The Rundown

Since last week there have been more plane crashes, including the latest—as of this writing—this past Sunday morning in Georgia. Meanwhile Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has been mum on the spat of crashes, save blaming the Biden administration, since Trump slashed the budget for the FAA.

Trump also gave a presser in which he sat like the empty suit he is, while Elon Musk blathered on for over thirty minutes. Musk’s son X Æ A-Xii even got in the act, reportedly telling Trump to shut up at one point.

 In other news, VP JD Vance, who had been AWOL, went to Germany and met with the far right party Alternative for Germany (AfD), which the magazine Der Spiegel reports has associations with far right and neo-Nazi extremist groups. Vance did so in lieu of meeting with German Chancelor Olaf Scholz.

The heads at Fox News and those at other corporate media outlets would have exploded if a democratic VP had gone to Gaza and met with Hamas. Yet not one peep from them on this. They’ll do anything to prop up Trump et al and keep their access to them.   

As it stands world leaders are meeting to discuss how they will deal with Trump as he continues tilting at windmills and ramping up tariffs against them.

Meanwhile, more cases of bird flu (H5N1) have sprang up across the country, resulting in the culling of chickens, cattle, and other infected livestock. There are also growing concerns about mutual transmission of the virus between cats and humans.

The US is also experiencing outbreaks of measles and tuberculosis, and polio is making a comeback; all while Trump’s communications ban on the CDC and state and county health department remains in place. And to make matters worse, anti-vax and conspiracy theorist RFK Jr. was confirmed as Head of Health and Human Services.

But the cherry on the shit sundae was the Russian asset Tulsi Gabbard being confirmed by unanimous consent as the Director of National Intelligence as Putin watched and laughed at us. Not a single democrat objected to Gabbard’s nomination. And that, among other reasons, is why I’m no longer voting “blue no matter who.”

Why I’m Done Voting Blue No Matter Who

Since Trump retook the oval office, democratic voters have been screaming for our elected officials to do something, anything to stop Trump. And what has been their response? They wring their hands and say they can’t do nothing because they don’t have the votes, which is a lie since whenever republicans are in the minority they do everything in their power to obstruct the dems (see Clinton, Obama, and Biden).

And when Musk and his DOGE boys breached the US Treasure, and security officers blocked democratic officials from entering the USAID headquarters and other government building, they rolled over. At every step democratic leadership has failed to meet the challenge these times require. Instead, they do nothing or give piss poor pressers, when they aren’t sending out a billion texts and emails begging for money.

Nope.

The Democratic party won’t get one cent from me until there are major changes. First, it’s way past time Nancy Pelosi and the old guard of the House and Senate retire. They are too old and out of touch with their constituents and clearly not up to the fight before them. So, until people like AOC, Maxwell Frost, and Jasmine Crockett take the reins, I want nothing to do with the party.

And, if democratic leadership is set on continuing their drift rightward and villainizing the progressive element of the party, then I have no qualms leaving the party. Why stay where I’m not wanted, why stay when the leadership refuses to grow a spine and take the fight to Trump et al.

Why invest my time and money in a party that only pretends to care about progressive issues come election time, then governs like republican-lite once they get into office. If the party isn’t willing to push progressive policies, then why stay.

If things don’t change, I’ll switch my affiliation to independent and support candidates on a case-by-case basis and not blindly vote blue no matter who. And if ever a viable progressive third party comes along, I’ll support it. But until then, the DNC and democrats in the House and Senate are on notice.

Until next week, stay safe and don’t let the tangerine tyrant grind ya down.

A lot has happened since last week.

More planes crashed/collided, Trump blew up the Gaza hostage deal by asserting he has control over the Gaza Strip and wants to expel all Palestinians and build luxury apartments there, and he signed executive orders to send immigrants convicted of crimes to Guantanamo and to sentence those guilty of capital offences to death.

J D Vance came out of hiding to lay the groundwork for eliminating the separation of church and state and establishing Christian Nationalism as the state religion.

Elon Musk and his cadre of zygote DOGE henchmen lost access to The Treasury database—for now.

 And while Trump has seen several of his executive orders challenged in court and blocked, he and his administration have largely ignored these rulings. The truth is there is nothing to enforce these rulings since the DOJ’s policy not to prosecute a sitting president is still in effect. Worse, Trump’s appointees at the DOJ have begun leaning on prosecutors to drop cases against those who’ve kissed Trump’s greasy rump.

