AddictionSam Aurelius Milam III![15x5 Page Background GIF Image](../../Images/15x5_Page_Background.gif)
Here’s something that I’ve noticed on the news lately. People who’re trying to cross a border into a different country, with only what they can carry, still have their cell phones. People who’re leaping out of the way, just ahead of an enemy bombardment, still have their cell phones. People who live in refugee camps, and depend on charity for everything, still have their cell phones.
People who live on the street, and can’t afford to buy food, still have their cell phones. I even saw a woman in a destroyed town in northwest Syria, after the earthquake, claim that she could live without the power and the water, but not without her cell phone.
That doesn’t seem like using a device that’s convenient. It seems to me like an addiction.
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If somebody wants to test himself for cell phone addiction, then he can remove the battery and mail his cell phone to somebody far away, with a note requesting its return.
If he has withdrawal symptoms while it’s gone, then he’s an addict.
He needs to get some help
Prejudice PoliceSam Aurelius Milam III![15x5 Page Background GIF Image](../../Images/15x5_Page_Background.gif)
I’ve been interested in the irrational prejudice thing for a long time, clear back to when men were condemned for having long hair. After years of commotion, I still don’t see a society in which irrational prejudice is being resolved. Instead, I see a society in which people are being compelled to behave contrary to their beliefs. Every noble cause that has ever resorted to forced compliance has become an authoritarian power structure, a police state of one kind or another. No matter how
prejudiced people might be, a moralistic police state isn’t the way to solve
the problem, yet today we’re establishing a new orthodoxy in which prejudice
is a secular equivalent of sin. We’re establishing a new inquisition
to enforce it and defining a new population of heretics, prejudiced people,
to punish for noncompliance.
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People who want to make things better would be well advised that they’ll probably do more good by example than by edict. If they want to end irrational
prejudice, then I suggest that they should start with themselves.
Letters to the Editor Dear Sam,
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Hello. I pray this letter finds you well. Your Frontiersman, July ’23 had some interesting reads. The article “
The Power of Human Fecundity”. You asked, “why are so many women having children?”, to me, the answer lies in a plight of the impoverished. You generally don’t see the rich having 10 plus kids, etc. What is
the one thing a poor person can afford to do that’s fun?
sex, sex, and more sex. It just appears that “safe sex” isn’t
on the agenda.
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Next, in your “letters to the editor”, and the letter about Rand’s opinions, sent in by Don Cormier, I tend to agree with you [
page 3]. That a person’s instincts and intellect aren’t in any way connected. We are like animals ourselves and if you look into the driving force at our core. What we have is the desire to live, or the fear of death, whichever way you want to look at it. And the desire to have sex as much as possible. So we can procreate and leave our mark on this world.
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Wherever you have time to philosophize, life has become too easy. It used to
be outrun predators, catch something to eat, sex, sleep, repeat.
A society’s downfall begins when life becomes easier, i.e. art, music, philosophy, etc. And, your story, “
The Word” it’s a great intro to what could be a great novel. I really liked it.
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Anyway, I hope the Georgia summers aren’t being too brutal with humidity.
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Be well friend,
—S. H., a prisoner
My question about so many women having so many children was intended to be sarcastic. I answered it myself, right after I asked it.
After the scenario that I described in my story, The Word, there will be a few thousand years of accumulating myths and legends. Eventually, the descendants of the survivors will write The Book of Origins, in which they’ll present their distorted version of the fall from Paradise and the coming of the Darkness. If you view the past few thousand years of our own myths and legends as a forecast of the myths and legends that those fictional descendants will preserve, then I don’t need to write the novel. Just study our own myths and legends. Our past is the novel.
—editor
Dear Frontiersman:
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Are you familiar with the “Cop City” disturbances in Atlanta? If you are, I would be very interested in hearing your
interpretation of this on-going conflict.
—Sir Donald the Elusive
I recall hearing the controversy mentioned, but I’m not familiar with the details. My understanding is that it involves training cops and fire fighters in the same facility. That’s a
bad idea because it might tend to turn the fire fighters into gestapo
thugs, like the cops. As far as I can recall, my earliest writing
about cops was in the late 1970s or the early 1980s, and included my satirical essay. It’s available in Pharos, in my collection of essays about money, taxes, and corporations. —editor