New book!

I’m happy to announce the release of Devon Layne’s newest book, Adams’ Apples. I guess I should say that I am also Devon Layne.

I don’t usually make a big deal out of books by my alter ego because most people who read this blog are not interested in erotica. But Adams’ Apples in no way resembles erotic writing. So why release it as a Devon Layne book? Because it’s about an inherently sexual situation, regardless of its lack of explicit sexual acts. And many people can’t tell the difference.

Now, here’s the whole story… or as much of it as I think you can handle.

Back in roughly 1972, when I was first contemplating becoming a playwright, my first father-in-law gave me a book and suggested I turn it into a stage play or, better yet, a musical. I read the book and agreed it was a fine satire after the definition of Greek satires. I’d recently seen a rock musical version of The Birds by Aristophanes. I agreed the book would make a good musical. And I set to work on it. To no avail. Life changed meanings and instead of school, I now had a job, a wife, and a dog. My writing was relegated to a back burner.

But I’d always felt the story—though as a post-World War II narrative, it was vastly out of date—was a great concept. In it, a new nuclear power plant in Mississippi exploded with a force much higher than a nuclear bomb. Mississippi was obliterated, which seemed not to make much difference to anyone. And all the men on earth were sterilized by a new wavelength of radiation. That is something people cared about.

All men except one who happened to have been trapped a mile deep in a lead mine at the time. He emerges as the new Adam with a world full of wannabe Eves.

I started a search back in 2014 for the book and was unsuccessful. In January this year, when I announced to my patrons that I would start writing the story at last, a reader was able to point me to the original book: Mr. Adam by Pat Franks, published in 1946. By that time, I was nearly ten chapters into the new book, drawing on some of my memories of the original. The result was Adams’ Apples.

World War III was fought in outer space. It was over in an hour and no one won. Except Jack Adams, who was the only male of the species not caught in the viral fallout of the war that sterilized all the men on earth. Jack was the orbiting satellite repairman who inadvertently triggered the war. Now it seems every woman in the world wants one of Jack Adams’ Apples.

This new and original story is based on the 1946 book, Mr. Adam, by Pat Frank. While the theme is the same and some characters have similar names, the story is updated from 1946 to a mythical time fifteen or twenty years from now. It is far more a lampoon of our own times than a repeat of 1946.

I tried to think of every major phenomenon of our society and lampoon it. News reporters, preachers, bartenders, police, Homeland Security, the military, ICE, the president, protesters, militant 2^nd amendment people, doctors, the media, women, police, men, racists, hospitals, prostitution, terrorists, fertility clinics, the space program, bureaucracy, congress, committees in general, editors, parenthood, vitamins, MIB, the CDC, WHO, lawyers, Wall Street… I know I’ve missed some, but I tried to get as many ridiculous barbs in at each of them as I could. All the time, I kept thinking “This is way over the top. No one will ever believe this.”

Then we got hit by COVID-19.

Suddenly, I couldn’t write things fast enough to have them down before they were on national news. No one was going to believe I wrote this before the current waves of hysteria. Now, my ridiculous lampoon of our society reads more like a book on current affairs. If only I could have made it more ridiculous!

But there you have it. My book is now released. Get it at

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08DF9YPRS (Kindle)

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/adams-apples-devon-layne/1137379179?ean=2940162928683 (ePUB)

Bookapy: https://bookapy.com/s/176/adams-apples (either Kindle or ePUB)

Or read it online for free at http://www.devonlayne.com/releases/adamsapples/

Or get the eBook for free when you join my patrons at the $5 per month tier at https://www.patreon.com/NathanEverett

Is that all?

No, of course not. I’ve been busy cleaning old projects off my desktop. This week, I’ve also finished and sent to editors:

My rewrite of American Royalty 1: Coming of Age, currently going under the name Rise and Awaken, but subject to change.

My long-delayed sequel to Ritual Reality, The Props Master 2: A Touch of Magic.

And I’m currently working on the draft of For Mayhem or Madness, my third Dag Hamar book which fits nicely between the two already released.

