When Bias Response Teams Attack!

Seeking injustice even if they have to invent it.

EricMajors.TV

Ruins of CHAZ/CHOP Draw Interest

Remember this when you think of exploring old cultures. Egypt is far away and rather dangerous. Seattle is much closer and rather dangerous. 

Babylon Bee

Story Du Jour #19

All Story Du Jour tales are available online and free! A small offering in these trying times.

disasterofarmero

"And of Clay We Are Created" - by Isabel Allende

4,174 words

More than a valley is buried in volcanic mud.

Here's a sample of the writing:

"He was one of the first to reach the scene, because while other reporters were fighting their way to the edges of that morass9 in jeeps, bicycles, or on foot, each getting there however he could, Rolf Carlé had the advantage of the television heli- copter, which flew him over the avalanche. 

We watched on our screens the footage captured by his assistant’s camera, in which he was up to his knees in muck, a microphone in his hand, in the midst of a bedlam10 of lost children, wounded survivors, corpses, and devastation. The story came to us in his calm voice. For years he had been a familiar figure in newscasts, reporting live at the scene of battles and catastrophes with awesome tenacity. Nothing could stop him, and I was always amazed at his equanimity in the face of danger and suffering; it seemed as if nothing could shake his fortitude or deter his curiosity. But Fear seemed never to touch him, although he had confessed to me that he was not a courageous man, far from it. 

I believe that the lens of the camera had a strange effect on him; it was as if it transported him to a different time from which he could watch events without actually participating in them. When I knew him better, I came to realize that this fictive distance seemed to protect him from his own emotions."

A little literature to break up the genre fiction. What style awaits in Story Du Jour #20?

Book Review: It Calls From The Forest

It Calls From The Forest: An Anthology of Terrifying Tales from the Woods Volume 1 by Michelle River
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In the woods there are things spooky and unknowable, not to mention hazardous to your health and sanity. In this small press collection of horror fiction set in the forest there are some offerings consisting of little more than a set-up, others more backstory than story, and a goodly number of satisfying tales.

As with all themed anthologies, certain story elements tend to crop up. Druids, clearings, old legends and kids testing boundaries appear several times. Perhaps 24 stories on the same theme is a bit much. Like binge-watching a Netflix series, you can quickly find yourself getting ahead of the author.

Among the better woodsy yarns were:
"Knotwork Hill" by C.W. Blackwell
"Lazarus' Respite" by Michael Subjack
"Forest Man" by Holley Cornetto
"Rouse Them Not" by Tim Mendees
"13" by Craig Crawford
"Getting Away From It All" by Greg Hunter
"Hollow Woods" by Brian Duncan.

My favorite pair were Jason Holden's "Fairies in the Forest," in which a father and son learn that crazy old grandpa knew his cryptids. Also "Automatic Contamination" by M.A. Smith in which what's old is new and inclined to eat and run. I especially enjoyed some of the imagery, as in passages such as the "hard ratchet of the crows" and "the spiraling trill of summer robins."

Overall, fine reading for the horror aficionado, lovers of short fiction, and fans of timberland terror.


View all my reviews

Happy July 4th USA!!

news.wisc.edu

For Whom the Bomb Blows

Back in 1970, I visited my brother at college in Madison, Wisconsin. He showed me the wreckage of Sterling Hall, housing the physics department and the Army Mathematics Research Center, where work was done under contract for Uncle Sam. Anti-war protestors had set off a bomb killing a physics researcher and father of three, Robert Fassnacht, as well as injuring others. I recall the windows on all the surrounding buildings were blown out and covered with plywood. According to the late Mr. Fassnacht's family, he, too, was against the Vietnam War.

In these unsettled times, not everyone crying for justice is just. Change imposed is tyranny by another name. And violence unleashed will, sooner or later, devour those who thought they could control it.

On this our nation's birthday, let's recall that our heritage as Americans is "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

For today, let us all promote a little bit of happiness.

A blessed 4th to all.

triangleonthecheap.com

Portlandia 2020

Federal Courthouse in Portland, Oregon. Many of the communist-anarchist groups in that city are funded by George Soros, the American far left, and a number of spray paint companies.

Andy Ngo