Aug 29 2026

The Complete Ecotopia, Ernest Callenbach

The Complete Ecotopia, Ernest Callenbach (Heyday, Berkeley, California)

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED; here are some bits that stood out for me …

 

from Ecotopia (1975)

“to have a driver on board to collect fares would cost more than the fares could produce” 14

[re public bicycles] “it is cheaper to lose a few bicycles than to provide more taxies or minibuses” 15

[re nitrogen-fixing crops, crop rotation, manure eliminating need for chemical fertilizers] 20

“They were literally sick of bad air, chemicalized foods, lunatic advertising.” 50

“Americans are … accustomed to believe that only economic and population growth can lead to improvement in life.”  67

So insane.  Why would they think that unlimited population growth is feasible?  Especially when the men regularly justify killing animals on the basis of ‘culling’ the herd?

 

from Ecotopia Emerging (1981)

“[In the 1970s] Federal funds shored up failing automobile corporations—which had proved unable to compete with Japanese firms in produce gas-efficient cars—instead of diverting them toward production of buses, trains, and other low-energy means of transportation.”  186

As a result, the U.S. (and Canada) is so far behind the rest of the world in this regard. No wonder they cling to their cars; they haven’t developed any alternatives.  And they’ll cling to their cars, and their oil, until they’ve taken the whole planet down with them in CO2 emissions, heat waves, and fires.

Love the “No More!” list (p213-5); all so obvious, justifications so clear, and yet we’re nowhere near …

“Few Americans had had the eye-opening experience of car-free environments in parts of European cities or in the pedestrian malls that had been created in a few American cities.”  214

Yes, they so arrogantly believe they are the best country in the world; amazing, since most of them can’t even name five other countries.  (Hell, many of them can’t even name ten other states in their own country.)

“We … think the economy should be made to serve the people, not the other way around.  Our quality of life does not depend merely on the amount of goods we have access to.  It depends on … All these are ‘goods’ that cannot be bought.” 271

“Nor does the Gross National Product measure only truly useful goods.  A car crash, for instance, increases the GNP [and so is considered a good thing; similarly, people who get cancer because they increase medical-care expenditures…].” 271

So very insane.

“Americans have been consuming far more than our reasonable share of the resources in materials and energy which exist on the earth—40 percent of them, though we have only six percent of the people …” 272

And when their neighbor, with 1/10 of that 6% population, does not consume as much—we buy much less from the U.S. than they buy from us—we’re chastised, nay, penalized.  Instead of admired for our responsible consumption.  (Quite apart from why would they even expect us to buy as much as they do?)

“In the first half of the eighties, the net outflow of dollars to pay OPEC nations for oil amounted to the value of half the stocks and bonds listed on the New York Stock Exchange … the country had given away in order to maintain its car habit half of all the productive machinery, laboratories, land, buildings, transportation facilities, and food production resources accumulated by its corporations over the previous 200 years.” 336

“but they also cleared the land simply because trees constituted the hateful wilderness, which they felt it was their God-given mission to subdue.”  345

Explains a puzzling comment by a parent to a child after the child had helped with the leafblower to clear the leaves away: “There!  All clean!”

Clean?  Leaves are ‘dirty’?

“The land lost the absorbency it had had when forested, so run-off became rapid and great floods were common. … By the seventies, for each bushel of corn grown in Iowa, six bushels of soil eroded away; in eastern Washington, 20 pounds of topsoil were lost for every pound of wheat produced. … Rebuilding the soil, if feasible at all, would required decades of devoted effort.”  346

“Some argued that anti-car measures infringed on their personal freedom, which they equated with the untrammeled right to drive wherever and whenever and whatever they pleased.”  395

 

from Epistle to the Ecotopians (2012)

https://mondediplo.com/openpage/epistle-to-the-ecotopians

“Barring unprecedented revolutionary pressures, this is the actual future we face in the United States, too.  … ” 535-6

Two pages of accurate prediction.  Not so amazing.  The writing was on the wall.  But so many Americans can’t read.  And refuse to listen to those who can.  Again, the arrogance.

For example, “The U.S. … will stand out as the best-armed Third World country, its population ill-fed, ill-housed, ill-educated, ill-cared for in health, and increasingly poverty-stricken….”

Well, except for the 6 people who have become billionaires by blocking food, housing, education, and healthcare …

 

 

 

 

Aug 29 2026

Man or Bear … and still clueless

So I recently posted this on a local Facebook page: “I’m looking for a woman with carpentry skills and tools to build a sound-absorbing enclosure for a generator. Please leave a message.”*

Three men and three women replied.

Two of the men made light of my preference for a woman (“I could be a woman depending on the hourly rate” and “Can I identify as a woman?”); the third asked why I specified that it be a woman.

