Over the past two months, I’ve had email after email from various “book clubs,” each praising a book of mine recently published and saying that it really deserved more acclamation and attention. While I had to agree with that (what author wouldn’t?), it was clear that these were blatant scams, some even suggesting that paying a few “influential readers” would spur greater attention. Others were more indirect in their initial “inquiry,” not that I pursued any of them.

The most recent, and most ironically amusing, came from an individual purporting to represent the Washington [D.C.] Science Fiction Association and declaring that WSFA wanted to highlight Haze and The Hammer of Darkness for the association’s 2025 “Autumn Author Spotlight.”

Having lived in the Washington D.C. area for nearly twenty years, at time when I was active in attending WSFA conventions – primarily the long-vanished Disclave, I was rather skeptical about an “Author Spotlight,” given that WSFA doesn’t promote books except through its convention.

In addition, I’ve retained loose ties with individuals prominent in area conventions and was the Author Guest of Honor at Balticon in 2024, where a number of convention functionaries were also involved with WSFA, and it would be highly unlikely for them to spotlight me so soon after Balticon. Add to that the fact that conventions take a year or more to organize of fans and someone offering to “spotlight” me for a fall event this year was preposterous. Then add that the book they wanted to spotlight was a mass-market paperback reprint published nine years ago that contained two novels – The Hammer of Darkness (first published in 1985) and Haze (published in 2009). At the time, Tom Doherty thought that the reprint would be a good idea, because he thought neither book had gotten the support it should have, but even then, there wasn’t that much publicity.

And, finally, WSFA had to put a warning on the WSFA website that scammers were impersonating WSF.

Obviously, these scammers are targeting authors who don’t seem to be best-selling authors and are playing on authorial vanity, and no author is without some vanity, including me. But scammers annoy me, and as a semi-public service, I thought I ought to bring up the matter.

Criminals strike in the dark
But ICE patrols the sunlit park.
Who’s the chump?
You… or Donald Trump?

Most of the people in the United States, if you asked them, would say that they’re for individual freedom.

The first problem we face in maintaining freedom lies in the definition of “freedom,” because each individual has a personal definition of what freedom should be, and that makes it difficult for government to come up with laws define liberty or freedom in a fashion satisfactory to all Americans.

The second problem lies in population density and the need to maintain order.

As Thomas Jefferson and other founding fathers pointed out, one cannot have freedom without an ordered society, and the greater the population density, the more restrictions that are necessary to maintain order.

Those restrictions don’t have to be imposed by law, and, in fact, in the past many restrictions maintaining order were socially imposed through manners and customs. Those manners and customs were essentially based on British culture, and as more and more Americans come from other backgrounds and/or question “the old ways,” customs have become less effective in maintaining social order.

So, governments impose standards of behavior through laws. This has created a growing attitude of believing that, if something isn’t prohibited, it’s acceptable to do it, an attitude taken to extremes by Donald Trump and many of his followers. As I’ve pointed out before, this trend leads either to anarchy or authoritarianism.

It also leads to more people wanting to use government as a means of imposing their beliefs on others, contrary to the views of the founding fathers that government should provide a basic framework of laws, as opposed to a legal structure regulating every aspect of life.

Such an all-encompassing legal structure, of course, effectively limits freedom, yet few people seem to realize that, if we just behaved ourselves and respected others, we wouldn’t need so many laws and regulations.

The problem with that is that there’s always someone who wants money and/or power and has no respect for others, or for what others have built or created, and believes that they are entitled to do anything that isn’t prohibited… and when they get away with it, it encourages others.

All of which is why Benjamin Franklin said that the founding fathers had created a Republic… if future Americans could keep it.

In this time of shutdowns, continuing inflation, and economic and political news so complex that even learned savants can’t simplify matters, I’ve decided to post a short four-line poem every Monday that simplifies an issue. The first one is more general, but after that, they’ll get more specific.

Sporting overlong red ties
And endless overflowing lies,
Who’s the chump?
You… or Donald Trump?

P.S. Feel free to share.

Recent data and reports by a number of economists and financial institutions tend to confirm what last Tuesday’s election results also suggested – that the United States effectively has an economy with two branches, one for those who have decent-paying jobs and financial reserves and another for those who have neither, a condition described as K-shaped, where the same financial conditions have differing impacts for different people.

Higher interest rates and rising stock prices benefit those who can save and invest, but those higher interest rates punish those with mortgages, credit card balances, and student loan debt. Higher interest rates also discourage businesses from hiring and encourage streamlining and economizing, which usually means layoffs.

The youth (ages 16-24) unemployment rate increased to 10.5% by this past September, and that’s three times the rate for Gen X and Millennials. Average new car prices topped $50,000 for the first time ever, and an indication of the impact on the less fortunate is car repossessions, which have increased 16% over last year and are at the highest rate since 2009. Add to that the rising cost of student loan repayments, which have increased by six percent over last year.

When you consider that the average cost of a basic one-bedroom apartment in New York City is $4,000 a month, that might just explain the results of the recent mayoral election.

On the other side, the gross profit margin of the pharmaceutical industry is over 70%, compared to 2% for the pharmacies that dispense and sell those prescription drugs, which might explain why the pharmacy clerks are having a hard time of it, while the drug company executives are rolling in dough… and why more than a few people, primarily younger adults, still openly back Luigi Mangione… and why Zohran Mamdani managed to attract over 90,000 largely youthful volunteers to support his successful campaign for NYC Mayor.