Category Archives: Noisy Nonsense

The Barker and the Big Tent

Posted on by Alexandra Erin

The Barker and the Big Tent
By Alexandra Erin

With gratitude to my muse in this matter, Mr. Brad R. Torgersen.

“Welcome to the Big Tent,” the barker said, showing his teeth in a friendly smile. “Everyone’s welcome in the Big Tent!”

“Hey, mister,” Jake said. “Is this a circus, or something?”

“Oh, it’s a circus, yeah,” the barker said. “It’s a circus and more. It’s whatever you want it to be! The Big Tent has room for everyone! You go in and you can watch a show, or you put on one of your own. Any kind of act you can imagine can be found in the Big Tent. You keep your stage as long as you keep an audience, so anything goes as long as it’s entertaining.”

“Anything?”

“Well, of course we mustn’t break any laws,” the barker said. “The point of the Big Tent isn’t to do anything bad, but only good things, things that are fun for everyone. Everyone’s welcome in the Big Tent.”

“Yeah? What’s going on there?” Jake asked, jerking his head towards the turnstiles at the entrance.

A pair of burly roustabouts flanked each of the gates. As Jake watched, a couple of people were roughly turned away from one. The bouncers’ faces were murderous, while the people they sent packing just looked scared. All the lines got shorter as people saw this and left in apparent disgust or, in some cases, fear.

“Well, lad, that’s where we let everyone in,” the barker said, then repeated, “Everyone is welcome in the Big Tent.” He cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted, “Come one, come all, to the Big Tent! If you believe that any show is a good show as long as it’s entertaining, this is the place for you!”

“So, who were those people, then?” Jake asked.

“Gatekeepers,” the barker said.

“No, I mean the people your gatekeepers turned away.”

“Our gatekeepers?” the barker said. He let out a loud, raucous laugh, slapping his knee. “We don’t have gatekeepers, son! This is the Big Tent you’re talking about, and everyone’s welcome in the Big Tent! No, those nice gentlemen are there to keep the gatekeepers out.”

“But you said everyone is welcome,” Jake said.

“Right,” the barker said. “You’re a clever lad and you catch on quick. We want to keep the Big Tent big, don’t we? We want to make sure it welcomes everybody, don’t we? Well, we can’t very well do that if we let in a bunch of gatekeepers.”

“How are they gatekeepers?”

“Well, I told you our set-up: anyone can try their hand at filling a stage, and as long as they can keep an audience entertained they can keep doing their thing, right?”

“Right.”

“So the good acts keep going and the bad ones get weeded out. It’s the free market in action, understand?”

“Yeah.”

“Well… some people, they like to pretend that good acts are bad and bad acts are good,” the barker said. “No one knows why they do it, just that it happens that they do. They try to sneak in, act like they belong, and one of them gets up on a stage and the rest stand around pretending to be entertained. All the way they’re taking up a stage that could be used by people who would put on a show that a real audience wants to see.”

“How do you know they’re pretending?” Jake asked.

“Well, first, I know what’s a good act and what’s not. Don’t you? I mean, rollicking good fun. You know it, right? So when someone gets up and starts reciting poetry that doesn’t even rhyme, or putting on a one-woman show, or whatever, you know people are faking it when they say they like it.”

“Don’t you think maybe some people like that kind of stuff? I mean, people like different things.”

“Right! And the Big Tent caters to all tastes, but that doesn’t mean we have to stand for people lying about what’s good.”

“But how do you know they’re lying?” Jake asked.

“Because they talk about it,” the barker said. “You listen to them, you’ll hear it. Hey, one will say, you’ve got to come see this act. No mention of it being good, just ‘you’ve got to see it’. Like they’re commanding their little minions! Or they’ll say, it’s like nothing you’ve seen before. Like nothing you’ve ever seen! Well, if it was any good, they would have seen it before, wouldn’t they have? Or they’ll even be more blatant and say, you know that thing you’ve been looking for? Someone’s doing it over here!”

“What’s wrong with that?” Jake asked.

“The only thing people should be looking for in the Big Tent is a rollicking good show!” the barker said. “It’s not fair for people to come in looking for a specific thing! All acts should be judged purely on their own merit. Anyone who can’t do that is cheating.”

“So, you never… you never go in looking for music, or whatever?”

“Well, sure, but that’s different,” the barker said. “That’s something normal. You expect to find music under the Big Tent.”

“Wasn’t the point of the Big Tent that you can find anything under it?”

“Of course! All people welcome! All tastes welcome! All ideas welcome!” the barker said. “We especially love ideas! Some people think that ideas are dangerous, but not us! Bring us your ideas, the more dangerous the better!” He pointed to a woman being ejected from the front of the queue. “You see that woman who just got turned back?”

“Yeah?” Jake said.

He’d noticed by now that a lot of people were turned away, and that every time it happened, more people left the line. In fact, the more the barker spoke to him, the more people drifted out of the queues and towards them to listen in disturbed fascination.

“Well, she’s a known feminist,” the barker said. “That’s why we can’t give her a stage. If feminism gets a toehold, we’re through.”

“But you said no ideas were too dangerous,” Jake said.

“Right! That’s why we can’t allow any feminism,” the barker said. “As soon as we allow feminism, free speech is over.”

“What about her free speech?”

“What about it?” the barker said. He cupped his hands around his mouth again and yelled, “Come one, come all! Come to the Big Tent, where you can enjoy any show you want without having to put up with any feminist bull!”

A good twenty, thirty people stomped out of the line at this pronouncement, while maybe a half dozen people, mostly men, drifted over with interest.

“See?” the barker said. “We get more and more people all the time. So, what do you say, lad? You want to see the Big Tent?”

“Yeah… I’m not sure it’s for me.”

“The Big Tent is for everyone!”

“If feminism isn’t allowed, what else isn’t allowed?”

“I told you, everything is allowed, as long as it’s legal,” the barker said. “And as long as you’re not lying. We can’t allow people to lie about what they like, or what’s a good show. We can’t allow people to pander to PC nonsense, either. That’s just not fair to anyone.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, no one likes to be called racist, right?” the barker said. “So if you go in and put on a show that makes a big point of being not racist, that gives you an unfair advantage over any show that doesn’t. Because people will have to pretend to like your show in order to not appear racist.”

“Are there a lot of racist shows in the Big Tent?”

