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AROUND THE TALE-FIRE

The Forge of Tolkien Episode 18, AROUND THE TALE-FIRE, is now available to subscribers on #UATV.

“Now it happened on a certain time that a traveller…” What do we find when we set out on the journey to Faërie? 
In this episode, Professor Rachel Fulton Brown opens the door to the Cottage of Lost Play and welcomes the folk and the children to gather round the “Tale-file blazing in the Room of Logs” to hear stories of the Elder Days when England was known as Tol Eressëa and the towers of Kortirion could be glimpsed in Warwick. What do we make of Tolkien’s archaic pseudo-Biblical language and his Tennysonian verse in his earliest attempts at writing his legendarium? Why is it so hard to craft a convincing tale? And which song do we find ourselves in?
Also available now is Episode 5 of Pinkerton’s Ghosts, THE POP-STAR’S MUSE.

THE OLDE SPEECH

    Title: “Episode 19: The Olde Speech” [with the -e in Olde!]

    Blurb: In December 1954, Hugh Brogan (then age 18) wrote to Tolkien to complain about the “archaizing” style of parts of The Lord of the Rings, particularly the chapter “The King of the Golden Hall.” Tolkien drafted his response but never sent it, deferring a proper discussion to a time when they could meet in person. When is archaizing “tushery,” and when is it necessary? What is the difference between a bogus and a genuinely “antique” turn of phrase? In this episode Professor Rachel Fulton Brown reads the “linking” passage in The Book of Lost Tales taking Eriol from the hall of the Tale-fire to Rumil’s garden to illustrate Tolkien’s process in discovering his proper style. What did Tolkien mean when he told Brogan he found it easier to think in an archaic mode, and why did he chide Brogan for his “parochialism of time”? Hint: The distance is as great as that between Globe Earth and Flat Earth! 

Comply with the fake science!

Now doctors are being deplatformed and disemployed for failing to submit to the Narrative:

A doctor in Northern California has been fired from his job after he co-authored a letter that questioned the science behind his county’s lockdown order.

Dr. Michael deBoisblanc was working as the trauma medical director for John Muir Health in Contra Costa County, California, until last Friday, after he questioned the scientific basis for again locking down citizens of the area.

KNTV reported that deBoisblanc wrote a letter to the county health director and board of supervisors voicing his concern regarding the continued lockdown policies prior to his dismissal.

The former medical director spoke from his own experience as a parent, expressing his apprehension that Bay Area students were not being allowed to attend in-person classes, according to KTVU-TV. Along with doctors Pete Mazolewski and Brian Hopkins, deBoisblanc wrote that there were “deep concerns regarding more lockdown measures.”

“The science is clear,” the letter continued, “that more lockdowns lead to much more non COVID morbidity and mortality. Public policy is being based on erroneous assumptions.”

It’s always easy to know when the science and history narratives are fake. Because the truth imposes itself, it has no need to be imposed by government force and relentless rhetoric. 

The greatest showman

AC reports on a hilarious rumor floating around the chans. If it’s not true, President Trump’s team should make it true:

The 6 January elector ‘ballot’ count is going to go down as the greatest troll of all time.

You may or may not know, but the Vice President gets to count the electors. That’s the one thing the Constitution makes crystal clear. Apparently the plan is for Mike Pence to roll in a Dominion voting machine (or a knock off that looks like one). He’s then going to pull out a USB drive, update the software just before the count, and use the machine to count the elector ballots.

Remember, this will be on national television. The count will not only come out fractional, but it will result in more votes than actual electors AND result in Trump winning more electors than Biden.

The chamber is expected erupt in chaos. Obviously the count will be challenged. Pence will then conduct a ‘recount,’ but he will use the machine to print the recount ballots and then hand count those. The recounted number will be similar to the original count, only changing by a couple votes, but it will result in Trump winning by even more than before.

Dems are expected to cry “fraud” and Pence will object and call for order. He will tell them that it’s too late to challenge because it’s already done. The count is finished. He will then deliberately wipe the machine’s software.

I SO want to believe…. 

