Some readers visit this author’s blog (https://stevenmmoore.com), others my political one (http://pubproressive.com), and some do both. I thank you all.

You’ve probably come to expect posts here on Wednesdays and Fridays and at the other blog on Thursdays. For various personal reasons, I can’t guarantee that I’ll keep to that schedule in the future. I haven’t run out of topics to write about for either blog, but those reasons mean the posts might be random deliveries in the future.

I hope you’ll look for these posts even though they become somewhat erratic. I know that for many I’m competing against TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, to mention only a few of the most active social media sites. (I use mostly the latter two.) I suppose social media, including podcasts, have evolved to the point where email and blogs, my main media for outreach, have become old-fashioned just as I’ve become older. But if you visit this blog, you’re probably a reader, writer, or someone interested in writing and publishing,  so maybe my regular deliveries of blog posts will be missed. If so, I apologize…and hope you still stop by from time to time to read the most recent ones.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

Needless to say, this Yank who’s half-Irish feels a bit strange as I write this post about Queen Elizabeth II. With her death, the era determined by her monarchy ends. Or, did it already end even before? Princess Diana’s untimely death, the many scandals that have rocked the royal family, and the British people and media’s treatment of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex effectively ended that era. The monarchy had already shown its irrelevance in the modern world.

The Realm and Commonwealth will surely continue to suffer as it adjusts to a new prime minister and a new king. Northern Ireland is heating up again, mostly because of the the old PM’s Brexit; and Scotland and Wales also contain strong movements wanting independence, more the first than the second. Many nations in the Commonwealth have republican movements in the true sense of “republicanism,” i.e. that which gave birth to the US and will continue to do so for those who want to free and don’t wish to bow to a monarch.

On the other hand, the UK itself has internally much of the same divisive politics as its old colony, the US. Far-right and far-left extremists foment these divisions, and economic turmoil and failure of leadership is their willing accomplice. Such strife could tear the kingdom apart. Time will tell if democracy survives in the UK, let alone a kingdom.

Of course, Queen Elizabeth wasn’t and won’t be responsible for any of that. (Well, maybe a bit for Diana’s death, although that was more on the new King Charlie and his new Queen Consort.) The queen was everyone’s nana! When one’s nana passes on, one mourns and celebrates her life and the wisdom she offered to others, whether this occurs in a royal family or a working-class one. That’s what we do as human beings.

Rest in peace, Queen Elizabeth!

[Note from Steve: You can consider this article a follow-up to my 4/22 post. Like my novels, the two articles can be read independently!]

Thank God for books! Even before Covid, I was watching less and less TV. Frankly, it sucks now! Except for PBS and few news programs on CNN (OK, ABC News offers some entertainment value as I count how many times David Muir says “of course”), there’s not much network TV has to offer. Cable is worse and has more ads than the traditional networks, and ads are soon coming to streaming video (Netflix saw its stock plummet after announcing that, and Disney+ soon will too if De Santis doesn’t kill the company first—how’s that lawsuit against that Florida fascist coming along?).

I’ve stopped watching sitcoms completely except for Bob [Hearts] Abishola. At least that one’s funny sometimes; all the others are forgettable drivel or just old. (You can still watch reruns of Mash, All in the Family, and Two and a Half Men. Those episodes are still funny, but really? How many times can you repeat them?)

Sitcoms are still better than game shows or contests. Although classics like Jeopardy and Wheel might have some medical benefit by keeping contestants and elderly people’s minds sharp, none of the first’s aging viewers could ever have the reflexes needed; in fact, most normal people don’t spend their lives remembering trivia that the show’s production team dredges up. (As an author, I often do have to dredge up some historical trivia for my stories, but Google is my friend…sometimes.) And the elderly would be better off doing crossword puzzles instead of watching Wheel. Other game shows are just gimmicky and stupid. Contests have also become drivel, with The Masked Singer probably the worst I’ve ever seen, recently stooping so low to have Giuliani as a contestant. I also would have walked off the stage in disgust along with Dr. Ken but that’s Fox for you, the channel I’ve always boycotted ever since they cancelled that show about time travel and dinosaurs!