It’s going to be fun keeping up in the next few weeks!

Enjoy the reading.

It’s in the pool

There is a sign in our shower room that says, “Sunscreen clogs the filters in the pool. Please shower thoroughly before swimming or using the hot tub.”

Makes sense.

I watched as a guest stood from the lounge chair he occupied, soaking up the rays and walked over to dive into the pool. I couldn’t help myself.

“Uh… I noticed you didn’t shower before diving into the pool.”

“I showered before I came to lie beside the pool.”

“But you put sunscreen on, right?”

“When I’ve been lying in the sun sweating, I want to get straight into the water. I don’t want to delay things with going to the showers again.”

“But the pool rules say to shower so the sunscreen doesn’t clog the pool filters.”

“Oh, showering doesn’t help. Sunscreen is waterproof.”

“Then why reapply sunscreen when you get out of the pool?”

“Well, I don’t use that much sunscreen anyway. What I use won’t hurt the pool’s filtration system.”

“So, everyone could wear the amount of sunscreen you wear and no one would have to shower before using the pool?”

“Everybody isn’t going to do that. The rule is there for a reason.”

“I see. But you depend on everyone else obeying the rule so you aren’t inconvenienced by it.”

“What are you getting at?”

“You don’t wear a mask either, do you?”

Willful Ignorance

I spend entirely too much time looking up information reported in Memes on my Facebook feed. I’ve managed to ignore most, but occasionally, I find something I just can’t buy the way it’s expressed. And, I find that the majority of the errors are errors of omission. People have latched onto some bit of information (possibly true and possibly false) that upholds their belief and ignore any other information that might contradict that. It is an act of a well-known psychological problem called willful ignorance. According to Psychology Today:

Willful ignorance occurs when individuals realize at some level of consciousness that their beliefs are probably false, or when they refuse to attend to information that would establish their falsity.

The difference between willful ignorance and true self-deception is subtle, but important. Willful ignorance tends to be more adaptive than self-deception. Willful ignorance is a cognitive strategy that people adopt to promote their emotional well-being, whereas self-deception is less controllable and more likely to be detrimental. Although willful ignorance and self-deception sometimes help individuals to avoid unpleasant facts, in the long run, it is usually better to confront reality than to avoid or deny it. Because the self-deceived person fully believes things that are untrue, she has fewer resources for correcting her course when her erroneous beliefs lead her astray.

The distinction between willful ignorance and self-deception has interesting implications for moral judgment. In general, we probably blame willfully ignorant people more for their actions and attitudes than those we suspect of self-delusion. Suppose that you are annoyed by a friend’s enthusiastic support of a political candidate who you believe is racist, sexist, and lacks any sense of human decency. If you believe that your friend is self-deceived—that he actually believes that the candidate is well-intentioned, has a master plan for the country, and harbors no racial or gender bias—then you may be willing to tell yourself a story such as that your friend is generally a good person who has fallen under some bad influences. But if you believe that your friend actually does know better—that he willfully ignores the candidate’s flaws because he tacitly approves of what you view as the candidate’s bigotry and unsavory character—then you are less likely to excuse your friend’s advocacy.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/why-we-blame/201709/willful-ignorance-and-self-deception

I really try not to engage in the online scuffles brought about by this phenomenon, and I find it in every direction. So, to satisfy my desire to “set the record straight,” I’m including a few Memes and posts here that I’ve taken the time to research.

This is not a picture of Henriquez. Before we explain, we should note the police encounter that resulted in Floyd’s death in May 2020 began with a report about a counterfeit $20 bill passed at a store, not with an arrest warrant or an investigation into Floyd’s alleged criminal history. So far, examination of the alleged counterfeit bill has not been released. Now, from Snopes.com:

Furthermore, the claims made in this meme are either exaggerated or outright fabricated. While Floyd was indeed arrested for his involvement in a home robbery in 2007 (we conducted a detailed analysis of Floyd’s criminal record, including the robbery from 2007, in this article), no evidence suggests that Henriquez was pregnant, or that Floyd threatened to kill her baby. Henriquez was injured during the incident, though the police report says the injuries were inflicted by another man, not Floyd. But the above-displayed image does not illustrate the extent of her injuries because the picture isn’t of her.

