Monday - Secret Agents; Disillusioned Republicans; History; Roth's Portnoy; Not Much Done

 Not much to report.

I read a little this morning. Then I worked a little on revising "Blue Eyes Flashing Doom". 

Let me show you the limits of my imagination, the idea that Oscar Wilde's grandson was still alive in 2006 astounds me: After Oscar by Merlin Holland review – Wilde’s grandson on the legacy of a scandal.

I read Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent while in prison; Thornfield Hall has an interesting perspective on the novel with the post The Destruction of the Nuclear Family: Joseph Conrad’s “The Secret Agent”. For those of you who stopped reading Conrad with The Heart of Darkness, I recommend The Secret Agent (and also Under Western Eyes!)

I love movies, I know who Billy Wilder was, and found much that was interesting in Billy Wilder, The Art of Screenwriting No. 1, even if I didn't learn much about screenwriting.

More troubling was My Last Day as an Accomplice of the Republican Party (The Bulwark). It seemed to me emblematic of what drove the Republican Party into its madness, a careerist not paying attention to the effects of their ideals, and the limitations wordly affairs put on one's conscience. Parallels with Nazi Germany came to mind - those who see good things in their ideals, make rationalizations of the uglier effects of those ideas and people they are following.

I thought this documentary about Led Zeppelin would talk about how Jimmy Page supposedly kept The Yardbirds obscured, but it was an eye-opener anyway about Led Zep's early days:

Morning music:
 

 I had lunch, a bath, and then I thought a nap might be of use. Yeah, that took up almost 3 hours of my afternoon and into my evening. The past three hours have not been very productive, either. It seems I've got an ear infection. When I poured peroxide into my ear, it went fizzing like mad. Some time, I need to make a fun out of the apartment, Sooner better than later, it is going on 8 pm.

I finished off the last of my chicken stew while reading The Psychology of Portnoy: On the Making of Philip Roth’s Groundbreaking Novel. The one Roth novel I knew of as a teenager (although not of its content) and the one I have never read. I am not even sure I have seen it in print for a very long time. I need to take a look.

I got a rejection for "No Ordinary Word":

Thank you so much for your submission to the 20th issue of WayWords. 

The editors have decided not to include your piece, "No Ordinary Word", in this issue. While they enjoyed your work, they felt the theme of messy wasn't as strong in this piece.  

We appreciate the courage it takes to send your work into the world and invite you to explore other Writer's Workout opportunities: 

Writer's Games, an annual competition 

Write Track, a three-part competition with biannual rotation

Fiction Potluck, a quarterly competition (open now)

future quarterly issues of WayWords (open now)

and Tales, our annual anthology (opening in 2026).

Catch up on our free 2025 conference and prepare for 2026, March 23-29.

We wish you luck on your writing journey. 

-The WayWords Team

Sidney Blumenthal writes in Abraham Lincoln’s 1859 Lesson for Some 2028 Democrat:

Lincoln carried his logic to its conclusion, that the impulse to repress free speech and democracy would lead to more terrorist acts. He posed the question: “How much would you gain by forcing the sentiment which created it out of the peaceful channel of the ballot-box, into some other channel? What would that other channel probably be? Would the number of John Browns be lessened or enlarged by the operation?”

***

Lincoln turned to speak to his fellow Republicans. First, he said, “Even though much provoked, let us do nothing through passion and ill temper.” Then, he explained the depth of the political problem that they faced. They would be continually put on the defensive. Even if the territories were “unconditionally surrendered” to the South, that would not satisfy them. Even if there were no more “invasions and insurrections … yet this total abstaining does not exempt us from the charge and the denunciation.”

His lessons were clear—to frame the central political issues as a defense of democracy and the Constitution, to repudiate smears by exposing the political motives behind them, to focus on winning elections by standing firmly on the fundamental questions rather than being provoked into sideshows, to understand that nothing but abject prostration before their enemies would satisfy their will to power, and to assert that the politics of fear must be met with confidence.

At last, Lincoln delivered his conclusion, disdaining deference and apology, freed from ambivalence and ambiguity, rising above vilification and bullying, to defend the Constitution, vindicate his party, and emerge as its standard-bearer. “Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the government nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.” 

I keep thinking the Democrats need to stop talking about democracy and talk about freedom. Maybe even put it as bluntly as: Do we want to be free or slaves?

Also from The New Republic: Republicans Should Be Afraid—Just Look at Who Joined No Kings Protests.

But much to the chagrin of the GOP, the No Kings rally in Washington, D.C., was not unhinged, not very far left, and entirely peaceful. The atmosphere was extremely energetic and family friendly for both young and old. People walked slowly, often with kids in tow. Countless attendees wore large inflatable costumes, inspired by the Portland frog. There was live music, tabling, and speeches by Bill Nye, Mehdi Hasan, and Senators Bernie Sanders and Chris Murphy, among others. And while the event was massive, the vibe was closer to that of a lively farmers market on a nice Sunday morning than it was to whatever the right was trying so desperately to convince people it would be.

