Laying on the grass
(the sun is warmer when the sky agrees to blue)
Beneath a cottonwood tree
(which tells many secrets on windy days)
I listened for the bird.

Not a sparrow, not a jay, not a crow.
(which, though common, are not unwanted)
Not a hawk, nor a killdeer, nor any duck
(peculiar sounds for cacop…

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Some data suggests that about 1/5 of American adults are considered illiterate.1 One model suggests that 130 million adults (age 16-74) read below a sixth-grade level. Based on current population estimates, that’s almost 40%.2 In 2022, not even half of American adults read a bo…

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Thou lookest dead.

Thine last gasp of breath
and sup on potato chip
ended ingloriously
in the duct above the office.

Layest thou for a fortnight, mourned not.

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It started with a simple statement, which later permuted itself into raging brain activity as I tried to get to sleep.

Why would such a great word be used for such a stupid thing? Who cares about the next-to-last? I thought as I tossed and turned in bed. Why would …

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Too many choices.

Too many open roads.

I am tethered

to the sky.

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Every movie was either based on Austen, Alcott, Gaskell, James, one of the Brontes, Trollope, or the like. It was all Merchant Ivory and Miramax productions. It was wonderful and also introduced me to the concept of main-character syndrome.

Main character syndrome is the belief that you are the central prota…

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There’s no end to the greed of scammers and hucksters.

Good people who want their children and grandchildren to have a more robust Christian faith are ending up on a website called Valorrea, a gross word that appears to be a repulsive portmanteau of valor and diarrhea, as if having too much valor was a problem we have ever seen in the human race.

Here’s how it started: a Facebook post told an emotional story about young people who left the Christian faith, and why this was happening: they were taught what to believe rather than why they believed. It ended with the need for a book on systematic theology you could use with your kids to help them better understand their faith. There was enough truth in the story to cause most readers to let down their guard and trust the storyteller. I know; I read it and was compelled to search for the product initially before my distrust kicked in.

A little poison in lots of sugar is still deadly.

A social media post incites some sort of emotional feeling—fear, anger, love, coziness—and you are either hit with a related product in the ads you’re shown (the algorithm is very clever), or you go do an internet search and click on the first results you find and buy. Is it a scam? Manipulation? The worst of marketing? The Temu-ization of the world? Whatever it is, we all fall for it.

So the viral Facebook post is how we arrive at the currently popular search for “52-week systematic theology workbook for kids.”

#1. Top search results don’t mean anything anymore.

Top search results used to be the most relevant. They no longer are (see also: the enshittification of Google search). Google search’s top results are now the least trustworthy option because they are for sale.

As noted, Valorrea is a top search result in Google. They have done an excellent job apparently paying for sponsored listings and also keying in their search engine optimization (SEO) to the “52 week systematic theology workbook for kids” search term everyone is using from that Facebook post. And it’s all working. They pop up first, and we’ve been trained to click the first search results as the best ones.

RULE 1: The first search results are often sponsored, gamed SEO, or AI. They are not the best option. Scroll further and look down the list for actual reputable websites.

#2. What do scam websites say?

ScamAdviser gave Valorrea a fair score, but based primarily on technical registrations. According to their measurements, we can see that valorrea.com was likely safe with a “fair” score. But there were a few red flags for me.

• Domain registered only three months prior.

• Using cheap domain registrar and fast-build Shopify site

On the Valorrea website itself, we find this as the contact information:

Everyone loves them some Delaware incorporation and association, don’t they, especially them there Suite warehouses.

The footer was interesting, a showcase of inconsistencies in capitalization that I take note of and simply add in the “things that make you go hmmm” column:

It is also odd for a truly U.S. company to use Greenwich Mean Time instead of the actual time zones found in the US, and add the “+1” to the phone number:

None of this is proof of a scam, but it is unusual. It feels like obfuscation presented as transparency. Malware Tips does a good job of breaking down the Valorrea site, explaining in detail how these online pop-up junk shops rake in money and then disappear.

• Products delivered won’t look like they do in the ad.

• Few of the “money-back” promises will be kept.

• It takes a long time to get the product.

• There is pressure and urgency to purchase now for steep discounts.

Making a purchase under some kind of pressure, whether it’s time or emotional, is always a terrible idea.

RULE 2: Look at the website and take note of anything that seems unusual or gives you pause.