In general, dramas have been the most damaged by ads and new and incompetent screenwriters, though, maybe more so than Fox. I’ll admit that an hour of a dramatic episode isn’t enough to develop a good plot, especially when you consider that time’s reduced to forty minutes or less when you account for tine spent on those inane ads. And a series might start out OK—for example, FBI looked promising—but then the new crop of screenwriters quickly run out of ideas and become formulaic (like Big Five authors!)—the plots become unoriginal, trivial, cliched, and irrelevant; and the characters become two-dimensional caricatures of real human beings, just icons and avatars of banality. The directors (do they deserve that name?) often try to solve this problem with “crossover episodes” (three FBI episodes in a row is a bit too much torture, though), a “solution” that turns a drama into a soap opera.

Of course (David Muir, are you smiling?), this is all just a trickle-down effect from Hollywood movies to TV. They’re all embracing the incompetent screenwriting from “blockbuster movies” (that usually means they’re bombs, like Spielberg’s remake of West Side Story) to rom-coms (“rom” all too often translates to unrealistic erotica or even porn, and “com” becomes bawdy behavior and bodily humor which appeals to no one who’s even half sane).

I’ll admit that Hollywood directors and producers, their screenwriters, and their actors are probably just trying to meet public demand, which summarizes a lot of negative things about the viewing public and the flaws of modern society. Huxley was wrong about soma in Brave New World: The public’s drug is TV. (Modern viewers probably don’t even know who Huxley was or why his book is important.) Of course (get out of here, David Muir), they might be watching TV drunk and stoned out of their minds, so it probably doesn’t matter much what they watch as long as it keeps them awake enough for the next drink or the hit.

Read a good book lately? Congratulations! I have too. Lots in fact. (That damned Amazon keeps count on my Kindle…maybe revenge for boycotting them when publishing my books?) Keep reading, my friends. It’s a lot better than what you’ll find on TV!

***

Comments are always welcome. (Please follow the rules on my “Join the Conversation” web page. If you don’t, your comment will go to spam!)

Have I convinced you? Are you ready for some binge-reading? People often binge-watch an entire season of sit-coms or dramas. Ugh! It’s much more entertaining to binge-read the entire “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series of novels. Follow Esther’s many dangerous adventures, often driven by her desire to find justice for innocent victims and the exploited, obsessions often putting herself and her Dutchman, Bastiann van Coevorden, in peril. The two are twenty-first century versions of Christie’s Marple and Poirot, with Esther a bit more active and agile than the former and Bastiann just as cerebral but less pretentious than the latter. In Rembrandt’s Angel, Esther pursues a painting stolen by the Nazis in World War II; in Son of Thunder, she’s in a race to find the tomb of St. John the Divine; in Death on the Danube, she helps Bastiann run a murder investigation on their honeymoon cruise; in Palettes, Patriots, and Pillocks, she defends an American artist; in Leonardo and the Quantum Code, she struggles to protect an old friend whose code for quantum computers is pursued by three major powers; Defanging the Red Dragon is about China’s desire to steal software and hardware upgrades for nuclear subs; Intolerance begins a fight against right-wing terrorists whose mission is to purge migrants and refugees from Britain; and The Klimt Connection continues that battle against extremists after the couple’s flat is bombed. To binge-read this exciting series, you’ll have to do a bit of sleuthing of your own: The ebook versions are available wherever quality ebooks are solid (the above link takes you to them on B&N), but Dragon and Intolerance are only available in PDF format as free downloads on this website. The first three novels have print versions (seen in the illustration) brought to you by Penmore Press and Carrick Publishing. Numbers four, five, and eight are published by Draft2Digital and not available on Amazon. Enjoy!

