YouGov's Comprehensive Poll is...

 YouGov has released its month-long poll, that ran from October 1 to October 25. 

The methodology is straight forward (you can read it all here) but this is supposed to be the final of the final polls: 

For the math wizzes at home, this puts Kamala Harris at 276 electors (assuming she loses ME-02 which has had zero polling for whatever reason), assuming, of course, YouGov has their hands on the pulse of the electorate and not a twitch of the wrist....

The Vault: Chronicles of a 21st Century Coal Miner: Coal Miner Exam and Test

 I've added some quality of life improvements on the starter's guide. New 2024 contexts are in orange. The original post from April 2010 is in whatever-color-that-is. 

Coal Mining 101.

So over the last few years, I've had a lot of emails regarding the technicalities of coal mining, from how to become a miner, to some tricky test questions. So I'd like to take this time to explain some of it here in the wide open, in the blog. I hope this helps you guys out:

RED HAT/APPRENTICE MINER:

All coal miners must complete the 80-hr Apprentice Certification Class, and pass the test to become an Apprentice Miner. You can find a local Class in West Virginia, Here.

(or here).

You must be an Apprentice Miner (hereafter called a 'Red Hat') for 6months AND 108 shifts Underground. A shift is 4hrs-? working 13hrs in one day doesn't count as 2 shifts. only 1.

Once you complete your 6months and 108 shifts, you take a test and become an Experienced Miner. (hereafter, 'Black Hat')

A bossman (White Hat) can have 4 red hats under his authority, whereas a Black hat can have only 1 Redhat under his direct authority.

There's no age limit to be a red hat, though I highly recommend you be physically fit and younger, as red hat's are grunts in the mines, doing most of the labor. Think of them as privates in the Army.

When you enter the mining industry remember to buy your own metatarsal boots (these run about 250 dollars for a good pair, I recommend Matterhorns) your belt (about 100 bucks) i recommend one with shoulder straps, your gear is heavy. Also remember your hard hat (another 100 bucks, I recommend the Low Pro if your mine site allows them) and your tools (standard is a heavy hammer [22oz+], pick hammer, channel locks, and 1inch crescent wrench, Lowes.) tools will vary based on job assigned.  And a good sturdy lunch bucket that can handle some dings and scratches (befriend a miner man, and ask for one of his "bit buckets", or get this.). Seriously though, just find a miner to give you a bit bucket , these flimsy buckets are used only once, as waste they're cheap and free. I give 'em away to my redhats all the time.  I don't recommend cloth/mesh bags for buckets, rats love to nom on these, given your mine has a varmit problem.

Your mine should supply you your uniforms, cap light, spotter (air sensor), rescuer, knee pads, eye-wear and gloves. So don't worry about those.

For a free study guide, check out this link, its downloadable.

What to expect as a red hat:

If you don't have family in the coal industry, entering can be somewhat intimidating. Don't sweat it, like any blue collar job you will find the forums and Facebook communities overexaggerate things some, namely because the industry is still undyingly competitive and a new miner means new threats to those in the industry. Aside from that, there's a lot of camaraderie that veers its face. As I used to tell my redhats, "you gotta earn your keep." 

That is, you have to work harder than everyone else. At least at first. You will die at the hands of a shovel on the beltlines. It's the most thankless, awful job in the coal mines; one of the few that actually still requires a strong back and lots of grunt work. But hey, a few months of hell for some of the best pay in Appalachia :) 

Also worth noting is that every other miserable stupid job gets tossed on the redhat. You're like a janitor at the airport. Muddy soggy gob-filled entry that needs a sump pump? You're hit. Sketchy roof fall needing some timbering? Batter up. Rock dusting a gob pile until it's snow white? Winner winner. 

You may not always have the best black hat for your field training, and that's okay. Remember what you learned in your classes. If you are nervous or question something unethical, say so. Just because he wants to lose his life doesn't mean you should in the process! 

Also, prepare to work your life away; but you want to be a coal miner to escape poverty like I did, right? Take as many shifts as you can, they do count and consider absenteeism when the inevitable layoffs start. Plus, if your state has shift requirements (I think all do now), it's another shift down and a day closer to....