#3. What do other people say?

You can’t rely on reviews on a website, as they are controlled and can be faked or paid for. You can’t even trust reviews on social media posts because of bots and other fakery.

Valorrea has what appear to be Facebook testimonials. I searched several of the names and found Facebook accounts that match. What could that possibly mean?

1. The real person reviewed the book that they bought through Valorrea and liked it.

2. Valorrea created fake reviews and scraped real account names and profile images to do so.

3. Some people had good reviews, some bad, and Valorrea only showed you the good reviews.

The best reviews are those on other platforms that the seller cannot control. I often go to Reddit to see what others are saying, and I was not disappointed. I found the thread “Valorrea Bible study guide is it worth buying or misleading product?”

We’re going to get into the real guts of what that Reddit thread contained, but for now, let’s give the benefit of the doubt and say that people giving reviews that the book was great were real. I’ve no doubt the book they might have received from Valorrea may indeed be excellent in its content, if that’s actually the book you get. And that’s where this gets really interesting.

The apparent theft of intellectual property.

The theft of intellectual property (IP) by other nations is rampant. I don’t know that much can be done, except that we stop buying fakes and knock-offs, or lose our minds with cheap prices.

So let me introduce you to Jenny Ingram, who wrote Bible Study Workbook for Kids back in 2024. It’s a beautiful book, with thoughtful illustrations and great content.

Valorrea, from what I can tell in the screenshots I took on the morning of January 5, 2026, took Ingram’s copy and apparently used AI to generate the illustrations, reselling it to fit the new 52-week systematic theology workbook for kids hype.

Previously, based on the Reddit thread I mentioned earlier, they seemingly had called it the same thing Jenny had but recently adjusted it to slap the “systematic theology” title on the cover to tap into the viral post.

After gathering these screenshots and discussing them with others, I later started seeing the Valorrea ads on Instagram. It was worth noting that the Instagram account was only three months old, had two obligatory Jesus-y but product-irrelevant posts, and was based in Bulgaria.

Out of curiosity, I clicked through the ad. There, I found a landing page just for Instagram users that told a very similar story to the viral Facebook post. The story uses what seem to be real people’s names, real statistics, and real scientific research. It seems verifiable (but isn’t, really). It’s the perfect mix of what I, as a writer, would use to persuade: personal story, shocking data and dilemma, the quest for a solution, and the solution presented as a call to action (buy this book).

But this time, scrolling the Instagram version of the site on the evening of January 5, 2026, I realized something seemed different about the webpage. I went to my computer to see it on a larger screen. When I clicked through, I was surprised to see that the images displayed had changed. In just half a day, the book for sale had changed.

This is not the first time the website has quickly changed something about the product. In the previously mentioned Reddit thread, a user had seen the book with an entirely different title (they had used Ingram’s title at one point):

It is my opinion that this is a shady website that quickly changes product details to match the keywords bringing people to its page, to deflect accusations of IP theft, or to make the biggest buck before it disappears. It could be what we call A/B testing, where you test many options to determine which performs best and generates the most revenue. The images and text that generate the most money get to stay.

If you order this book, I have no idea what you’re going to get, what it will look like, what copy they’ll actually be using—and neither do you. But if you actually want a Christian workbook for kids, you can buy Ingram’s book through reputable websites without any sketchy concerns, and support a legitimate author who deserves your support.

The takeaway?

Scammers now have AI, aggressive algorithms, and pure greed working for them. They can identify real pain points and the problems we want solved. Compassionate and sincere but gullible people are an excellent target. There is a reason we must be shrewd as snakes and innocent as doves (Matthew 10:16).

Christians are an easy target.

Most of the heartwarming stories we see on social media aren’t true. If you enjoy them, enjoy them as fiction. If you can identify the bits of truth woven in, don’t buy the product you’re pushed to get. Instead, consider the truth and what action God would have you take. Go to trusted websites first to see if the product is listed.

Because these scammers are really, really good at what they do. They’ve gotten me a time or two.

Please read the follow-up to this blog post, in which I respond to Valorrea demanding I take this blog post down.