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

…because it’s the day that everyone becomes Irish! Whether Erin is in your blood or not, that island with a history that includes Viking invasions, monks who saved classic literature, and more recent oppression from the English (not just from the Crown but from the likes of megalomaniac Cromwell), shares its celebration of their patron saint around the world, although that old boy might have frowned on the excesses many indulge in during their celebrations.

Not to detract from St. Paddy’s accomplishment of bringing Christianity to pagan Celtic tribes and the remaining Viking invaders who mixed pagan gods and rituals with those approved by ancient Rome, we need to remember that the saint wasn’t even Irish. He was a Briton, kidnapped from ancient England as a wee lad and then escaping to go home to become a priest. When he returned to Eire, he didn’t drive out the snakes—the Oireachtas’s politicians can be as hissing and biting as those in any other western democracies.

Faeries, leprechauns, and other legendary creatures add to the mystery surrounding Eire and their patron saint. Modern fans of the Irish Republic like me can enjoy it all while imbibing Irish ale or whiskey at our favorite local Irish pubs.

Slainte!

Surprise, surprise! Regular readers of this blog might be expecting to find a politically oriented op-ed here this Monday morn. You will now find these at Pub Progressive (for example, my Afghan series continues there). Future articles posted here will now be restricted to those dealing with reading, writing, and publishing. I hope that’s not an inconvenience.

I’m not doing this to appease some disgruntled readers or to follow the advice of writing gurus who tell authors “Don’t be political.” The world is very political now, and I’ve been political since the Gipper set out to destroy the UC system and wanted to go after all those pink-o commies protesting against the Vietnam War. (I was neither pink-o—lots of California sunshine back then—nor a commie, just a progressive and a pacifist.) I was a progressive long before the members of “The Squad” were born, but I was, and always will be, one led by logic and reason and very aware that exuberance can lead to unintended and negative consequences.

Readers of my novels know that I don’t shy away from political or controversial themes in my writing. My stories are complex; I don’t like to read fluff, and I won’t write it. But today that’s not enough. So I created the narrowly focused website Pub Progressive in order to do the same for my blog posts.

The major reason I did that, though, was to bring a bit of order into my writing life. Articles appearing at Pub Progressive are my political opinions, not rants, reasoned spiels about what’s going on in our nation and the world. Articles appearing here in this blog are also opinions, but ones about reading, writing, and publishing (I might rant about Amazon). It’s like having your winter clothes in one closet, summer ones in the other. (That might not make too much sense for those back in my home state, California.)

Pub Progressive is still a work-in-progress, a DIY project where I’m doing a deep dive into the murky software waters associated with WordPress blogging. I plan to keep it simple; I have to do so, because I’m no website guru. (I hire the people at Monkey C Media to keep this older website going.) I can use your comments and suggestions about improving Pub Progressive if they’re free and you are a website guru. (You can contact me via steve@stevenmmoore.com. Both sites’ contact pages use that email address.) Scientists usually like to tinker and experiment; I’m an ex-scientist, so that’s what I’m doing with Pub Progressive. Bear with me.

And again, I hope this causes no one inconvenience. For some, the separation will cause a sigh of relief. For others, they’ll say, “Way to go!” I hope you’re one of the others.

***

Comments are always welcome.

A. B. Carolan’s Origins. You can’t say A. B.’s novels are British-style mysteries; he’s Irish, and he writes sci-fi mysteries for young adults. In this one, Kayla Jones has dreams she can’t understand. Her future seems determined as the brilliant STEM student who looks forward to a research career, but her past gets in the way. As if the chaos afflicting the world and leading to her adopted father’s death wasn’t enough, killers begin to pursue her. With some friends who come to her aid, she’s on her way to discover a conspiracy that can be traced to prehistoric battles waged by hominins bent on conquest of a primitive Earth.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

Starting 8/24/2021 (today), op-eds with a political orientation will exclusively be posted on my second blog, Pub Progressive. The same rules of engagement apply (see the ROEs on the “Join the Conversation” web page), but this site’s blog will now focus on reading, writing, and publishing topics. This might upset some readers and authors; others might breathe a sigh of relief.