Two of the three women considered the possibility that perhaps I had been injured by a man in the past and so was uncomfortable having one on my property/in my house (“Perhaps she has a reason for not feeling comfortable around a male. You don’t know her situation” and “No need to judge for someone wanting a specific gender, you don’t know her story!”; the third replied to the first man’s response with “That isn’t even funny.”

I was reminded of the general response to the ‘Would you rather meet a bear or a man in the forest?’ question, specifically the overwhelming cluelessness of men as to why most women chose the bear.

Over the past few decades, with great difficulty and at great risk, we have brought ‘domestic violence’ (basically, men hitting, punching, beating up the women they married) out into the open.  We’ve brought rape out into the open.  We’ve brought megabrothels and pornography out into the open.  How is it that the fact that (very many, but not all) men hurt women still, still, remains almost completely off (most) men’s radar?  And the fact that, therefore, all women fear (pretty much all) men?  (Because, as Sloan tells Don in that excellent episode of Newsroom, ‘No, you can’t always tell.’)

Is it that men don’t think that hurting women is problematic?  Because hurting is okay?  And, or, because women aren’t really full-fledged people?  They’re just walking wombs to bear their kids or just legs with holes for fucking?  (And not, oh, I don’t know, doctors and judges and architects and mathematicians and biologists and anthropologists and politicians and—oh, wait: maybe all of the women these men know [because they’re in the trades?] are just mothers and cunts.  Dudes, ya gotta get out more.)

___

*I’ve had 50 years experience working with both men and women, and I’ve read the literature on sexism for the same length of time.  My personal experience is that women are far more apt to take me seriously, listening to what I say and request; women are far less likely to be condescending and ‘mansplain’; women are more reliable, actually responding to a phone call or email; women clean up after themselves; women do not ‘hit on me’.  The literature indicates that this is not by a long shot just my experience and, furthermore, it suggests that women have to be twice as good to get half as far.  So, in short, I’d rather hire a woman than a man any day for anything.

Aug 26 2026

All the shit in space …

from Take Me To Your Leader, Neil DeGrasse Tyson

If Bill Bryson were an astrophysicist, he’d be Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

Overall, Take Me To Your Leader might be a bit too basic for a lot of readers, but this particular gem stood out for me:

“On October 3, 1957, the number of artificial satellites orbiting Earth was zero.  … That number has grown steadily over the decades, and exponentially in recent years, rising through 15,000, most for commercial use.  that number includes at least 3,000 defunct satellites.  But that’s ot all.  The full orbital inventory includes rocket and satellite debris, comprised of booster stages, lost wrenches, purposefully destroyed satellite parts, and paint chips, which vastly outnumber the satellites themselves.  … The estimated population of particles bigger than a marble is approximately 500,000.  The number larger than a pinhead exceeds 100 million.  All moving at 18,000 miles per hour.  / What could go wrong?   /  At those speeds, even pinhead-sized debris carries one hundred times the kinetic energy of an AR-15 rifle bullet. … Earth’s orbital space has become a lethal shooting gallery not only to our own satellites but to any Aliens who might want to visit, leaving them to question our wisdom and foresight as a space-ambitious culture.” (p60-1)

So Musk et al escaping to Mars, once they’ve completely wrecked Earth, is unlikely for yet another reason: they’d be killed by their own irresponsibly tossed garbage en route.  Perfect.

(I still rank ‘A couple dozen rich white men surviving together in a ship the relative size of an elevator for nine months?’ to be the first reason for failure.  Surviving once they get there without their legions of servants, let alone the expert biologists etc. required for the provision of stuff like food and water, the second.)

Aug 24 2026

from Against Love, Laura Kipnis – commitment and the state’s discrimination against nonmarried people

from Against Love, Laura Kipnis

“It’s generally understood that falling in love means committing to commitment. … Take the pervasiveness of intimate violence.  The problem here is hardly lack of commitment; this is commitment in overdrive: being less committed might mean being able to walk away.”  p56-7

I love her 9-page answer (p84-92) to “What can’t you do because you’re in a couple?”

“Why should the state license marriages, by the way?  … [The state confers] numerous special privileges on you: there are reportedly over a thousand places in federal law where marriage confers benefits not allotted to the nonmarried.  (And arguably why the fight for gay marriage takes up the wrong battle: rather than marriage as a prerequisite to access government privileges, shouldn’t the fight be to uncouple resource distribution from marital status?)”  p169

Aug 24 2026

from Area Woman Blows Gasket, Patricia Pearson

Another fun read from Pearson.  Here just a very few funny bits:

“For the record, here are the ten hottest toys in the Pearson household: A stick found in the park.  ….  The cat.  Preferably asleep and therefore willing to wear a kerchief and be transported in a stroller. …  Dollar-store stuff.  Perfect.  Quality matches attention span.”  p33

” … as alert as bread dough …” p125

” … Larry King has a fondness for interviewing people who pluck answers out of thin air.”  p136

Aug 23 2026

The Year of the Bad Decision, Charles Sobczak (2013) – HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Nay, REQUIRED READING.