The dead horse twitches

 John Scalzi reports his annual blog readership numbers:

In a more general sense, 2020 has been a pretty decent year for visitorship to Whatever. Indeed, for the first time in several years, the site gained on-site readership, which is an encouraging thing. The site’s high water mark for direct visits was 2012, and since then the on-site readership has declined precipitously, following the general trend for blogs in the social media era, down to about a third of that traffic in 2019. This decline in direct views been compensated for somewhat over the years by readership through RSS, email and WordPress’ own newsfeed feature, and I can drive traffic to the site via Twitter for particular pieces. That said, there’s no arguing that there’s been a downward trend on the site from eight years ago.

2020 saw the first uptick in on-site visits in years, to about 3 million visits; in fact, 2020 posted better on-site viewership than either 2019 or 2018. Which, again: Encouraging! I don’t want to overstate the bump — on-site traffic is only barely above 2018 levels, and well behind 2017.

Why yes, as is our annual New Year’s custom, we will most certainly beat this dead horse! It’s a tradition anticipated by longtime readers every year. But you’ll have to wait three days for the final numbers to come in. I’ll send a free ebook edition of Corrosion by Johan Kalsi to whoever’s estimate in this post’s comments comes closest to the number of Google pageviews for the blog in 2020.

For all my undisguised contempt for the mediocrity that is Scalzi, the one thing I will say for him is that more writers should be willing to report their numbers, for good or for ill, the way that he has since he stopped trying to exaggerate his traffic to the media. Doing so helps others put their own efforts and ambitions in context.

Don’t talk to the media, part 46,567

No matter how smart you are, no matter how nice and sympathetic the reporter seems, no matter how interesting your side of the story is, never forget that the deck is completely stacked against you, as a friend of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanagh was reminded in 2018:

This kind of appreciation for the skill of your enemy is essential to dealing with atheist materialists, whether in the old Soviet Union or in the modern media. Sure, the press is filled with people who are incompetent and make unbelievable mistakes. You and I might consider the MSM something of a joke. But don’t be fooled. In the midst of the mediocrities, you’ll also find experts and fanatics. You’ll meet people schooled in opposition research, psychological warfare and emotional manipulation.

You don’t have to like these facts. (In fact, you shouldn’t.) But you must respect reality. The reporter who has just called you with a list of personal questions might be a goofball — or a trained and skilled interrogator. Assume, to be on the safe side, that he is very likely a deeply damaged, ideologically obsessed and angry human being. One who cares nothing about you, fairness, or even your life. Just like the Russians who tortured Fr. Ciszek.

The Story Was Written Before They Even Contacted You

Every person who comes into the media’s crosshairs should understand this. Nothing you say or do is going to change the story they are going to write. Indeed, the story was written before they even contacted you. They will falsify quotes and leave out facts. They often have reams of opposition research (ugly tales about you) at the ready. If so, they will slowly dole it out to set up and trick a naïve subject.

To echo Fr. Ciszek: They are relentless, they are thorough, and they are good at their trade. Acknowledging this and not expecting fair or decent treatment will leave you more prepared than most. To become hysterical, or to even talk to them, is to play into their hands. Treat them the way surfers treat sharks — as a deadly adversary that should never be underestimated. I have been a reporter for some many years myself, and I have done a lot of reading on communism from The Gulag Archipelago to China’s Cultural Revolution. So after I hung up with Farrow, I knew exactly what was happening. I had been set up, and it had been a long time in the making. 

That’s the key to truly comprehending why you cannot talk to the media. Never talk to the media. The story is already written. Even those who are ex-media experts, such as Pax Dickenson and me, only talk to the media in very rare and particular circumstances when we know we can undermine the pre-written story. But most people haven’t worked in media for over a decade – remember, I was on the board of a television station in addition to having 19 years of experience as a local columnist (St. Paul Pioneer Press, Atlanta Journal/Constitution), as a nationally syndicated columnist (Chronicle Features, Universal Press Syndicate), and as a magazine contributor (Computer Gaming World, Electronic Entertainment) – and therefore have no idea what the pre-written story is or how it can be, in certain circumstances, undermined.

UPDATE: To be clear, Do Not Talk To The Media also means Do Not Respond To Media Requests. Don’t politely decline. Don’t obscenely decline. Don’t write a wall of text explaining your Very Important Personal Media Policy. Ignore it and delete the email, because they can and will attempt to use anything you send them. Just ask Milo….