It’s becoming more apparent that we can’t depend on the systems of checks and balances and democratic leadership to save us. As I wrote last week, we must save ourselves. And while some protests have taken place across the country, with more planned, the larger issue is we can’t count on social media and the internet to organize the coming revolution needed to fight Trump et al.

The shenanigans TikTok puled by going dark in the US before the 2024 election results were in, then coming back and thanking Trump proves that it and other social media platforms aren’t reliable. This goes double for all Meta platforms as Zuckerberg was one of the first tech bros to bend the knee to Trump.

I also wouldn’t be surprised if ISPs and telecoms were the next to fall in line. And if so, the resistance will need to go old school if it’s to survive. Walkie-talkies, ham and CB radios, and community networks like the Underground Railroad will be key. And we will need to form militias, so if Trump declares Martial Law, we are able to defend ourselves.  

This might sound crazy, but intelligence experts like Malcolm Nance have been warning we are heading toward a constitutional crisis that may lead to a second Civil War. So, we need to be prepared for the worst.

Get with your friends, family, or neighbors and pool your resources. Start a neighborhood watch if you don’t already have one, network with others in person, and stay aware while staying sane.  

The takeaway here is we need to get offline and touch grass.

Cue the “Keep Calm and Carry On” meme.

If it’s any solace, this past weekend at The Super Bowl, fans booed Trump who was in attendance.

Till next week, stay safe and don’t let the tangerine tyrant grind ya down.   

Over the last week a lot has happened. A plane collided with a Blackhawk helicopter over DC and trump blamed DEI for it after his administration fired hundreds of air traffic controllers and Trump’s Secretary of Transportation, former reality TV star Sean Duffy, floundered to explain how such a thing happened.

Trump’s pick for HHS, RFK, Jr., had his confirmation hearing and it went as well as you’d expect for a conspiracy-theory pushing antivaxxer. And in related health news, cases of Tuberculosis have sprung up in Illinois, along with more outbreaks of Bird Flu in humans.

And if that weren’t scary enough, Elon Musk and his oligarch friends gained access to the information of millions of Americans and took control of billions of dollars from the Treasury, all while democratic leadership did nothing.

Well, I shouldn’t say, “nothing.” Chuck Schumer and Jammie Raskin have given a few milquetoast pressers and posted strongly worded posts on social media. Shoutout to AOC, Jasmine Crockett, and the former social media manager for Wendy’s who have been giving masterclasses in messaging and taking the fight to MAGA.

The truth is we can’t depend on the DNC or democratic leadership to save us. They eat from the same trough as the republicans and have no incentive to fight back as their seats are safe thanks to gerrymandering, no term limits, and our defacto two-party system. Neither can we wait for some mythical Superman to swoop in and fix everything.

Right now, people are angry at our leadership for allowing this farce to continue, but the fact is we allowed this to happen by tuning out politics, by not holding our politicians’ feet to fire on things like term limits and enacting laws against using information gained from their positions to engage in what would be insider trading if a civilian did what they did.

We are at fault for allowing oligarchs to buy up the legacy media and for allowing history to repeat itself re: tech bros and social media. We are at fault for standing by, waiting for someone to do something, to lead us when we can act ourselves.

You don’t need permission from anyone to start a neighborhood food pantry or mutual aid group. You can build information networks and start local newspapers or zines to spread news to others without the propaganda of the legacy media. You can also get with friends and family to help with groceries and other costs by having a weekly potluck or pooling your money to pay for gasoline and bills.

If you have a skill or talent, share it with others and have them share theirs. And if you don’t have any skills, learn one. Libraries and Google are still free, and they can be great places to rally your community around a specific goal like learning to knit or crochet and making blankets to drive down heating costs.

You don’t need anyone to pick you. Step up and stop being a bystander. Because Superman ain’t coming, so save yourself.

This has been the longest week ever. The tangerine tyrant has wasted no time rolling back Obama- and Bidden-era policies. He removed the cap on prescription drug prices, so now people will go back to paying hundreds or thousands of dollars for the critical medications they need.

