1/18/2022

review of 'the dog days are beginning'

as promised, tonight i'm going to talk about henry wolf's online erotic novel 'dog days are beginning.'


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the 15th chapter went up this week.


i've noted it before.


what is should be about is a couple - mark and steve.


what too much of it was about was way too many characters who didn't really matter.  steve went into a training period and his fellow trainees were not interesting but sure took up a lot of time and a lot of chapters.

okay, so the story takes place in an alternate time.  in this time, you can choose to be a sub.  there are norms - people with full rights - and there are subs.  subs are like slaves. people might become a slave because they are stressed.  they might do it for any number of reasons.


steve and mark are a married couple.  they met in college.  mark was a bit ahead of steve and he already has a great job at a corporation.  steve graduates and is depressed because there are no jobs.  mark's going to check in at his job and see if they have any openings.  

mark comes home and bad news the only jobs are interns.  steve is excited, he can do that and work his way up to a real job there.  yeah, mark allows, but the interns are subs only.


oh.  steve isn't interested.  mark points out that they've played dom and sub in the bedroom and it wouldn't be forever.


now i don't get that.  if you become a sub, you lose all your rights.  how do you then go from sub back to norm?  


for steve, mark is his dom and i guess mark could give him his rights back.  but some subs are subs to corporations.  how do you ever go back to a norm?


i don't get it.


well steve decides to go for it and mark tells he's got to be a sub for real.  he can't just say he is.  so steve has to enroll in a training - i think it was 2 weeks (it was a ton of chapters).  and there he's degraded and they try to destroy him.


when he finally gets out, he's afraid to sit on mark's furniture and afraid to do anything.  mark feels he's suffering pts.


but he reports to work and the company's just merged and the new boss wants subs at work to dress like they would at home - jock strap and a collar.  he also wants them to act as subs.


see, before, a sub was just doing all the menial work at mark's company - and dressed normally.  now they're going to be used sexually.


so this goes on and it at least brings a good supporting character - stan.  stan is a sub determined to show every 1 else up.  he has a reason to be there and he makes the novel better.


i think the minor character eric does as well - eric is a norm at the job who has to be reminded that steve is mark's sub.


steve's not doing too well and some  1 tells mark that steve has to start acting like a sub at home.  it's too much of a shock to be norm like at home and then a sub at work and it's why steve can't excel or get with the program.


so 1st mark tells steve that from now on, steve will wear the collar at home and the jockstrap.  then mark gives him a gold padlock that will be on the collar noting that steve is mark's property.  he's ordering steve around the house more.  then he let's steve have it (sort of, i would've loved it if he'd torn steve a new 1) for interrupting him when mark's speaking and mark makes it clear that sub steve is an inferior and needs to stop interrupting free men.  

then mark announces that steve will no longer sit on the couch.  he will sit on the floor because steve is just another possession of mark's and mark's been told this will really let steve get into the sub role.


all of that should have been really sexy.  but it often wasn't.  instead of steve reeling from these changes, he's justifying it in his head and feeling sorry for mark.


no.


this is a shock and steve needs to rebel - at least in his head he should stop making excuses for mark.


if you're doing a dom and sub storyline on a normal couple, you need to have some resistance.  


and for it to really matter, steve has to not want it and then grow to want it.


after that, steve did well at work - and blew a guy - then we got a 'christmas' chapter which really went no where - they put sub and dom on hold for the holiday.  now they're finally back and mark's feeling bad and struggling with being a dom.


i want to see mark take control.  and i really want him to overdo it.  and then steve hates it and struggles and fights which probably turns mark on a bit.  but it also makes mark realize that there are areas where he could go too far and he loves steve so he's not going to go that far.  but he's not going to back off either.  i don't see steve ever becoming a norm again.  i don't think mark would ever let him be a norm again.


i'll write some more later this week.  i didn't realize i'd have to do so much recap.  


let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'


Tuesday, January 18, 2022.  A world thqt makes no sense allows the continued persecution of Julian Assange and tries to pass the continued tragedy that is Iraq off as a 'success.'



Something's don't make sense and never will.


That would include Adel's "Can I Get It."



The songwriting credit on this track from Adele's 30 album gives credit to Adele Adkins, Max Martin and Shellback.


Is that accurate?  Will it take the courts to make it accurate?


Not since George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" cribbed from "He's So Fine" have I heard such a bold 'borrowing' or theft.



That's Oasis' "Wonder Wall" which, for the record, does not credit Adele or any of her co-writers.   But the hook of ADele's song is a direct steal from "Wonder Wall" -- especially notable when the hook is whistled in the song.


It happens and sometimes it happens purely by accidwent.  but Oasis is not a minor band and "Wonder Wall" is not an obscure song -- especially for a British artist like Adele.  No one in the studio thoughts, "This sounds a lot like a song that was a huge hit for Oasis"?  Right before the Rolling Stones' BRIDGES TO BABYLON was  released, the similiary of "Anybody Seen My Baby" to k.d. lange's "Constant Craving" were noted and lange and Ben Mink were added as co-writers to the song.


Adele's 30 is the most discussed album of 2021.  Sorry, I didn't listen to it until last night.  First thing I noted was the cribbing from "Wonder Wall."  


I;ll also never understand how or why Frances Moore Lappe signed off on the recipes that her daughter Anna picked out for the latest edition of DIET FOR A SMALL PLANET (the fiftieth anniversary edition).  As we noted at THIRD, the book was supposed to give working parents the tools they needed to make quick and nutrious food for their family but Anna's bread rccipe in the new edition is for . . . white bread -- garbage bread because it has no real nutritional value -- and this garbage bread takes approximately 22 hours to make.  Grasp that.  A recipe that requires you invest 22 hours into making the bread and there's nothing in the bread of value, it's home made Wonder Bread.  How far from the point of the book and the planet, Anna and Frances have wandered.