BLACK HAT TEST POINTERS:

My test was mostly safety (surprise) questions. Here's some that myself and peers found pertinent to know:

• Remember all equipment is has to be parked atleast 15ft from a curtain.
• You can go under roof that hasn't been bolted ONLY IF you have supplementary/temporary roof supports (timbers 4ft apart).
• Curtain must be WITHIN 10ft of the face. There's two answers on the test, one says within 10ft of the face, and the other says 10feet of the face. Pay attention to that.
• Rock dust is 40ft from the face (as in, from the face outby 40ft has to be rockdusted, not vice versa)
• Know your light signals.
• Don't go test after work. I've seen many fail cause of this, especially Hoot Owl guys.
• The test is 25 questions, rather simple if you know your stuff (you've been underground for 6mos, so you should) good luck! oh and the test fee is 10dollars, as with the Red Hat Test. Bring Check/Money Order, they don't take cash.

Hope this helps you guys out.

As always feel free to shoot me a message as some this has been grandfathered over the years. I don't earn commission on the links, Amazon makes me say that... just trying to help y'all out! 

The Vault: Chronicles of a 21st Coal Miner: WV in My Pop

 I have begun importing old blog posts from the old blog. This was October 2013....

WV Logo on Pop Cans

It's always been there. What is it exactly? Who knows. I don't.

I'm speaking of the "WV1" logo on pop cans. Ya know, this:

I always thought it was just some WV thing, since I grew up here and all. That is, until I moved to Texas and Oklahoma in 2008. Out there, I also saw the "WV1" logo. Surely these cans weren't bottled and processed in West Virginia. So the wonder began.

Then tonight, while cruising Yahoo Answers; it happened. This work of art:

Have you ever looked at the top of a soda can. The state of West Virginia is on it. I've looked and looked but never figured out why, as it doesn't seem to be related to where it's bottled.

Anyone know why?

6 years ago Report Abuse

I don't live anywhere close to WV, so this isn't a local thing!

Then the wonder came back. The answer was just and seemed reasonable:

"Currently only West Virginia levies an excise tax on soft drinks and requires that soft drink packaging visibly indicate that the tax has been paid by the distributor. West Virginia law requires that an outline of the state be inscribed in a 1/4 inch circle on the can end. The State of West Virginia now allows soft drink distributors who are bonded in the state to ink-jet the tax information on the bottoms of cans. The product is in compliance if "WV1" is ink-jetted on the bottom regardless of the inscribed outline of the state."

Then I thought about it...Why are Texas bottlers stamping Texas cans saying they have paid a tax to West Virginia, a wholesome 1,200+ miles from the jurisdiction?

I'm clearly not satisfied with this answer, and I called BS. I went to the Tax Code section of the state website to find it in disarray and completely blank on most pages, but I did catch the beer "by the barrel" tax of $5.50 (who ships by the barrel in the 21st century?).

So that was a dead end, since I thought the excise tax on soft drinks was a couple cents higher than 1 cent. And even then, if it is, it still doesn't explain why states far away with their own bottlers stamp the cans with the "WV1".

2024 update: They just stamp the damn thing to stamp the damn thing. No need to make special dyes for little ol' West Virginia. 

:) 

Final Thoughts: Election 2024

 I have stayed quiet this election, by and large part due to the upcoming release of America: The Obliged, which is based on largely in the timeline that Donald Trump indeed wins the election, and that, indeed Project 2025 comes to fruition, and henceforth the nation languishes in a conservative world until 2044, when things go dire. Bear in mind this next book was written in 2017 and revised in 2020, before hitting revisions in Q1 2024. I digress. 

Aside from that, I have also remained mum compared to the last five or so elections due to the hostility of Trump supporters and the general malaise I have with the political climate in general (the media is discovering this phenomenon, calling us "silent Harris voters"). That said, I am not exactly thrilled to be in this boat. I mean, It's not often that I get to vote for two candidates that I don't really like... three times in a row. Be it so, welcome to American politics in the modern era. 

I do have some thoughts, however. Some of them, for lack of a better venue to vent from, have been aired over at electoral-vote. Dr. Zenger and Votemaster have become, by and large, much more liberal in their biases since I started following their blog in July of 2004. I have always been cautious of such echo chambers because they solicit complacency and further solicit ideologues that can lead us to meme-worthy breakdowns when our candidates lose, a la 2016. 

Anyway, it was over at e-v that I pissed off the canaries singing their sameness song in their chamber when I realized that picking between soured orange juice [Trump] and spoiled milk [Biden] was absolute lunacy, and I took to my soap box to bemoan the situation. My chagrin for my meek comparison was only absolved when the responses from the canaries jilted me as nothing more than a Bernie-bro 3rd-party lover who was best kept out of their echoed bird song. You know the usual repertoire: educate myself, misled Fox nut, uninformed clown, et cetera and so on and so forth. 