He also pulled the US out of the World Health Organization, froze federal spending for everything except defense and ICE, and barred health officials from communicating with the public. All as Bird Flu (H5N1) has spread to humans in the US.

What could possibly go wrong.

Don the con has also begun purging “woke” and DEI items from whitehouse.gov and other government sites. References to the Tuskegee Airmen were removed along with mentions of The Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), a group of civilian woman pilots who flew noncombatant flights during WW 2.

More is sure to follow in the next 100 days.

Given the scope of everything that Trump has done in just a week, it’s overwhelming. But it needn’t be.

I haven’t been doom scrolling but have kept informed by following Aaron Parnas, Joy Reid, and others on BlueSky and Substack. But I refuse to turn on the corporate news or my local news affiliates as they helped create this mess by normalizing Trump.

This reminds me of a lecture I watched as part of a series on the nature of evil from The Great Courses.

It was entitled, “The Banality of Evil” and focused on a Nazi official who continued sending trains of Jewish people to the death camps even after it was clear the war was lost. When asked why, he responded, “He was just doing his job.” Not in the sense of the Nuremberg defense, but that he was so desensitized to what he was doing it was his default.

Much like the above Nazi official, the legacy media has become numb to Trump’s corruption, and worse has attempted to gas light us into believing what he and his administration are doing is normal.

It’s not.

In the lead up to the 2024 election, there was a lot of talk about the frog in the pot analogy for fascism and how by incrementally raising the temperature, the frog won’t notice it’s boiling until it’s too late.

But the insidious part about the banality is evil is it won’t matter how much they raise the temperature once we’ve become desensitized to things.

Be it reporters Joe Scarborough and Mike Brzezinski or tech bros going to Mar-A-Lago to kiss trump’s greasy ass, Target rolling back DEI initiatives, or Tik Tok pushing pro Trump propaganda, the rush to obey Trump in advance only shows signs of increasing. And more than ever we need to speak truth to power and call out the lies and utter bullshit of Trump et al.

The only way we’re going to get through the next four years is by not becoming numb to the daily chaos. So, stay informed, but don’t let it consume your life, find joy in the little things, and be there for those in need. Do what you can to make your corner of the world brighter.

To this end, I bought a crafting machine bundle that was on sale, and plan to make vinyl stickers and other goodies with it. First for myself and maybe later as a side hustle. I don’t know yet.

I also have a silkscreen T-shirt press that I bought years ago but never learned to use. Well, I plan to change that. I’ll let you know how that goes.
What are you doing to stay sane?

Till next week, stay safe and don’t let the bastards grind you down.

Long time no read.

Yeah, these last few months have been hell on me, with the cherry on the shit sundae being the election results. I’ve been doom scrolling, gaming, and binge-watching shows on Hulu. And as January 20^th approached, my nerves mounted to the point I got little to no sleep most nights, crashing for a few hours whenever my body finally gave out from exhaustion.

But I have been using this extra time and energy to do much-needed cleaning.

As I’ve decluttered my house, I’ve found my mood and sleep improving. This time since the election results has also given me the opportunity to reflect on some things.

First, neglecting my mental and physical help will do me no good. So I’m going to be doing more of the things I like and less of those I don’t. This means tuning out the 24-hour news cycle and getting back to the basics, starting with hitting the gym and cutting way back on takeout, and cooking more at home.

Second, in the days and years going forward, the only way we’re going to get through these Trump years is by defining what resistance looks like for us and not becoming numb to the everyday malfeasance. For me resistance is using my words and other mediums to call the BS that coming and staying sane by creating things. So, that’s what the blog is going be: a chronicle of my attempts to get through this craziness.

What does this mean? The occasional rant re: Trump and his matryoshka doll of corruption, reviews of games and other media, bookish think pieces, and posts chronicling my misadventures in crafting and DIY.

If this isn’t your jam, the door’s that way.

See ya’ll next week. Till then, stay safe, and don’t let the tangerine tyrant steal your joy.

Viva la resistance.   

As I wrote last week, I recently turned forty and this has me re-evaluating things, like the meaning of life and the nature of good an evil.
The Biblical god never made sense to sense to me as how can an omniscient being not foresee The Fall, or how can an omni-benevolent god send his creations to hell for finite crime, where they are tormented forever?

More importantly, how can this omnipotent being not snap its fingers and get rid of pain, illness, and evil?