But perhaps equally upsetting for Republicans: The 200,000 people who are estimated to have shown up in D.C.—of the roughly seven million protesters nationwide—represented an expansive contingent of Americans. Many of them seemed to care quite a bit about those “foundational truths” Johnson pretended to be so worried about.

 And exactly what I saw in Anderson and Muncie.

 Trump dumped feces on No Kings. I should be outraged? That seems to be the message I got in some messages today. I cannot. Disgust is the best I can do. All the President's actions say the same thing: a mentality shrunken and narrowed into a childishness that knows only how to wreck, not build; an embarrassment to the country and proof of how many Americans share the same destructive, selfish mentality.

No, I prefer At Least We Owned the Libs by Ginny Hogan.

 CC called, I got perked up, but not enough to do anything but finish off this post. 

sch. 

 

No Kings Saturday; Nothing Doing Sunday

 I went to Anderson Saturday to see what their No King's Day would look like. I also stopped by to see my mother's grave. 

The north side of the Madison County Government Center was the site. The crowd lined the sidewalk and the portico above the sidewalk. People came armed with signs and some in costume. Two women I walked up with from the parking lot came as an illegal alien (she had fuzzy antennae) and the other as a butterfly (which made sense when I saw her t-shirt said the only orange monarch she wanted was a Monarch butterfly). One driver-by gave the crowd a finger; there were plenty of horns honking in support.

I had signed up for the Muncie demonstration through Muncie Resists. I have to admit I did not join it. 

On the way back, I decided to give J a call. Her health has not been good; there was talk of her going to the Mayo Clinic. Well, what I got was not good news. The Mayo Clinic turned her down. However, there does seem to be a clinic down in Florida that will take her. It is some sort of genetic disease; she said it was worse than MLS. The symptoms sound similar. Worse news is that her daughter has come down with the same disease. It may even be worse. Weakness, able to do things, even typing on the computer is painful. Knowing as I do J's past and the past of her daughter, it feels like a horror story — one where good people keep getting tortured.

The Muncie turn out was huge. I drove by, honking my horn. It was getting too hot. So, I did my laundry — including the clothes from dunking in the White River. 

Latest 'No Kings' rally draws anti-Trump protesters to downtown Muncie bridge has enough coverage of that, including signs, to show the story.

Now, if all those people demonstrating and honking their horns will vote. 

The remainder of the day, I stayed at home. I worked on revising my story, and I spent some time on this blog.

I thought I would go to church this morning, only by the time I got ready to leave when pain in my neck and shoulders flared up. It ran down to my legs. The day has been spent mostly in bed. Only the last four hours have I felt it possible to type. That I went down to the Dollar Store for ibuprofen is probably why I have been able to stay upright. Even now, I feel like I want to quit writing. 

These No Kings demonstrations are important to me. No longer needing to appease clients, I can say and do what I want politically. The idea that this country belongs to the people, not the oligarchs, not to the would-be fascists, is one I stand upon.

Why the No Kings Protests Matter (The Intercept)

Rather than describing them for what they are — First Amendment-protected rallies where millions of Americans are expected to peacefully stand against the Trump administration’s unconstitutional, authoritarian, and un-American agenda — Republican leadership is framing the upcoming demonstrations as “Hate America” protests. Party leaders also called the gatherings “terrorist” and “Soros-funded” events that would be filled to the brim with “the antifa crowd, the pro-Hamas crowd, and the Marxists.”

This trial-balloon messaging is meant to get ahead of what organizers say could be one of the largest days of mass protest in U.S. history, with events planned in every state. Millions of Americans are projected to attend some 2,500 rallies to oppose the illegality and immorality of the Trump agenda, the destruction of hard-won civil and constitutional rights, and the fascist ambitions of the MAGA movement. Republican leaders are attempting to preemptively cast this protest within the framework Stephen Miller has been working to aggressively mainstream since the assassination of Charlie Kirk, where all who oppose the extremist MAGA agenda are “domestic terrorists.”

To their credit, Democratic and Independent leaders responded quickly. Sen. Bernie Sanders issued a statement pointing out that the No Kings protests are protected under the First Amendment and, contrary to right-wing smears, protesters are standing up for American values. Former Republican and now Independent Joe Walsh called out the GOP’s attempt to vilify half of the American electorate as “shameful” in a post on Twitter and urged his followers to attend the protests, emphasizing that his former party is “scared to death” of the looming rallies.

It’s true: MAGA is terrified of the specter of massive nonviolent protest — and for good reason. Nothing threatens their agenda more than millions of ordinary Americans mobilizing to put a face to the opposition.