Then? Biden dropped out. Because, it turns out, Nancy Pelosi, the Clintons and (very likely) the Obamas also saw what I saw and knew things were about to be ghastly; we were effectively letting Project 2025 just... happen. All in the name of entitlement of a guy who, quite honestly, probably wouldn't live through a second term. 

Without much a fight, Kamala Harris become the de facto nominee overnight. My case rested. I will spare you the rest of history here, as if you're reading this, then you probably are quite aware of the political history of 2024 thus far, right? 

Moving on. 

So now, we are two weeks (!) away from the election. What now? 

Well, some observations. It's hard to reflect on the events of 2020 due to COVID, but I like to analog both 2016 and 2020 as infliction points of the Tea Party movement of 2010 (more America: The Obliged stuff...sorry). This movement is what birthed Donald Trump, by birthing the idea that President Obama wasn't birthed in Hawai'i (that's my lone punned sentence of this post; swear.) So, then it's only fair to assume that, because like a nagging cough, Trump just doesn't seem to want to go away. With this in mind, we can look at my analogs of different situations in 2024. 

2024: Round 3: Donald Trump. Read the Yard Signs.

The first and most immediate thing I have noticed in 2024 that is dynamically different than in 2020 and 2016 is the lack of obnoxious and gaudy signage for Donald Trump. Living in West Virginia in 2016, I was, naturally, well attuned to seeing the crap everywhere. Not just on a neighbors porch, but like, neighbors putting their signs in my yard. Trump stores in every strip mall, people selling Trump merch from the truck bed on the sides of the road. I mean, this was a gah dang revolution.

Well, as fate would have it, I got to visit lots of Trump states this summer and fall (Iowa*, Louisiana, North Carolina*, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia*, South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia, and of course, here in good ol' Kentucky). 

Things aren't 2020 or 2016. 

In fact, I see more "brave" Harris-Walz supporters putting up signage than I do Trump regalia... in the deep south. It's not a surprise that in 2016 the polls were embarrassingly wrong because of low-information, disengaged rural voters decided to engage for Trump, the polls not weighting nor anticipating the phenomenon, and then those voters showed up again in 2020 (because, what else was there to do aside from wearing your mask in your own car for fun? May as well vote!). These voters were the people those truck bed Trump merch service vehicles were looking to service. It's onerous to assume none of them are voting, but if even as many as 5% decide to stay home, or do anything other than vote, then the Trump train is gone. Afterall, he only won in 2016 by 100,000 votes spread thinly across three states worth a fortune in electoral college credits (the blue wall thing). 

Political Scientists (the same ones who were no surer of a Clinton victory in 2016 as the sun setting in the west), disregard the sign phenomenon as nothing more than a catalog of general observations with no scientific merit. But I disagree. I think that if you have taken the effort to put up a sign, then you have taken enough effort to go vote. In fact, I bet that the ratio of signage to votes is almost universal. If nothing else, it strongly suggests that, contrary to 2020 and 2016, enthusiasm for Trump has finally waned. The reason why doesn't matter, but it's very real. 

Oh, the Grocery Bandits

I have taken to task on TikTok and occasionally on Facebook to troll (is it still called such? No idea.) Trump supporters and their gaslighting about grocery bills and how President Trump is going to somehow, some way, interfere with capitalism and reduce the costs of food and service by virtue of merely being President again. They love to reference 2020 prices, because, you know, nothing else was happening in the world in 2020 - except President Trump was in office. 

This is, on the whole, literal bullshit and they know it. 

It's true inflation has smacked all of us. In 2022, my grocery bill was marching north of $1000 a month. I got desperate, and joined Hello Fresh (not an endorsement), and tried to reign in the outlandish expenditure, if anything it would reduce my food waste ratio which has always been historically high due to my disdain for leftovers; because listeria. Seriously, just typing that word makes me grab the hand sanitizer. 

Anyway, No such luck. 

Finally, I had to resort to my childhood poverty and buy... generics. Big K (endorsement), especially Dr. K is fine to swig in lieu of Dr. Pepper. Not perfect. But? At half the cost, it pays dividends to make Dr. Pepper a splurge rather than a staple. Rinse and repeat, and before long my grocery bill was back to around $450-$500 a month. 