The more I read the Bible, less sense it made to me, and I stopped believing altogether in my teens.

But now I’m thinking my conception of God may have been immature.

In college I was a physics major, and one of the things that crops up repeatedly is the concept of balance. Mass and energy are conserved in every chemical reaction or interaction. “What you start with is what you end with,” one of my chemistry professors told me. Thus, all chemical equations must be balanced. Also, the number of an atom’s protons and electrons must be equal, or they are unstable, i.e. radioactive. (Note: chemistry is physics on the atomic level).

Likewise, systems tend toward equilibrium, e.g. Newton’s Third Law of Motion: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So, maybe God and Satan, then, are equal and opposite forces. And the reason there are so many religions is because they’re all describing the same thing, but in different dimensions.

What I mean by this is to a 4-dimensional being, we’d look flat, just like a 2-dimensional object looks flat to us. So perhaps then each religion is describing a different aspect to God and Satan. So, God and Satan are just the positive and negative aspects of energy.

Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity (e=mc^2) says energy and matter are equal to each other, and from thermodynamics we know energy can never be created or destroyed. So maybe this creative energy is God and maybe, just maybe as the Gnostic believed, God is inside us, and as the Buddhists believe we are all connected.

And maybe then Satan represents the negative destructive energy inside us all, the death drive as Freud called it, and maybe God and Satan are projections of the internal war we all fight between hope and despair, between our ego and shadow self, between love and hate. And religion then is a psychodrama humans created as a defense mechanism to reconcile these diametrically opposed urges in us.

Perhaps, then as Carl Jung posits, the way to find balance is by accepting the God and Satan inside us all.

Hey, long time no post. Ya’ll probably thought I abandoned this blog.

Nope.

Life just got in the way, as it tends to do. Between my day job and the tire fire that is our current timeline, I haven’t had the time or energy to do much of anything but eat, sleep, shit, work, repeat.

But last month, I turned forty and have come to some epiphanies.

First, I’m not a kid anymore, so I need to take better care of my physical and emotional health, especially after the lab results from my last doctor’s appointment. My blood sugar is high and if I don’t get it under control, it’ll tank my kidneys and other organs. So, beginning today, I’m eating healthier and will start hitting the gym too.

Second, I’m not as far along with my writing as I’d hoped I’d be, and if I’m being honest, it’s been weeks since I wrote a blog and months since I even thought about working on my WIP’s. So, I’ll write for at least 30 minutes every day. And I’ll set hard deadlines for completing my WIP’s.
Third, I’ll resume therapy and work on my issues, because if I’m gonna be around for another forty years I want to be the best version of myself I can be.

Honestly, I didn’t expect to live this long; and now that I have, I don’t know what to do. Maybe therapy will help me figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life. I’ll probably always write, but as for my day job, I’m thinking about using my company’s tuition reimbursement program to get a degree in either communications or business management and apply for a better paying job.

But with the uncertainty of this year’s presidential election, I don’t know if I’ll even still be in the US come this time next year.
It feels like we’re all waiting to exhale, wondering what will happen next, wondering if there’ll even be a USA after this election.
It just feels like the whole world has gone insane and no one is doing anything about it because we’re all just trying to get by the best we can.

And I’m sick of it!

I don’t want to live another four years, let alone another forty, worrying if my rights as a person will be taken away, my existence politicized, based on which party is in power. This is no way to live: constantly on edge and stressed out, because no matter how much we turn out the vote, we’re always one election from the next Trump, always one election from it being the last election. All because America refuses to address its racist past and present.

I’ll still vote for Harris this November, but I’m not naïve enough to believe her election will fundamentally change anything (I learned my lesson with Obama).

The system is broken, and nothing will change until we fix it. So, yeah, vote blue no matter who, then once Trump and Trumpism is no longer a threat we need to do some self-reflecting as a nation.

Hello,

As this is the beginning of a new year, I thought I’d try something different with this blog. So starting today, I’ll be posting a microblog of 200 to 500 words every day in addition to the standard Wednesday posts, which I’ve been neglecting to post for the last several months.

I want these drabbles, as I’m calling them, to be more conversational and not have a fixed topic so I can explore whatever’s on my mind that day.
Without further ado, I’ll get into today’s drabble.