The Year of the Bad Decision, Charles Sobczak (2013)

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.  Nay, REQUIRED READING.

The final trigger imagined by Sobczak may not come to pass, but the outcome will be the same.

Some excerpts (with a few comments):

“People no longer talked about the weather—they trembled at it.” 3

“Global warming, or climate change, had lost any pretension of being a liberal hoax or some far-flung meteorological theory decades ago.  There were no more debates, anywhere on Earth, about what was happening.  There were no more heavily financed fossil fuel lobbying groups trying to muddy the issue with an avalanche of misinformation, spewing out endless press releases about sun spots, solar cycles or natural climactic variations.  The argument about whether anthropogenic activities were the leading cause of climate change was over.  Death had ended that debate.” 10

“It would take more than a thousand years for that crucial Atlantic conveyor belt to recover.”  41

And yes, now, as we speak, there is clear evidence it is slowing down:https://climatecosmos.com/climate-science/is-the-oceans-conveyor-belt-on-the-brink-of-collapse-2

“China and India were building coal-fired power plants at the rate of one per week and no one bothered to raise an eyebrow.  The United States refused to talk about climate change, except when the fossil fuel oligarchs denied it existence.  Besides, the policymakers in the U.S. weren’t about to make any energy sacrifices if China and India were free to do what they wanted.” 50

Actually, it looks like China and India are making stunningly large and fast moves away from fossil fuel use:

https://interestingengineering.com/energy/china-opens-worlds-biggest-solar-farm

https://e360.yale.edu/features/india-solar

Neither the U.S. has anything even close to that, and at least in Canada, we have the space!!

“Over time, the 30s became known as the Lost Decade.  The weather had turned from dangerous to deadly, and people began to comprehend the real costs of climate change.” 52

“In 2037, when the Greens banned the construction of coal-fired plants in the U.S. … But by then global temperatures had climbed some fie degrees and other, more alarming feedback loops had been triggered.  Methane belched out of the Canadian and Siberian tundra and bubbled up from the ocean floor.  methane is 20 times worse than CO2 when it comes to warming the Earth.” 69

“Our cows, numbering more than 3 billion in 2030, expelled nearly enough methane to rival the thawing permafrost.”  79

“That year marked the first time the Arctic Ocean was ice-free in 100,000 years.  While climate scientists around the world shouted at the top of their lungs that this was an unprecedented and dangerous benchmark, the oil and gas industry executives celebrated.  With the ice gone, the vast deposits of natural and gas and oil that lay beneath the Arctic Ocean could now be accessed.  …” 107

“That changed when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its eighth assessment report in 2026 [remember, the novel was written in 2013] … It condemned the burning of fossil fuels as being solely responsible for the buildup of CO2 in the atmosphere … There were no qualifiers, no caveats—the science had spoken.             Of course, the fossil fuel industry was outraged by the tone as well as the finality of the eighth assessment.  They cried foul, just as they had for the past 60 years.  They insisted we needed to conduct further research to verify the true impact of greenhouse gas emissions to ensure that they were really a part of the problem.            In reality, they only wanted to stall.  They wanted more time to mine and burn coal, to pump another few billion barrels of oil, to frack more natural gas and to line their pockets with the profits.  But it was over.  … People were tired of yearlong tornado seasons, massive Category 5 hurricanes, rising tides, relentless heat waves and flash floods.  People were tired of disasters.”  166

“Did they think they were going to take all their profits and relocate to Mars?” 185

They should watch Don’t Look Up.

“Are we worth it? … Civilization is an environmental horror story.  Mass extinctions, huge swaths of forests cut to stubble, dredged marshes and drained wetlands, wars, overheated atmospheres followed by snowstorms on the Fourth of July …” 187

“Decades of inaction followed the turn of the 21st century, mostly due to the well-coordinated efforts of Big Coal and Big Oil.  They spent billions of dollars in a nonstop campaign to deny and debunk the science of climate change.  They funded political candidates who spent their entire careers trying to convince the American people that the was no sound ‘scientific’ basis for global warming …”  247

Sound familiar?

“We had regressed into a world of flawed research, media campaigns, fraudulent wesites and finger-pointing …”  247

“Because of the 100-year time delay built into the effects of CO2 …”

Today, as I write this, we’re at 427ppm.  (Compared to 338 just two years ago.)