“We believe in freedom of expression.”

“Could I ask which shows are racist?”

“Oh, no, see, that would infringe on their freedom of expression,” the barker said. “Because then you’d avoid them, see? Instead of giving them a fair chance.”

“So because you believe in freedom of expression, no one can say that anything is racist?”

“Obviously,” the barker said. “Look, no one is saying that every show has to be racist. You just can’t… pander.”

“Well, what’s pandering?”

“Making a big deal out of not being racist, so it’s obvious you’re only doing it for political correctness points,” the barker said. Most of the crowd that had surrounded the two had drifted away, leaving the fairgrounds entirely. The barker cupped his mouth and shouted, “Come to the Big Tent, where you don’t have to deal with a lot of pandering politically correct bull!”

Most of the people left in the line whooped and hollered at this exclamation. Of those in earshot and not already in line, about half of them gave a sign of approval while the rest shook their heads in disgust.

“You see?” the barker said, gesturing towards the people remaining in line. “We just… we know what the people want, and we give it to them. Is that so bad?”

“So, the people you turn away, do they not count?” Jake asked.

“You’re saying it’s bad to give the people what they want,” the barker said.

“No, no, man,” Jake said. “Look, it’s obvious you’re catering to a specific set of tastes here, okay? That’s cool. It’s your tent.”

“Young man, it’s everybody’s tent.”

“It’s your tent, and you can do what you want with it,” Jake said. “I just wish you were more honest about it, you know? It’s rude to say that everyone’s invited and then turn people away. It’s weird to say that all ideas are welcome when you’re going to be screening certain ideas out. It’s just… the whole thing is kind of dishonest, you know?”

For the first time, the barker’s smile faltered.

“What did you call me?” he asked.

“I just… not you, but the, you know, the enterprise,” Jake said. “It seems a bit dishonest, you know? Disingenuous.”

“So you think that just because we don’t allow people to lie, somehow we’re the dishonest ones?” the barker asked. “Everybody, listen! This guy here thinks it’s dishonest to not allow people to lie! Can you believe that?”

“Dude,” Jake said, throwing up his hands as several heads swiveled to glare daggers at him. “That’s not what I…”

“He wants to ruin your good time!” the barker said. “He wants to pack the stages with boring acts featuring feminists and people who will call you racist and scold you for having fun!”

“Dude, I was just asking…”

“You know what? I think you were right, buddy,” the barker said. “Maybe the Big Tent isn’t for you.”

“Okay, man, I’ll shove off, then!” Jake said. “Later!”

He turned and walked away.

“Heh, his loss,” the barker said to a stunned-looking woman who had caught the end of the exchange. “He wouldn’t be so high-and-mighty if he knew what he was missing out on. Our tent is the biggest of the kind.”

“Is it really that big?” the woman asked him.

“Oh, I know, it doesn’t look all that big from here, does it?” the barker said. “But you’ve got to see the inside. There’s so much empty space!”

Sad Puppies Review Books: RICHARD SCARRY’S BEST WORD BOOK EVER

Posted on by Alexandra Erin

scarryRichard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever

Reviewed by John Z. Upjohn, USMC (Aspired)
With gratitude to my brother in Christ,
Mr. John C. Wright, for his gift of words.

 

Dear Mr. Scarry,

I admire your creative effort tremendously. I read your books, watched your shows, and supported and lauded you. I made your work a part of my imagination and a part of my life, and introduced your books to my children.

And this is how you repay loyalty and affection?

A children’s book, of all places, is where you decided to place an ad for a sexual aberration; you pervert your story telling skills to the cause of propaganda and political correctness.

You sold your integrity out to the liberal establishment. In a craven fashion you deflect criticism by slandering and condemning any who object to your treason.

You were not content to leave the matter ambiguous, no, but had publicly to announce that you hate your audience, our way of life, our virtues, values, and religion.

From all the fans everywhere worldwide let me say what we are all feeling:

Mr. Scarry: You are a disgusting, limp, soulless sack of filth. You have earned the contempt and hatred of all decent human beings forever, and we will do all we can to smash the filthy phallic idol of sodomy you bow and serve and worship. Contempt, because you struck from behind, cravenly; and hatred, because you serve a cloud of morally-deficient mental smog called Political Correctness, which is another word for hating everything good and bright and decent and sane in life.

I have no hatred in my heart for any man’s politics, policies, or faith, any more than I have hatred for termites; but once they start undermining my house where I live, it is time to exterminate them.

Sincerely,

A lifelong fan.

 

…

Two stars.

Sad Puppies Review Books: IF YOU GIVE A MOUSE A COOKIE

Posted on by Alexandra Erin

mouseIF YOU GIVE A MOUSE A COOKIE

Reviewed by John Z. Upjohn, USMC (Aspired)

I’m going to come out and say it: this so-called “book” is a scam. I was looking for a children’s storybook when I bought this book, and it was listed as a storybook. But it is not a storybook. You pay for a storybook, and instead you get a heaping pile of nothing. It should not have been sold as a storybook if it doesn’t contain a story.

A story is defined as a series of things that happen but nothing happens in this so-called “story”. Literally nothing, from start to finish. The first word of the book is “if”. It says:

“If a hungry little mouse shows up on your doorstep, you might want to give him a cookie. And if you give him a cookie, he’ll ask for a glass of milk. He’ll want to look in a mirror to make sure he doesn’t have a milk mustache, and then he’ll ask for a pair of scissors to give himself a trim.”

At first I thought it was just a little wordy for a prologue, but the whole book of If You Give A Mouse A Cookie goes on like that, talking about what might happen, if you do this first thing, and these other things happen. Page after page. 40 pages of this hypothetical crap. I read this whole book to my children, and every time I turned the page I hoped that the story would start but every time it was just more of that hypothetical garbage.

It’s a damned shame, too. I think my kids would have loved hearing about a mouse sweeping the house and then sleeping in a tiny box, but that never happened! None of it ever happened! It was all a ridiculous what-if scenario!

A story is supposed to answer the question “what-if” but the question should be left off the page because if it’s on the page then you don’t have a story at all!

I have a what-if scenario for the authors of this book: what if they had written exactly the same book, with the same events and the same pictures, but instead of saying “If you give a mouse a cookie” they just said “You gave a mouse a cookie, and then all this stuff happened.”? What would happen then? I’ll tell you what: it would have been a story, and people would be able to be entertained and amused by it. But since they didn’t do that, there’s no story.