Gamergating Arizona

 The Donald and the Arizona Republican Party calls for Team Trump to pour it on the corrupt Maricopa County officials:

The Maricopa Board of Supervisors are pleading to make the phone calls stop. They have had to put more staff on the phones to keep the lines up and operating. Hopefully they figure out soon that an audit is all the voters want. Do that small thing, the phone calls will end quick!

Maricopa Board of Supervisors: 602-506-3415.

Shut up and email because the ride never ends.

More votes than voters

Breaking News: In Pennsylvania there were 205,000 more votes than there were voters. This alone flips the state to President Trump.

– Donald J. Trump

Election officials have certified Joe Biden as the winner of the U.S. Presidential election

I wouldn’t want to be one of those election officials right now. Because it sure doesn’t sound like a man on the verge of conceding anything.

UPDATE: the actual numbers reported.

6,962,607: total ballots counted

6,760,230: total voters

Stay healthy, take Vitamin D

Especially if you happen to be worried about Covid-19 or Covid-19+:

Stop waiting for a miracle drug: A Boston University doctor says a sufficient amount of vitamin D can cut the risk of catching coronavirus by 54{e61d147451bc60549e96d95b5c07be35845e0345eab7ed5d54cc3d49f812ab5c}.

“People have been looking for the magic drug or waiting for the vaccine and not looking for something this simple,” said Dr. Michael Holick, professor of medicine, physiology and biophysics at Boston University School of Medicine.

Holick and his colleagues studied blood samples from Quest Diagnostics of more than 190,000 Americans from all 50 states and found that those who had deficient levels of vitamin D had 54{e61d147451bc60549e96d95b5c07be35845e0345eab7ed5d54cc3d49f812ab5c} higher COVID positivity compared to those with adequate levels of vitamin D in the blood.

The risk of getting coronavirus continued to decline as vitamin D levels increased, the study, published in the Public Library of Science One peer-reviewed journal shows.

“The higher your vitamin D status, lower was your risk,” Holick said.

I upgraded from my daily Vitamin C regime to one that included D, Zinc, and D+K2 about a year ago. Forget Covid. I haven’t even had a cold since.

Destiny confronts Mike Pence

Neon Revolt addresses Vice-President Pence’s decision on January 6, 2021:

For the past four years, President Trump has been the most powerful man on earth.

For one day, on January 6th, you, Vice President Pence, will be the most powerful man on earth.

On that day, you and you alone will have the power to set not just America, but all of humanity free – or you will have the power to sentence us all to slavery.

Which side are you on, Mr. Vice President? The side of truth? The side of the people? Or the side of lies, and all those from which they emanate?

I do not envy your position, sir. This is not how I ever wanted this moment in history to ever play out, and I would give just about anything to have it go any other way.

But it seems to me that you have a rendezvous with destiny, Mr. Vice President. On that fateful day, Mr. Vice President, I expect you to rise to the occasion, and I suggest you start by throwing out the entire fraudulent tally from the Chicom-colony of California, and their 55 electoral votes.

And then you can work your way down the line, tossing out every other fraudulent state tally until the liars and thieves are all vanquished and wailing and deposed, and the rightful leader of this nation, who won without fraud or thievery and who wants the best for her citizens, sits for another 4 years.

You have a choice, Mr. Vice President. Either you will rise up with courage and become the hero who saved the Republic, or you will spend the rest of your days reviled in ignominy as your children, and your grandchildren, and their descendants end up as little more than chattel on the global plantation.

I don’t think I’m exaggerating the stakes. Go with God, Mr. Vice President. Fight for the people on that day. Strike the giants, and cut off all their heads. If you can be entrusted with this immense and Constitutional power – to safeguard the Republic on that day when our enemies would snatch it away from us – we, the people, will know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we can trust you in 2024 and beyond.

Steel yourself, Mr. Vice President.

Greatness awaits.

These are the times that try men’s characters. These are the times when men are forced to declare, in public, whom they serve. I very much doubt that President Trump’s next term depends upon the actions of the Vice-President, but certainly the future political viability of Mike Pence does.

From a game theory perspective, the decision is a no-brainer. Pence should throw out the electors from the fraudulent states and secure President Trump’s victory. But the tentacles of the Deep State are insidious, and no few of its foolish servitors have already betrayed the President.

I make no predictions of what a single man will choose to do. But it is very clear what a loyal man, a logical man, or even a self-serving man, should do.