“We’re in a positive feedback spiral that’s proving impossible to pull out of.” 330-2

Sobczak is referring to CO2 increase, which leads to warmer atmosphere, which leads to more ice melting, which leads to an even warmer atmosphere (because ice, being white, would have radiated some of the heat back up and out), so there are more fires, which means more CO2 (Canada’s 2023 fires created more CO2 than do most large nations in a year, with only India, China, and the US surpassing), which leads to warmer, which leads to less ice, which leads to … you get the picture.

Aug 23 2026

Schumacher’s The English Experience – delightful!

Another good one from Schumacher! (The English Experience, Julie Schumacher)

 

“The job of provosts was to create and then disseminate bad news …” p1

“I have an accentuating circumstance …” p20

The students’ assignment starting p42 is full of delights.

“I am not saying this to make you an escape goat” p73

“Anyone who spoke six languages fluently in the United States would be considered a diplomat or a genius; here [in the UK], such verbal fluidity got you a part-time as a guide.” p85

“Part of the reason Boadicea is famous isn’t her fighting skills but the fact that she was raped, which is something men like to see women be famous for.  They think of raping a woman the way a dog thinks about pissing on somebody’s lawn.”  p110 [another Lin bit]

“… artists always show women’s breasts in sculptures even if the women are just walking the fucking dog or driving a fucking minivan to the grocery store.”  p111 [Lin[

“Personally, I do not think grammar should count so much in what is supposed to be a writing class.”  p162

 

Aug 22 2026

How We Survived (a story from Fighting Words)

How We Survived (a story from Fighting Words)

 

You’re wondering how it happened.  How did we survive?  How did our population suddenly plummet from six billion to half that.  Enabling our natural resources to recover and, eventually, support us.  All of us.

In 2020, all of the indicators pointed to our imminent extinction.  We had to reduce our greenhouse gases by 50% before 2030 in order to have just a hope in hell of avoiding what would otherwise become inevitable in 2050, eventual human extinction.  And in 2020, we were nowhere near being on target.  The U.S. continued to deny that there was a problem; Canada continued to allow the production of greenhouse gases just for fun (via snowmobile, PWC, and ATV use; in fact, the government had gone so far as to designate 121,000 kilometres of crown and private land specifically for snowmobile use).

And so there continued to be—and every year, more—devastating droughts, forest fires, heat waves, floods, superstorms, and pandemics, as well as all the rage that typically accompanied such events—riots, assaults, mass shootings …

In the middle of all this, single mothers just … gave up.  They’d had enough.  Enough part-time, temporary, casual work for which they earned half of what men would have earned.  (No, what am I saying?  Men would never be offered, would never have to accept, part-time, temporary, or casual work.  Not if they had kids to support.)  Enough of no pension, no benefits.  So no affordable medical care.  Enough of looking after other people’s kids as well as their own, but needing to do so in order to feed their own.  Because no affordable daycare.

They’d had enough of fighting for child support every fucking month. They’d had enough of the men, the absent fathers, still calling the shots.  For example, preventing them from moving back to where they could get the help of their extended family, because said family was in a different state or a different country and they, the men, wouldn’t therefore be able to see their kids as often, as easily.  (Suddenly that mattered.)

They’d had enough of living in a culture that “values work that contributes to the destruction and exploitation of life over and above work which nurtures life,” to quote Abigail Bray.  And Marilyn Waring.  And how many other women who had been ignored.

They’d had enough of being considered, treated like, damaged goods and sluts.

Why were they single, you might ask.  Their husbands, the kids’ fathers, had abandoned them, saying they just weren’t cut out to be fathers.

Or they’d left their husbands, the kids’ fathers, after years of abuse, psychological and physical, that hadn’t started until the first pregnancy.

Why were they mothers, you might ask.  Their husbands had refused to use a condom.  They’d said they’d pull out, but didn’t.  Usually, they just raped them.  It was their right, after all.  (The consequences, apparently not their responsibility.)

So the next time their kids were with their fathers for the weekend, they just … disappeared.

You might think it would tear them apart.  Well, they were already torn apart.

Yes, their daughters would likely be raped.  That would’ve happened anyway.  Eventually.  The famous ‘one in four’ had crept to ‘one in three’ as men got angrier and angrier with the world at large.

Yes, their sons would be raised to be misogynistic psychopaths.  That too would’ve happened anyway.   The porn culture enabled by the internet had turned most men into misogynistic psychopaths.  Which was no surprise, if they’d been watching women being humiliated and hurt, and apparently liking it, since they were eight.  Which was the case now for most males.

And then it wasn’t just the single mothers.  Married women started divorcing their husbands and insisting that said husbands, their kids’ fathers, assume full-time custody.

“I’ll take them every other weekend,” the women would say, magnanimously.

