From Behind Enemy Lines

I’ve seen this one go around lately, and it has that lovely “feel good” vibe. We need all these touchy feely things, and the future will be just fine.

The problem, of course, is that a colony on mars will help us with drinkable water. Servers orbiting the planet helps us figure out climate issues (because, while I may not see the widespread planet-killing eco disaster the Left claims, we do have things we do poorly, and being able to monitor the planet better would do good things). There’s a non-zero chance that AI might solve our pollinator problem.

I have found that there is a certain part of the Left that seems to believe that if we all just lived on tofu and kale chips, and only drank recycled pee, walked to work, and everyone had a garden, things would immediately reverse and the world would be rosy, and everyone would get along. Cue singing Kumbaya. Oh, I forgot not showering. I’m not sure where that comes in, but they never seem to shower. Ugh.

Now, I have no issue with tofu and kale chips. I rather like both, quite honestly, but I want them when *I* want them, not because nothing else is allowed. I’d rather avoid recycled pee if I can, unless I manage to get shipped off to Mars, in which case bring it on! We almost had most people working from home, and while I am dead set that it should be voluntary and not required (as it was with covid), it did solve a lot of problems. Six weeks into our lovely lock downs, all the smog was gone, plants and bees and gardens and animals were all doing much better. Sort of put shut to the idea that it would take decades if not centuries to repair “all the damage we’ve done.” I do think most people should have a garden, even if all they do is grow some peas or a tomato plant, because it’s good for the soul and it reminds us where food comes from. I think too many people forget that.

The thing is, we can responsibly use modern tools like AI and satellites for many things. I use AI all the time for research, where it cuts down on my “random searching on the interwebz” time. Yes, I verify everything I’m told, because AI is not infallible because WE are not infallible, and it learns from us. But it’s still useful. It takes research from “days or weeks” to “hours or days,” which is huge for me. I use it for organization. I love satellite images, because I can see all sorts of things. I can watch recreations of historical battles done by AI using extant information over real modern maps. It’s amazing. I’m sure people thought gas and electric stoves were the end of the world, at one point. I know that many people fought against the removal of candles and the addition of gas lighting. It’s always hard to accept change when it comes.

But here’s the thing I see… Building a colony on Mars? That means we’ll have terraforming going on, which is absolutely applicable to our own planet. If you can turn Mars red soil into something we can grow in, then we can apply that to the Sahara Desert. If we can explore (in a few decades) the methane oceans of Titan, then maybe we can also create safe ways to navigate the depths of our own oceans. And so on. Progress allows us to learn new things about our own world, even as we explore others.

Then, of course, there’s the idea that was often touted by Heinlein. When humans find a new frontier, they go for it. They go for broke. They do crazy, insane things to go exploring. And there is a certain percentage of our population that are simply wired that way, and no amount of “reprogramming” is going to change them. They SHOULD be encouraged to challenge the new frontiers. The other side of that is that those who leave Earth to go elsewhere will toughen the breed. Those left behind will not advance as quickly as the ones who go out and explore. He believed that those who never face the raw, unforgiving nature of a space frontier are far more likely to embrace socialism, authoritarianism, and conformist rules. (LA Public Library)

The end of the meme says, “That’s the only future I’m interested in.” That seems to be exactly what Heinlein feared, doesn’t it? Because the future I’m interested in includes infinite possibilities. There’s room for those who want to be home bodies, and those who want to explore. For the gardeners and the hunters. For the thinkers and the doers. The burger flippers and the rocket scientists. We need them all, and more. I want to know what’s in the deepest parts of our oceans, and I want to know what’s on that watery planet at the very edge of our telescopic vision. I want to meet aliens, and I want to be at peace with folks at home.

I want all the futures. I’m interested in every single one of them. From AI to pollinators to satellites. All. No boundaries. 🙂

The big noise I hear from the Left is, trickle down economics don’t work. They cite a lot of stuff (Grok can give you a whole explanation, if you care to read it), mostly that cutting corporate tax rates doesn’t stimulate the economy because corporations then invest or spend the money on their executives, and that it “exacerbates inequality.” While I can agree with the idea that a good, effective fiscal policy should include incentives, fiscal sustainability, and broad opportunities rather than just trickle down, I don’t want to throw away the baby with the bathwater.

I look at the shenanigans going on in New York right now, and I can see that at least SOME trickle down works. It seems Mamdani was expecting the “rich folk” to stay and pay exorbitant taxes. When they left, their trickle stopped, and now Mamdani is upset. He ran on the idea of free childcare, free buses, and a bunch of other “free” stuff. The problem, of course, is that none of those things are free. They all require the work of other people, something socialists tend to forget about when they calculate how much to pay for things. Someone’s labor is worth dollars.

Now, please understand me… The person flipping your burgers is giving you labor, too, and that person is worth dollars. Right now, it appears that most people agree (and more importantly, the corporate overlords agree) that their worth is about $15 per hour. That appears, at least for now, to be sustainable for McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and the other burger conglomerates. This is (at least in my state, where the legal minimum wage is $7.25/hr) a decent wage for someone working in food service. Having worked at a McDonald’s in my youth, I can tell you that the training is excellent, the work is hard and exhausting, and the take home pay isn’t too bad. For a youth it’s excellent, and for a young adult it’s truly a living wage if you’re working full time.

One of the big issues I have with some capitalists is that they don’t appear to value the labor of those who are “below” them… the burger flippers, the guy who cleans the bed pans, the gal who greases the gears at the factory. Now, I’m not saying that low skill jobs should be paid the same as high skilled ones (whatever the skill may be). Making burgers is not nearly as complicated as making precision ball bearings (one of the local companies that hires young adults in my area of the world makes these, and provides training AND education to their workers, so that they can improve and better themselves while also doing a good job). Making precision ball bearings with a machine is not as complicated as making a plane engine. Making a plane engine isn’t even close to being as complex as making a rocket engine. And so on. There are tiers, and multiple factors do need to be taken into account… not the least of which is the idea of whether anyone would be anything but mildly inconvenienced by the disappearance of said job. If burgers stopped being made, people would eat at home, and probably gripe less and lose some weight. If precision ball bearings were to stop being made, planes would cease to fly in the sky, and many of our very important machines would stop working. And so on. Some jobs are worth more than others (which, I will also add, is not the same as saying the people in those jobs are worth more or less), simply due to their nature.

