heart thrilled to see a great cylindrical form parting the cloud before it; descending from the heavens like the rod of Divine Wrath. <br /><br />It was the glorious vision of the HMS Firedrake, and from the clouds to its right and left, as stalwart and ready footmen, came the Dagger and the Weasel.<br /><br />Father had arrived. His flotilla had left but a quarter of an hour after my departure, and our cry of distress must have reached his ears first; it was he who came fierce and swift to his daughter’s call. <br /><br />All about me the Caddiganite guns roared their fury at the skies, their poisonous spite flying upward to strike the descending airships. Near and against the flanks of the Firedrake materialised a harvest of lethal blooms, whose terrible ferocity and accuracy had been previously sufficient to drive my Carriage to ground.<br /><br />But the Firedrake was not a gentlewoman’s carriage, and Father had spoken discreetly but with pride at her construction; like all ships of the line, she was sheathed about with fabric, as airships have always been, but that fabric was of such wondrous ingenuity as to be stronger than the most robust alloy. Indeed, as my eyes watched the steel imprecations spat forth by the Caddiganite cannons, their hate failed against the best workings of the Royal Society, for all purposes as helpless as the petty blows of a child’s tantrum.<br /><br />In reply, the Firedrakes’ great primary railgun spoke a third stern word of righteous anger, and another cannon was no more; the Dagger and Weasel, too, had their say, as each sent a triplet of rapier-quick rockets dancing earthward, missiles whose wroth rode on a bright point of fire, each guided on its implacable errand of justice by its own machine mind and eye. Every one found its hapless target, and now more than half of the vile guns lay sundered and afire. <br /><br />It seemed, in that instant, that the day must be lost for the Caddiganites, and I felt the sweet joy that comes with a fervent hope fulfilled, and a deliverance realised.<br /><br />Then, again, came the metallic blow of a nearby railgun, and my world came to an end. <br /><br />The Caddiganites…they had…they must have…<br /><br />For before my unbelieving eyes the noble form of the Firedrake was pierced; it staggered back heavenward as a man might reel from a mortal blow, then, in the time it took to me to take a single gasp, she vanished in a flash of brightness, one that for a moment lit the clouded world as if the sun himself had risen; my eyes were struck blind as if I had gazed directly upon its radiance. <br /><br />I fell back, a cry of terror caught in my throat, and as I struggled to clear my vision that I might see what monstrous new trick the Fates had played upon me, there came another terrible percussion, and before my still clouded eyes a streak of white hot light leapt upward from a nearby copse, impaled the Dagger, and passed through it as a needle through cloth. The trusty frigate sagged, a portion of its superstructure shattered, but the generators and ceramic battery arrays that fueled it were unharmed, and it did not share the fate of the unfortunate Firedrake.<br /><br />Below the now-bereft escorts, the flaming carcass of my Father’s murdered Firedrake drifted downward and to the south, lifeless as an autumn leaf, thick black smoke billowing from the punctured hulk as it clung insensate to the sky; debris and the charred bodies of her crew tumbling and scattering like ashes cast upon the earth.<br /><br />The remaining Caddiganite cannons began their cruel assault again, filling the sky with flak and flame, and before the enemy railgun could strike again, the desperately crippled Dagger struggled upward, the now-outmatched Weasel casting down a hail of desperate rocketry and incendiary gatling fire to protect their retreat; together the two withdrew into the sheltering mists of the cloudbank as the Caddiganites spat iron and steel as a curse upon their departure.<br /><br />Still the burning Firedrake drifted downwards, hanging in the sky like grapes before Tantalus, whispering that surely, surely in the smouldering, crumbling paradox of its gentle descent, there must be hope that some might have lived. The thought cried out to me, but I smote it down as a phantasm, nothing more than a delusion that spoke only lies about the horror that had come to pass. I turned my face away from that intimate vision of death and despair, for I could no longer bear to contemplate it.<br /><br />None could have survived the destruction that I had just witnessed. There was no hope. All aboard the Firedrake had surely perished. Father was dead. <br /><br />I sank back into the charred velour beneath me. I would have cried Father’s name, but my throat was closed, my whole body paralyzed by a blow of shock and grief that left me unable to move, unable to think, unable to speak, unable even to weep.<br /><br />All was lost. O fool, O poor wretched orphaned fool.