How people can fail to understand the very simple fact that telling the same sequence of imaginary events in a slightly different way makes the difference between it being a story or not is beyond me. It is so obvious,

Yet I have heard this fraudulent scam of a “story” praised to the high heavens from all quarters. Once I got over my shock of having read 40 pages of nothing to my children—who, troopers that they are, made a polite show of being engaged and amused even as nothing actually happened—I started to wonder what could account for its supposed popularity.

Troubled, I reached for the book I always reach for in times of crisis, the one book that holds all the answers to life’s mysteries. Every conservative household should have at least one copy of Rules For Radicals in order to recognize Saul Alinsky’s tricks. Liberals are obsessed with that guy.

After a few hours of study, it seemed obvious to me that there must be an agenda at work, and as soon as I knew there was an agenda I could see it everywhere. It’s so easy to see agendas I’m surprised more people don’t do it.

The reason that SJWs have arranged for this hollow mockery of a book to be praised by all quarters is that it is basically a modest proposal for welfare benefits to immigrants. It starts by asking you the reader to imagine a mouse just shows up on your door unannounced and says he’s hungry, and then suggesting that you feed him. The words like “if” and “might” make this sound so polite, so reasonable. The rhythm of the book is I believe intended to lull the reader into a daze where you will nod along. “Makes sense,” you will say to yourself. “If a bunch of hungry vermin want to invade my home, why shouldn’t I give them the food off my table?”

This is the same kind of mind control technique utilized by Stalin and the Nazis. SJWs are modern day Fascists. They hide this fact by calling any conservative politician who calls for even slightly fascist policies a Fascist even though it is a historical fact that Fascism = leftism.

What really seals the deal for me is the way the book comes full circle at the end. It starts with proposing that the mouse might be given a handout of a cookie and milk and then it ends a day later by pointing out that the series of events set in motion by that handout require the mouse to be given yet another handout. You wouldn’t even have to be a halfway good storyteller to turn this into a chilling cautionary tale but this book isn’t even a story, it’s propaganda. So the natural consequence of a nanny state that welcomes all comers is presented as something whimsical and fun.

Well even the worst liberal hogwash can still be useful for teaching children to recognize liberal hogwash. If you do read this book to your children I suggest a discussion period after so you can point out what’s actually happening: how the narrator is subtly suggesting that you should do this thing as if it were your idea, but the result is that you have to give the mouse another cookie and another glass of milk every day and all you have to show in return is a perfectly clean house and surprisingly good artwork.

This is a good opportunity to each your children the value of the dollar, too. The cookies cost basically nothing because your wife can just make them for free anytime, but tell your children how much a gallon of milk costs and help them calculate how much an eight ounce glass of it would cost, then remind them that once you let the mouse into your house you would be paying this every day while the mouse contributed absolutely nothing to the household except keeping it clean and making it beautiful.

Which again is something your wife should do for free.

Two stars.

Rabid Puppies Review Books: IMOGENE’S ANTLERS

Posted on by Alexandra Erin

imogeneIMOGENE’S ANTLERS

Reviewed By Special Guest Reviewer Theophilus Pratt
(Publisher — Hymenaeus House)

Well, John Z. Upjohn has been reviewing books here for a week with not much to show for it. If anything, the SJWs have treated the whole thing as a joke! He means well, but the problem is the SJWs don’t. His fundamental decency shows through in every moderate, conciliatory word he writes, but they spit in his face every time. That’s why I’m taking over for the day, to show him how it’s done.

This is a culture war, and the SJWs take no prisoners. They are the most ruthless thought police the world has ever seen. This is why every last trace of their philosophy must be expunged from existence and all who extol it punished suitably.

Our battle ground for the day is Imogene’s Antlers, which from the very cover obviously promises to be an amusing if instructive lesson in the fundamental truth of the rhetoric of the SJWs and their myriad lies. I purchased this book not with Congress-issued coins of gold and silver but unbacked fiat currency, an irony which was not lost on me when I considered that this book, too, was mere paper backed by nothing of value.

How has the dream of our Founders been allowed to fall so low? It is obvious to any man of reason that the once great nation of the United States of America is not even a shadow of herself. You will find no acknowledgment of this simple truth in Imogene’s Antlers, which is just one of the many flaws I have divined in the moments  I spent studying its cover. SJWs always lie.

It is amusing to consider the conceit of a woman, a mere slip of a girl, as the protagonist of a book. Whatever trivial discomforts her misadventures pose to her, she would be better served to be a homemaker and allow someone with a greater genetic predisposition towards intelligence such as a man so solve them.

Oh ho, do you think that was sexist? How amusing that you have fallen for my cunning trap. I didn’t say that all women are genetically the intellectual inferior of all men, did I?

I said that this one individual, being a woman, is the intellectual inferior of another individual, being a man! How very like an SJW to miss that and leap to tar me with vile calumnies which cannot be backed up! Proof once again that SJWs always lie!

This is because SJWs rely on rhetoric, using loaded emotionally overwrought words like “evidence” and “proof” and “here is a link to Theophilus saying that women should not be allowed to vote” and other suchlike appeals to feelings, while I, with my eminently logical mind, operate solely in the syllogistic realm of the dialectic except when it amuses me to resort to more rhetorical modes, which is frequently.

And so I have outsmarted you once again. But do not take it too hard. Based on certain key demographics coupled with unmistakable signs I have calculated my own IQ as +3 SD. I always phrase my IQ in terms of significant standard deviation rather than irrelevant numbers to show that I am not some mere dilettante who took on an online test. No, I am an expert who took an online test, and then adjusted the result upwards to account for the superiority of my genetics. Genius though I am, even I can barely fathom how terribly intelligent I am. What hope have you?

What hope has anyone?

I am a master gamesman and you are all my pawns. My skills have been honed over the course of many hours arguing rules around a table full of Ral Partha miniatures. Unless you would have me believe that the master craftsman in the Divine Workshop could not equal the elegant simplicity of the rulemakers in the Games Workshop, you cannot convince me that this has not left me in top condition to deal with any and all situations I might encounter.