And oh my god, was it wonderful.  They’d work from nine to five, and the rest of the day, the evening, was theirs.  All theirs.  To do as they pleased.  The housework, the laundry, the cooking—it was surprising how little was needed for just themselves.  And the quiet.  It was … bliss.

In a way, it seemed that women had started getting over themselves.  Truth be told, in most cases, the kids would be no worse off with their fathers.  It’s not like they, the mothers, had been doing a stellar job.  Their kids were, across the board, oh so ordinary.  At best.

In a way, it seemed that they’d finally realized they’d been suckered into believing that raising children was something that only they could do, something that they could do best, being women, being mothers …

“You know, it’s strange,” Ann said to Beth during their coffee break, as they read the latest statistics on the phenomenon.  “It’s like all these women, single and married, suddenly don’t love their kids anymore.”

“Yeah, well, love,” Beth replied, cynically.  “Oxytocin by any other—”

And that’s when it hit them.

They did the research (suspending, for the moment, their development of an air-borne contraceptive, with a somewhat onerous and impossible-to-regulate antidote, like holding one’s breath for 60 seconds every hour for 24 hours straight, that would change the default from having to do something not to get pregnant to having to do something to get pregnant), and sure enough.

There had been a decrease in oxytocin.  For many, that bond was all that had been holding mother-and-child together.  Once it started to dissolve, once their oxytoxin started to decrease, well, it was … easier.  To just give up.  Give up their kids, leave them with their fathers.  It actually didn’t tear them apart.  Quite so much.

We should have seen it coming.  After all, we’d been using pesticides, handling plastics, wearing cosmetics (that turned into a nice irony: you want us to look attractive all the time, well, okay, but … it’s gonna cost ya), and coming into contact with god knows how many other industrial chemicals for almost a century.

We even knew that many of these chemicals were endocrine disruptors: they could increase, or decrease, certain hormones (special signal-sending chemicals); they could interfere with the signals hormones were supposed to send; they could even turn one hormone into another.

In fact, we had proof way back in the 1940s that DDT, for example, caused problems for bees, and in 1962, biologist Rachel Carson sounded a strong alarm about such pesticides (and was dismissed as hysterical for doing so).  It took ten years for the U.S. to ban DDT.  And another forty to make the link to breast cancer.

But, well, research into women’s bodies was not exactly a priority.  The first-ever statement about women and heart disease—the signs of heart attack in women are different than in men—was published in 2016.  And we had Viagra (and Cialis and Levitra and Stendra …) long before safe contraception.  And—

Simply put, women weren’t as important as men.  It was an opinion that was, apparently, impossible to change.  After all, Viagra (and Cialis and Levitra and Stendra …) was covered by health insurance plans ten years before any of the various contraceptives were covered.

As more and more women entered the sciences, there were attempts to change that, but men continued to dominate the funding decisions.  (Ann and Beth had resorted to crowd-funding for their research.)

As for research into mothering, that was especially emasculating.  Only a wuss would choose to do that!  I still remember when I first read Levitt and Dubner’s Freakonomics, in which they present an astounding connection between access to abortion and the crime rate: twenty years after Roe v. Wade, the U.S. crime rate dropped.  Astounding indeed.  That men were surprised by that.  What did they think would happen when a woman is saddled with a squalling baby she does not want, on an income she does not have, because she has a squalling baby she does not want—  She’d get a ‘Mother of the Year’ award?

So.  Oxytocin is a chemical produced by the hypothalamus.  It motivates and reinforces attachment.  Therefore.

Their conclusion was validated when almost overnight, the proportion of new mothers (single or married) with so-called post-partum depression went from one in seven to four in seven.  That’s over half.

We’d only recently hypothesized that post-partum depression could be caused in part by low oxytocin.  Turns out that it’s not so much that low oxytocin causes post-partum depression as that high oxytocin masks post-partum depression—the reasonable (healthy) response to the forementioned state of being saddled with a squalling baby …  (Especially reasonable when you were absolutely exhausted from having just birthed it, in part because you went into that labour in a weakened state due to the multiple stresses, emotional and physical, of being pregnant for nine months in the first place.)

Those who thought post-partum depression was just a medicalization of not wanting kids were right.  Maybe, just maybe, women’s sole responsibility for that squalling baby explains why they experienced “a loss of energy, changes in sleep patterns, a diminished ability to think or concentrate, and recurring thoughts of suicide.”  I mean, duh.

So when the increase in oxytocin that typically accompanied pregnancy and labour didn’t occur …

Almost overnight, most new mothers acted like those with post-partum depression.  Or like men.  Quite simply, they weren’t all that interested in their newborns.  They saw them as the demanding shit-machines that most new fathers, truthfully, had always seen them as.  (‘Honey, I have to stay late at the office again, sorry.’  Right.  Code for ‘I can’t stand another minute of its crying.  You’re different, you’re a woman, it doesn’t bother you, just like you don’t mind changing its diaper ….’  Right.)