Part 2

Even a nation brainwashed to equate artsiness with art knows when its eyelids are drooping. — B. R. Meyers

In February 2006, I ordered a copy of the book A Reader’s Manifesto: An Attack on the Growing Pretentiousness in American Literary Prose. Originally an essay, the author, B. R. Myers, expanded it into a tidy little book that took a swing at the grow…

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I don’t know how the kids did it, during the pandemic.

I don’t know how they were able to learn via Zoom and online platforms.

How were you able to, for example, diagram a sentence without spitballs flying overhead? How were you able to work the quadratic equation without some moron in the back row tossing freshly sharpened pencils into the ceiling tiles? How were you able to learn without textbooks, piles of paper and notebooks, the math teacher confiscating your pen because math homework is to be done in pencil—I honestly don’t know. I don’t know how they learn with screens and computers instead of books, chalk, and paper, and I don’t know how they learned virtually.

I can’t.

I cannot.

Due to extreme impostor syndrome, I am always looking for writing classes through the local college’s continuing education. This year, they had several, all contracted through another service provider, and would be virtual classes in the evenings.

Awesome. I can wear jammie pants and still go to class, I thought.

For the first class, a beginner’s guide to getting published, I had more gracious and milder notes as the class progressed.

On Zoom, I wrote in my notes. Somewhat of a nightmare.

The first eight minutes were filled with the teacher fighting to keep people muted— “please do not unmute yourself!” —listening as a woman picked up her phone with her audio unmuted, calling someone to help them with Zoom. There was also a couple arguing mildly, and an elderly man who repeatedly asked for the location of the class document because he didn’t understand what chat meant. He later informed us he had been a rocket scientist for decades.

I sat there, feeling microscopic amounts of life leave my body with each successive hit of Zoom doom, impressed that this instructor remained tight but calm, her pursed lips forced to a smile that didn’t reach her eyes, for which I cannot blame her.

Gen-X—my generation—is a small, in-between generation, born and raised in the pre-Internet era, in on the ground floor of personal computing and things like the command prompt and Windows 3.0, and through all the advancements to where we are today. It’s a strange bridge in which you see people on either side of your generation, either struggling to understand computers or struggling to understand those who don’t understand computers.

Our writing prompt for this class was to write a paragraph using the words summer, trees, and ocean in it. I listened as people read what they’d written about Martha’s Vineyard and Italy and a special beach vacation, dread growing inside as I realized I may have done the homework wrong.

It was an odd summer, one that started with a hot June breeze and trees that emerged from the ocean, just in front of the horizon where the water disappeared. At first, we thought the tall mast ships had returned, but this was unlikely since last year we’d sent them off with weaponized smallpox. The inconvenience of the trees in the ocean annoyed the fishing boats at first, but locals soon found a way to turn it into a tourist attraction.

The second class, on travel writing, attracted a diverse group of people. There were fewer older people this time. I admit I use that description lightly, as I am but four years away from joining my fellow Gen-Xers in invading the senior citizen centers of America with a latchkey, flannel, Doc Martens, grunge, and apathy.

Zoom meeting, I wrote in my notes for this second class. So far no real drama with the tech.

One writing prompt required us to write a paragraph about a recent trip, avoiding a list of common words and phrases, and to pay attention to sensory details.

Depression Beach is at the end of a two-lane asphalt road. It takes longer to get to Depression than you might imagine; you’ll be lulled to sleep by the sound of the tires across the cracks in the road. The faster you drive to make time move, the more hypnotic the sun blinking and flashing through the Spanish moss and live oaks. The smell of salt and seaweed, and maybe a hint of a backed-up sewer in the visitor’s center, slaps you in the nose when you finally break through the tunnel. The shadow of a historic fort beyond the trees and dunes is all that’s between you and the brackish water slapping the sand. That sand holds the magic; that’s where the shark teeth are.

Then we were to write a paragraph offering packing tips for a week-long vacation. I groaned inwardly; I’ve been waiting my whole life for someone to tell me how to pack well. After wasting several minutes trying to compress a life of packing failures into actionable advice, I was informed we had a minute left and so I came up with this:

We’re told that an indispensable little black dress and the right accessories are all we need to pack a mere carry-on or small bag and survive a week away from home. For the average traveler, it’s not that easy. Some of us are fat. Best real-world advice? Break down your vacation into the three main activities, and find two pairs of shoes—one of which you’ll wear en route—that will cover all the bases. Use compression bags that don’t require a vacuum to save space for what you do end up packing. And lastly, wool socks truly are your friend. Believe me, you don’t want jungle rot.