It doesn't make sense that US President Joe Biden continues to persecute Julian Assange.   The Dissident AU Tweets:


The minute you believe you should know what your government is doing behind your back is the minute supporting Julian #Assange is no longer an honour. It is a duty. Every effort counts in this once-in-a-generation battle. #FreeAssangeNOW


CONSORTIUM NEWS' Cathy Vogan has composed a song about Julian entitled "Time To Change The World."



In Iraq?  It doesn't make sense that the western press has all eyes on Moqtada al-Sadr, but never fails to see anything but glowing moments.  The Shi'ite cleric's slate did not get a majority of the votes and it still can't pull together a coalition all these months after the October 10th election but western outlets keep typing the same damn (fact-free) pieces on Moqtada and pretending that somehow they've covered Iraq and, even funnier, that they've done some actual reporting.


Reality, he's accomplishing nothing and while the western media produces hagiography on Moqtada, they ignore other players -- and you ignore Nouri al-Maliki at your own peril.  The former prime minister and forever thug does not give up easy.  News outlet IRAN INTERNATIONA ENGLISH Tweets:


A meeting in Najaf between IRGC Quds Force chief Qaani & Muqtada al-Sadr, whose party holds the majority in Iraq's parliament, has yielded no result, and Sadr still insists on forming gov't without Iran allies Nouri al-Maliki & Qais Khazali, sources told Iraqi newspaper Al Mada.


3:20 AM · Jan 18, 2022



Fereshteh Sadeghi offers:


A meeting in Najaf between IRGC Quds Force chief Qaani & Muqtada al-Sadr, whose party holds the majority in Iraq's parliament, has yielded no result, and Sadr still insists on forming gov't without Iran allies Nouri al-Maliki & Qais Khazali, sources told Iraqi newspaper Al Mada.
3:20 AM · Jan 18, 2022


Reports suggest Sadr told General Qaani he rejects participation of former Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki in the new coalition: “if his condition fulfilled, he would form a government with participation of other #Shia political groups”. US withdrawal from Iraq was also discussed. 2/3
2:07 PM · Jan 17, 2022


Before meeting with Muqtada al-Sadr, #IRGCQF’s General Qaani met with leaders of various Shia political groups. 3/3 #Iran #Iraq
2:07 PM · Jan 17, 2022


Three months and still no progress on forming a government.  


We'll wind down with this from Black Alliance for Peace's latest newsletter:


It is January, and in the U.S. this means it is time for the annual ritual of revisiting the white-washed, de-radicalized, pro- “American” M.L. King fairytale as part of the official celebration of King’s birthday. 

In the official story, Dr. King was not the creation of the movement that was fighting for the democratic and human rights of Black people. No, it was Dr. King who created the movement, according to the colonial white elite and the neocolonial Black misleadership. In this story, the objectives of the movement were not for radical social transformation and Black self-determination but the redemption of the U.S. settler-colonial nation/state and the quiet integration of Black people into the state. In other words, to complete the establishment of a “more perfect nation,” as Obama would put it. 

But King did not just show up to save Black people. Dr. King was a product of the post-war Black movement. And as such, the King that the movement produced reflected the changing, and sometimes contradictory development of that movement. As a product of the movement, Dr. King’s experiences as the leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) evolved. He began to raise criticisms of capitalism, eventually opposed imperialist war and embraced a program of class struggle represented by the Poor People's campaign.

Positions that created tensions in the civil rights wing of the black liberation movement and make King a target for assassination.

This is the King that BAP recognizes. The King that in his last few years of activism was finding his way to the Black radical tradition, a tradition that takes an uncompromising position on colonialism, structural white supremacy and war.  

This commitment to the highest articulations of our people for peace, people(s)-centered human rights and the belief that the Pan European white supremacist colonial/capitalist patriarchal project can be defeated, is what animates the worldview and actions of the Black Alliance for Peace.  

And it is why BAP takes an uncompromising position on standing with and defending peoples’ and nations who find themselves in the crosshairs of U.S. and European aggression, no matter the criticism we receive from the social imperialist left and morally bankrupt liberals.

Below, you will see just some of the courageous positions that our members have taken in opposition to imperialism and war. Despite questions, we proudly accepted the invitation to attend the inauguration of Daniel Ortega as the newly elected president of Nicaragua. BAP’s representative Margaret Kimberley was given a place of honor on the stage along with the heads of states from Cuba and Venezuela.

As Margaret Kimberley said in her statement following the inauguration, BAP is clear on its mission and responsibility at this critical moment in history. An unambiguous commitment to human rights and anti-colonialism guides our worldview and politics. And for that - we are unapologetic. 

“As an organization committed to reviving the Black radical tradition, and committed to an anti-imperialist stance, the Black Alliance for Peace is always ready to defend human rights.

This hemisphere in particular has been viciously targeted by the U.S. government and its vassals in the European Union and United Nations. The Organization of American States should be a platform for discussion and consensus building but it is a U.S. invention and operates under its thumb. The U.S. congress overwhelmingly approved the RENACER Act which legitimizes the regime change effort and makes a mockery of claims that the U.S. acts as a democracy. From Haiti to Nicaragua to Venezuela to Cuba, millions of people in this hemisphere live under U.S. dictates masquerading as democracy in action.

 Black Alliance for Peace is committed to giving voice to the peoples of targeted nations and to providing insights and analysis that people in a supposedly free country are deprived of. Our mission demands that we do no less.”



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