And, simply put, most women did not want to have to look after a demanding shit-machine twenty-four/seven.  Who would?  Looking ahead, they saw nothing but exhaustion, frustration, resentment, anger, rage …  Being completely responsible for a completely helpless human being for years …

So, many women just left their newborns with their husbands.

“If you didn’t want to look after it, you shouldn’t’ve had it!” Dave said when Diane told him she was going back to work the next day.

She waited a few moments, then saw that she had to say it out loud.  “Same to you.”

And then in the morning, when she was on her way out ahead of him—in many households, there was actually a race for the door—he objected.  He’d obviously not taken her seriously the night before.  But then, when had he ever?

“But … this is crazy.”

She stared at him.  “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Dismiss as ‘crazy’ anything you don’t agree with.  As if you’re the standard of sanity.”

“I didn’t—”

“You did.”

“But … I can’t stay home, quit my job.  I make more money than you!”

“Yeah, pity you never joined the fight for equal pay for work of equal value.”

“But—”

“And,” she sighed, “it’s not all about money.”

Many women took their newborns to their rapists.  In many cases, in many countries, that meant the same as leaving them with their husbands.  But in many other cases, it meant taking the infant to a male relative, a ‘friend’, an acquaintance …   As statistics have shown, in most cases, women are raped by someone they know.

“You can’t leave it here!” Tyler said.  “I don’t want it!”

“Then why’d you make it?”

“I didn’t make it!”

She waited just a moment.  “Do you really not know how babies are made?  When sperm—”

“I know that shit!  Do you think I’m stupid?”

“Well, unless you taught your sperm how to swim backwards …”

It was amusing, though appalling, that so many men seemed to assume that women had some sort of innate control over fertilization.  That getting pregnant was their choice, hence their fault.

“Why didn’t you take care of it?” He glared at her.

“I am taking care of it.  I’m giving it to you.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Then say it.  Say what you mean.”

“Why didn’t you get an abortion?”

“Why didn’t you get a vasectomy?”

“I thought you were on the pill or something.”

“Why did you think that?”

He shrugged.

“Well, shouldn’t you have made sure?  Before you put your sperm into my vagina?”

In many countries, women organized and took their newborns, en masse, to their legislatures.  They walked in, close to a hundred at a time, and set their infants, strapped into carriers, baskets, and car seats, onto the long meeting tables.

“What’s this?”  The Man-in-Charge would say.

“The babies you forced us to have by prohibiting abortion.”

“Well, we don’t want them.”

Then you shouldn’t have forced us to have them.”

And then they started to walk away.

“Wait!  You can’t just walk away!  What kind of mothers are you?”

“The unwilling kind.  The coerced kind.”

And then with great self-righteousness, the Man-in-Charge would call Security and have the women arrested for abandonment.  Right then and there.  They’d be taken away to holding cells.  Sentenced for, possibly, five years.  With smug satisfaction, the Man-in-Charge would turn back to—

The babies were still there.  Now wailing.  Every one of them.

Oops.

Initially, it was concern for the kids that received all the media attention.  (Of course.  Even fertilized eggs are more important than women.)  Women with post-partum depression don’t bond with their newborns; as a result, said newborns don’t thrive.  They are likely to have a wide range of cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and medical problems: lower IQ scores, attention problems, mood disorders, anxiety disorders, substance use disorders, conduct disorders, my god the list goes on.  (Tell me again why mothers, if they’re so very important, are ‘paid’ just room and board.)

Most women fully understood the importance of the first six years; they were the formative years.  Literally.  But why were women best suited for those first six years?  Why was one woman best suited for those first six years?

And if those years were so fucking important, they said, they screamed, why did men keep undoing what women did?  With advertising—sugar-sweetened drinks and cereals, fat-laden and nutrient-poor fast food …  With toy stores—stocked with gun-wielding action figures on one side and pretty pink princesses on the other …  With television, intentionally attractive, intentionally addictive—the more kids watch tv, the worse their social skills, their language skills, their school performance, their physical fitness …

Of course, many women argued that the ‘What about the children?’ response was just a guilt trip, and a way to keep so many of us sequestered, segregated, in the home, overworked, too tired to care about, or to do anything about, anything else.  And not an expression of genuine concern for the children, for those formative years.

And so … the men found out what it was like.  To be home alone with one, two, three kids who demanded their attention every minute, every second.  They’d had no idea how exhausting it could be.  Physically, psychologically …

What did they do?  Some desperately hired other women to look after their kids.  But ten hours a day, five days a week, it added up.

