Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for December 27, 2024

I’m sorry Janis but the best you can only hope for is to be the First Queen after my Janis.

Maybe it already happened but it shot out on the opposite side of the sun?

Write … on … paper? We can do that?

Travel to the sun at night ?

Just keep your paper away from your telegraph key.

“The Carrington Event” of September 1, 1859 was one of the strongest solar storms in recorded history. it caused major aurora events that could be seen as far south as the Caribbean. It also caused noticeable perturbations in the global telecommunications networks of the day. These included minor electrocution of telegraph operators, fires, and other discharges from the lines igniting telegraph paper.

Me too, Janice. I am “the world’s greatest file clerk”——-I have almost everything on paper, and I can find it all, too.

Somewhere there are some politicians devising ways to blame the coming solar flare on our egregious activities.

Years ago, after a lightning strike killed my Jeep’s battery, I invested in a device that protects cars from EMP blasts and is advertised to even help systems survive a nuclear EMP. Then I started getting paranoid about all of my electronic devices, so I bought Faraday bags for them and another EMP protector for the house solar array. Funny thing, however, is that I’m not really a prepper fanatic but I did grow up on a farm and I am a Boy Scout, so I know a little about being “prepared” in the commonsense use of the word. So, if Putin ever takes that final step outside sanity, I’m ready. That’s of course assuming he doesn’t take me out on the first strike and considering where I live… well let’s just say I’ve done the math and I’m not spending any more money on those concerning thoughts.

If a massive solar flare coincides with the magnetic pole flipping it’s probably just the cosmos recognizing, unlike the dinosaurs, we could deflect a meteor.

nosirrom has already pointed out the 1859 Carrington Event — I suggest you look up The Why Files videos and see the description there about it and how much more damaging such an event could be with our modern electronics that are far more delicate than the telegraph system.

Yes, you will, Janis!

If you want a well-reasoned and immensely entertaining short story about what this would be like by one of the best SF writers, check out “Inconstant Moon” by Larry Niven. You can read it on-line at and elsewhere, and even download it.

If that happens I am so dead. I gave up post it notes for enotes decades ago. I always lost post it notes.

But, the world is flat. Maybe it went underneath us.

But wouldn’t that burn the paper also? Technology leaves me in the dark with a candle.

And then, (of course) the Kahoutek comet became obscured by an unexpected “bubble” (negating 24 hour daylight)…1973