But I digress. We were talking about taxing the rich. Oh… no, taxing the ultra-rich. So here’s the thing: the rich (millionaires, for instance) are not the middle class they once were. Largely, they are not paying as much as they did. The ultra-rich (the billionaires, and our one trillionaire) are paying considerably more than their fair share of taxes in the world. Of course, that depends on what you consider fair. Some on the Left consider a 90% tax rate to be perfectly fair of a share. I do not.

In our country, the rich and the ultra-rich pay a lot. “High-income earners contribute the vast majority of U.S. federal income taxes. The top 10% of earners pay roughly 71% of all individual income taxes, while the top 1% alone accounts for approximately 38%. Overall, the top 50% of taxpayers contribute over 96% of the total income tax burden.” (NTUF) A few years ago, Elon Musk paid over $11 BILLION dollars in taxes, which is equal to 0.15% of our country’s budget. A single man. I think that’s considerably more than his fair share.

Now go look at the image above. By making the numbers look incomprehensible (and yeah, they ARE incomprehensible except for a few math geniuses), they make it scary. That makes it easier to get their ideology across. They present it in such a way that it sounds like a) the super rich are not working people, b) that taxing the super rich doesn’t affect other working people, c) that not taxing the super rich means you’re not investing in working people, and that d), all of this means our democracy will die. Because we didn’t tax the ultra-rich.

Fear is a great motivator. Part of the problem we’re seeing now is that, even when people on the Left start to figure out that they’re being duped, the fear kicks in. It’s incredibly motivating. I still get caught in some of the fear traps the Left tosses out, until I go investigate. The problem, of course, is that a single human being simply cannot investigate all of these things. Even doing a few is exhausting and draining.

In the same way Trump overwhelmed the Left’s social media machine in the first few months of his Presidency, by simply being a few steps ahead and tossing out media land mines as he moved, he was able to make certain they were always hours or days behind. By the time they caught onto something, he was already three memes ahead. Well, they’re doing that with fear. They’re chumming the waters of social media with fear bombs. Yes, I can look some up and dismiss them. But I just don’t have TIME to look them all up. And just enough of them have the potential to be real (or have portions of them that are based in reality) that you can’t just write them all off. So what’s a girl to do?

I rely on media that I trust, which is hard, because I just went through the whole “the entire media is lying to me” lesson. But I … trust but verify. When I can. And when I can’t, I move on.

So here’s the thing I keep reminding myself of. Our parents and grandparents and greats, they didn’t have access to the news we have. They lived very different lives, and in some ways, very much happier lives. The problems they had, they didn’t have to do with Iran or Iraq, or mass shootings, or kids eating Tide pods. The reason was, they didn’t KNOW about those things. They only knew what they read in the paper, and unlike the internet, the paper only has so much space. Only the most interesting and useful news goes into them. All the petty stuff? You might occasionally get a special edition on a Sunday that dealt with it, but not everyone read the Sunday paper for just that reason.

So I limit how much “news” I read. I can’t vet it all, so I only read what I can vet. I don’t stress out if I don’t know everything. I share interesting news at breakfast with the family, and they share their interesting stuff. Each of us likes different things, so we get a nice cross-section of the available news of the hour. It’s enough.

And when people ask why I’m not outraged over the fact that the ultra-rich aren’t being taxed until they decide to play Gatsby and stop working altogether? I tell them I don’t know those things, because I’m reenacting or sewing or working in my garden. M’kay, thanks.

President Trump is an incredible force for good, in my opinion. I’ve watched him troll the Left while he does amazing things for our country. He’s been shot at too many times to count, and yet still gets up there without being in a bullet-proof bubble (probably to the upset of his security team). He’s not afraid to tell it how it is, in plain language that anyone can understand. He’s blunt as a brick (which is good and bad in turns, but the end result is, imo, good).

Mister Trump is something different. Mister Trump puts himself and his brand ahead of the well-being of the country. He thinks of himself first, and the United States second. He gets bored or frustrated or angry at having to follow rules he doesn’t like, and attempts to skip the line using his prestige, name, and influence. He’s always been like this, and it was not my problem when he was a private citizen. But right now, he’s doing it while in office, and he’s muddying the waters. NOW it’s my problem. And yours.

I have stated, and will continue to state, that I support President Trump. I have largely liked his policies, supported the platform he ran on, and find him to be an effective President. But there are moments when he seems to stop being Pres. Trump, and goes back to being Mr. Trump… except he can’t do that while he’s in office. It doesn’t work. It’s not a regular job, where he can go home at night and take off the mask and just be Don the dad and husband. Being President is a 24/7 job, and you NEVER get to truly step away from it. And that’s no secret; everyone knows it, going into the job. So I don’t appreciate those moments when Mr. Trump outshines or pushes aside my President.

The most recent version of this is Freedom 250 versus America 250. Freedom 250 was created by Trump and friends in 2025, to celebrate the nation’s 250th birthday. But America 250 was created in 2016 by a bipartisan group, to do the same thing. And now they’re clashing, very publicly. Technically, America 250 should be working with Trump and Freedom 250, but there are issues. A large part of those issues is that Trump touched it, and Orange Man Bad, so people want nothing to do with it. But part of it is that Trump has sort of sidled around the edge of America 250 (which was put in place before Trump’s first term, and so isn’t specifically a “fuck Trump” organization) and done things without coordinating with the group that’s supposed to be in charge.

Freedom 250 got a bunch of musicians to agree to play on the Mall in DC, who then backed out because Trump touched it. This has become a huge embarrassment for the country, in my opinion. There should have been contracts signed that precluded such things. And this is one reason why Trump’s backdoor handling of this has been less than perfect. If it had been done through the America 250 people, there would have been no option (nor an excuse, if we’re going to be honest) for people to back out of America’s birthday party.