The obvious problem here is Americans are spoiled. We don't want no Mountain Lighting from Wal-Mart, we want Mountain Dew! But, this is how capitalism works. President Trump and President Biden both wantonly issued out "stimulus" checks during COVID and created a money glut. People like myself, got these checks when they didn't need them (I was making record pay at my work with hazard pay and newly enforced mandatory overtime). This is how inflation works. More money you have, less the money is worth. Simple as that. 

Don't believe me? Watch how you hold onto that last $20 when you're four days shy of payday, then how effortlessly you leave a $20 tip when that tax refund hits in February and you're ten plates deep at the Texas Roadhouse. I rest my case.

So, the financials of the country course-corrected for the new supply glut of Benjamins and everything skyrocketed. How do we fix it? Well, sadly, we don't. Deflation is ghastly for the stock markets and will absolutely lead to layoffs and recessions. That's why they are called recessions. The best we can do is demand better pay to compete, but with AI and automation (America the Obliged-style) coming on the horizon... service droids may be making that $15 Big Mac before long. 

In the interim, as more people switch to Big K over Pepsi, Pepsi's profits fall and someone somewhere in Texas (or Georgia, or whatever), will see that supply is glutting and the best way to fix that? Lower prices to increase demand. Capitalism!

So, what about the grocery bandits? Well, they neverminded mean tweets as their annoying memes suggest in the first place. Betcha that last $20 you got they voted for him. Twice.

The Election is [Not] Rigged

Probably is, actually. But not the way you think it is. This adage is a fallback to defeat, because one of the candidates has a vanity problem. He just can't lose. But really, 2020 was the most secure election in history. Least, that's what them political scientists say. 

In good ol' Appalachia, we have a problem with trusting people. Especially outsiders. Unless they are running for political office, then we love outsiders. No idea why. Just the way it is. That said, we absolutely trust Trump when he says the election is rigged... and then go vote in the rigged election, anyway. This is some type of cognitive dissonance that I cannot attest to, because I have a higher cognitive ability to see bullshit when I see bullshit. So, first projection: Trump will absolutely lose the popular vote for a third time. The electoral college is less clear, but more on that in a second. 

Point is, we love Trump. And when he loses, like a Mountaineers defeat wrestled from the jaws of victory, it was rigged. Someone had to plan it. Because we love Trump, and if we love Trump, then everyone loves Trump. Remember those echo chambers at the e-v blog? Pot, meet kettle. 

The echo chamber has aids by ways of rigged social media presence. Let me give you an example. 

One key rigging comes from this new advent that the billionaires also foretell America needing some Obliged individuals; and have taken up garnering fealty to the new dictator (instead of fight him), Donald Trump. Remember, his vanity? Yeah, turns out, he loves when people financially superior than him like him as a person. It validates him. It manifests in him. So that presents us with my favorite I'd-love-to-smack-him-in-the-mouth South African: Elon Musk. 

This creep, who believes it's his mission from God to reproduce at a higher intensity than my own belated father, bought Twitter. Then, using his weird obsession with x-factors named it X. True story. It happened. Then... well, now he uses it to peddle Trump's latest delusions, thinly veiled as news, rigging the narrative that we are, in fact, eating dogs and cats in Ohio. Or whatever the case may be for any given day. 

This has the potential to reach those people in tangent #1 above, because they probably use Twitter/X for things other than Porn/XXX. Seriously, I don't know who gets information off Twitter, but apparently it's bad enough that pizza parlors in Washington get held up by gunpoint. No joke.

She Didn't Say That

The latest, and potentially the best chance for Trump to nail an October Surprise, is during a rally last week in Pennsylvania, a woman was in the crowd, yelling "liar, liar, liar!" when Kamala Harris finished her rehearsed remarks on Donald Trump championing the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Harris then proceeded to chastise the woman and tell her she's at the wrong venue and to go down the street to the smaller rally [of Donald Trump]. 

Somehow, somewhere in the echo chambers of the magical world of MAGA, someone thought this was a great time to remind the world of how much Kamala hates Christians. Because, now that we live in a world where Christians can't freely persecute people for their sins, they are the ones being persecuted. See how that works? No? Well, if you need or desire some examples of this cute phenomenon, I wrote about them here. 