The third class, creative writing 101, I should have known better than to sign up for.

I don’t know when I’ll think I don’t need a 101 class. I don’t know how many books, how many years of blogging—I honestly don’t. I always feel like a know-nothing. I want to learn, and I grab at what I can. But this is the catch-all class of anyone who wants to mash words together, the unharnessable energy of sincere and passionate creatives who make everyone uncomfortable in line at the grocery store checkout.

There’s a reason I don’t participate in writer groups. Several, in fact.

1. It seems as if everyone over the age of 60 wants to write their memoir. Sometimes/often a memoir becomes a gateway drug to talking about yesteryears and less about writing.

2. The presence of romance writers, who either write in too much detail or awkwardly around it. After listening, we either need a penicillin shot, or forgiveness for thinking they should just get on with it instead of wasting all those pages suggesting.

3. Inevitably, a young woman who seems quiet will shock the group with horribly private and intimate details during one of the writing exercises, causing the teacher or group to say something like “interesting” or “good use of adjectives” while setting a mental reminder to check in on our young family members to see if they’re doing okay in life.

4. An old hippy woman is going to talk about things like periods or something else involving bodily fluids that no one wants to hear about, somehow managing to besmirch our grandparents who once looked like her.

5. Someone is going to not exactly read what they write, but talk about what they theoretically wrote. They will discuss it apologetically or from a distance, leaving everyone to wonder what they are supposed to critique and if this is the modern version of the kid who didn’t do his homework but thinks he can BS the teacher.

6. Some whack job will respond to the writing prompts as weirdly or off-beat as possible and confuse the rest of the group, suggesting they aren’t taking this as seriously as they should.

If you’re wondering, I’m #6 pretty much always.

Creative writing 101 classes are like writing groups. My notes for this third class were more involved than the previous two.

Zoom class.

This is not a class for asking how the technology works.

She’s chatting to all of us how it’s her first time to use Zoom, but we managed to deduce that, thank you.

Who just burped for God’s sake.

We can’t possibly know if you should click the red thingie on your screen.

Can’t see it! Where’s the icon! Where’s the download! Do I have a microphone?! I can’t hear you! What is chat? This is the poetry of modern education.

They need a pre-class Zoom instruction and tech test option before people are allowed to waste our time. I support tech litmus tests.

I can’t believe I paid for ten minutes to hear 20 people asking how to use a laptop.

Just what I wanted, a boomer hippy creatively writing about the process of getting pregnant. Bleach my ears, Lord.

Many times, I turned off my camera and let the profile image sit in its place for the same reason I can’t play competitive poker: facial expressions.

I knew, in order to preserve unity in the creative reaches of the nation that were currently on a $44 Zoom call, that I needed to shut off my camera and allow for private eye-rolling and forehead smacking before rejoining the land of the living. At one point, I realized I had opened up Poppit, an addictive balloon popping game that allows you to pop balloons cathartically, and was playing it while the class was going on. I wondered again how kids learned anything using computers.

[Pausing for a few minutes to play a few rounds of Poppit before resuming this blog post.]

[Seriously, you guys, I just wasted 20 minutes of my life again playing Poppit.]

In a world where the bookstore is half composed of games, stationery, and Manga, and a quarter of which are books that are “spicy” (the modern word for what we used to call smut, bodice-rippers, or you-need-Jesus), I am wary of what to expect from a writing group or a writing class. There are things I don’t want to hear, but in these situations, you don’t know they’re coming until they’ve assaulted your ears and then you’re supposed to critique the grammar and structure all while wondering where the closest priest confessional booth is.

For this class, we had a free-writing prompt in which we were to write about anything as it came to mind. Some people have dirty minds, I’m just going to put that out there. I wrote about whether or not aliens wore tinfoil hats, but I won’t bore you with those details because I couldn’t come to a definitive opinion.

