Month: September 2025
01OCT2025 – Quote of the Day
The sailor tells of winds, the ploughman of bulls,
the soldier counts his wounds, the shepherd his sheep.
Propertius
Tomorrow the Stars – A Science Fiction Book Review – Part 1 – Poor Superman
A while ago I spoke of buying a book I owned fifty-some-odd years ago. So, here’s a story from that book to talk about. The author Fritz Leiber was pretty popular back in the day. So, I don’t intend to rewind the plot here because it’s a short story (twenty-eight pages) and anyone can find it out there in the public domain, I’m sure.
But I just want to give some impressions of the best aspects of the story. This is explicitly a post-apocalyptic world. New York City and Washington DC are craters. And because of the disaster the US government has been supplanted by a regime called the Thinkers. They are frauds who have convinced the populace that they have supercomputers and atomic rockets that go to Mars to commune with the all-wise Martians and something called the “Mind Bomb,” etc., etc., etc. The real scientists have been cowed into keeping quiet and the nominal leader is a guy named Jorj Helmuth who was a publics relations specialist in the before time but now believes his own hype and thinks he’s a master of sleep learning and hypnotism and whatever else he’s made up.
The story is basically the maneuvering of Jorj, his cronies, the scientists and a few other actors on stage. Leiber lays out the story and the characters in broad strokes but very skillfully and it’s fun to recognize the Soviet (and American) propaganda playbook being run to fascinating effect. It’s a cautionary tale about idealism and chicanery and power politics and the danger of believing in your own lies. And even thought this story was written in 1951 it reads the same as if it was written today or tomorrow.
And it has a great villain who just exudes realpolitik and a feme fatale and even a twist ending to make sure you don’t forget that it’s from the golden age of science fiction. And even the title of the story is the punchline.
All these same people inhabit our present world. The lies and make believe from then is no different from the BLM or Antifa grifts that we see all around us. Probably the closest thing would be the climate change scam that has bankrupted Europe and exacerbated the monetary problems we’re experiencing.
So, that was fun. There are a few more stories in the book that I’ll highlight in later episodes of this book review. But I’ll say that “Poor Superman” is the crème de la crème of the entire collection. And since it’s the last story in the book you finish it off with a smile on your face. See, that Bob Heinlein really knew the trick to editing an anthology. Make sure the last story leaves them wanting more.
So, who remembers this story or at least remembers the name Fritz Leiber? Surely, I’m not the only old science fiction fan here and I’d love to get some other opinions. After all, I’m just one man. And I’m not even superman.
30SEP2025 – Photo of the Day
30SEP2025 – Quote of the Day
NOW
Rise! for the day is passing,
And you lie dreaming on;
The others have buckled their armour,
And forth to the fight are gone:
A place in the ranks awaits you,
Each man has some part to play;
The Past and the Future are nothing,
In the face of the stern To-day.
Rise from your dreams of the Future–
Of gaining some hard-fought field;
Of storming some airy fortress,
Or bidding some giant yield;
Your Future has deeds of glory,
Of honour (God grant it may!)
But your arm will never be stronger,
Or the need so great as To-day.
Rise! if the Past detains you,
Her sunshine and storms forget;
No chains so unworthy to hold you
As those of a vain regret:
Sad or bright, she is lifeless ever,
Cast her phantom arms away,
Nor look back, save to learn the lesson
Of a nobler strife To-day.
Rise! for the day is passing:
The sound that you scarcely hear
Is the enemy marching to battle–
Arise! for the foe is here!
Stay not to sharpen your weapons,
Or the hour will strike at last,
When, from dreams of a coming battle,
You may wake to find it past!
Adelaide Anne Procter
A Respite. What’s Not to Love?
Another day, another mass killing in a church. Okay we need a break today. Need something that won’t push me over the edge into catatonia. Let’s see.
So, Camera Girl and I went to a gathering of my weekly zoom-call buddies. It was a rescheduled Labor Day party that was cancelled because of weather, I think. Our host had a pork roast in a smoker and other delicacies. Camera Girl baked a ricotta cheesecake and some other stuff and we relaxed around a giant fire pit in a cauldron hung from a heavy chain attached to a tripod. We ate and socialized. There was a lot of talk about music. Our host is a musician. He’s a singer and guitar player and after dinner he set up a band and played country favorites and some eclectic tunes along with songs of his own. The audience was very appreciative as well they should have been. It was very enjoyable.