Authors do have opinions. Maybe it’s better that they just creep into their prose as important themes? I don’t know. I certainly don’t do fluff, and my characters often express opinions contrary to my own. Editors and publishers certainly prefer that fiction authors aren’t opiniated, so that biases modern prose toward fluff.

In any case, this is an experiment. At the very least, it will help me keep things organized.

So…reading, writing, and reading topics are found at this site’s blog, and politically oriented op-eds at Pub Progressive.

Note: Yesterday’s post about Afghanistan is definitely a political op-ed. It will be repeated on the new website. (That will be the last time.)

In this time when the word “hero” is used so often, let’s not forget the original heroes, those individuals who made the ultimate sacrifice to keep America safe and free. They did this not for Democrats or Republicans; they did it for all Americans and others yearning for freedom. Their graves fill Arlington and other cemeteries across this land and overseas where the battles were waged. This day is more than just part of another three-day holiday weekend filled with BBQs, car and furniture sales, and the “unofficial beginning” of summer. Let’s give thanks to the souls of the brave and courageous who fought and died for freedom. It’s their day. Let’s honor them.

…is about to be realized! Readers, celebrate with me! I’ve been selected by NASA to go to ISS and test the effects of space travel on older men. They called me this morning. I celebrated at breakfast with a wee bit of Jameson in my coffee. Maybe more tonight! (Jameson, that is.)

St. Paddy’s Day is here! While many celebrations would (and should) remain at home, this is the day when everyone becomes Irish, enjoying real whiskey that’s thrice-distilled, and avoiding that twice-distilled and smoky-flavored Scotch or the mouthwash-tasting bourbon; a Guinness stout, Killian’s or Smithwick’s red ale; corn beef and cabbage (although that’s basically an American invention); and tea, neither high nor low, and pastries. Let’s forget about the ethnic stereotypes—Irish cops and drunks, for example. You’ll find Irish people all over the world doing multiple things. And let’s learn a bit o’ Irish history, which is long and complex, with Celts, Normans, Britons, and Vikings contributing to it.

The Irish musical heritage is also rich. Consider this a poor review of that wonderful tradition. I’ll refer to my own music collection in the following. Readers can add their favorites in the comments. First some artists:

Máire Brennan

Celtic Women (when they sing Irish songs!)

Phil Coulter

Turlough O’Carolan

Next some songs:

The Fields of Athenry

The Star of the County Down

The Wild Rover

The Rare Old Times

Danny Boy

Black Velvet Band

Goodbye Johnny Dear

Seven Drunken Nights

Liverpool Lou

This music isn’t all jigs and ballads either. Some Irish music is mystical or religious (Brennan’s, for example). Some are bawdy or raunchy and might remind US tourists of pubs they visited in Eire. They all are examples of the Irish’s love for song, music, and dance.

Happy St. Paddy’s Day! Stay safe; drink responsibly.

***

Comments are always welcome.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

We have a representative democracy. The only effective, legal way to let our representatives know how they should be running our country is by voting. Those who represent us well should be voted in. Those who don’t should be voted out. It’s as simple as that.

If you don’t vote, you are dissing that sacred trust and helping to kill democracy in America. So please vote. It’s late for mail-ins, but if you have a ballot, fill it out, and put it in the nearest drop-box. If you plan to vote in person, do so…but safely by wearing a mask. Tomorrow is Election Day! (In case you didn’t know.)

Because of the election, there are no other posts this week. The next one will be Wednesday, November 11, which is Veterans’ Day. Irrespective of political proclivities, let’s remember all those who have defended our country…and allowed us to continue as a democracy when the forces of evil in the world try to destroy us.