My Association with the Alternative Religions Forum & the South African Occult Community

Good morning, friends and fans!

*Speaking in hushed, reassuring tones* Don't be afraid now, kiddies, but today we will diverge from talking about my fiction writing and take a closer look at some of my academic writing and advocacy work. 

This article will provide a brief description of my advocacy in the field of religious freedom, and will also take a closer look at my background in order to create a more balanced picture of me as an individual.

The State Of Our Nation Address, South Africa 2022 - My View

Today is Thursday 10 February 2022, and according to all the fanfare in the media, our State President, Cyril Ramaphosa, will deliver his annual State of the Nation Address (SONA) tonight at 7 - not from the usual place, being in Parliament, but from the Cape Town City Hall. 

As usual, we can expect, a cavalcade of overpaid puffed up parliamentarians will parade at the entrance dressed in high fashion, with apparent total disregard for the plight of those who are footing the bill. It will feature a lot of broad grins, flashy clothes, broad hats, sparkly bling and labels - and photographers.

Tragedy At Moon Books Publishing

Good morning, friends and fans.

This is a special note to inform you of the death of my friend Brandon Mullins late last night. Brandon was the CEO of Moon Books Publishing in Indiana, who was also responsible for bringing my books to you in audiobook format, as well as in paperback and eBook formats to Amazon. He also created the brilliant new-look covers for my books and series. With the release of "Prodigal Sun" and "Opsaal" - my 14th and 15th audiobooks - earlier this month, 2022 was really looking promising for both of us. Unfortunately, tragedy struck.

Shut Up And Sit Down, Puny Human. Nobody Can Hear Your Cries

Got to love the perfect, repetitive stupidity of Facebook's AI. It will keep on making the same fuck-ups perfectly, the same way, over and over again - and if it runs an interaction service such as the "review" or "appeal" desk, there's no way to get past it to appeal to the much more reasonable intelligence of an actual person with the power to actually THINK instead of just follow an algorithm.

Google - The AI Indifference Engine!

I've had some ill dealings with Google in the past few years, and on the whole they're okay... but what really grates my carrot about them is their penchant for hysteria and control-freakiness. 

What am I talking about? Is it their monopoly of our information? Their near-total control over what we see in internet searches? Well, yes, but that's not the focus of today's rant. Again - what am I talking about?

Let's take a look at two examples, shall we?

Interview With Brandon Mullins Of Moon Books Publishing

This was an interview conducted by Brandon Mullins of Moon Books Publishing on September 21, 2021.

That one time when I got to interview prolific science fiction author Christina Engela

"I’ve had the opportunity to work with many authors over the years of being Editor-in-Chief at Moon Books Publishing and doing freelance self publishing mentorship on Upwork but I’ve never run across someone as unique and uniquely talented as South African science fiction author Christina Engela.

Christina is seemingly an unquenchable font of creativity and positivity who never ceases to amaze me with how much of her heart she puts into her work, or how invaluable of a partner she has become in running Moon Books Publishing.

Christina is more than that though, she has become a close friend and cohort. So now, I get to interview her to see just what makes her tick.... read more.

Christina Engela’s Monthly Newsletter: #56 August 2021

 

Hello friends and fans - here's my latest newsletter! :) 

https://christinaengela.com/christina-engelas-monthly-newsletter-56-august-2021/

About That Blank Check

A topical favorite of religious people, particularly conservative Christians, is so-called 'sexual immorality'. 

 What is that exactly? 

To the rational mind, that would mean sexual-related activity which (so long as all participants are willing, consenting adults) results in harm to another person, or creature.

A system creates shame and then creates a means of absolving the shamed of their shame, provided they adhere to the rules of those who run the system. Convenient. 

Bigotry & Transphobia Stirs In South Africa - Again!

What really grated my carrot this week was part of the public reaction to the news that a transwoman had entered that archaic relic of the patriarchy which shamelessly puts women on show like cattle, the Miss South Africa contest!

It seems that as soon as things are nice and quiet and the bigots have stopped shouting for a little while, something happens to spark them off again - soon as they've more-or-less recovered from the disappointment that expressing racism and using the "k-word" in public gets people in trouble - the Karens come out screeching about how transgender people are somehow unfairly competing against them in x, y or z public domains and spaces, that "he-shes" don't belong in women's competitions (or in fact anywhere), and even that "god" created male and female, and apparently "doesn't make mistakes"!

This sort of idiotic Neanderthal mindset makes me bristle - so much so that it inspired my first LGBT activism-related article in quite some time!

So the news in question was that a local transwoman (a lady from PE called Zoe) is entering the Miss South Africa contest. It was in the Herald on Thursday morning, and by late afternoon every right wing lunatic bigot, transphobic halfwit and pious religious wanker who knows fuck-all about science, gender or what transwomen - and especially transwomen of color - endure in this country (or everywhere else) on a daily basis, started making an effort to vent their unintelligible hysterical bile in public. 

Prisons Of The Future - In Sci-fi, Galaxii, & Their Relation To The Contemporary

Modern prisons have by now been the setting for movies, books and series too numerous to mention. Some writers and movie makers have speculated about what form futuristic prisons might take - and they range from the ambitiously humanitarian and rehabilitative concepts of "Star Trek" and "Magnus, Robot Fighter", to the opposite extreme of positively brutal dystopian prison environments as seen in movies like "Fortress" and "Death Race" for example.

In this article (cross-posted from my author website) I'll be discussing the concepts of crime and punishment, and prison - in reality as well as in sci-fi settings - and the role of these in my own world-building in the Galaxii Series universe.