Fiction in any form has always intended to be realistic. Old-fashioned novels which now seem stilted and artificial to the point of burlesque did not appear that way to the people who first read them. Writers like Fielding and Smollett could seem realistic in the modern sense because they dealt largely with uninhibited characters, many of whom were about two jumps ahead of the police, but Jane Austen’s chronicles of highly inhibited people against a background of rural gentility seem real enough psychologically. There is plenty of that kind of social and emotional hypocrisy around today. Add to it a liberal dose of intellectual pretentiousness and you get the tone of the book page in your daily paper and the earnest and fatuous atmosphere breathed by discussion groups in little clubs. These are the people who make best sellers, which are promotional jobs based on a sort of indirect snob appeal, carefully escorted by the trained seals of the critical fraternity, and lovingly tended...

Billy's old unit, the ENfantry.  (Enhanced Anthropomorphic Footsoldier Program, now cancelled). That summer we were vacationing in a pleasant town on the Gulf Coast.  We stayed in a lovely two story house from which one could see the water perfectly from the second story porch.  Dad and Mom let us wander around the town, me and my sister had the time of our lives.   Dad had been working non-stop all year at the lab, we hardly ever saw him.  Mom was a teacher and was raising us almost by herself.  Then one day Dad announced he was retiring, and let's all go to the beach.  Even on vacation dad was constantly on the phone, and often he would look worried after a call and mom did her best to cheer him up.  There was one odd thing about that trip, the house in front of ours had a most unusual owner.  He was a upright, bipedal rabbit or so we thought.  We saw him daily through the live bamboo that separated the yards, and once I kicked a ...

Tom Lea's "The Price", a depiction of what he saw during the unnecessary Battle of Peleliu in 1944. The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. Approximately 1,252 to 1,300 Marines were killed at the Battle of Peleliu, with the 1st Marine Division suffering around 6,500 total casualties, including killed, wounded, and missing. This makes the battle the costliest amphibious assault in Marine Corps history, November 10 1775 - November 10 2025. https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/unnecessary-hell-the-battle-of-peleliu/ 100% FUBAR.

 Here Colonel Bunny of the Royal Guard welcomes Queen Catalina to the Duchy of Haut-Stauffenberg.  Within minutes, she will be shot by an anarchist, plunging the entire world into war.  The disgraced colonel will end his days as a private in the Furry Legion.   **********************************************  Felinia demanded that Haut-Stauffenberg deliver the entire duchy into their control. Naturally, this was refused. The Moggy Empire backed up Felinia and encouraged the military acquisition of the duchy. The Quadruple Alliance kicked in and lined up with all their resources to prevent the invasion, triggering a declaration of war from the Primary Powers. The railway dependent troop deployment ensured that the conflict would hit the world like an avalanche. I'm sure you know the rest of it. Millions dead, nations bankrupted, legions of maimed veterans and impoverished civilians lusting for payback. This gave rise to  

         This morning was cool and wet.  We had just been through a cold snap, laughable to those up north but hard on us here in the Coastal Bend, we just ain't used to real wintertime.  I was drinking coffee and standing on my back porch watching the ibises and cranes pick through the grass looking for their breakfast.  As all the lizards would be lethargic and hunkered down I imagine it was insects and no more for those birds to eat.  I saw one ibis get two small snakes in a few seconds, I was surprised that any would be out and about this day.  I am fond of the reptiles but we would certainly be overrun with a exponentially increasing lizards unless they were culled by predators.  Lizards and snakes are predators as well so nature evens out in it's cold conclusions.  I had the radio on and was listening to the latest reports of the buildup to (another) war.  The only thing that worried me was that ...