Alone, I am mighty. With my Baleful Cohort behind me I am unstoppable. I sneer at your polite assumptions about how humans should interact with each other in order to have a functional society. Is there a bowl of candy at your reception desk for visitors to snack on? I refuse to merely graze at it like cattle. I will have it all. Your social contract means nothing to me. Your take-a-penny, leave-a-penny tray does not impress me. I will take a penny. I will take all the pennies. I will not leave a penny. You will stare in open-mouthed horror at your empty penny tray just as the Germanic hordes once stared at the Roman pila whistling through the air at their skulls.

You are the Germans in this analogy.

I am the Romans.

Are you in an elevator with me? I will void my intestine of flatus the instant the doors close. Hold your mealy-mouthed objections about what is and isn’t done. I don’t care.

Do you hear me?

I don’t care.

Is there a rule against it? There is not. Is there a law against it? There is not. You who would politely hold it in are like a two-dimensional being faced with an invader who can move in not three or four but seventeen separate and distinct dimensions, and you had best clutch your pearls tightly because no fewer than five of those dimensions involve intestinal gas.

I once fouled the air while sharing a taxicab with Theresa Nielsen Hayden and then stuck her with the fare, telling her I would get it next time. Of course my incredibly subtle and complex stratagem comes with an insidious barb on the end: there has been and will be no next time, and neither she nor anyone else can do anything about it.

If I would do such a thing to she who commands the unquestioning loyalty of every SJW, do you think I would do any less to any of you? More the fool you!

I have heard her conspiring against me, saying, “I seriously would not share a cab with that guy.” How amusing that she thinks allowing me to overhear this whispering campaign would dissuade me from such conduct. Obviously the only reason she would warn someone else about my behavior is she thinks I will feel bad and become meek and compliant and docile as a result of her chastisement. How arrogant and typically self-centered of her to assume that her feelings mean anything to me! It is as amusing as it is instructive. I’ll say it again: I don’t care.

I am immune to the feelbads and SJWs do not know what to do about this. I am like a sinkhole destroying their roads and they put signs up all around me saying “CAUTION: SINKHOLE” as if they believe the mere act of putting up a sign can fill in a hole!

This is why the SJWs fear me. This is why they are so fascinated by me. I know. I watch them. Constantly.

Especially John Scalzi. He is a man obsessed. If you ever wish to see for yourself what a man in the throes of a deep obsession looks like, come to me and I will furnish you with details of his daily routine along with the best vantage points from which to observe him unseen. Sometimes I see him pacing his living room for hours at a time. What could drive him to such distraction, I ask, if it isn’t me?

He tells me that there is no conspiracy against me but I have compiled a list of his eating habits and lavatory visitations going back to 2008. It’s only a matter of tabulating them and then the truth will be plain for all to see. One of the Cohort has a contact at a clinic he frequented, and soon I will have a chart of his body weight between 2009 and 2013. Then I will be able to blow the lid off all his little schemes once and for all

Don’t think that I won’t.

I don’t care.

9.5/10

Sad Puppies Review Books: CORDUROY

Posted on by Alexandra Erin

corduroyCORDUROY

Reviewed by John Z. Upjohn, USMC (Aspired)

The SJW clique that runs the publishing world loves to twist things around. When people clamor for them to make books with honest covers, books with covers you can judge them by, they twist things around. They knew we wanted them to change the  inside of the book to match what the covers promised us.

Instead we get books with covers like this one, which shows the male hero half-undressed in a cheesecake pin-up pose, about to bend over while his suspender slips off his shoulder.

I have to hand it to the SJWs: it’s exactly what the cover promises, an emasculation manual for young males and nothing more. It’s barely one step above a forced feminization fantasy story. The Feminazis say they want equality but they are not content to let men be men and women be women. Gender abolition is the real goal of all feminism, and that means male extinction. This so-called storybook is a thinly veiled feminist fable designed to indoctrinate men with passively accepting our fate.

The so-called hero of this book just sits on a shelf all day next to girly stuffed animals and dolls, just waiting for someone to come along and claim him. It’s only after a girl comes along and says she wants him that suddenly his life has meaning and he’s up and walking around, doing stuff to try to please her. What kind of lesson is that for our young men to be learning, I ask you?

If I tried to write a book where this was the other way around, nobody would touch it. The PC Patrol would see to that. Just imagine it: say you have written a story where a girl is locked up in a tower or something never questioning anything about it until a man comes along and rescues her. You’d be eaten alive for proposing it! No one would dare touch it or you. Your career would be completely ruined. You would never be published again, never invited to or even allowed inside a convention, and never be nominated for an award.

This has happened to literally every other author who’s been labeled a misogynist by the SJW bullies, and it would happen to you if you tried to write a story like that.

As you might guess from how he meekly accepts his fate, the hero is a delta male at BEST. When he is rejected by the little girl’s mother for not having a button on his suspenders, he sets off at night to find it. Why should he have to improve himself to please her, though? It’s not like the girl was anything great, even if her mother thinks her precious little angel is too good to pay department store prices for broken toys. Feminism has women convinced that they should be allowed to let themselves go but still get whatever man they want. The sexual economy has been completely thrown out of balance by feminism and that is why the birth rates are declining.

So while the miserable little cuck is stumbling around the department store, he keeps deciding that whatever happens to him is exactly what he wanted. He stumbles onto the escalator. “Oh, I guess I wanted this?” he says to himself, until he believes it. He winds up in the furniture department. I remind you, he was looking for a button that fell off his suspenders. That’s not going to be in the furniture department. But he takes a look around and decides, “Oh, this is where I ended up so I guess it’s where I wanted to be?”

The lesson here is passive surrender. If you wind up married to some skank who doesn’t lift a finger because feminism taught her that she deserves to be up on a pedestal popping out squalling babies while you work to support her, it must be what you wanted or else it wouldn’t have happened.

I take it back. This bear isn’t even a delta male. He’s a full-on gamma. His sad little quest ends in a pathetic anticlimax as the night security guard—a proper man—literally puts him back in his place, where he stays until the girl comes for him.

And then the little girl does come back and buys him, and sews a button on him anyway. The Feminazis talk about agency, but where’s his agency in all of this? He never found his button. He never got a chance to be a man. Instead he needed the girl to “fix” him, playing mind games on him all the while.

“I like you just the way you are,” the temptress coos, “but I’m sure you’d be more comfortable if you let me, oh, I don’t know… change everything about you.”