A few months back I posted chapters of my debut novel Palingenesis, its sequel, and another novel I’m working on to a website geared toward my target audience. And while the comments have been helpful, I’ve noticed myself obsessing over the number of views and comments each chapter got.

As writers, we often don’t know if a project will succeed or fail till many months or years after we start, and often we seek validation from others as an ego boost.

However I’ve realized some things while revising my current WIP.

First, that I live for those moments when I get lost in my own stories and forget I’m the one writing it.

Second, I don’t need validation for my work;as long as I’m proud of it that’s enough.

Third, that while it would be nice to become famous and wealthy from my books, if that never happens I’ll still write because it gives me joy.

Despite what we’ve been conditioned to believe, not everything should be turned into a side hustle. Some things should be done for fun.

So while I’ll still promote my work and self publish it, I’m okay with not ever make any money from it as long as it continues bringing me joy.

I realize this isn’t everyone’s mindset, and I’m not knocking you,but I’m done chasing likes and views. I don’t have the time or energy to do so anymore and would rather focus my efforts on, ya know, writing and other things that bring me joy.

Well, that’s it for today’s drabble. Happy New Year!

This couldn’t have oversold itself more if it tried.

Since Halloween was coming up, I thought I’d check out this collection horror stories. However, to my horror many of the stories in this collection weren’t horror stories, and those that were, I found boringly tame.

Of the bunch I found, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein my favorite. My biggest complaint is that most of this collection consisted of short stories and poems by Edgar Allan Poe, whose work I discovered I loathed. The other issue with this collection is it lacks any works by modern works or writers of color.

Overall, I was sorely disappointed in this audiobook set that touted itself as the ultimate horror collection. Don’t waste your money on this. I give The Ultimate Horror Collection 2.0 out of 5.0 stars.

Witch vs. Witch by A.C. Merkel

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


An interesting premise marred by subpar writing and stale tropes

Witch vs Witch by A C Merkel is a female/female paranormal romance centering on witches Farrah and Sirena who fall instantly in love at first sight only to later discover they are on opposite sides an apocalyptic battle.

I wanted to love this story , but it was sorely lack in plot, characterization, and the prose.

First, due to this being a novella, there wasn’t enough time to develop the plot beyond save Adrick, save Sirena, save the world. And because of this the relationship between Sirena and Farrah wasn’t developed at all. They literally go from strangers to hooking up and being being madly in love with each other after only seeing each other three times.

Moreover, the world building was lackluster and not fleshed out at all, and the story dragged towards the end.

This was made worse by the utter lack of variety in syntax or any detailed descriptions.

And when I finally got to the end it was beyond cheesy.

While this was a quick read, I only finished it because it was so short. Otherwise, I would have DNF’d it were it 300-plus pages.

Honestly, this read more like a first or second draft than a finished manuscript and could use a ton of editing/rewriting.

While I did enjoy Farrah’s sense of humor and thought her plant magic was a cool concept; it, like the novella in general, lacked in execution.

Overall, I didn’t like this novella much and only give it 3 out of 5 stars.

Maybe this story will resonate with you but it’s a pass for me. Rent it or sang it when it’s on sale.




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I take pills, 

So I know what’s real. 

Pills, so I won’t kill 

Myself.   

But these pills  

don’t let me feel 

Much. 

I take pills

So I don’t seize,  

So I don’t  sneeze, 

So my heart beats with ease, 

And I don’t keel 

Over. 

Pills to lower 

My cholesterol,  

To improve my mood overall. 

I take pills so my 

Blood sugar falls. 

Y’all, I’mma be real. 

I’m sick of pills. 

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Lush prose, engaging characters, but did not live up to the hype.

A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses #1) by Sarah J Maas is a fantasy romance novel that follows 19-year-old Feyre, the youngest daughter of a wealthy family turned destitute, who accidentally kills a fearie while out hunting one day. She is then whisked away to the Spring Fearie Court, where she must adapt or perish.

While I enjoyed this book, it wasn’t without issues.

First, the beginning is very slow and info dumpy and I was tempted to DNF because of the glacial pace.

Second, the court intrigue, or the lack there of. I expected Game of Thrones level backstabbing and plotting, but there was barely any intrigue, court or otherwise. And what there was, I found underwhelming.

That said, I will read the next in the series with hopes the court intrigue intensifies.