So, this new lie has gone viral on the Facebook and the TikTok, and has riled up another penchant of the aforementioned folks in item #1. Now that Kamala has renounced Christians, they have to fight, fight, fight... by voting for Donald Trump; the most unchristian (least by my accounts cataloged in that link right yonder) man to ever run for office in the United States. 

I am not sure how much this helps him, since many states are winding down their early voting, and scores have already early voted and there's no take-backs or rainchecks (least if you believe item #3). So we are left to assume that, in the least, if there were any Christians on the fence, they may not be now. 

Nevermind that comment was made directly to an audible "lies!" chant. There's conflicting stories on a man in the back yelling the precious "Jesus is Lord!" that the magical world of MAGA are saying was said. But I haven't seen this unaltered video. Nary have I seen the other claim that this woman said these three precious words as she was being escorted out. Again, does it count if the speaker didn't hear it? Does it count if you say it after the speaker already spoke? 

Time will tell how Christians vote, but I can tell you, most of them already think Trump is the next coming of Jesus Christ. Just ask one. Or fifty. There's some scripture from my childhood I could use that suggest this is the fabled you-know-who from that last book of the Holy Bible, but I won't get into that here. No.

So in the end, absent any Christians who decided over the summer to come to reason and surmise that the Lord would probably not in fact use a fraudster, womanizing, vain, gluttonous, slothing, probably-a-billionaire-but-probably-not old white dude as the second coming of the pristine and flawless Jesus Christ of Nazareth, this likely also didn't change anyone's mind to vote for Donald Trump. 

No, Donald Trump is not the antichrist. 

No, Donald Trump was not sent by the Lord to save us. 

He's just an asshole, man. 

Predictions of the Future

If you listen to the prognosticators you probably believe this is the TIGHTEST ELECTION IN HISTORY. 

It's not. It's the same ol' same ol' since 2000. 

I remember people voting in 2008 anxious and scared that Obama would lose. Ha.

I remember people voting in 2012, anxious and scared that Obama would lose. Oh, Ha. 

I remember people voting in 2020, anxious and scared that Trump would win. Welp. 

You see the pattern, right?

As America becomes ever-more hyper polarized, the electorate becomes static. There's small fluxes afoot, but it's predictable more or less. Trump will get at least 45% of the vote. Kamala Harris, too, will get at least 45% of the vote. It's that other 10% that matter. If you suck at percentages, when consider that when you're in line to vote, count the nine people ahead of you, and then make yourself the tenth.

You matter. They don't. 

That's 10%. 

So what do these people do, exactly? Well, they're me. I have voted Democrat twice, Republican twice, and 3rd Party once (YOLO! Do people still say that? Again, no idea.) 

These people are called "the undecideds". Maybe I should have made America: The Undecideds instead? Oh well. Maybe in another trilogy of works.

Being an undecided is in my pedigree; I am a contrarian, after all. I refused to eat Chic-fil-a for years because everyone loved it. I have since ate it. It's mid. A la Starbucks. Y'all need to calm down. Same applies to politics. We make progress on the two-party system, because we have made progress throughout American history existing on the scales of yes and no. No "maybe's" have ever occupied the White House. So stop voting 3rd party. It's never going to happen.

Aside from that, Democrats and Republicans have a sameness problem. When both are in power they struggle to actually execute their agenda. Trump was supposed to stop illegals from entering the country. Obviously, if you listen to his rallies that obviously didn't happen. Democrats were supposed to fix this inflation thing. Again, we know that didn't happen. So, is it really dire if Trump wins? 

Well yes, and no. 

Trump is, I think, the biggest existential threat to our democracy in 150 years. The sameness problem has led people to stop believing democracy works for them (I won't reference America: The Obliged no more, ever again. In this blog. You know you need to read it). When we stop believing democracy works, we look for new ways to govern. Trump is option #1. The fascist dictator route. 

Be assured, absent a revolutionary leader like Derrick Reddon (I lied), we are stuck in the sameness cycle which means, and I don't think Kamala Harris is remotely close to a revolutionary leader, when Trump fades away a complete failure, a new Trump rises. 

Yup. That's right. Every time a Trump fails, a new one rises in his place, until we learn to fix the sameness problem and fix the issues that ail the American people. 

As an undecided I have to decide which option to take. Option #1 or Option #Staythecourse. As time goes on, I struggle to keep mindlessly pulling the lever for #Staythecourse. Because the course does in fact suck. But Option #1 sucks more. 

The lesser of two evils is exhausting, and sometimes picking between the two, like Clinton and Trump in 2016, can be difficult. Other times it's a safe bet. 