And of course he succumbs. Even after seeing the palatial inside of the department store, he looks around her tiny matchbox of an apartment bedroom and decides he’s happy to be there. He was better off where he was. If he would have stopped looking for his button to please a girl when he decided he wanted to stay in the furniture department, he could be living there like a king to this very day. Women trick men into thinking that we need them to hide the truth that it is they who are dependent on us. Take the red pill and wake up.

What the Corduroy should have done is refused to change anything. Play it cool. Let the girl know that he doesn’t need her, and then she would have been the one changing for him. This works on every woman. Don’t believe me? Try it. It doesn’t matter if you try it on a hundred different women or even a thousand different women, eventually one of them will probably go home with you. Then you’ll be a believer.

There is one other issue with this book that I know the SJWs will never forgive me for bringing up, and that’s race. I was taught that all men are equal and I don’t even notice the color of a person’s skin. When I look at a person I only see the content of their character. If I cross the street or put my hand on my wallet when I see someone, it’s because I don’t like the content of their character and no one can prove otherwise. Accusing me of racism without proof means that you are the racist.

So what I want to know is why the little girl and her mother in this book can’t just be white like everyone else. There’s no reason for it. The story never even mentions it. They just show up, without a word of warning or explanation, like this is a normal thing that happens. I was trying to read a book about a walking, self-aware stuffed animal and suddenly there’s all this extra side stuff it wants me to swallow without explanation. We’re just supposed to accept it without question, I guess.

It’s even more jarring because I was reading the bear as white and I can’t think of any reason why that would be if he’s not deliberately written that way. It’s not that I have anything against children of one race playing with stuffed animals of another. I just can’t imagine why it’s here if not to push an agenda that doesn’t belong in a children’s book.

Understand that my problem is not the race of the characters. I personally didn’t even notice their race. My problem is that it doesn’t make any sense. The SJWs made the decision to insert race into this book, probably because they knew it would be divisive. It’s straight out of the Saul Alinksy-type playbook that they all follow.

I’m sure when this book was published back in 1968, right when we had just decided to give everyone civil rights, this kind of PC pandering was a no-brainer for the marketing types. Well, I’m not about to give a book points just because it checks off the right boxes in a demographic checklist. I judge books on quality and merit, not the skin color of the characters. I don’t even notice such things.

Two stars.

A Critique of Impure Reason

Posted on by Alexandra Erin

UPDATE AND RETRACTION: An earlier version of this post incorrectly included the allegations that Vox Day is an author, editor, and publisher. Upon reading the objections of an individual using the handle “TangoMan” and having given the matter careful consideration, I have realized that this was uncalled for. I do hereby retract the allegations that I so thoughtlessly repeated. Others may call Mr. Day by whatever names they please, but I will do my best to eschew such terms.

UPDATE #2: Per another correction from TangoMan, I would like to amend this post to note that Vox Day is an ineffective editor. Let this stand as a reminder that even in the most heated debate, there are some things that both sides can agree on. I applaud TangoMan for holding me to the fire on this point.

I apologize for the second correction, and I will try to be more clear about this in the future: let no one insinuate that Vox Day is any kind of an author or publisher, but he is one heck of an ineffective editor, and I’m sure TangoMan and I would both vigorously debate anyone who says otherwise.

TangoMan, I have your back on this.

 

Rabid Puppy ringleader Vox Day likes to try to distinguish what he calls his “dialectical” mode of discourse from mere rhetoric. He claims that his use of syllogism elevates his arguments above rhetoric and into the realm of pure reason, though in fact the opposite is the case: syllogisms, employed in the way that he uses them (when he bothers to construct one rather than just dropping the word “syllogism” into a post to demonstrate that he knows it) is a perfect tailor-made tool for the delivery of rhetoric.

Now, syllogisms are a form of deductive reasoning. In their simplest Aristotlean format, they consist of a general premise, a specific case, and a conclusion. Formally, the first two are known as the major premise and minor premise, but I prefer to use more descriptive terms.

Both the general premise and the specific case in a syllogism are assumptions; they are held to be true. The syllogism does nothing to prove either one of them, offers no evidence in support of them. Thus, syllogisms are most likely to produce true results when dealing with broad, sweeping axioms of life. The classic example is: “All men are mortal (general premise), and Socrates is a man (specific case), so Socrates is mortal (conclusion).”

A syllogism, in short, is a tool for extrapolating from known facts. It’s the kind of deduction that each one of us makes constantly without realizing we’re doing it. No one needs to say that Socrate is mortal; it is enough to understand that Socrates is a man and that valar morghulis, as they say dans la belle Essos. Breaking it down into a formal syllogism is more helpful for understanding how we make deductions than it is for understanding how Socrates came to die.

The syllogism does not care about the truth or falsehood of its premises. It works on the assumption that they are true. The reasoning portion of it is usually quite elementary.

Let me show you an example:

Start with the premise “SJWs always lie.”

Add the specific case “Alexandra Erin is an SJW.”

Pause to allow for various “reasoned, dialectically-minded” Rabid Puppies to quote that out of context as proof that I admitted I’m a lying SJW.

Resume and draw the conclusion, “Alexandra Erin always lies.”

Pause again, same reason.

Resume again.

Now, I’ll admit that the above is an airtight Aristotlean syllogism. Given the stated premises, that is the correct deduction to make. It is as simple and clear and inescapable as 3 + 1 = 4.

But is it true?

Is it reasoned?

No. An equation only gives you what you put into it. If you need to know how many quarters Tommy and Timmy have between them and you pull numbers out of the air, you will get the right answer only by coincidence. 3 + 1 = 4 is mathematically correct, but if Tommy has 2 quarters and Timmy has 7, then the number 4 means nothing to you in this situation.

If you start a syllogism with rhetorical premises, you reach a rhetorical conclusion. Vox freely admits that his oft-repeated line of “SJWs always lie.” is only rhetorically true (which you might recognize is just a fancy way of acknowledging it isn’t true). It’s a statement of rhetoric. The act of labeling someone a “Social Justice Warrior” is also similarly an act of rhetoric. You’re slapping a brand on someone and hoping it affects the way people see them.

If you take two pieces of rhetoric and put them through the form of a syllogism, you arrive at a conclusion that is also nothing more than rhetoric.