This is actually a photograph of Andrea Sicignano, a student who was reportedly assaulted and raped in Madrid in 2018. Sicignano posted these images of herself to her Facebook page, along with a message detailing her attack.

https://www.snopes.com/.../is-this-really-aracely-henriquez/

My comment: For Pete's sake! How many times do you people need to be told "white privilege" doesn't mean you don't have to work. It means you weren't likely to be turned down for a job because you are white. It means people didn't cross the street to avoid passing you because you are white. It means you weren't barred from a restaurant because you are white. It means you weren't denied health services or a mortgage because you are white. It means police didn't stop your car because you are white. Get it through your heads. You're just showing how privileged you are by not having to think about those things.

A reply to my comment: I’ll buy you a one way plane ticket to any other country of your choice, if you promise never to return.

Willful Ignorance: Preferring to believe what you want to believe rather than accept other information.

This is based on a deliberate misinterpretation of what is happening today, and some of that has been the radicalization of both sides of this issue. On one side are those who minimalize the Black Lives Matter movement and the complaint of discrimination. On the other are those who want to paint hundreds of years of slavery going back to the first slaves brought to America. Both are wrong.

No one here needs to apologize for what happened before the Civil War. You weren’t alive then. What is at issue is the continuing discrimination and oppression of people who may not even have been descended from slaves but because of the color of their skin, face a higher percentage of police brutality attacks, are more likely to be stopped “on suspicion” for anything than a white person, object to the glorification of those who did practice slavery, and are kept in lower paying jobs, lower quality housing, lower quality schools, and lower quality lifestyle. It is not what happened before that an apology is needed. In fact, an apology isn’t going to help any of the real problems. What is needed is a full stop to discriminatory behavior. Full. Stop.

After you do that, you might feel the need to apologize to someone.

And BTW, Japan acknowledged its actions and apologized several times over.

This doesn’t all go one way, lest you think I’m just mad at right wing idiocy. This post is in keeping with my opinion that COVID-19 is a dangerous contagion and we should do what’s necessary to contain it. But it erred in the other direction.

This post being widely circulated goes for the most sensational data that can be extrapolated. At the heart of its misleading data is the assumption that 100% of the US population will become infected with COVID-19. It’s difficult to get any real projections of how many will become infected in the US and the less that is done to prevent it, the higher the numbers go. Most that I’ve been able to locate believe between 10% and 40% of the population will contract the disease. It’s still terrible! We didn’t need to see the numbers based on 100% infection to realize the virus is dangerous, particularly since those who are most likely to spread it are those who believe they will never be infected themselves. Let’s look at the numbers again.

10-40% Infected:  32,820,000 to 131,280,000

Number dead: 328,200 to 1,312,800 (current number is 137,200)

6,235,800-24,943,200 hospitalized

5,907,600-23,630,400 with permanent heart damage

3,282,000-13,128,000 with permanent lung damage

984,699-3,938,400 have strokes

656,400-2,625,600 with neurological muscle weakness

656,400-2,625,600 with loss of cognitive function

These more conservative numbers based on doing what is necessary to stop the spread are frightening enough. The real problem is that there will be more than 164,100,000 people in the United States who simply don’t care. (My made-up number based on half the population.)

No. That is not quite factual. While pneumonia and flu are counted with COVID deaths because they have the same general test results, it did not drop the numbers by 43,000. The discrepancy in the numbers on the CDC website are based on two counting methods. The first is based on death certificates filed through courthouses, etc. and typically lags two weeks behind the current trend. The second extrapolates from other data reports for an up-to-the minute estimate of deaths. The difference in numbers between the two is accounted for by the time lag between the estimates and the actual reported deaths.