Afterward there was some political discussion amongst a few of us but my heart wasn’t into it. It was much more enjoyable to discuss the merits of and differences between Hank Williams Senior, Junior and the III. And talk about who really played the instruments on the Beach Boys, “Pet Sounds” (apparently studio musicians called, “The Wrecking Crew”). Sure, we did talk a little about Charlie Kirk’s murder, but I much preferred spending time talking about the old days and some of the characters who we worked with but hadn’t thought about in a long time. Reminiscing actually is a lot of fun. And there were people there I hadn’t seen in a long time. And everyone got along great. And I did hear some very good health news about someone who had had a terrible accident. So, all in all, it was an excellent night.
But all too soon Camera Girl reminded me I needed to head home and we said our goodbyes. But when I got home, I was inspired by the musical nature of the night to dig out a bunch of CDs that I had bought but never ripped onto my computer and put on some thumb drives to listen to in my car and around the house. You see I’ve never gone in for streaming. I don’t use a cell phone at all (well, I have a flip phone that I charge up if I have to go out of town). So, my music is based on my CD collection. Well, I had about ten albums that I hadn’t heard in a few years so I added them to the playlist and damn! All of a sudden, my music was light years better than it’s been in forever. So, ignoring the present apocalypse has been very pleasant. Sure, I’ll have to come up for air soon and the horror is just waiting for me to come back to the surface but for a short exciting moment I was living in a happier world without trans-psycho-killers, Antifa losers and government shutdowns. What’s not to love?
29SEP2025 – Quote of the Day
A LOST CHORD
Seated one day at the Organ,
I was weary and ill at ease,
And my fingers wandered idly
Over the noisy keys.
I do not know what I was playing,
Or what I was dreaming then;
But I struck one chord of music,
Like the sound of a great Amen.
It flooded the crimson twilight
Like the close of an Angel’s Psalm,
And it lay on my fevered spirit
With a touch of infinite calm.
It quieted pain and sorrow,
Like love overcoming strife;
It seemed the harmonious echo
From our discordant life.
It linked all perplexed meanings
Into one perfect peace,
And trembled away into silence
As if it were loth to cease.
I have sought, but I seek it vainly,
That one lost chord divine,
Which came from the soul of the Organ,
And entered into mine.
It may be that Death’s bright angel
Will speak in that chord again,–
It may be that only in Heaven
I shall hear that grand Amen.
Adelaide Anne Procter
29SEP2025 – Photo of the Day
Guest Contributor – Tregonsee – 28SEP2025 – Dem’s Scylla and Charybdis
Milo’s analogy reminds me of a situation I saw. There was a pear tree on land near my home that was unclear if it was on my property or the neighbors. It was in a bad way as where it had been planted was rocky quick draining soil so it was often starved for moisture. After a couple dry summers and cold snowless winters it was on its last legs. I got out my pruning saw and was ready to do some major clean up removing some of the branches which were clearly damaged or diseased. The neighbor came out and said it was his tree and I was not to touch it. In the interest of neighborhood peace I didn’t even argue. withing 2 years the pear tree was dead and he had to have someone come in and remove it.
Like that tree the US has some damaged sections. Radical pruning is called for to solve (or at least mitigate issues) now. But the Democrats see this as our tree don’t you touch it! In my case the tree had been planted by the previous owners so I had little interest and just walked away. We can’t do that we depend on this tree and honestly, it feels like the USA is the last flowering tree of the Scottish Enlightenment. The UK, Australia and Canada (and little New Zealand) have all fallen to the modernist tilt.
I think Trump has carefully wedged the Democrat leadership between Scylla and Charybdis and is enjoying watching them squirm. Because the language the Trump Administration proposes is such that the removed positions are not layoffs or furloughs the positions cease to exist. Because of the language (unfunded positions) the removals essentially go around the civil service protections. In general, this hurts primarily Blue voters in areas so blue that they are bound both by representation and electoral votes to the Democrat party. Schumer can’t let this happen as hordes of his supporters will be unemployed. But neither can he give in as other parts of his base would be enraged. I suspect he chooses the former, hoping that the enraged unemployed Democrats vent their anger at the Administration. The one downside of this for the Republican party is this probably wipes out any Chance Winsome-Sears had of winning the Virginia Gubernatorial election if this falls out like I suspect. That’s a shame. Ms. Winsome-Sears is an impressive lady but not being native born she is not eligible for Vice president or president. A ticket with Vance/Winsome-Sears in 2028 would have made the Democrats heads explode.
Tom’s World – 28SEP2025 – Rename Them “Fa”???
It may not be delicious irony but it is surely irony defined when an organization named anitfa(scist) didn’t go to the trouble to research exactly what a fascist means and then adopts methods used by the 1930’s German fascists.
The rampages of the Brown Shirts during the late 1930’s around Kristallnacht weren’t inherent to Fascism but it was inherent in Naziism.
Fascism was the child of Socialism first envisioned by Benito Mussolini who was then a high party official of the Italian Socialist Party.