I give A Court of Thorns and Roses 4.0 out of 5.0. If you go into it without super-high expectations, and you’ll love it.



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Introduction

Everyone is familiar with common euphemisms such as law enforcement officers, administrative assistants, and sanitation engineers. To further clarity and reduce offense, I have proposed a new series of such terms. Look them over and share your thoughts.

1. calorically challenged: As opposed to “fat,” “overweight,” and “obese” which carry negative connotations — especially for the latter, which sounds like a disease — this term reflects the reality that most people struggle with their weight due to issues with their caloric intake versus output.

2. coitus technician: “Prostitute” and “hooker” are such dirty words and belies the expertise and craftsmanship that’s involved in sex work. Also, because prostitution is legal in Nevada, this term reflects they are professionals like any other working person.

3. sexual explorer: “Slut” is a troublesome word because of the double standard attached to its use and the shaming that goes along with it. However, sexual explorer conjures up images of sophistication, liberated sexuality, and fun.

4. augmented reality specialist: Unlike “actor,” this term is gender neutral and describes the modern state of acting as more computer generated content replaces the need for people.

5. truth dilation and contraction management: While it’s often joked politicians are professional liars, especially in the post “alternative facts” era, this term better describes their behavior. All campaigns are about crafting a narrative for the candidate by exaggerating the positives and suppressing the negatives.

6. an aesthetically acquired taste: This is a much better term than “ugly” or “homely” and reflects that beauty is subjective and there’s someone out there who will like you for you.

7. financially marginalized: This term is much better than “poor” and encompasses the full spectrum of our economic strata.

8. job insecure: This doesn’t have the baggage of “unemployed” and sounds more pleasing to the ear. It’s also reflective of the often uncertain job landscape.

9. Technophobic: Much better than “Luddite” or “troglodyte” and accurately describes the fear many people have of embracing new technology.

10. non-melanated: This has none of the contentious history of “white,” is better descriptively, and centers BIPOC.

*Note: The above is satire.

Introduction

Over the last several years, violence against The LGBTQ community has been on the rise in America and abroad. Conservative groups such as A Million Moms, Moms For Liberty, The Proud Boys, and others have engaged in sustained efforts to disrupt and ban events like Drag Story Time and family-friendly drag shows.

Conservative groups and have also tried banning books containing LGBTQ+ characters or content under the tired and false claim that the LGBTQ+ community is trying to groom children and reading about/seeing queer people will “make kids gay.” And when local communities push back against these efforts, instead of conceding to the will of the people, these groups double down, increasingly showing up armed.

When libraries refuse to remove LGBTQ+ books or cancel Drag Story Time, they often face criticism from these groups and others, up to and including efforts to defund said libraries, as in Jamestown Township, a small community in the western part of Michigan, my home state.

But these groups haven’t acted alone. Politicians like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert have repeatedly said and tweeted anti LGBTQ+ things. And on the local level, politicians and council members have sought to limit or outright ban Drag Story Time and any book with LGBTQ+ content, claiming they violate obscenity and decency laws.

But they aren’t alone. The media gets in on this gay hate agenda too.

Conservative commenters like Tucker Carlson have gone on air spewing anti-trans lies about how liberals what sex ed taught to kindergarteners or want to take away parents’ rights regarding whether their trans children take hormone blockers or get gender confirmation surgery.

And when people like JK Rowling and Helena Bonham Carter or other celebrities say, do, or post transphobic things or boost anti-trans comments and voices, reporters often don’t point out the misinformation and lies.

 Instead, they frame the story as a debate.

The problem with this is it gives legitimacy to this gay hate agenda. When it comes to human rights—yes, trans rights are human rights—there is no debate when one side believes the other side shouldn’t exist.

All of this hate hurled toward the trans and queer communities reached a critical point last November when an assailant entered Club Q; the only LGBTQ+ nightclub in Colorado Springs, CO; armed with an AR-15 and opened fire, killing five and injuring twenty-five.  

And more recently police arrested a man in Florida for threatening to kill 100 LGBTQ+ students at Florida State University. He claimed, “It was a joke.”

Running through all this is a unifying thread, the belief in the so-called gay agenda; that the LGBTQ+ community here and elsewhere want to “turn people queer,” by indoctrinating children, and grooming them for sexual assault.  