No, the people there are not The Weather Underground reborn. They are people like me: in many ways, too, a lot of white faces and gray hair! The message that fascists need to die often appeared, and if that puts the fear into Republican politicians, then I say it is a sign of their bad consciences.

'We the People Will Rule!': Millions Turn Out for 'No Kings' Protests Against Trump Tyranny (Common Dreams) takes the reader on a tour around the country, and has plenty enough of photos showing the signs appearing at the demonstrations. You decide if the Republican propaganda has any basis in reality.

Sheila Kennedy describes the Indianapolis No Kings Rally in her post What Can Be Repaired? What Can’t?.

Fox News anchor gives Trump brutal assessment while spotlighting No Kings protests (Irish Star)

"The lack of respect for the Constitution and the laws of this country are astounding, and Trump even told Kristen Welker when he was on Meet the Press a few months ago that he didn't know if he had to uphold the Constitution," she pointed out.

"In preparation for today's show, I just wanted to go over a few of the things that people who are going to be out there on the streets peacefully protesting are upset about," she elaborated.

Her list included executive actions on birthright citizenship, "Starting with the basics signing an executive order to do away with birthright citizenship, which is literally in the Constitution, sending troops into blue cities unilaterally unilaterally implementing tariffs. Which Congress gets to do."

She also discussed detention practices, explaining, "We also know there's a ProPublica investigation that more than 170 Americans have been detained by ICE, with 20 held for more than a day without being able to contact their lawyer or a loved one. And that's what the no kings protest is about."

Further concerns raised by Tarlov encompassed First Amendment limitations, congressional fund redistribution, and purported conflicts of interest.

Yep. 

Clearing out the pile up in my email, which is also the place I get my current reading, provided the following:

There Comes a Time in Every Reader's Life When You Have to Move the Books (Reactor) sounds too much like my own recent move - I have promised myself no new book purchases, I even have a reading curriculum set up. (Now, to do it!)

Packing by size is key. I know there is a temptation to somehow keep the books in order. You can’t. I mean, sure, you can, but then what? A shelf of books standing upright in a box means the box is not structurally stable and requires filling. I like to fill my book boxes with random t-shirts and out of season clothing and absolutely anything else that’s soft and does not require buying a pile of packing material. This means the books have to be stacked, flat, and filling up as much space as possible. It is a process. 

No kidding!

I like heist movies. Okay? They are like chess games for me; a game I love and have not enough talent to properly play. So, I had to read Six High Tech Heists That Defy the Odds (Reactor). Only one novel I knew of, and that was one of my favorite William Gibson novels. Also influencing my choice of reading is that I did a screenplay a few years ago about a heist that has been pretty much left on my hard drive.

Five Movies That Attempt to Capture the Brilliance of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (Reactor) rebukes me for not having — yet — seen Poor Things. Kudos for mentioning Frankenstein Unbound. There was a TV miniseries back in the Seventies that is unmentioned, that was my second introduction to the character, and in my memory is the closest to the novel (which I did not read until I got to prison, and is an interesting read both to see what the movies lack and for Mary Shelley's style).

Enchanting Imposters  (JSTOR Daily) tickled another criminal interest of mine: forgeries. They are an art form in and of themselves. 

Some silliness, for I am a silly person, is my fondness for Robert E. Howard's work, including Conan:

 Turning away from politics, I got a rejection for “Agnes”:

Thank you for sending us "Agnes". We are honored by your choice to entrust us with reading your work.

Unfortunately, we are unable to accept your piece at this time. Due to a high volume of submissions, we must often decline examples of promising work.

Thank you again for your submission. We at Blue Earth Review wish you the best of luck with finding a home for "Agnes"!

Sincerely,

Heather Pecore ,

Fiction Editor

Blue Earth Review

And now, I will call it a day. 6 hours of work, so not sure what kind of day it was.

sch 

Looking At US; Us Looking At Us; Collecting Political Stories From The Weekend

 ‘Americans are democracy’s equivalent of second-generation wealth’: a Chinese journalist on the US under Trump (The Guardian)

Watching the US through Wang makes our political reality appear more comical and more dangerous. He centres China in all his broadcasts, offering a kind of been-there-done-that account of authoritarian creep. He places the US on an arc of history we have long pretended to transcend. “Americans are democracy’s equivalent of second-generation wealth,” he told me. They were born into democracy and have no appreciation of what life is like without it. Chinese people, on the other hand, “have been bullied by rulers for thousands of years. We’re very familiar with these situations.”

There are many American reporters, Wang said, who report competently on China. But when I asked how the US media was doing covering the US, he burst into laughter. “If I were the New York Times, I would be putting curse words on the front page every day,” he told me. “F-word, F-word, F-word.”