Later, we had to write a basic plot structure in a 1-10 list format. I can get behind the metric system at times, so I dove right in:

1. Character wakes up, has breakfast.

2. Steps out of the door and realizes gravity has shifted outside of his house.

3. Gets caught in the branches of the tree near the door.

4. Finds the neighbor’s cat there.

5. Brief conversation with the cat, which he finds surprisingly narcissistic.

6. Fire truck rolls down the street, and the man wonders why it is able to stay on the ground.

7. Firemen get the cat out of the tree, leave him there as if they don’t see him.

8. He attempts to start the tree on fire before they leave to catch their attention.

9. Realizes nothing he does affects the things around him, though regrets the loss of the tree.

10. Realizes he’s a ghost.

Then we were to write a dialogue-only scene, with minimal subtext:

“If you don’t shut that door, we’ll all freeze to death,” she said, gripping the edge of the wall.

“I’m just letting in some fresh air.”

“We’re in deep space, you fool,” she said, her hands slipping free as she floated away, imploding.

I will admit that, by the third Zoom class, I was getting a bit punchy. Tech help is the fastest way to destroy a person’s soul, and to preface creative writing instruction with that is a kind of befoulment that ought not.

It just ought not.

It was the same teacher for all three courses, so she may have understood.

I’m mostly just a jerk, a huge fan of the drive-by writing prompt response, and should probably stop signing up for virtual writing classes.

To us, a balaclava is a ski mask, great for protection from the natural elements, robbing banks, and hiding faces in general.

To the folks who lived in 1854, it was a battle during the Crimean War, famously marked by two British cavalry actions: the charge of the Heavy Brigade and the charge of the Light …

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It turns out that I did see someone at Goldman’s window, and it’s a good thing.

The Goldman’s grandkids, Violet and her older brother Charles, were visiting for the summer. Violet had been at her bedroom window when she saw us riding up the street, late at night. From her window, she could see our flashlights bouncing around in the trees and on the lawn …

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Our plan, if you could call it that, came together after some discussion, pizza served by Jimmy’s mom, and a carefully concocted scheme which I drew out in our notebook .

By carefully concocted, I mean a plan that sounds OK over pizza in the safety of a basement, but would probably go terribly wrong once it went into action.

We’d tell our parents a not-li…

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Lake Avalon was a big lake that sat just inside the border with Canada. It had several cities sitting on its edge, sandwiched along bays and inlets. Fields and farms bumped up against it, meeting the water’s edge in a gentle slope or as cliffs or rolling hills that dropped into the water. Many of those cliffs had caves and tunnels burrowing deep into th…

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“I’ll ask my mom,” Marta said.

Both she and Jimmy were impressed at what I’d worked on the previous night, but when I admitted that I was stumped by how to track down the creator of the puzzles, Marta stepped in with her offer of parental guidance.

“Can we do it today?” I asked.

“Sure.”

We were sitting under the tree in Marta’s yard, sipping Cokes, our bike…

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After chores and supper, I spent the evening up in my bedroom at my desk with my pens and colored pencils. It was raining outside, which was ideal. I didn’t feel guilty for spending a summer’s evening inside, and I didn’t have to worry about getting called downstairs to do outside chores.

I started by numbering the list we’d made in the mystery notebook …

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Belinda lived in a comfortable house, though small, in a modest neighborhood. It was the kind of place where crime wasn’t rampant, but petty thievery might happen once in a while around Christmas. He envied her window box flowers as he rang the doorbell. Perhaps he ought to get serious about moving out of…

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I was never so happy to do chores in my life. As I shook the container of cracked corn, making a rattling sound that made the chickens come running towards the coop, I marveled at how fast things had become a scary mess.

My big plans for the summer had been VBS, Bible camp, riding horses, and doing the bare minimum of chores to free up time to read books…

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Royce, I wish you were here, Bob thought.

Royce loved codes and riddles. This case would have been right up his alley. Bob, on the other hand, was more inclined to shadowing, questioning, and taking photographs. He was good at collecting information, but Royce had been good at putting it together.

He real…

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I don’t know what I thought $80,000 worth of coins would look like, but I guess with the right coins, it’s just one.

According to Jimmy, that was the value of what Mr. Goldman had just had stolen from him.

“He had a 1776 Continental Dollar taken,” Jimmy explained, reading from the notes he’d taken while eavesdropping on his parent’s conversation after Sat…

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After giving the clock a going-over, he could see why someone might want to kill for it. It had to be priceless.

Four sapphires, encased in gold, sat in the corner of the white agate base. The clock itself was a stunning assemblage of cut rock crystal, gold, platinum and diamonds. He felt sorry for it, th…

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