The other side of this, is that many of us are planning a birthday party for our country while simultaneously fighting off folks who keep saying they’d rather be anywhere but here and that they hate America. It’s like having a bunch of those grumpy aunts who always show up to say bad shit at your mom’s birthday party. Who invited these folks, you want to ask. The problem is, they’re family (citizens), whether we like them or not, and so we can’t just kick them out. I don’t want Aunt Karen at my celebration, but I am going to have to put up with her and her whinging, because it’s what we do.

I need President Trump to keep doing what he’s doing. I need him to keep taking the heat and distracting the goons so that the government can get things done. It’s something he’s really good at. I need him to keep cleaning up cities, fixing national monuments, and dealing with the drug, alcohol, and mental health issues that are plaguing our cities. I need him to remember DOGE and get that cracking again. I don’t need to see reimbursement checks; I need to see him paying down our national debt. I need our men and women in uniform back home. I know he’s working on all these things and more, and I support what he’s done so far, and even how he’s done it.

But I also need Mister Trump to stop bouncing up and interfering. Every time Mr. Trump comes in, Pres. Trump has to leave, because they can’t co-exist. Until Pres. Trump is done with this job, Mr. Trump *must* take a back seat, and stay out of the way. Most of the checks and balances on our government are there for really good reasons, and if he busts them up, others will do so as well. I need him to stop giving the Dems ideas and ammo.

The fourth week of May is always a pleasant one for me. I abandon the modern world, pack up all my 18th century clothes, and head up to the Fort at No. 4 for a full week of immersion in pre-Revolutionary War British America. My first task upon arriving is always to start a fire, unless someone’s been kind enough to do so for me. Arriving on a Friday morning, as I did, I started my own fire as soon as I was able. The picture is from Friday evening, after the light failed and I was alone and finally finding a moment of peace.

That’s essentially why I like going up to the Fort. The peace just fills the place. Even when it’s busy, as it is during this time, the evenings are quiet. There’s no television, no internet (or very little), nor even any late night chores. Once the light is gone, you’re rather limited in what you can do. While I do have access to a single electric light for emergencies, I rarely use it (it’s over bright and harsh, and I have the fire, and some candles). I do read on my phone while I’m there, but I avoid the majority of social media, the news, etc. The whole idea is to envelop myself in the essence of the 18th century. It takes about 72 hours to purge myself of my modern habits, and then my 18th century self comes out of her shell.

During the time between Friday (May 22) and Wednesday (May 26), there’s a thing going on in our lower field called The Original Rendezvous. It attracts about 150 or so people, all depicting folks from the 1720s through the 1820s. They have contests for the most historically accurate set-up, cribbage tournaments, bragging contests, an amazing potluck, and so much more. I baked 18 loaves of bread on the Saturday afternoon, which was a ton of work but fairly amazing. I went and sold those loaves for $4 a loaf, and the Rendezvous folks came running to buy. Some remembered me from last year, and were ripping into their loaves the second they got them! Such an amazing feeling, feeding so many people and celebrating the trade that would have happened between travelers stopped at the Fort.

About half way through the event, I have to do laundry. This isn’t an option; I don’t have enough appropriate clothing to last a full seven days. I dress the part the entire week, even though the Fort is closed to the public on several of those days, because the Rendezvousers all stay in historically accurate clothes. So on Wednesday, I was out bright and early with soap, a bucket of hot water, and my dirty things. There was much hand scrubbing, washing, rinsing, wringing, and then hanging, but I managed to get enough things clean to make it to the end of my trip.

Of course, now that I’m home, there’s even more laundry to do. Not only am I washing all the things I wore, but also my bed things, my covers (for draping over historically inaccurate Rubbermaid tubs, for instance), and the modern clothing I’d had with me for my dinner out with a friend, and for sleeping in. Yes, in the 18th century, people slept in their shifts. No, I generally don’t, because 18th century people also dealt with a lot of bodily fluids, smells, and other stuff that my modern feelings can’t deal with. That and the idea of a spider getting into my kit while I’m asleep just skeeves me out. LOL! So I have modern sleeping things. I also use underwear, which they did not (at least nothing like we have today), and I’m thankful for that modern underthing which makes my life so much better.

My only other modernity that I always wear is my glasses. While they did have some glasses in period, I don’t have any at the moment (soon, hopefully), and so I just wear my modern ones. Not cutting one’s fingers off while cooking, and not slicing one’s foot off while using an axe are much more important to the Fort and myself than the historically accurate blind bumbling I’d do without my glasses. Still, I plan on getting some more accurate glasses made in the next year or so. While I won’t be purchasing from Townsend, they do have a good image of them here.

Chris also joined me at the fort, which was fun. He now has more accurate pants and a good hat, and I’m working on his vest and shirt. After that, it’ll be moccasins for his feet.  Yes, I’m standing on a high step and I’m still shorter than him in the photo. I’m short. He spent his time in the joinery, working on a bench for use at the Fort. We have some slabs with raw sides, leftovers from his work with the chainsaw sawmill, and those are being flattened and smoothed, and will get four legs put into them. Rough benches, indeed, but definitely historically accurate. He seems to be enjoying working with the hand tools, and it was fun watching him interact with the school kids who came through.

I had long talks with a variety of people while I was at the Fort, all enjoyable. I’ll be going up there to teach bread baking classes again, something I really enjoy doing at the Fort. I’ll also be attending the French and Indian War this coming weekend (June 6/7), if anyone’s local and wants to come find me. I’ll be with the Pequawket Alliance outside the palisade, being a citizen of New France that weekend. After that, it’ll be a while before I’m staying overnight there again. I have a lot of work to do with library presentations and ren faires through the rest of the summer. I’m truly hoping to get some writing time in for my new 18th century cookbook, because I haven’t been able to make the time yet this year. It’s been crazy busy!