This is false.

Studies show 80-90% of all known child sex offenders are cis males. Child sex abuse statistics also show that almost one-third of  children are assaulted by a family member. For children under the age of six, 50% of the abusers are someone in the family. For victims aged 12 to 17 the percentage drops to 23%. Stats also point to no tangible link between homosexuality and pedophilia, despite some assertions (Darkness to Light).

So no, random LGBTQ+ folks aren’t the ones you need to look out for. It’s your friends and family. The simple fact is Carlson et al. are fear mongering and pushing their gay hate agenda.

Textbook Hypocrisy

First, learning about, reading and seeing LGBTQ+ people doesn’t sexualize children any more than learning about straight folks does. And the hypocrisy of A Million Moms et al. with this is appalling. They have no issue with depictions of straight couples in 99.999% of the media, but let there be a same-sex couple or a same-sex kiss on screen and they lose their minds.

Yet these are some of the same people who have no problem with things like child beauty pageants, or insinuating kindergarteners are in romantic relationships with each other, if said couple is straight. They are also the ones who often complain about having the gay agenda shoved down their throats, yet have no issues pushing their views on others re: religion, which brings me to my next point.

These people try to mask their bigotry behind religion, yet they pick and choose which parts of the Bible to follow. I’m reminded of the scene from West Wing where President Bartlet and conservative commenter Dr. Jenna Jacobs get into an argument about homosexuality and the Bible. President Bartlet points out all the other laws in Leviticus and elsewhere that Christians like Dr. Jacobs ignore while zeroing in on Lev 18:22 to further their gay hate agenda.

Such laws prohibit wearing clothes of blended fabrics; eating shellfish, pork, or any animal with cloven feet; or marking your body (Lev 19:19, Lev 1:1-47, Lev 19:28). The Bible also establishes the criteria for who you can enslave and for how long, such as selling your daughter into slavery (Exodus 21:7).

The excuse given for this is that Jesus changed things with his death and resurrection. However, Jesus is quoting multiple times throughout the News Testament saying Old Testament Law still applies (Matthew 5:17-20).

Yet, they completely ignore everything Jesus said about helping the stranger and, the least among you, not pushing your religion on others, the beatitudes, and being overly pious for show (Matthew 5-7).

But even if their interpretation of The Bible is right, it doesn’t matter.

 Because The US and most other Western countries are in fact secular nations, so no religion can force their views on non-believers.

We Are a Secular Nation

 “…Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”—The First Amendment.

The entire point of the 1^st Amendment was to prohibit the government from telling its citizens what they could say, what they could write, who they associate with, and who and how they could worship. Thus, Madison et al. added the establishment clause, and why Jefferson wrote in a letter to the Danbury Baptists Association that:

“…Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”

And it’s this fundamental misunderstanding of the 1^st amendment regarding religion and free speech that is at the core of the gay hate agenda. They believe their interpretation of their religion should take precedence.

No.

 You have a right to your views, but you don’t have a right to force them on others. If you don’t want your children to read books with gay or trans characters, go to Drag Story Time, or a family-friendly drag shows, then don’t take them. But you don’t get to take that choice away from others, especially when these stories give many kids the representation they desperately need.

Representation Matters

Whether it’s politicians pushing bills to ban trans youth from using the bathroom that comports with their gender identity, or draconian laws that would ban trans athletes from participating in sports and subject them and others to inspections of their genitalia from adult strangers if someone suspects them of being trans, to the above efforts to ban books with LGBTQ+ content; at every turn, the adults claiming to care about the welfare of children are the same one demonizing them if they aren’t cis and heterosexual.

So many LGBTQ+ kids feel unseen and not worthy of love, respect, and dignity because their communities send them the message, they are wrong, confused, don’t know they’re LGBTQ+; and even if they do, their lives don’t matter.

Therefore, healthy, three-dimensional depictions of queer folks are important. Not just for queer kids and teens, but for everyone else.  

Facts and Figures

Studies have shown reading books increases empathy and emotional intelligence, and that reading about characters from marginalized communities increases empathy toward those communities.

Studies have also shown seeing positive depictions of LGBTQ+ people helps kids come to terms with their gender identity and sexuality sooner. This is the reason there appears to me more LGBTQ+ people now. Because they feel more comfortable coming out and doing it sooner because it’s less stigmatized now. And not because the queer community is “turning people gay.”