To be a political operative for Harris, I would have ran the campaign differently. I wouldn't be crowing about abortion rights. Women never forget anything when it's personal. They already know. What they may forget, however, is how January 6th went down and why. What exactly is an "enemy within" that Trump goads about? 

Kamala had the unique opportunity to highlight Option #1 and give us a story about how Option #1 plays out. She didn't. When she hit on it, she was vague, and ambiguity doesn't work with voters anymore. Tell us the details. Project 2025 is a beauty. They wrote the story, all you had to do was narrate it. 

Secondly, I would have dumped Biden immediately. He was an off-ramp in 2020, and nothing more. His legacy was foretold to be the President that saved us from Option #1. Instead, we let Trump and Co tie an anchor to Harris' ankle and toss her into Biden's Lake of Failure. 

Too late now. 

2024 Prediction

I steer clear of "toss-ups" and playing the closeness game so I offer two scenarios based on the thousands of words typed above. 

As a preface, especially if you're new here, I had 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020 all on lock with a margin of error of 10 or so electors (2008 I discounted Indiana for Obama, in 2020 I gave Trump Wisconsin). 

Scenario 1: Electorate holds, Kamala is Clinton and Biden wrapped into one and Trump is Trump. 

Option #1 is affirmed.

This scenario is the one Democrats fear most, but it's easy to get to if the undecideds decide they really want that Mountain Dew and the ambiguity, or concepts of plans from Trump don't matter. They just need to Dew the Dew again. Again, Harris' team failed to find the pulse of the race; to their credit they only had 100 days to do that, but that's their problem. This replicates 2016 in that, Harris wins the popular vote.

Scenario 2: Trump's casual base that propelled him in 2016 and 2020, casually doesn't vote. 

Option #Staythecourse is affirmed. 

I debated Texas on this, and I may come regret it and Alaska, and to a lesser degree Florida, Ohio and Iowa. Harris could really swamp Trump if 10-15% of his base stays home and the undecideds decide to give democracy one more chance one more time, again. I think inside the Trump campaign this is the fear they have, and easily explains the cancelled interviews (keep him away from the mics), and the boldfaced lies of Elon Musk on Twitter-X and the lyin' lies over that Kamala clapback at her rally with the heckler. Desperation breeds fraud. Just ask anyone who writes bad checks. Their account was probably overdrawn and they desperately needed to buy something. 

In this scenario, Harris wins the popular vote by around 5%. Georgia (holds) and North Carolina (flips) due to the disasters in Appalachia from Hurricane Helene. Arizona and Nevada continue to gobble up Californians, and it's liberal bend with it. Blue Wall holds on the strength of workers working and not voting like they did in 2016, 2020. Simple. 

Now, out of virtue of my integrity I can't not pick one or the other, I have a track record to uphold, and I said no undecideds. So I have to decide how this thing plays out. I know the pulse on the country is subdued, so with two weeks to go, I pick...

Option #Staythecourse is affirmed. 

America: The Obliged Interview

 America: The Obliged Interview

Nathan O'Discin Discusses America: The Obliged

Kieran "Radii" Avenski

10/4/20249 min read

This Post Originally Appeared On O'Discin Books.

Q: What inspired you to write America: The Obliged?

Blame the world we live in. ATO's first draft was written in 2017, and directly inspired by President Trump 'joking' about [the US] having a forever-president like Russia and China. Obviously, a lot changed over time, but I quickly got of the purview that we could have another civil war with all the political vitriol going on around the nation; I thought, "this is impossible, I need to get this crazy thought out of my head" but the more I reflected on how things were going in this country, the more I couldn't resist the temptation to put my fingers to the keyboard and narrate a civil war event in the modern era.

A lot of our thoughts about a civil war rely on silly 1850s-era tropes, and many dystopic novels on the subject always focus on some rag-doll group merely surviving, think The Last of Us; I wanted the point-of-view to look at those in power, the people who actually carry the burden of fixing things, how they react and respond as normal people. That's the biggest issue many people have in our society today, I think. We have forgotten that our elected are everyday people like you and I; they have families, relationships, hopes and dreams, and I really wanted to capitalize on that.

Q: Is that your inspiration for Chase and Derrick?