The end of my week at the Fort was on Friday the 29th. I was sad to go, but mightily glad to get back to modern showers. I can live with no electricity for most things, and it doesn’t bother me at all. There’s just something about showers, though, that make everything else better. While the Fort does have an emergency shower behind the blacksmith forge, it’s cold water only, and quite… bracing. I did use it once, when the day got up to 86*F, and it was nice to be clean but I think the neighborhood was aware of my shenanigans because I squealed when that icy cold waterfall hit my tender flesh. LOL!

Being at the Fort let me shut down a lot of my inner squirrels. I was able to focus better, breathe deeper, and sleep well. My only issue was that the rope bed I use was badly in need of tightening. Chris and I did get it done on the Friday right before I went home, and we took in over a foot of slack in the ropes! The entire bed is much more solid, and I can’t wait  until I get the chance to sleep in it again.

Even loose, the rope bed with feather ticks (two!!) on top is ridiculously comfortable. I just got tired of swaying when getting in and out (the ropes hold the bed together, so it’s important to keep it tight), and the dip in the center. Now, it’s much more pretty to look at, without the swayback feel to it.

I’ve been home long enough to have recovered from the pack and unpack of the event. I’m missing the quiet of the Fort, but quite enjoying the television and social media. Well, some of it. I think what I miss most, though, is being able to step out of my front door and see the Milky Way, and all the stars and planets hanging above me. My home has too much ambient light to see much in the sky beyond the moon and brightest of the stars. But up at the Fort? You can see SO many stars. It’s gorgeous. I had a great view of not just the moon, but also Mars, Venus, and Jupiter bright in the sky. It was absolutely impressive.

A lot of people like to whinge on about how much money Trump as made while in office. I generally ignore those folks. I look at the career criminals politicians like the Clintons, Obamas, and even the newer ones like AOC and such, who have made boatloads of cash while in office, and I don’t care if Trump has some stuff going. What he isn’t doing is taking a salary from the American people. What he isn’t doing is backstreet trading. I can live with it.

And then I run across this gem (H.R. 1761, designed to get a Trump faced $250 bill released). I have one word for this: NO.

When we founded this country (you know, 250 years ago, the very thing we’re celebrating this year), our Founders decided that we should not at any time have living presidents on currency. They had a lot of reasons for that, but the biggest was to avoid the appearance of America being a monarchy. Washington refused several times to be on coins. A law forbidding the minting of coins with living persons on it was enacted in 1866 (just after the Civil War ended). In practice, we didn’t even see a coin with a dead president on it until 1909, when they minted the Lincoln cent (for his 100th birthday).

Has the law been broken? Well, yes and no. It hasn’t been broken, in that no one has minted a coin with a living person’s image on it without permission of Congress, so no law was broken. Congress has given permission a couple of times. The first time was Calvin Coolidge, who was president during the Sesquicentennial (Cited from: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/ever-wonder-why-only-dead-presidents-people-are-on-u-s-coins.261976/) or 150th anniversary of our country’s founding. He didn’t take center stage, but shared the coin with George Washington, and was behind Washington in the actual imprint.

The other notable exception was that the treasury minted a JFK half dollar only a year after Kennedy’s death. But he was still dead.

I know Trump thinks the world of himself. He’s very self centered, while still being able to be a decent leader. I like that he has used his strengths to make our country better. While I don’t think that his face on legal tender will make the country fall apart, I do FIRMLY believe that our current laws should be left the hell alone. HR 1761 wants to abolish the rule stating only dead presidents can be on currency, while also putting Trump’s face on a $250 bill.

As I said on FaceBook when a friend brought it up, “I like Trump just fine, but I also like that we don’t put living presidents faces on money, even commemorative stuff. This is not a good thing imo. And the easiest way to tell that this is not a good thing is to ask myself, would I want a Democratic president to do this? The answer is no. I don’t want to have the face of a living Democratic president on money that might pass through my hands. Now I know we can say that it’s unlikely that I will ever hold $250 bill in my hand, but it is what it is. This is not a precedent or a law that I would like to break. It’s a bad idea.”

Look, there are a lot of things we could be doing. I, for one, would like to know what DOGE is doing right now. I’d like to get our men and women out of Iraq. I’d like to see us move to a peacetime setting at home (as much as is possible). Let’s focus on fixing the education system. Work on the economy. Release the Epstein Files. There’s SO MUCH he and the government could be doing.

Instead, now he’s bugging Congress to turn over long-standing stuff that has good reason to be there. Is this really the moment we want to talk about putting living faces on currency? Why? I have to ask: what is it being used to distract from? Argh.

If we want to truly commemorate our country’s 250th birthday, fine. Let’s issue a 250th coin or bill, sure. But why not use names that were a PART OF that amazing day? People who’ve never made it onto currency before? Betsy Ross. Nathaniel Greene. James Forten. James Lafayette. It’s not like there aren’t a TON of people who were integral to the founding and formation of this country, who could grace a coin or bill. Sigh… I do not like this hill, and I am not willing to die on it. But I’m also ridiculously tired of reporting people who are saying that since only dead people are on money, they should off Trump. Because frankly, that’s the next step in this. And I DO NOT LIKE IT.

I worked at NHRF for two weekends, and they were so different from one another it’s hard to even describe.

Our first weekend, Saturday was raw. The high for the day was 56*F, and let me tell you, it was raining buckets. So it was cold, wet, and miserable. It’s not often I call uncle, but at the end of the day on Saturday, I begged my sweetie to take me home. We drove back an hour and a half so we could shower, warm up, have a hot drink, and sleep in a warm bed rather than our cots. Luckily our canvas tent is extremely well made. No leaks, not even a minor one. Could we have stayed? Sure… but I wouldn’t have been in a great place to work on Sunday.

