Degenerations

by R. Jean Mathieu

While the banks burn in San Luis Obispo, the commentary section of the New Times-Tribune is alive and buzzing...

"gojoe: u believe the news from SLO? y the fuck r bums burning down my bank?

WhoIsJaneGalt: b/c they don’t THINK. I taught philosophy for forty years, never seen kids this stupid. Parents shove baby thru govt-indoctrination ‘school’ too watered-down to flunk them if they don’t make it."

Written at the dawn of the Obama administration, this incendiary story presaged the Oakland violence, Occupy, and the permanent downturn of the Millenial generation.

You will remember "Degenerations" for a long time to come...if there's a long time to follow, that is.

3 pages, ebook

First published May 9, 2013

About the author

R. Jean Mathieu is the fiction writer of all trades. From award-winning stories of the Peace Corps and meditators on Mars (“Gods of War”) to time-traveling mysteries of a Mexican detective solving his own murder (No Time: The First Hour), Mathieu revels in different genres, different voices, and cultural chop suey. Under other noms de plume, he writes romances, thrillers, pulp adventures, Westerns, and mysteries.
Mathieu grew up in Morro Bay, California. He enrolled in college at fifteen, where he would spend the next ten years. With an Associate’s degree in International Studies and $100 in his pocket, Mathieu traveled to China, alternately working as a teahouse server, organic farmhand, Hong Kong movie extra, and English teacher. Despite being deported thrice, he won his degree in Sociology (minoring in Business) over his five years in China, refining his craft along the way. From the streets of Shenzhen to the Thousand-Handed Bodhisattva to the color of industrial sunlight in a mountain town, he continues to draw on the experiences and life lessons he learned there.
He lives in Morro Bay with his wife Melissa, where they keep a good table when not writing side-by-side or chasing trains to the next adventure. A convinced Quaker, he attends Central Coast Friends Meeting in between writing and publishing his fiction, learning new languages, and practicing Uechi-ryu karate. Besides anthologies and magazines, you can find all his stories at Amazon.com and his commentary at RJeanMathieu.com.