[Laughs] Oh, Chase and Derrick. So, in the original draft of the book, both characters are crazily different. Like, Chase is married heterosexually and loses his wife in the calamity, and Derrick is this mean pro-President Connor militant; who actually [unalived] Chase's wife but it's not revealed to the reader until after Omaha. Things thaw between the two once this secret came to light. Don't worry, that's not in the book anymore.

As time went on, and things in our nation changed, you know, January 6th insurrection and the election of President Biden and such, I reflected back on things and really decided that Derrick didn't have to be an antagonist, and, you know, there's actually an irony going on in our nation right now in that both political sides want to save the country; Republicans genuinely feel our nation is under attack at the same intensity as Democrats feel our nation is under attack -both sides agree on this tenant. This, realistically, is prime for a civil war; so after much reflection and revision we actually get this misunderstood Republican militant and this misunderstood Democratic staffer in the book that transcend that intense disdain for the opposing political party and find a genuine love, which then creates this sub-plot of how those types of mismatched political-polarities can still love one another.

Personality-wise, Chase represented my sensitive side and Derrick my toxic masculinity side, and to a lesser degree, Alyssa represented my idealist side. Although in the final storyboards of the book right before I sent it off to my agent and editorial team, I realized just how much Derrick is me and Chase my husband, Jacob. So, ultimately, my marriage is the inspiration for the final character profiles.

Q: If you could meet one of the four main characters; Chase, Derrick, Fredrika or Alyssa, which one would you meet?

Definitely Chase. As I said, the characters, even Fredrika, are based on certain elements of my own personalities. Chase is a little bit of an exception. Derrick would be looking at myself in a mirror, personality-wise. Alyssa is definitely me if I were in public office, and Fredrika is really any elder female in my family, so Chase stands alone as the more unique and exclusive character from my perspective.

Q: So... you're #TeamChase?

[Laughs] I am team ATO. I love all the characters in the book equally, there's no Harry Potter in the series, and each character brings with them their own pros and cons, and there's no plot armor to speak of, all of them are vulnerable in their own ways with their own challenges, although I do encourage the readers to pick their favorite.

Q: Will readers see elements of Beneath The Whispering Pines in America: The Obliged?

Well, it's possible. Pines is really an autobiography of my childhood with some fictional elements mixed in to make things less chaotic than they actually were, making things cohesive for easy storytelling. That said, since the characters were based on my personality, there will be elements that harken back to Elijah and Ryan's romance in Pines; notably is that Chase feels exceptionally vulnerable, like Elijah. Ryan is wiser and more cunning on account of being a year older and more experienced, just as Derrick is more wise to what will happen in the second civil war in America. On the inverse, Derrick grew up in a very religious and conservative family like Elijah; while Chase had the normative upbringing in modern America like Ryan. But, I think all told, Pines and ATO both stand exclusively from one another.

Well, as I said, the inspiration of the story originated in 2017 when the authoritarian elements of the far-right started to show themselves nationally. This election obviously has a lot of implications, and, it's hard to say where we will be in 2044. To recall that, 20 years ago, in 2004, the biggest issue of that election was if [Senator] John Kerry deserved his Vietnam medals and if Massachusetts should legally be allowed to have gay marriage and if the War in Iraq was legitimately authorized by the Senate feels almost paltry compared to the issues the nation is facing today. You look at the 2024 election where President Biden dropped out mid-race, Former President Trump is a convicted felon and has had two assassination attempts on his life, there's this shadowy Project 2025 thing, then the issue of the Department of Justice and the attempts to overturn the 2020 election and the impending international conflicts, and COVID, and inflation, and so on and so forth, it's truly overwhelming and it's difficult to say what issues will actually be facing the nation in another 20 years, in 2044.

Q: Election 2024. Will it have implications for the near-future dystopic narrative of America: The Obliged?

Q: What is the defining issue for the civil war in America: The Obliged?

Complacency and disdain for politics. The American people are disengaged, and just trying to survive. I really explore these events from the POV of Chase, and his life in Watseka, Illinois. There's other elements, like the abolition of Social Security, and the election corruption by President Connor, but these all are under that tent of survival. Everyone is just trying to make it to tomorrow.

Q: You use a lot of factual events in the current era to justify the collapse of the United States. Some events are tied to possible near-future possibilities, like dialogue between Derrick and his brother, Luke, where they casually mention the Trump family in exile in Moscow. Do you think the Trumps will flee if Donald Trump loses the 2024 election?