Saturday, the Blue Haired Fairy worked for me. Sunday was supposed to be a repeat. But after all the rain and misery, both BHF and girlfriend were miserable, and coming down with something. They left, and I ran the booth, while also trying to do garbage runs and fetch water at faire. Not a great combo (there’s a reason BHF does it at this fair). I managed, but barely, and I was grumpy a lot of it. I tried not to let it show to patrons and fellow vendors tho, and definitely not to my volunteers.

I was down volunteers, too. I should have had 8 for the first weekend, and had 6. That’s not an undoable number, though. I remember the days when it was just me and one other person. I did that for 2 years… but the fair was also much smaller as well. Frankly, I should have a staff of 12, so I can have shifts. As it is, these amazing folks worked from about 8am until 6pm, basically non-stop. And I did mention, they’re volunteers. Because NHRF is a charity, all our scut work teams run on volunteers. There are very few paid positions, and those few are only paid gas and essentials. We give our money to the food bank and meals on wheels (which in our area does a lot of work with veterans and cancer patients). So these guys did this heavy, taxing work, for hours, in the cold and wet… because I say nice things and gave them plastic volunteer cups and 3D printed cauldrons (thanks Chris!). They’re amazing.

Second weekend, it was in the 80s both days. People who didn’t come in the rain ended up coming Saturday. We usually get about 3800 to 4000 people a day at NHRF, with a rain day being considered good at 1800 (which we met this year on the rain days). On Saturday, we had 5600 people walk through our gates. Well, 5600 paying customers (we don’t count those who have free passes). I cannot even begin to tell you how busy it was. It was insane.

So my group is the General Team. We are responsible for making sure there are garbage cans with bags at regular intervals, that those trash bins don’t overflow and are taken to our dumpster as they fill up… and getting big bottles of water that we have at the various stages and performing areas, for those who need it. It might be a bit warm, but it’s wet and it’ll keep you from getting dehydrated, and it’s free. We do several other things as well, but those are the two big ones.

On Saturday at about 12:30pm, our fair ran out of garbage bags. I found out at 12:40pm. I contacted “our guy” who made an emergency trip to get more, but it took time. At 1pm, while our guy was still out and about trying to find the right size bags, we discovered two more things. First, we were out of water (and that means water for our “green room” that provides food, water, and help to performers and vendors and volunteers), and second, the health inspector showed up unannounced. As the trash barrels overflowed and people just started dumping trash everywhere, the inspector was talking to my immediate boss, who was trying to distract the inspector long enough for the team to be back in production.

I split my team of 5. We three ladies did trash, and the two guys did water bottle delivery. We smashed it, and got everything done, and all the gross trash picked up. By end of day, all was in good stead, and we retired to a nice meal with friends at a restaurant. But the day… oy vey. At one point, I was dealing with a very large bag of trash with no wagon or wheelbarrow to help, so I had to drag it. I was not strong enough to lift it. But the bag broke, and I had a snail trail of icky juicy garbage to clean up. Friends showed up at that moment, aghast, and I just laughed. This is what I do for NHRF. It’s honest work, and it helps my community, and as gross as it was, it’s worth it.

We beat all our attendance records this year. Our little fair, in its 21st year, has grown in size several times since I joined it, and had grown long before I arrived. We’ve been well supported by the community, too. They know their “fun” dollars go right back to their neighbors in need, and that we have an incredibly small overhead because we all watch out for one another.

Working for NHRF has taught me a lot of things. It’s taught me that there are some people who you just have to shake your head and walk away from. It’s taught me that I have inner strengths I never dreamed I’d have. I’ve learned how to be an effective leader, which still blows my mind. I have a huge group of people who do dirty, filthy things, deal with port-a-potty hazmat situations, stinky garbage, irate patrons… all because I thank them, feed them at times, and give them trinkets. They come back to work on MY team, year after year. It makes me proud… and humble.

I often quote some anonymous person who said, “There are no bad employees, only bad managers.” While that’s not always entirely true, I can say with authority that good managers (or bosses of any kind) can make you stay and WANT to stay even when the job itself sucks donkey ass. Working on my team is like that. We deal with all the crap no one else wants to, and we do it efficiently and quickly. Most of the time, no one even notices us doing our jobs, which means we’re doing it right. If my team fails, that’s on ME. I strive to learn things every year. And I hear from my team members every year, over and over, “We love working for Allyson. She’s amazing!” I suffer from enough impostor syndrome that I struggle not to negate their statements, but I keep my mouth shut. Not today, Satan! This year, one of my hardest workers had a new job he started only 3 weeks ago. He told them coming in, “I work for NHRF as a volunteer, so I cannot work these days.” Luckily, it’s a local business, and they know how much we do for the locals. He had to work one of the days (farm with an emergency trumps everything) but was there the other three. And he worked his ass off, laughing the whole time.

Did I mention we do all this while dressed up as Vikings, medieval ladies, and in one notable case this year, a lady gnome with a tall red conical hat and a beard? LOL… My team interact with patrons as we go about our work, and people recognize us as staples at the fair. There are a ridiculous amount of photos of “people hauling garbage” because we do it in character and with good attitude.

My fair ended with a quiet Sunday evening. I had Chris pick me up Monday after most people were already off site, so we didn’t have to muck about with backing the trailer up. I slept like a log after sitting around a quiet last fire with a couple of friends still on site. We talked politics. One is Libertarian (big L), and one is “middle, independent” but not suffering from TDS. It was interesting talking. Big L was concerned about the ongoing police action (as am I), supportive of infrastructure fixes (East Wing, Reflecting Pool, etc), and mixed over various health policies. Middle independent was all over the board, but not stupid about anything, and listened when I explained a couple of things. I gave her some stuff to go look up, and she did just that when she went back to her car for the night. It was… nice. Three different political views, all talking honestly, giving facts and opinions (clearly stated), and receipts as necessary. I wish all my political discussions were like that, because while we didn’t agree on everything (even vehemently disagreed on a couple of things), there was no rancor, no drama. Just discussion, and an exchange of information for future thought. As it should be.

