Fake Times

By Gary J Byrnes

Gary J Byrnes, Blog, August 2014 - August 2018
While collecting my blog posts from 2014 to 2018, I was struck by how much has changed and how much has stayed the same. Recurring themes include religious division and social change, the search for a global story that unites humanity and the vague worry that maybe reaching for the stars means that we’ve already thrown in the towel here on fabulous Planet Earth.

But our planet and our race deserve better than that. Maybe we're living in a post-fiction world, where the shit that's real couldn't actually be passed off as made up stories. Maybe these are the fake times. The concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a tiny minority has resulted in a world that is cruel, poisoned and, for many, hopeless. It doesn’t have to be this way. Let’s get our shit together and fix it.

Contents:
Introduction
Top 5 Crazy things about Pope Francis Ireland visit
Support Canada against Saudi Arabian bullying, intimidation and dysfunction
Ireland to stop kissing the ring?
Wouldn't you vote yes if it was you that got pregnant?
Why the SpaceX Falcon Heavy test launch matters
Axial tilt - the real reason we celebrate Christmas
Blade Runner 2049. Yes. It's awesome.
Climate change, hurricanes, gods and logic
Easter Rising 1916 remembered - Ireland's crazy history and broken present
World War 3 - Ireland's neutrality no longer tenable
My Apprentice audition experience left me cold
Syria - How to stop the war
Greece, democracy and a fascist plot
Ireland's gay marriage referendum - a true watershed
Paris, a shining beacon for a new age of enlightenment?
We Say - A new participative democracy model for Ireland, Europe and the World
Islamic militants to merge
Je Suis Charlie - Much western media already defeated
United Hates - My new thriller
The Irish and water
Vampire Story - Free full spectrum entertainment
So, how's World War 3 going for you?
Scotland decides
On finishing a novel. An advertisement for myself
Why the Islamic State must be stopped
An online survey into the human condition
Free ebooks by Gary J Byrnes

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gary J Byrnes
• Release date: Jan 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463272152

Gary J Byrnes

When you buy any of Gary's books, he will fund a hemp plant through his planet-saving, hemp offset and sustainable living platform at Hempoffset.com. Read a thriller, be the thriller, save the world.LOCKDOWN DREAMS is flash fiction by GARY J BYRNES, writer of number one bestselling thriller 9/11 TRILOGY and Crime Writers’ Association Dagger-nominated PURE MAD. Gary works in aviation and space tech marketing and founded sustainability platform Hempoffset.com, crowdfunding a solution to the climate crisis with hemp. Lives in Dublin, Ireland, loves travelling in Europe and America. Ambition is to write The Great Novel of the 21st Century.Favourite writers include George Orwell, Yuval Harari, David Mitchell, Hunter S Thompson, Norman Mailer and Philip K Dick. When not at his laptop, Gary enjoys cooking, encountering great art, exploring cities and trying to make the world a better place, one story at a time.

Book preview

Introduction

10/01/2019

While collecting my blog posts from August 2014 to August 2018, I was struck by how much has changed and how much has stayed the same. Recurring themes include religious division and social change, the search for a global story that unites humanity and the vague worry that maybe reaching for the stars means that we’ve already thrown in the towel here on fabulous Planet Earth.

But our planet and our race deserve better than that. Maybe we're living in a post-fiction world, where the shit that's real couldn't actually be passed off as made up stories. Maybe these are the fake times. The concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a tiny minority has resulted in a world that is cruel, poisoned and, for many, hopeless. It doesn’t have to be this way. Let’s get our shit together and fix it.

Top 5 Crazy things about Pope Francis Ireland visit

26/08/2018

That crazy pope, what a guy!

You'd think it was the end of the world! All roads closed, warnings to keep your kids indoors, no bread in the shops, masses of chanting old people walking through the streets. And a sense of despair, even among the zealous. For Pope Francis is the head of a poisonous lie, so here are the most crazy things about his visit to Dublin, Ireland, August 25 and 26, 2018.

Here in the Dublin trenches, living through it, it's just a pain in the ass. For them, the ones who still believe the story, it's something unknown to me. Kudos to Irish leader Leo Varadkar for insisting that the Church brings in mandatory reporting of child sex abuse. Without that, Francis is just the front man of a monster.

1. So expensive! Like, 40 million quid!

Half will be paid up by gullible donors and suckers in mass every Sunday. The Catholic Church has been incredibly successful at getting its followers to pay for everything, and is worth... well, God only knows. Literally. Meanwhile, the hard-pressed Irish taxpayer will help fund the 20 million quid that pays for Garda overtime and, subsequently, rounds in Copper Face Jacks.

2. So mental! Like, they actually believe this shit?

Religion is mad, Ted. There's just no other way to put it. Okay, maybe back in the day (like 5,000 years ago), we knew fuckall about anything, so making up stories to explain things made some sense. Then science happened, and enlightenment. So, we know that the Bible was just made up and is not the word of God. Because there is no god and this stuff is just not on. But if you want to turn a blind eye to the child abuse so you can listen to crazy stories every Sunday morning while the rest of us are having a lie-in, just go and do your religion in private. No need to shut down a provincial yet buzzy city for it.

3. 600 million communion wafers to be consumed!

If you stacked all the communion wafers to be consumed in Dublin this weekend on top of each other, they'd reach the moon! Even more crazy: there's a full moon on the day of the big gig in Phoenix Park! Wow! A disc of unleavened flour and holy water never sounded tastier! (Gags.)

This weekend, the faithful in Dublin are expected to consume:

600 million communion wafers,

17 million cups of tea,

2 million cups of Maxwell House Fine Blend,

24 million ham sandwiches,

7 million Club Milks,

1 million Choc Ices (depending on the weather),

32 million custard cream biscuits.

4. Francis was a nightclub bouncer

Francis is the first Jesuit pope, the first from the Americas, the first from the Southern Hemisphere, and the first pope from outside Europe since the Syrian Gregory III, who reigned in the 8th century. A Syrian, no less! Francis also used to work as a nightclub bouncer until he swapped sweaty late nights for early mornings of mass and unleavened wafers every day. Don't be surprised if you bump into Pope Francis on Harcourt Street late on Sunday night, picking fights and spilling pints.

5. A lot has changed in Ireland since the last pope visited

Pope John Paul 2 visited an adoring Ireland in 1979, and almost everyone went to bend the knee, and hear him pontificating when Polish accents were still quite rare. Other changes include the appearance of real coffee (only Maxwell House Fine Blend back then), the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1993 (!), and the IRA ending its campaign of violence in 2005. In 1979, the only drinks were Guinness, Harp, Paddy whiskey, Babycham, and the only wine was Blue Nun or Black Tower. There were no drugs, no grass, no cocaine, not even heroin, as the whole Afghanistan thing was just kicking off. Ireland in 2018 is a bleary trip and that's why we are mostly immune to Francis's Jesuit mind tricks.

Mandatory reporting, or else

So Francis will hopefully get the message loud and clear: we're mostly done with the Catholic Church game. We will no longer be controlled, educated, brainwashed or abused by a fantastical system that twisted a benevolent ideology into something cruel and sadistic.

We have so much more to learn about what it is to be human and what the Universe means, but religion has nothing to offer humanity on this