Or to put it more succinctly: Garbage In, Garbage Out.

But to someone who is both invested in believing you and invested in believing themselves to be intelligent, reasoned, and calculating, it is elegant and attractive garbage. You’re describing what you’re doing with big, lofty words like “dialectic” and “syllogism” and “Aristotlean”, after all. You can show people the inescapable mathematical logic of if A and B, then AB, knowing that no one in your audience will bother to ask how you arrived at A and B. They’re taken as given. The form of the syllogism not only does not require you to question A or B, it doesn’t work if you do. As soon as you delve into examining the premises, you’re no longer engaging in syllogism.

The fact is that Vox stoops to engage in the actual construction of syllogism fairly rarely, compared to how often he simply bloviates on in a purely rhetorical fashion while peppering his speech with whatever words best flatter his and his loyal readers’ intellects. But even when he does, he’s not engaging in actual dialectic but mere rhetorical sophistry. He starts with unvarnished garbage as a premise, and so he arrives at a similarly tarnished conclusion.

 

In short, it’s mere intellectual wankery. Every time he says the word “syllogism”, what you should be hearing is “silly jism”.

Sad Puppies Review Books: MADELINE

Posted on by Alexandra Erin

madelineMADELINE

Reviewed by John Z. Upjohn, USMC (Aspired)

Let me cut right to the chase: Madeline is some straight-up misandrist Feminazi SJW bullshit.

It starts off right away talking about twelve little girls in two straight lines. Seriously? Twelve characters introduced in a single page and we’re supposed to believe they all just happen to be girls? Not one of them is a boy? Last time I checked half the human race was male. So what are the odds that twelve people in a row—or two rows—will be female?

Listen, I’ve studied statistics. The odds that one character will be a female are 50%, no matter what any SJW wants to tell you. Science doesn’t come any harder than numbers. That’s why SJWs hate dealing with them. Numbers are not susceptible to feelings. You cannot “transgenderqueer” a number away just because you don’t like it.

50% is not very high, but high enough that if there’s occasionally a female character somewhere we can allow that it’s still a bit realistic. Take Black Widow in the Avengers movies. There are six main characters, so if you want to say that okay, well, there’s a 50% chance that one of them will be a female, so we can go ahead and make one of them a female to placate the SJWs, that’s fine. Not that they’ll actually be placated. To hear them go on, it seems they won’t be satisfied until half the characters on the screen are females!

So if the author wanted to make one of those twelve characters a girl, so be it. But two in a row? The odds drop to 25%. Three? 12.5%. Four? 6.25%. Five? 3.125%. Six? 1.5625%. By the time we get to the second line of girls, the odds of what we’re seeing have dropped to less than one percent.

You know what the odds of all twelve being girls are? Less than one in four thousand. That’s how unlikely this little fantasy scenario the author has concocted is.

I don’t know if the SJWs really don’t understand math or just think that we don’t, but this cannot be a coincidence. The author deliberately chose to make this whole boarding school female on purpose and no one said a word. No one stood up to say it was wrong. The editor didn’t stop it. The publisher didn’t stop it. The corrupt journos who reviewed the book didn’t say boo against it. Meanwhile no one has ever published a book set at an all-boy’s school. The powers that be would never allow it. They’d call it “sexism” and “patriarchy”.

Also, SJWs are such hypocrites. If anybody outside of their little protected circle tried to write this book they would be eaten alive for saying the lines are straight and not “LGBTQ” or whatever the PC term is these days.

I’ll be honest, I had a hard time engaging with this book after the opening lines. My suspension of disbelief was shattered. There was no one for me to identify with. It was like the author had written across every page “JOHN Z. UPJOHN, THIS BOOK IS NOT FOR YOU. PEOPLE LIKE YOU DON’T GET BOOKS. PEOPLE LIKE YOU ARE THE BAD GUY, IF YOU EXIST AT ALL.”

I read books to enjoy good stories, not to be hit over the head with messages even if it is a message I agree with. I should pay my own money and spend my time reading a book that spreads a message that is against me? No, thank you!

In the interest of a fair review, I made myself flip through the rest anyway. What I picked up is that the character of Madeline is everything that Feminazis say they want in a “strong female character”, as we are told from the beginning that she’s not afraid of anything, including mice and a tiger in the zoo.

Are we supposed to impressed? Mice aren’t scary and the tiger is clearly in a cage. Does anyone think this precious little snowflake would have lasted five seconds against that tiger in a real fight? Hell no! She wouldn’t have. Not even five seconds and that’s the truth this book takes such pains to conceal from you.

SJWs want us to believe that women are just as strong as any man but then they stage this kind of ridiculous pantomime where we’re supposed to be impressed that they aren’t frightened of zoo animals. But it is the SJWs who are sexist against women by suggesting women should be afraid of caged animals and tiny rodents.

Anyway, it seems like Madeline isn’t such a “strong female character” when her appendix gets inflamed! She cries like a little girl, and guess what? That’s right, a MAN comes to her rescue. The doctor makes the diagnosis but the book still carries on like men don’t matter as he doesn’t appear once she’s at the hospital, even though two different nurses do (again, that’s only a 25% chance).

So who took out her appendix? No one important enough to mention, I guess! In the hands of a competent author, the doctor would have been the hero of this book. But I guess that would be ~*misogyny*~ and the SJWs at the American Library Association would never have made this a Caldecott Honor Book.

Caldecott Honor, what a joke! As long as the SJW clique is in charge there will be no honor in the Caldecotts.

Then ten days pass and suddenly out of nowhere Madeline has all these toys and candy. Some of it came from “Papa”. Between that and the swanky private school I think we can say that Madeline is another privileged trust fund baby typical of the SJW set. Her hair’s probably dyed, too. They all dye their hair these ridiculous sherbet colors for no reason, with no regard for how much less attractive it is to me.

She probably set up up a Patreon account for the rest of the swag we see, crying about how victimized she was by the tiger and the evil doctor man who dared to touch her. She clearly loves the attention, as the first thing she does when her friends visit is to show off her belly scar like a total tramp.

I only respect scars forged in battle. Surgical scars are like the caged tigers of battle wounds.

And what do you suppose happens in the end? Why, suddenly all her friends claim to have appendicitis, too! Why wouldn’t they when they saw all the sweet hand-outs Madeline got just for fluttering her eyelashes and shedding a lot of crocodile tears and showing off her belly?