On Friday, I go to the Fort for a little over a week. I’m looking forward to that, though I’m more looking forward to a few nights in my own bed, stretched out and not worried about tipping my cot over or freezing because I got the zipper stuck on my sleeping bag. LOL… Oh, and btw, the featured image is one I took of our faire on the first Friday evening, before all the rain started. Not everyone is set up yet, but you can see the line of canvas tents across the top of the lake. One of those is mine. My “home away from home.”

What is the proper way to make a budget? I went to Grok, to see what it had to say.

Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Budget

Calculate Your Net Monthly Income

Start with your take-home pay (after taxes, deductions, and benefits). Include reliable sources like salary, freelance gigs, side hustles, child support, or investment income. If income varies, average the last 3–6 months. Example: $4,000 salary + $500 side income = $4,500 total monthly income.

Track and List All Your Expenses

Review bank/credit card statements, receipts, and bills from the past 1–3 months. Categorize them: Fixed expenses (predictable): Rent/mortgage, utilities, insurance, loan payments, subscriptions. Variable expenses (fluctuate): Groceries, gas, dining out, entertainment, shopping. Be honest and thorough—small daily spends (coffee, apps) add up.

Categorize and Compare Income vs. Expenses

Add up total expenses and subtract from income. Positive balance → Room to save or pay debt. Negative balance → Need to cut spending. Use a simple spreadsheet, app (like Mint, YNAB, or Excel), or free worksheet from consumer.gov.

Set Financial Goals

Decide what the “extra” money should do: build an emergency fund (3–6 months of expenses), pay off debt, save for a house/vacation, or invest for retirement. Make goals specific, measurable, and realistic (e.g., “Save $200/month for emergency fund”).

Choose a Budgeting Method 

Pick one that fits your style: 50/30/20 Rule (simple & popular): 50% needs (housing, food, transport, minimum debt), 30% wants (dining out, hobbies, fun), 20% savings/debt payoff.
Zero-Based Budgeting: Assign every dollar a job until income minus expenses = $0. Great for detailed control.
Envelope System: Allocate cash (or digital “envelopes”) for categories like groceries; once empty, stop spending.
Pay Yourself First: Automate savings/investments right after payday, then budget the rest.

Create Your Plan and Allocate Money

Build a monthly template. Adjust categories so everything fits. Example for $4,500 income using 50/30/20:
Needs (50%): $2,250
Wants (30%): $1,350
Savings/Debt (20%): $900

Track, Review, and Adjust Monthly

Check progress weekly. At month-end, compare actual vs. planned spending. Life changes (new job, inflation), so tweak as needed. Consistency beats perfection.

***

That’s a nice breakdown of what I do to balance my budget. Sometimes, your budget gets upside down. You owe more than you’re bringing in. This is where we are with the American budget. This requires you (in this case “We The People”) to cut costs in many different places and be frugal until the upside down part is paid off. This is what our government should be doing. And while Conservatives are better at budgeting than Liberals, that does not mean they are GOOD at budgeting. Everyone in the government is spending “someone else’s money” and therefore they’re doing a poor job of it.

This government (and by that I mean Trump’s administration, the next three years, and possibly into Vance and Freitas’s terms) NEEDS to make a damn budget. I don’t mean whatever it is they’ve done over the past 25 years. I mean a real, honest to goodness budget. They need to do housekeeping and they need to show us, the American people, WE THE PEOPLE what they are spending and where.

I realize there will be places where it just says, “Security – TS Clearance” or something similar, and we’re going to have to take it at face value. That’s fine. It’s when we don’t see any of those costs that it becomes a problem. When it looks like security, or farm aid, or bailing out car companies or banks, or whatever is free (even when we know it’s only “free at point of service”), there’s a problem. People lose sight of the money that is being spent. That’s why there’s so much fraud being discovered right now.

Imagine, for a moment, how much fraud would be exposed and expunged if our government were required to do a public (or mostly public, within security barriers) audit every four years (right before a President leaves office, for instance)? It would be glorious. It would show the American people just how much a President has actually done for the country.

So how do we calculate the net monthly income of the United States? Well, I looked into it, and it’s roughly $23.6 trillion dollars per year, or about $1.967 trillion dollars per month. In looking this stuff up on Grok, it’s limited in what it can access, but it looks as though we’re currently spending about $2 trillion dollars a month, so a bit more in monthly expenses than we make. Obviously, the details are much larger than what I’m writing about here, but I have to work in generalities because again, there isn’t enough transparency for any of us peons to see what’s actually being paid out or taken in. We can only guess. And that, my friends, is a real problem.

We need to cut spending. Everyone seems to agree (or mostly everyone… all of the Right and portions of the Left agree). What can’t be agreed on is WHAT we should cut, spending-wise. The Right wants to fund military and some government oversight stuff. The Left wants social safety nets. Of the two, our Constitution seems to indicate the Right is correct and the Left should be doing its social safety nets at the state or community level, NOT the Federal level. But it’s hard (for me, at least) to get overly judgmental about bad spending on the Left when I’m also seeing bad spending on the Right (for example, farm subsidies, abstinence only sex ed come to mind, but there’s pork in all those barrels). Don’t get me wrong: I don’t want the Left spending money on songbirds in Denmark or trans rights in Africa. I just also do not want to pay farmers not to farm (especially right now) or to bolster the price of food (never a good thing imo), or to teach something that has proven it just doesn’t work.

The only way, in my VERY strong opinion, to get past this whole pork barrel bullshit, is to budget from the ground up. There should never be “cutting something from the budget” involved. It should be, “We can’t put that INTO the budget, because we’ve run out of money.” Period.

And folks? We’re the richest country in the world. We need to live inside our damn means. That means tightening our belts for a while. It might mean we need to see a number of our stores close (do we really need to support 8 different coffee shops inside a one mile radius? I think not). Money needs to be shifted, and start paying the important stuff.

Looking at all the numbers above, I begin to understand how much DOGE did, and didn’t do. Sure, they rooted out millions of dollars in fraud and waste. But that’s not even a single day worth of budget. It’s not even a measurable PORTION of a single day of budget. That’s how tiny it was.

