Mark on Topic: Subscriber Tree House – ‘Joyful Warriors’ and Cheerful Terrorists

The following is from my Wednesday ‘Subscriber Tree House’ edition of Mark on Topic (Substack). Subscribe here!

Happy Wednesday, Tree House friends! A couple things to relate today from the tin-cans-and-a-string news outlet.

One, I may take a short sabbatical from fiction writing. As much as I love making up worlds and the people who inhabit them, it’s also frequently frustrating. I sometimes suffer from a form of creative constipation, and that’s where I find myself this morning. But it does not mean I’ll be this way tomorrow. It’s likely that I’m just feeling over-extended, and one of those burners has to be put on low.

The subtitle today, ‘Joyful Warriors,’ comes from the name of an upcoming convention in Philadelphia being hosted by the Moms for Liberty kitchen-table terrorists with their massive dark money backing. You know Besty DeVoss is lurking in there somewhere, salivating at all the public education dollars she’ll be able to funnel into her Good Christian friends’ pockets as our educational system is destroyed. Knowledge and freedom are the wood, Moms for Liberty are the termites.

These vipers are at the door, slithering closer as they take over school boards across the country. This happened, quite sadly, in Bucks County, PA, just across the river from our home in New Jersey. The new board, with a 6-3 nutjob majority, has banned Pride flags, ‘safe space’ stickers, and anything else that might make a non-white-Christian child or educator feel safe. Gay? Trans? Black? Forget about it! The only safe spaces these people want are white, Christian, heterosexual, cisgender spaces. The rest of us will be peering in the window hoping we don’t get arrested for trespassing.

I’m currently part of a growing pushback on this cheerful terrorism. I’m on a committee to identify and elect school board members in my district. I’m also part of the Kingwood Democratic Club and the Hunterdon Democrats, as we scramble to recover from the ambush (Mom-bush?) of these joyless authoritarians. I had no interest in being an activist at this age, but it’s come to that. What waits ahead, no one knows, but we cannot simply lie down in the middle of the road and let ourselves be run over by the Momster trucks.

In other news …

I’m interviewing comic and activist Robin Tyler later today. She’s 80-years-old and as much a door-kicker as ever. She and Rev. Troy Perry called for the first March on Washington, and I’m looking forward to hearing what she has to say about our current state of affairs.

Buy local …

Many thanks to Babs and her Bucks on Bridge coffee shop. She hosted a reading of mine in January, and she’s selling my books at the shop.

The Twist Podcast with comedy duo Mark McNease and Rick Rose is moving to Sundays! I no longer work on the Lord’s Day, so we’re relocating and loving it. Upcoming Twist-erviews: author and podcaster Brad Shreve, and San Antonio’s very own drag warrier Queen Fantasia. Fasten your headphones!

And lastly, I’ve just signed up with an app called HealthyWage. It sounds like a scam but it’s not. I’m betting $60 a month for 6 months ($360) that I’ll lose 30 pounds by August. When I do (not ‘if’), I’ll win $745, nearly doubling my wager. The reality is most people don’t succeed, and that’s how they make make money for themselves and the payouts for people like me, who will not fail. So … wish me good eating!

Today’s parting shot …

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