If you ask me, the whole thing calls into question whether Madeline really needed or even had an appendectomy to begin with, or if she was just angling for some of those sweet victim bucks from the word go. Once someone starts accepting toys and candy and flowers for being sick, they have a fiduciary duty to disclose certain details to make sure things are on the level. That’s why real charities have oversight and accountability.

If I had contributed to Madeline’s hospital room, I would want to see the chart. I would be curious why we never saw her with a doctor after she arrived. I would demand an accounting of exactly what happened during the ten days that passed between when she was dropped off and when her friends visited.

This book teaches women to see themselves as victims. Even if Madeline’s so-called bravery at the beginning of the book is a hollow lie, it’s only when she starts bawling that she has anything to show for it. Nobody brings her a dollhouse for pooh-poohing a tiger. Nobody gives her candy for taking risks.

No, she plays the victim card and is rewarded and her friends all learn the lesson: here is the easy money. Be careful your kids don’t learn the same lesson. This book is basically an Alinsky-style rulebook for the rainbow-haired she-twinks of Twitter and Tumblr.

Two stars.

 

Editor’s Note: Madeline does not, to my knowledge, have a Patreon account, but I do: https://www.patreon.com/alexandraerin

If you’d like to support my fiction, poetry, and—yes—humor writings, please do so. As these reviews have attracted more attention, I’ve had to upgrade my webhosting.

Thank you for reading!

<3 AE

No one is required to buy your PR

Posted on by Alexandra Erin

Everybody has stories they tell themselves about the world, and everybody has stories they tell the world about themselves.

There’s this thing I keep seeing coming up in discussions about the Sad Puppies and Gamergate, where a defender of one group or the other will respond to people talking about the actions of the group with, “So you think you know what they’re about better than they do?”

They’ll link to a post where someone has laid out the glorious purpose of their group as being about things no one could argue with (“ETHICS!” say the Gators, “DEMOCRACY!” say the Puppies), and try to insist that we engage with that and only that, taking into account nothing but the story they tell about themselves.

I could point out the hypocrisy involved as neither Gators nor Puppies are fond of taking their perceived enemies at their word, but the fact is that no matter who you are or on what perceived side of any conflict—as the subject heading of this post declares—no one is required to buy your PR.

People will judge your actions. People will judge the things you say when you’re not taking the time to lay out your case the way you want it to be seen, the way you want to see it. People will judge you by who you stand with, and no, this isn’t guilt by association. If your house is infested with fleas and bedbugs, people don’t have to stoop to the level of accusing you of being vermin yourself to have a good reason to decline an invitation.

Vox Day’s PR says that he believes every human being is equally entitled to life and dignity. That’s the story he tells the world about himself. When we look at how he speaks of and to his fellow human beings, though, we are not required to take that story into account over our own judgment and the evidence of our senses.

Gamergate’s PR says that they are anti-censorship and pro-freedom of speech. When they label opinions that they disagree with as lies and try to run anybody who spreads such opinions out of the marketplace of ideas, though, we are not required to take their stated stance into account.

The Sad Puppies’ PR says that they are for a democratic and transparent Hugo selection process and that they just want more people involved to break the power of any cliques.

When they demonize Mary Robinette Kowal for funding 100 new voting memberships to be assigned randomly to any takers, we are not required to believe their PR.

When they select their slates in secret, using unspecified criteria and offering no explanation for where some of the final selections came from or why certain suggestions were rejected in favor of these undemocratic selections, we’re not required to believe their PR.

When we can look at their blogs and the comments by their supporters and see the way they talk about past winners and nominees, we don’t have to believe the story they tell us that they are here because other people have been snobbishly acting to stop the “wrong” authors from winning.

I’m not against the Sad Puppies because I think it would be the end of the world if Larry Correia or Brad Torgersen or one of their hand-picked favorites won an award.

I’m against the Sad Puppies because—no matter what stories they tell the world about themselves—they have demonstrated that they consider the marginal success or recognition of work they disapprove of as sufficient provocation to turn over the apple cart.

You can link me to any number of posts where they explain what they think they’re doing, in the terms they want us to view it. But if the story they tell is out of whack with what else I can see, it’s not likely to make me think more highly of them.

 

Sad Puppies Review Books: GREEN EGGS AND HAM

Posted on by Alexandra Erin

green eggs and hamGreen Eggs and Ham

Reviewed by John Z. Upjohn, USMC (Aspired)

I just noticed that my editor is titling these pieces “Sad Puppies Review Books” and while she says that the title has stuck I wish to make it clear it was not my idea and I do not approve of it. SJWs try to make it out that we are sad because they believe everything is about emotions and not reason. That makes me so angry I can’t even think straight.

We of the Sad Puppies campaign are not actually sad and we are not actually puppies. The puppies are a metaphor, and while I do not approve of metaphors in general the puppies are a good metaphor because we can say the puppies are sad whenever things we don’t like are allowed to happen, and no one can say that we are sad ourselves.

We aren’t sad. The puppies are. We’re not crying. The SJWs are crying. Got it?

Symbolism is an SJW weapon and they don’t like it when we use their own tactics against them. The salt in their tears nourishes me when they cry out, “John, that’s not how symbolism works.” I had a bullying SJW bitch of an English teacher who said the same thing. Cry harder, Mrs. Vandroogenbroeck. You can’t hold me after class anymore.

If I was a puppy and not a man, I might be crying after I read Green Eggs and Ham. This book is pretty much an illustrated Saul Alinksy-style Rules For Radicals manual for the kindergarten SJW set. The hero of the book is an unnamed, but proud revolutionary figure in full-on revolt against a tyrannical bullying Big Brother type who calls himself Sam-I-Am.

Sam-I-Am is a finger-wagging scold who thinks he knows better than everyone else when it comes to what’s good eating. Just as the SJWs try to convince us that stories that are not good stories are good stories by lying and saying they are good stories, Sam-I-Am tries to convince the hero that bad food is good to eat.

Well if you know anything about the gynocentric lesbian supremacist branch of Satanism that calls itself “Wiccanism”, think SAMHAIN and you will know who this man really is: Satan, the father of lies and son of Saul Alinksy.