We can’t keep living the way we’re living, folks. Time to buckle down. Buy less. Grow more. Waste less. Support local companies, because they’re literally the ones that keep us fed. Look at how we fed the nation during WWI and WWII. Look at how we dealt with the Depression. We need to learn, or re-learn those lessons, so we don’t have to repeat them.

Time’s a’wastin’, boys.

Pres. Trump first proposed a new ballroom for We The People back in 2010, when Obama was in office. He suggested it heavily several times between then and July 2025, at which time he announced it would be going forward.

Back when he first mentioned the need for a ballroom, Trump suggested he’d fund it entirely himself. A few million dollars was the proposed cost. Fast forward to July 2025, and that cost had gone up to $200 million. Between then and today, an extra $200 million has been added. And now, the GOP is saying they want an extra $1 BILLION added, but this time out of taxpayer funds.

I am a proponent of the ballroom. We need a secure facility that can host the kind of shindigs the President should be having. The old East Wing was in sad condition, and it needed a refurb at the very least. I have been entirely on board with this project since I first heard of it back in 2025.

I am not a proponent of spending a billion bucks more on it. At every single point, Pres. Trump has talked about how this ballroom would be funded by himself and others, privately. Hearing the addition of $1B to the cost really made me antsy. And then I started thinking, and investigating.

So after doing a small quest, I discovered several things. First and foremost, this is a multi-year request for $1 billion, for security only. It is NOT for the ballroom itself. That is still being privately funded, even after the price hikes after they discovered all the damage. “The funds are appropriated for fiscal year 2026 but remain available until September 30, 2029 (i.e., multi-year availability, spanning roughly FY2026–FY2029).” (CNN) They are also part of a larger $30 B package that the GOP are asking for in regards to immigration, ICE, and general security. There are confusing statements made all over the place about what the $1B is meant to cover, but everyone agrees it absolutely covers the new security measures for the ballroom/East Wing area. There are questions, because of wording by the GOP folks themselves, whether it also covers the rest of the White House. In a few places, they talk about it only being part of the ballroom, and in other places they talk about how it’s all the spots inside the fence.

The very fact that we don’t have wording for this stuff bothers me. When I supported Trump, I was standing for transparency in government. While he’s definitely (imo at least) been the most transparent President in my remembrance, this is being obfuscated. Perhaps that’s to do with security, which I can appreciate, but it’s still our money they’re talking about using. I’d like at least the generalities. Right now, we have very vague wording from the Senate Judiciary Committee, but no line-item breakdown has been released.

I want our President, First Lady, VP and Second Lady, and all dignitaries to be safe when they’re working. I hate that the shooting at the media dinner means that it’s the last time we’ll see Vance and Trump together at a dinner outside of the White House. Someone did a stupid, letting almost the entire chain of command be at that dinner. It just can’t happen again, and that makes me sad. so yes, we absolutely must harden the White House (not just for Trump, but for all future Presidents and their guests).

It’s a lot of money. A billion bucks over 3 years can be more easily understood like this:

• $333,333,333.00 per year
• $27.7 million per month
• $913,242 per day

Those are big numbers. Is the security worth a million bucks a day? Is that a reasonable number? The reality is, none of us plebs can really tell if it’s worth it or not. We don’t have access to enough information to make anything even remotely close to an educated guess. And yes, that bothers me.

I am still VERY much a member of the “less government is good government” club. This security package isn’t necessarily “more” government, but money is fungible and I worry about a stray million being lost here or there. When we get into numbers this large, that is quite literally a reality. And I’m not naive enough to believe that ONLY the Left makes those kinds of appropriations of cash. I know the Right does it as well.

Bottom line? This is not a bait and switch. It’s a (very) big addition that the Right as a whole wants to add to Trump’s ballroom project, and since he didn’t suggest it, he shouldn’t have to pay out of pocket for it. Not that he could. He’s rich, but his pockets aren’t bottomless. On the other hand, my pockets aren’t bottomless either, and things ARE getting tight. I don’t regret Trump being in office, but I do think that some reminders might need to be forthcoming.

I am having a moment of cognitive dissonance.

I am brand new to “the Right.” In some ways, I’m only here under protest, because the Left has scampered so far Left that I can’t be there anymore. There are definitely points I’ve been “far right of center” on since early on (2A comes to mind), but those were outliers. I’ve always been into rainbows and ren faires. I still am. A good portion of my friends are gay or pansexual. Many are pagan. These days a larger portion of them are also Conservative, but that’s due to attrition and stupidity, not me.

So explain to me, please, why I am schooling conservatives on FaceBook about the Founders of our country? Chris responded to my question by telling me that most people haven’t read the things I’ve read, or read it all so long ago that they’ve forgotten, or they’re just ignorant because that’s a truism on the Right as much as on the Left (well, maybe not AS MUCH, but you know what I mean). But that should not be true.

Trump posted this on his FaceBook page:

I have to admit, I cringed when I read it. One doesn’t “ace” a cognitive exam. And it’s not … a crowning achievement. I’m glad he passed. I didn’t have any concern that he would fail. But this just looks stupid. I hate it when he makes himself look stupid. *sigh*

However, it sparked commentary. I don’t usually read the comments, because most of the people are just plain stupid. But I decided to go read today. I saw the following (names removed as I’m not asking permission):

“A requirement to be a veteran before becoming Commander In Chief would also be a good thing.”

My response was immediate: “There are a lot of very poignant and important reasons our Framers did not want that. While it would be *nice*, I could not in good conscience support any bill suggesting that it be required.” And the response to my response was basically, “Please elaborate.”