<br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.belovedspear.org/2023/12/in-shadow-of-her-majesty-chapter-eleven.html">Chapter Eleven: An Angelic Intervention</a></div>Beloved Spearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14568697883886058321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-427789083748011142.post-48183386579639037942023-12-15T08:03:00.001-05:002023-12-20T10:15:53.647-05:00In the Shadow of Her Majesty, Chapter Nine<div style="text-align: left;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6xgZH_4LGrmKK0geiOtTAbnfSTiQ0HO-6_LMWTDK38YiqbUkF31o3ajI-T_BP8lqfSOSrJ9y6ALUer84igvBUF5LdkuK2DUNPoNtiqIHSuTY2EWB1F_mUD53Usac5S-VpkmxezNbREkXu1VynZjiQWJzULjHZzH6i-AiwuifWKilG3zfM5iomJXTVVVvf/s1024/_8667d287-7500-4262-92e6-c59c422e38df.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6xgZH_4LGrmKK0geiOtTAbnfSTiQ0HO-6_LMWTDK38YiqbUkF31o3ajI-T_BP8lqfSOSrJ9y6ALUer84igvBUF5LdkuK2DUNPoNtiqIHSuTY2EWB1F_mUD53Usac5S-VpkmxezNbREkXu1VynZjiQWJzULjHZzH6i-AiwuifWKilG3zfM5iomJXTVVVvf/s320/_8667d287-7500-4262-92e6-c59c422e38df.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Chapter Nine: A Worm on the Hook</b></div><br />O dear reader, how my heart quailed when I awoke, for I felt upon regaining consciousness much as I had on those mournful, unwelcome mornings when I had opened my tear-wearied eyes following Mother’s passing; one finds oneself returning to a bitter dawn far less preferable than the Land of Nod, a reality from which the soft oblivion of unconsciousness had been a welcome respite.<br /><br />My mind was an addled cacophony at first, uncertain of the nature of the waking nightmare in which I found myself, or the manner in which I had arrived in such a dreadful state, a confusion that likely rose from the great concussion of our crash to earth. I felt a deep nausea, and my head throbbed unbearably, both from the terrible whirling madness of my recent plummet from the heavens and the blow that my person had received when said plummet was halted with terrible abruptness.<br /><br />The wreck of the Town Carriage upon striking the earth must have been a tumbling carnage, for it was clear that the Carriage had alighted with a force that was in diametric opposition to its typical grace, rolling and crashing upon terra firma repeatedly, and in so doing tearing itself nearly to pieces. The integrity of the Carriage cabin, which had been constructed with all of the ingenuity of Her Majesty’s Coachbuilders, was nonetheless sorely breached, crushed inward so that there was scarce room for me to move my limbs, stirring in me the trapped anguish of an enclosed claustrophobe. <br /><br />Yet even more horrid to me was the state of my dearest Amanda, my most cherished servant from childhood. She remained arched above me, her strong legs and arms locked, her whole self a shield wrought from the deepest service. It was her body and its prodigious strength that had restrained the utter collapse of the cabin onto my far less robust flesh, and her intent to spare me from violation had been fulfilled only at the ultimate price.<br /><br />A single structural spar had been thrust violently through her torso, and thusly impaled, her graceful form twitched and spasmed but inches from my bosom. Her eyes flickered and sparked, her ceramic face was cracked and broken, small fragments of porcelain from her face shaking loose to fall upon my own as her head spasmed again and again to the left. Each movement brought a rough whirring, as the damaged motors and actuators that had formerly imbued her every motion with such delicacy continued in a mindless reflexive rhythm; her movements driven not by her mechanical mind, which was utterly gone, but by some lingering impetus of her waning energies. Yet still her arms held firm, their strength lingering even after her untimely demise.<br /><br />“Oh, Amanda,” I said, my eyes brimming with tears, extending my hand to touch the hard coolness of her broken cheek as it gave yet another empty clockwork twitch.<br /><br />How many precious hours had Amanda dandled me on her knee, or chased me about the woods of the estate? How often, when Mother and Father were absent, away at some great gathering of society, did she dry a tear or bandage a scraped knee? She had been my protectress and companion, a comforter of my puerile sorrows and a chastiser of my childish, petty mischiefs. Like the dignity of the Crown, she was unchanging, or so it seemed even in light of her many upgrades over the years, and it had been in my heart that she might provide a similar care to any heirs produced by Stewart and myself, and perhaps to their children as well. <br /><br />We all would like to believe that the ones we love are immortal, but in the case of Amanda, such belief was not simply the wishful fantasy of childhood, but could have…had Lady Providence not been such a cruel mistress..been an ongoing comfort for lifetimes.