Naturally, those who were married expected their now-working (wait, now-working?) wives to pay half the mortgage, half the electricity, half the insurance …

“I can’t afford that.  We’ll have to sell the house, move, find something cheaper.”

“Sell the house?  But—”

“And of course I won’t be paying half the nanny’s salary.”

“But they’re your kids too.”

“I can’t afford it.”  It was true.

Suddenly men were speaking out for equal pay for work of equal value.  Suddenly they were insisting their wives get pay increases and promotions.  Suddenly they were appalled at the jobs their wives didn’t get hired for.

“But you’re qualified!  More than qualified!”

Duh.

“Can’t you pay at least part of the nanny’s salary?”

“Why should I?  It was your decision.”  Because oh, the rage.  Their husbands were paying some stranger more than they’d ever paid them.  To do the same work.

And, again, “If you didn’t want to look after a kid, why did you make one?”

And, of course, it wasn’t just about money.  Unless they hired a 24/7 nanny, the men whose wives had left found they no longer had their evenings and weekends to themselves.  To put it mildly.

When hiring a nanny proved impossible, the men stayed home.  What choice did they have?  Many were fired because they didn’t show up for work.  Or couldn’t stay late.  Or had to leave suddenly in the middle of the day for an emergency.  (Fortuitously, this opened positions for all the women now seeking paid employment.)

Suddenly men were speaking out for, demanding, state-funded daycare.

They insisted that their estranged wives pay child support.  But when the arrears for 24/7 nanny services to date had been calculated, minus their portion for all the joint expenses, in most cases, the men still owed the women.  No child support would be forthcoming.

Regardless, most men found they simply couldn’t handle the non-stop neediness of babies, infants, toddlers, their relentless whining presence … When their infants wouldn’t stop crying, some men threw them against the wall.  Or worse.

So when that proved impossible, the staying at home with them, they just started leaving them alone during the day.  And often during the night.  Some men just left the house at one point and didn’t come back.

The kids died.  Of course they died.

Some starved to death.  Some died of thirst.  Some had fatal accidents.  They fell when they tried to get out of their cribs, or they drowned when they slipped in the tub, or they died in a house fire when, so hungry, they tried to make supper …

Call it ‘failure to thrive’.  In a big way.

So, yes, the incidence of infanticide increased.  The incidence of child abuse and neglect increased.  More prisons were required.  More foster homes were required.  Proposals were made to bring back orphanages.

The number of street kids increased.  More social services were required.

Juvenile crime increased.  More young offender facilities were required.

Governments were overwhelmed.

Of course, early on, almost immediately, actually, the men realized they hadn’t wanted kids after all.  Not really.  They’d just wanted the badge of respectability, the measure of maturity.  And they realized they’d been duped by the association between the two: being able to get a woman pregnant had nothing to do with respectability.  Or maturity.

And they realized, now, that if they did have kids—that is, if they did create some new human beings—they’d have to look after them for a good fifteen years.  Actually look after them.

And then what happened?

Nations that had hitherto spent half their budgets on weapons found that they had the money for state-funded daycare.

Legislation was passed for equal pay for work of equal value.  And enforced.

Legislation was also passed for equal opportunity for promotions.  And enforced.

Contraception became not only easily available, but free of charge.

Abortion became legal.  And available.  On demand.

And, finally, there was an increase in vasectomies, from a global rate of 2.2% to 81.9%.

And then, zero population growth.

 

Aug 21 2026

Our soooo left-brain society

Iain McGilchrist’s The Master and His Emissary: the divided brain and the making of the western world is a lengthy work on neuroscience that will not appeal to many, but if you can sign out a copy from your library, I highly recommend reading the first six-page section of his conclusion (p428-434) wherein he presents a startling answer to the question of “what the world would look like if the left hemisphere became so far dominant that … it managed more or less to suppress the right hemisphere’s world altogether.”  With six pages of of astute observations, he has absolutely ‘nailed’ our current Western capitalistic world.

Aug 09 2026

Ballsy (fiction from Fighting Words)

Ballsy

“I’d like to thank all of you for coming,” the smartly-dressed woman smiled warmly at the several people seated around the board room table, each with a prospectus in front of them.  Only one was a man.

“As all of you know, my name is Mariette Chandler.  Kristina Bolaenko, legal counsel, is at my right, and Chen Li, financial advisor, is at my left.  We’re hoping that after today’s presentation, you’ll agree to invest in this exciting business venture.  Based on similar ventures, the returns promise to be high, very high indeed.  And yet, our venture is, dare I say, innovative.

“We have arranged a visit to one of our clubs, for those of you who want to see first-hand what we’re talking about, but before—”

She paused as her assistant arrived with a rolling cart of refreshments.