Now, the gentleman in question was not being rude. There was no name calling, but there didn’t seem to be a warm fuzzy feeling either. It was a challenge. I didn’t feel like spending 4 hours getting all my receipts together (I have them, but I wasn’t on my computer at the time and finding it all while on my phone is difficult at best). While doing that, I received this gem:

“Oh, you mean like General George Washington, Colonel James Madison, Colonel Thomas Jefferson, Lt Col Alexander Hamilton, Lt Col James Monroe, and 17 other veterans? SMDH…”

I patiently (okay somewhat impatiently, but not rudely) explained that my problem wasn’t with vets being President, it was with a requirement that the President be a vet. Now I’m getting crickets, of course. But I wanted to share my reply to the original poster:

“(Name Redacted) https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2013/07/why-founding-fathers-would-object-todays-military/66668/ … This says it better than me (tho I disagree with parts of it). But to quote one of the important bits… “The founders also, we well know, had a pronounced fear of and antipathy toward standing armies — large, permanent, professional military establishments — because of the dual temptations for domestic oppression and international adventurism by those in power, the drain on public resources, and, not least, the not-infrequent aberrant behavior of those in uniform.”

To require all presidential candidates to have served in the military would be to take power away from the citizenry. While I find a vast number of today’s citizenry to be abhorrent, it’s still my duty to give all due consideration to the Framers’ opinions on such things. I don’t believe they could have imagined today’s political climate, but they knew all forms of politics were subject to corruption. Hence why we are a constitutional Republic and not a democracy.

Or TLDR, it’s complicated but the Founders were worried about standing armies and their leaders. I suspect most had read the stories of Rome’s heyday, and wanted to avoid the trap of bread and circuses.”

I stand by my statement (and neither person has written back to me in the couple of hours since I wrote that). The Founders of this great country had just walked away from an oppressive government run by a tyrant. To insist that all Presidents going forward be military would be to exchange one tyrant for another. And while we can play nice with Britain now, at the time it was pretty touch and go.

Now… if you want to discuss requirements for VOTERS, that’s a whole other kettle of fish.

Initially, the only people who could vote in a newly formed America were white, adult males who owned property and paid taxes. Those rules were set by the States, not by the Federal government. “The framers and state leaders viewed voting as a privilege tied to independence, virtue, and stake in the community—not a universal natural right for all adults (https://theamericanleader.org/timeline-era/expanding-white-mens-right-to-vote-1787-1856/).”

Today, the bar for voters is so low that our Founding Fathers would weep. You have to be a citizen (but only 36 states require some form of ID). You have to be at least 18 years old. Most states have residency requirements, and you have to register. Felons can’t vote while incarcerated (except in a few states, where they can continue to do so), but few states restrict them from doing so once they’re back in society. Only 39 states allow a judge to take away the right to vote if someone is mentally incapable of voting (when legally adjudicated as incompetent).

Despite this deplorably low bar, only 64% of citizens voted in the last two Presidential elections… and they were considered historically unusual for the number of voters. Only about 50% of eligible voters voted in the most recent midterms.

Yes, everyone who didn’t vote is a Deplorable. And I stand by that.

How did we get here? The freest nation on earth and we can’t get 3/4 of our citizens to vote.

I like Starship Troopers (Heinlein) method for choosing voters. Only veterans can vote, but anyone can serve. If you want to serve, they’re legally bound to find a job you can do, even if that’s just greeting people at a doorway. Your service to your country buys your franchise. It means you have skin in the game. I’ve always found that to be… a good idea. It’s not a guarantee that the veteran is a better person than the general citizenry, but it’s a better indicator than what we currently have.

  This book is an important one for anyone interested in politics, in my opinion. This quote, though, is important right now. RIGHT now.

Politeness is dying. And it’s considerably more significant than a riot, though we’ve plenty of those, as well, despite their “mostly peaceful” monikers. While I’ve no desire to go back to a time where I would be forced to wear a corset every day and was bound to cook, clean, and bear children for my husband simply because I’m female… I do want to live in a time where doing so is not maligned or looked down upon. Or bad-mouthed.

I’m so very tired of many things right now, but the impoliteness is really getting to me right now. You can disagree with someone and be polite. It’s why the South invented the term, “Bless your heart!” Everyone knows if a Southern person says that to you, it’s the equivalent of saying to fuck off… but it’s not the SAME. It’s polite.

Why does it matter if we’re using polite language? I mean, if everyone knows that the polite language means the same thing as the brutal language, why bother to use the polite version? Because it’s social lubricant, that’s why.

Right now, the level of impoliteness is so damn bad. There’s sand in the gears, and no social lubricant at all. Important parts that really require lubrication are not getting it, and instead are being actively fed with things that gum up the works. That thin veil of politeness that was used until sometime in the 80s? That kept the machinery running. And now it isn’t. The machinery, the social machinery, is breaking down.

I will say that I noticed it first on the Right. That doesn’t mean it appeared there first, mind you… it’s just where I saw it. I ran into a couple of pundits (Ann Coulter immediately comes to mind, and Ben Shapiro from 10 years ago but NOT today) who really bothered me, and it put me off anything to do with the Right for a long time. Chris will tell you that anytime he tried to talk to me about something positive, I’d pull out, “Well, that Ann woman was just swearing and being a shit.” It was not good.

At the time, say 10 years ago, I didn’t see it on the Left. I see it daily on the Left, now. That could be entirely my perception, or it could be that the Left has gotten worse, or a combination of that and other factors, but the bottom line is that it doesn’t matter. Whether the Left learned it from the Right, or vice versa, or it all just happened at the same time, we’re here now. People are being so rude on a daily basis that it’s become endemic.

What scares me the most about all of it? America is (in my very strong opinion) the best country at the moment. We’re the most free, the most responsible (other than fiscally), the most helpful. We’re also the cheapest for our citizenry. And our people spend a good portion of their day complaining about how awful it all is. They have no idea what it’s like in other countries. Gas is $5.30 per gallon right now in Canada. In Britain it ranges from $7.50 to $8.10 per gallon. And those are the “free” countries. Housing is more expensive in Canada and Britain. Health care is, too, even if the cost is hidden. Food is ridiculously more expensive in both of those countries. Our citizens have no idea how they are faring in the world. They really don’t.

Our society is dying. If we don’t fix this soon… and by soon I mean in the next year or two at the outside… we’re not going to have a country anymore.