<br /><br />Yet now, I faced a conundrum of potentially mortal consequence, for while the restraining netting of the Carriage had released as intended, I remained pinioned by Amanda’s inert form; close upon me, and pressed tight against my skirts, my protector had inadvertently become my prison. Her mass was considerable, for though she was of my stature, and the alloys from which she was wrought were the lightest our material science could muster, she was nonetheless almost thrice my weight. Of even greater concern, the grip of her lifeless hands on my chair remained unbroken, and I was quite trapped. Should I be unable to release myself from beneath her, I might soon find myself caught in some conflagration, for the smoke of nearby flames hung heavy in the air of the cabin, scratching at my lungs with every intake of breath.<br /><br />Further, if I could not effectuate my escape, I knew that in but moments the brutish Caddiganites would surely descend upon the wreck, intending to take from it whatever they might steal from the Crown, including my own person as a hostage, or worse. <br /><br />My mind raced in pursuit of a solution, until a lesson from my advanced robotics tutoring suddenly fell to hand; there was, as I recalled, a release of sorts, one integrated into the design of every Series 9, one that in a circumstance such as this one could disengage…yes…there it was. Unbuttoning her blouse, my fingers searched inward across the surface of her carapace, where they found the pressure point at her sternum, upon the pressing of which a small panel opened. Working at close quarters, it was terribly awkward, but my hands are nimble, and I was able…with effort…yes…there!<br /><br />Her hands released, her elbows unlocked, and suddenly her weight was heavy upon me, whereupon I found myself much grateful for the hours I spend each week in the gymnase, for with the greatest of effort I was able to move myself from beneath Amanda’s dead weight, and, after similarly extricating my skirts, to move to the door on the opposite side of the cabin. This was necessary, as the final resting position of the Carriage had resulted in my own door being pressed hard against a mound of earth; my only option for egress was on the other side.<br /><br />I pulled at the release, but found that the door would not open, for in the crash the structure of the cabin had been so deformed that the door was locked in place. I flung myself against it, once and then again, but found myself yet again imprisoned, for it would not budge. I pressed my face against the well-nigh impenetrable transparent aluminium of the window, hoping against hope that I might spy some hope of rescue without.<br /><br />What met my eyes made my blood run cold in my veins.<br /><br />All around my position had formed a veritable army of Caddiganites, who had evidently had the time to consolidate their positions whilst I remained insensate to the world. Judging from what I could see from my little window, there were overland trucks and transports of varying types and vintages, a motley assortment unified only by the drab dappling of grey, green, and black with which they had been painted. Even more alarming were a dozen or more tracked and armoured vehicles of crude yet purposeful design, which had surrounded my fallen Carriage at an approximate distance of one hundred yards, each of them emblazoned with the stark design of their vile movement; a stylized grey warhammer with a red handle, resting atop a white circle with a black border. Every one of these primitive yet effective war machines had a top mounted turret, from which protruded the long lethal snout of some kind of projectile weapon, undoubtedly the selfsame guns that had struck me and my entourage from the heavens.<br /><br />I felt a thrill of terror, for no escape was reasonably conceivable, and surely I was to soon be their captive; yet as I watched, I found myself at first baffled, and then more and more filled with a rising sense of unease and trepidation.<br /><br />Every one of the great cannons was pointed not towards me, but skyward, and not a soul amongst the dozens of black and grey clad soldiers who milled about several arrays of sensor equipment were making any noticeable effort to move towards me; for they, too, were looking upward at the lowering cloud cover with fierce intensity. Here I was, helpless and at their mercy, I and all of the subtle workings of the Carriage and its design there for the taking; yet none of them made any movement to do so, as if content with my position.<br /><br />It was at that moment that I realised the truth of my unfortunate situation, and knowing the monstrous purpose to whose end I was being used, my mind recoiled in redoubled horror. <br /><br />I was not the quarry. <br /><br />I was the bait.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div><a href="http://www.belovedspear.org/2023/12/in-shadow-of-her-majesty-chapter-ten.html">Chapter Ten: The Cost of My Folly</a></div>Beloved Spearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14568697883886058321noreply@blogger.com