And talking about the granddaddy of lies, this book has some whoppers in it. Just like how 1984 shows the power of The (Communist, AKA Social Justice) Party to compel Winston Smith to say that there are five lights when there are only four, this book hinges on the Satanic Sam-I-Am trying to force the narrator to accept that green eggs and ham are a natural and nutritious food. He accomplishes this by gradually wearing down the man’s resistance by exposing him to stressful shocking and even unnatural situations involving foxes and goats. This is a classic SJW tactic for shifting our culture to the left so slow you almost don’t notice it. But we notice it. We notice it.

Sadly much like 1984 this book ends with the protagonist giving in before the onslaught. He does love Big Brother. He does like green eggs and ham. He will eat them with the fox. In a perverse mockery of holy communion, he will eat them with the goat (like Pan or Baphomet, or other guises worn by Satan). This is preparing our children to have not just their food supplies controlled but also their minds and very souls.

A child indoctrinated by this book is not only trained to give in to the illegitimate application of government authority but is also primed to use these techniques to convince others. Unless your children are strong-willed and well-trained to recognize these tricks and traps I recommend keeping this book the hell away from them.

If you have raised your children right as I have done with mine then your best bet is to take a hands-on approach. I read this book to my children, taking care to explain the subtle SJW traps that were on every page. I am pleased to report that they showed no interest in it afterwards.

I think it will be a long time before any of them bring home a book by this joker, who has written numerous SJW propaganda hatchet jobs. The very title of Hop on Pop is a matriarchal assault on male authority. The Sneetches and Other Stories is a fable about the extinction of the white race due to targeted immigration and interbreeding. His books are about the political obsolescence of the straight white male and he is so shameless he doesn’t even bother to hide it.

If what was being done to us was being done to any other race they would call it genocide but if I say “keep the white race pure!” suddenly I am the one who is a racist? The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior would have wanted people who believe the races should be separate judged by the contents of our characters, not the colors of our skins, but SJWs preach that because I am a proud white man I must be the enemy. That is the lesson that this “Dr.” Seuss would teach my children, if I let him. So I do not let him teach them it!

If my sarcasm quotes were not apparent enough, let me speak plainly (unlike those two-faced SJWs, who always lie): I don’t believe the author is any kind of doctor. I don’t even believe his name really is “Seuss”. In fact, I think I know exactly it was who pinned this little propaganda tract.

Nice try, Alinsky. Better luck next time!

Two stars.

Sad Puppies Review Books: THE LITTLE PRINCE

Posted on by Alexandra Erin

little princeThe Little Prince

Reviewed by John Z. Upjohn, USMC (Aspired)

What is this fallen world even coming to. First we had science fiction books with stuff that no one cares about in them alongside the spaceships but now the clique of SJW bullies has decreed we must put up with science fiction books that don’t even have the spaceships in them.

The hell with that! I say we break the clique and make it so that anyone can read any book they want, and then books like this won’t exist anymore.

Reading this book it is obvious that the author was relying more on demographic appeal than quality storytelling, a fact that is only confirmed when you realize that The Little Prince was written by a Frenchman. It is well-known that the French have been Stalinists ever since they were conquered by Hitler. Did you know that Hitler was a leftist? They teach kids in school that Fascism is the opposite of Stalinism but Hitler and Stalin agreed to carve up the world between them and they would have got away with it if it wasn’t for God’s America.

The one good moment in the story is when the Prince realizes that a self-entitled bitch of a rose is taking advantage of him and decides to go his own way. If more men went their own way then we would break the stranglehold that Feminazis have on the sex supply and you can bet there would be more equality around here.

Everything is out of balance because of feminism. You have women who are 6s, 5s, and even 4s who believe they deserve a man who is a 9 or 10 and they won’t “settle” for you even if you’re a 7. They’ll never get the man they think they deserve but because women don’t need sex the way men do they can turn lesbian and hold off forever.

Beta men should be the ones who are complaining because they’re the ones who suffer the most. Deltas and gammas never had a chance of being laid, but all the women that would have gone with betas are holding off for the “Prince” that feminism promised them. Do the betas complain? No. They roll over and take it. They were half-emasculated to begin with and modern feminism has finished the job.

The Prince goes on a tour of many small planets which are all thinly veiled SJW hatchet jobs. Saul Alinsky must have laughed his ass off when this manuscript crossed his desk for approval. Businessmen are stupid now? Have fun buying books without capitalism, pinko perverts! In a better book like one by Ayn Rand the first man who thought to own the stars would have been a hero. He would have been the hero of the book. The Man Who Owned All The Stars is a book I would like to read, but that is not this book. That he is a figure of fun here proves that this book is nothing but base propaganda.

The story just goes downhill from there. Even though the bitch rose admitted she was wrong, the pathetic gamma Prince still misses her. He was better off without her. You know what the thing that makes him long for her is? When he finds out that on earth roses are a dime a dozen and you can just pick them right out of the ground.

Listen, I’m not sure if the Prince wanting to fuck a rose is supposed to be bestiality or symbolism. I don’t approve of either one of those things, but either way it’s just plain illogical. If roses do it for him, why would he be upset to find out that he can have all the roses he wants? This is some namby-pamby SJW bullshit. He had the power. He had all of the power! The book acts like he didn’t because that’s the lesson it wants to teach young men: that they never have the power. They want men to believe that even with dozens of girls around them they aren’t entitled to sex.

In the end the Prince kills himself by allowing himself to be bitten by a snake. If I understand the symbolism (and I think I do, though I still don’t approve) this is meant to be a homosexual act which naturally results in death, as the only natural end result of such an act. Sex creates life, therefore homosex leads to death. Even the liberals can’t pretend otherwise. All they can do is try to spin it into a good thing, conditioning our youth to accept homosexuality and its consequences as good and right. This is why they champion a culture of death with euthanasia and abortion and gay marriage and this book. Christians, keep this book out of your children’s hands.

The snake being full of poison could also be taken as a metaphor for toxic masculinity, which is the coded Feminazi rallying cry for male genocide. This is why I don’t trust metaphors. A massive glistening rocket ship with thousands of tons of thrust behind it is just one thing. If you start saying that things can be other things, there’s no limit on how many other things they can be. When anything means everything, then everything means nothing.

This is the liberal endgame. Don’t let them re-define words. If you let them they’ll have you believing that up is down and left is right and people can be anything they want.

Two stars.