This passage was tongue-in-cheek, a little treat for the political junkies out there. It's really hard to guess what grandeur [Former President] Trump will do next. It's possible. Nobody thought he'd actually run for president; less thought he'd actually win, and I don't think anyone anticipated three elections with him, let alone all the events that happened in 2020, so it's hard to say exactly where Donald Trump ends up if he loses this election.

Q: You speak from a perspective a lot of readers may not fully understand, like the mechanizations of the American political process. How did you learn it?

Well, it's varied. I got into politics in 2004, when I was only 16 and couldn't vote, but I understood that what was happening had a direct consequence on my future. At the time, I was wanting to join the US Marine Corps, and the recruiter was frank that I would deploy to Iraq. That got me active in politics. Then in 2010, I actually ran for office; and got to see the ugliness of what happens behind the scenes and behind closed doors. A lot of bartering and power plays take place, and I think, if the average voter actually witnessed what I did in that process, there would be universal agreement that our nation is compromised and corrupt.

Aside from that, I have spent many years listening to both sides speak and peddle their vision for our nation and their reasoning behind it, I have dated both Republicans and Democrats, non-political junkies alike, and have come to understand the merits of both sides of the spectrum.

The most consequential of that was dating a Pentagon official for awhile while living in the beltway, he introduced me to a lot of politicians during that time. There was this moment where I had just talked to Senator Lee of Utah at a lounge on the national mall, and I was now sharing an elevator with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, and I had this surreal epiphany where I came the realization that politicians are just every day people, and they are prone to human error like the rest of us. So, I really instilled that in the characters, making them human, taking risks with dire consequences that weren't immediately obvious to themselves or the readers. There may actually be Olivia Bensons in the beltway, but I never saw them, but I did see everyday people trying their best to lead this wonderful nation of ours.

Q: You sat on this manuscript for seven years. Why?

I have a tendency of sitting on manuscripts [laughs]. ATO certainly went through a period of writer's block, I got to the Convention of Omaha, and just felt I had exhausted my creative storm to write the first draft. I picked it up again in 2020 during COVID lockdowns while working from home, and really wanted to create conflict among the Reddon brothers and explore that dynamic of the storyline. But, I struggled with a catalyst to make that happen, since, at the time, Derrick was still an antagonist himself. It was only when he became an antihero did the catalyst become obvious.

Q: When the negative reviews come in, how will you process them?

I am very comfortable with constructive and unconstructive criticism, I have had plenty over the years. I am aware that my writing style is unique, and it won't appeal to everyone. Moreover, politically charged books such at ATO will strike a nerve with certain political hardliners who will struggle to stomach the events of the book and the tropes and allegories employed to further these key plots along in the story. I do ask that readers give the book a chance, and to reflect on the merits of the characters and their situations before taking out an op-ed on Amazon to peddle political talking points, as the book is meant to be American, not Conservative or Liberal.

Q: Readers who are unfamiliar with your blogs and your first novel, what suggestions would you give them to better enjoy your creative writing style?

Well, I am a literalist, so the verbiage is crass and direct; which may offend some readers. With plot scenes, I enjoy ambiguity with lots of emphasis on reader's using their imagination to draw scenes to completion. I don't, for example, tell you the color of the bricks on the convention hall in Omaha, followed by needless descriptors of their texture. They can be white, red, hell, even purple; smooth, jagged, doesn't really matter. Draw the story from your eyes, enjoy yourself. As narrator, I take great strides to draw up the character profiles for the readers, the scenes themselves are rather open-ended for the reader to draw upon. If you don't have a vivid imagination, you probably will find yourself lacking a good visual of the words you're reading. We have used AI programs to toy with drawing the characters, and the AI seems to understand the concepts of the characters very well, so, I figure if I can draw them for primitive AI programs, then I have done well to draw them for the readers.

Q: What's your favorite chapter? Why?

Chapter 23 was my favorite to write and read, it was a joy to draw together the scenes that play out in the chapter, and to really read into the minds of Chase and Derrick as the honeymoon phase of their relationship starts to wane and they are faced with the insane reality they find themselves in, as the dust starts to settle on the infliction point of the civil war.

Q: Lastly, what message do you want readers to reflect upon when reading the book?

It's actually right after the title at the beginning of the book. "Heaven cannot save a country that doth not want to save itself. Complacent then, the heavens must be, to witness the atrophy of man’s impulse for power."

I want the readers to take that passage literally, that, throughout all the events in ATO, one must wonder why and how this is happening to the nation.