Per the Mayo Clinic’s website:

“Most children between ages 18 and 24 months can recognize and label gender groups. They may identify others as girls, women or feminine. Or they may label others as boys, men or masculine. Most also label their own gender by the time they reach age 3.

However, society tends to have a narrow view of gender. As a result, some children learn to behave in ways that may not reflect their gender identity. At age 5 or 6, most children are rigid about gender and preferences. These feelings tend to become more flexible with age.”

And per a medicinenet.com article:

“In a 2020 study of transgender adults, 73% of transgender women and 78% of transgender men reported that they first experienced gender dysphoria by age seven.”

And according to research conducted by Gilbert Herdt, PhD, Executive Director of the National Centers on Sexuality at San Francisco State University, and Martha K. McClintock, PhD, David Lee Shillinglaw Distinguished Service Professor in Psychology at the University of Chicago, stated in their study “The Magical Age of 10,” published in the Dec. 2000 issue of Archives of Sexual Behavior:

“Accumulating studies from the United States over the past decade suggest that the development of sexual attraction may commence in middle childhood and achieve individual subjective recognition sometime around the age of 10. As these studies have shown, first same-sex attraction for males and females typically occurs at the mean age of 9.6 for boys and between the ages of 10 and 10.5 for girls.”

My point being is people often know their LGBTQ+ as kids and therefore queer representation is so important as they are going through these formative years to know they aren’t wrong, aren’t an abomination for who they love or what gender they identity or express themselves as.

I know this from a personal standpoint as I came of age in the late ‘90s and early 2000s, when being LGBTQ+ was much less accepted than it is now and there were few positive portrayals of queer people in the media and even fewer of Black queer folks like me. And because of this, I struggled with coming to terms with my sexuality and often thought of suicide.

And I know I’m not alone.

A 2022 national survey of 34,00 youth between 13 and 24 by The Trevor Project found:

• 45% of LGBTQ youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the last year
• LGBTQ youth who felt high social support from their family reported attempting suicide at less than half the rate of those who felt low or moderate social support.
• LGBTQ youth who found their school to be LGBTQ-affirming reported lower rates of attempting suicide.
• LGBTQ youth who live in a community that is accepting of LGBTQ people reported significantly lower rates of attempting suicide than those who do not.
• 60% of LGBTQ youth who wanted mental health care in the past year were not able to get it.
• Fewer than 1 in 3 transgender and nonbinary youth found their home to be gender-affirming.
• 14% of LGBTQ youth attempted suicide in the past year.

(Including nearly 1 in 5 transgender and nonbinary youth and 1 in 10 cisgender youth.)

The stats don’t lie. When LGBTQ+ kids feel safe and supported, their mental health improves and they’re less likely to harm themselves.  

 The proponents of the gay hate agenda believe the opposite. They believe I and other LGBTQ+ people are trying to groom their kids, trying to brainwash them into mutilating their genitals as part of some grand gay conspiracy to destroy the nuclear family and Western Civilization. They want us to regress under the guise of protecting the children, because they and others like them believe being LGBTQ+ is inherently sexual.

Spoiler alert: it’s not.

In fact, the queer community includes members who fall on the asexual spectrum and th experience sexual attraction to varying degrees.

Conclusion

Being LGBTQ+ is no more inherently sexual than being straight. And that these people automatically associate being queer with sex says more about them than it does us.

But as I’ve said many times, before folks are queer adults, they’re queer kids. And they deserve to live their best lives free from people who claim to care about them while steadily doing everything in their power to make their lives worse.

 Banning books and media with LGBTQ+ content and events like Drag Story Time isn’t going to suddenly make everyone straight and cis. It will only make more of the children you profess to care about harm themselves.

It also shows your stupidity and lack of humanity. No one can make you LGBTQ+, no more than you can turn a queer person straight. You either are or you aren’t. To believe otherwise is simply homophobia and transphobia.

Being a kid, especially an LGBTQ+ one, is hard enough without becoming the poster child for a movement that is antithetical to everything you are.

If you want to protect children, then don’t put outdated gender norms and roles on them. Let them be whoever they turn out to be. If you can’t do that, then you shouldn’t be a parent.

Period.