And I'll include here that "He was going to die anyway" doesn't change the cause of death. If I'm dying of cancer and you put a gun to my head and pull the trigger, I died of a gunshot wound, not of cancer. Even if a patient is terminally ill and COVID-19 drives the last nail into his coffin, he died of COVID-19, not of the disease that was killing him.

https://canadafreepress.com/article/the-cdc-confesses-to-lying-about-covid-19-death-numbers

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fact-check-cdcs-estimates-covid-19-death-rate-around-026percent-doesnt-confirm-it/ar-BB1565nz

Claims on social media have been spreading the falsehood that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention significantly lowered the COVID-19 death toll. There has been no such reduction. These claims confuse two different measures of the number of deaths.

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/05/cdc-hasnt-reduced-covid-19-death-toll/

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cdc-death-figures/

Finally, I found one that seemed completely factual and was born out in my own personal experience (which, of course, is the final measure of any opinion’s validity).

Please. Before you hit “Share” or “Like,” check to see if you are sharing the whole story or just the facts you want to believe. It makes a difference.

A Nation of Yahbuts

We’re all a bunch of Yahbuts. I don’t care how far right or left or center you are, you’re a Yahbut. How religious or pagan you are, you’re a Yahbut. How Black, White, Brown, Red, or Yellow you are, you’re a Yahbut. How straight or gay or bi or trans you are, you’re a Yahbut. How rich or poor you are, you’re a Yahbut. Our nation is populated with Yahbuts.

Name any social, legal, religious, or political issue and the person next to you will say “Yah but…”

“Black lives matter.” “Yah but all lives matter.”

“Beach parties have been spreading CoVid-19.” “Yah but riots expose people, too.”

“White male patriarchy is keeping women and people of color under their thumbs.” “Yah but not all men.”

“Racism is worse today than in 1965.” “Yah but Obama didn’t help it.”

“Police need to step in and quell the riots.” “Yah but they started it.”

“A policeman killed a black man by kneeling on his neck for nine minutes.” “Yah but a policeman killed a white man by kneeling on his neck for thirteen minutes.”

“Hillary was responsible for Benghazi.” “Yah but Trump colluded with the Russians.”

“He’s not perfect, but we need to get behind Biden.” “Yah but we could all vote for Jo.”

“The Bible is against homosexuals.” “Yah but we don’t stone divorcees.”

“You need to wear a mask to stop the spread of CoVid-19.” “Yah but a virus is smaller than a fart and your jeans don’t stop that.”

“Black people were held in slavery here for over two hundred years.” “Yah but white people were enslaved in the Middle East.”

It’s almost as if people actually believe their apologetics (systematic argumentative discourse in defense (as of a doctrine). Merriam-Webster) mean anything. All they do is avoid responsibility for the current situation. They don’t justify it and they don’t offer a solution. But if you can find some shred of implied contradictory ‘evidence,’ then the problem stated isn’t really a problem. Sometimes we even contradict and minimize our own evidence so we don’t have to deal with it.

“There was a peaceful protest of a dozen students carrying BLM signs outside the store.” “Yah but there wasn’t a single person of color among them.” (0.95% of the population of that town were Black, according to 2010 census data. Therefore, at least 11% of one of those people should have been Black???)

We just point out an unrelated, if factual, observation and assume that negates the problem presented or turns it into an irrelevant factoid.

“CoVid-19 has killed over 130,000 Americans this year.” “Yah but abortion kills millions.” (650,000 in the most recent year statistics are available.)

Look! I did it right there! I negated an abortion factoid by correcting the number to a much lower number. I didn’t address abortion at all, but simply negated the assertion as irrelevant and exaggerated. We are all a bunch of Yahbuts! I have never met a person who didn’t engage in this four-year-old’s behavior. “He hit me!” “Yah but she called me a name.”

It’s really time for all the preschoolers running around in congress, the senate, the white house, the judiciary, the community councils, the police force, the churches, and our individual neighborhoods to grow the fuck up and start dealing with the problems instead of justifying them with irrelevant nonsense.

“Yah but…”