“Please, everyone—” She gestured with her hand for those in attendance to partake, then waited as the young woman made a quick tour around the table, then took a seat at the back of the room.

“Thank you, Alyssa.”

Alyssa nodded, then took out her tablet, ready for whatever notes she’d need to make.

“At ‘Ballsy’,” Mariette started her power point presentation—an image appeared on the screen behind her, an attractive building with the name emblazoned across the front—”members will be able purchase the opportunity, typically for half an hour or an hour, to kick a man in the groin, or do whatever else they want, whatever else gives them pleasure, and,” she smiled at the room, “I must say that some of our clients have been rather imaginative—”

“You can’t do that,” the man spoke up, brimming with self-righteousness.  “It’s assault!”

Ah.  Mariette had suspected as much.  The man was a reporter.  No matter.  He’d discover that his editor would refuse to print any explicit descriptions.  So she just nodded to her colleague.  “Kristina, would you … ”

“Certainly,” Kristina said, then turned to the man.  “We appreciate your concern,” she smiled at him, “but I assure you that all of our employees will have signed a contract containing the appropriate clauses.”

“But—”

Mariette cut him off by clicking to the next image.  “These clips are from our flagship club here in Montreal.  Within a year, we hope to have a ‘Ballsy’ in every major city.  Within five years … who knows?”  She smiled.

The screen showed a man with his arms raised and tied to a crossbar over his head, his legs spread and shackled to the floor, his genitals exposed, and already bruised and misshapen.  A narrow foot shot out from off-screen.

The man present gagged and rushed to the wastebasket by the door.

“I supposed it’s an acquired taste,” Mariette said and smiled at the room.

The man in the video grinned, then panted, “Kick me again.”

The next clip showed a man on all fours, a corkscrew hanging from his bloodied rectum.

Halfway back to his chair by then, the man quickly turned around.

During the next clip, he made it all the way back to his chair, staggering slightly and wiping his mouth with a tissue.  He glanced at the screen, then stared at Mariette.  “That one looks drugged,” he accused.

“Oh, we don’t allow drugs on the premises.  That would be illegal,” she laughed lightly.  “And what our employees do on their off-time is surely none of our business.”

A few more clips played.

“You won’t be able to find enough men—”

“Our data suggests otherwise.  As you know, unemployment among young men is increasing every year.  We provide jobs.  At well above minimum wage.   Most of our men make more money in a day with us than they would in a week at a call center.”

“But,” one of the women spoke up, “I’m not sure I’d want my son to …”

“Oh, no, your son will surely have other options.  We’re not here to recruit!” She laughed again.

When the opening image returned to the screen, Mariette began the next part of her presentation.  “As we develop the brick-and-mortar,” she smiled with excitement, “we will also develop the virtual.  ‘Ballsy’ will be online.  Chen?”

“Thank you, Mariette,” Chen took the hand-off gracefully.  “Adding the virtual will be virtually without cost,” she smiled at her wordplay, “as we will simply record the live sessions and post them online.”

“With the participants’ contractual agreement, of course,” Kristina added, smiling at the man.

“At the same time,” Chen continued, “it will be immensely profitable.  We already have advertisers clamouring to be a part of this.”

“And we have discussed off-products,” Mariette inserted smoothly, as the image on the screen changed, “posters, calendars, magazines—  Imagine seeing ‘Ballsy’ images on buses and bus shelters, in your corner store’s magazine rack, perhaps even in your kids’ teachers’ lounge …”

The man was horrified.  “But—  You can’t do that!”

“But we can.  Do that,” Kristina said.  “Precedent has been set.  Our business, and all of its services and products, would be protected by freedom of speech.”

“How is that,” he nodded to the image currently on the screen, “speech?”

Kristina shrugged, then continued.  “Traditionally, arguments to prohibit have been rejected, replaced with arguments for equal access.  Well, here we are!”  She swept her open hands around the room, then behind her to the screen, where the video clips taken at the club had resumed.

“But some of them are just boys!”

“All over-age, I assure you,” Kristina said smoothly.

Mariette didn’t say that the younger, the better.  The more pliable.  She didn’t say that none of them lasted very long.  Many, sadly, just lost their je ne sais quoi and had to be let go.

What she did say was, “At the moment, this may seem … offensive to some, but in a few years … ”

“Indeed,” Kristina said.  “We anticipate that copycat franchises will develop, but,” she assured the room, “we will fiercely protect our brand and strive to make ‘Ballsy’ everyone’s first choice.”

“Truthfully,” Mariette said, “we welcome competition.  Such growth would actually be to our advantage, as it would mean that such clubs have become commonplace, that the provision and use of such a service, has become normalized.  Imagine a world in which there’s a ‘Ballsy’ wherever you go!”