***

Wang has told viewers that, in all his years as a journalist, the last two had brought about some of the biggest global changes he had seen. Trump, Wang explained, has misidentified the US’s strengths. “Your strengths aren’t your people,” he told me later, expanding on his theme. “I could find a bank teller in Hong Kong, bring them here, and they could do the job of 10 Americans.” What the US has got, according to Wang, is allies and a reliable currency. (“And now you’re threatening to annex Canada?”)

Trump, according to Wang, would like to be more like Xi Jinping – a strongman leading a nation with a huge manufacturing base. He likes to point out that the two leaders have birthdays a day apart. Trump would like to take back the supply chain and manufacture everything in the US – an idea that drew a “c’mon” from Wang. There are, in turn, things about the US that Xi would like to emulate – the global influence, the financial power of the dollar. “Maybe we should just let Xi and Trump switch places. We wouldn’t need to do anything. They could leave the rest of us out of it,” Wang joked. “Although I think Xi Jinping would get beat up in the United States.”

The Actual Human Beings Caught in the Shutdown Vise (The Breakdown)

A BIG REASON REPUBLICANS object to extending the subsidies is the cost, which works out to about $35 billion a year. But it’s not just the amount of money involved that they find objectionable. It’s also the principle: The bigger the subsidies, the more money is taken from hard-working taxpayers. (And, some on the right would additionally complain, the more money is transferred to less productive members of society, creating potential dependency.)

It’s true that, with the extra subsidies, the federal government can end up covering the entire premium for some people at low incomes, since they qualify for the most assistance.3 But that’s what happens in a social insurance system: Healthy people pay more to cover the costs of the sick, rich people pay more to pay the costs of the poor. And when health care is as expensive as it is in the United States, there’s simply no way to make health care affordable to everyone without a lot of those transfers.

A little math can help illustrate why. Annual health care costs in the United States are about $13,400 per person, based on the most recent figures available, according to the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker. That’s way more than somebody at even twice the poverty line—which works out to about $30,000 in annual income—can possibly afford. They’re going to need a ton of help. 

Reading LEGO: Brick by Ideological Brick (JSTOR Daily), part of me wants to say, you see what you want to see. Intent, also, seems important to me before condemnation. It would also be good to see what was the effect - did the intent have its intended effect? Then, too, all my LEGOs were red and white blocks.

The Trump Administration has been making much ado about anti-Semitism (while indulging in those ideas every so often), and particularly tying it to anti-Israel rhetoric. I have been curious about Jewish anti-Zionism; something I knew existed without any details. Well, if I can find the time, here is an answer: The Growing Rift Between Young Jews and Israel - Hollywood Star Hannah Einbinder on Zeteo’s New Podcast.

And a voice from another age that still speaks wisdom:

sch 10/19

Mishima

 I read Mishima in prison, finally, He was the first Japanese writer I heard of - his death made the American news when I was a kid. Also, before reading his works, I saw the movie The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea. That left me entranced and very confused.

I have written elsewhere on here about Mishima. Of the Japanese writers, my favorites are Kenzaburo Oe and Mishima. Both present a culture different from ours; both present ideas of how to use the novel's form.

Write Conscious has come up often in my YouTube feed, I have posted several of his posts here. He is quite the fan of Mishima. 

I cannot say I find his argument quite convincing, albeit the idea of spirituality appeals strongly to me. I certainly do not think that reading 2000 pages of Mishima in a week is a good idea. 

There is an intensity to Mishima that might be too much, and there is a grace that, I think, needs to be savored.

Where I agree with Write Conscious is you need to read Mishima.

sch 10/8

Malcolm Lowry's Under The Volcano

 I read about Under the Volcano long before I read the novel. The novel I knew from the Albert Finney movie, one that is probably forgotten now. What I read about the novel were glowing with praise. Perhaps, the self-destructiveness of an Englishman hit too close to my own experiences, the ones I was trying to grow away from, but the novel did not bowl me over. Listening to the following, it was comforting to find someone else not so bedazzled by the novel. 

Not that I can say Under the Volcano is terrible - it was not - but it seems to me now to be rather narrow. Having gotten my journal organized to type, perhaps I will find my notes from my own reading. It may be the case of reading derivations before reading the original that makes it in my memory far less revelatory than it does to others. I have the same problem with Jack Kerouac's On The Road.

sch 10/8

Writing Resources - Indiana and Beyond

 I am a little late putting up Literary Events Around Indiana – October 2025. However, it also includes November events.

(This led me to The Irving Theater. Interesting things, if not about writing. Back in the day, I spent time there watching foreign films.)

The Indiana Authors Awards: Nominations Open for 2026 Awards 

Okay, the National Centre for Writing is from Norwich, England, which is not even close to Indiana, but that is no reason we cannot use its Writing Hub

An online space to explore words, ideas and new writing commissioned and produced by National Centre for Writing. Whether you are looking for long or short reads on the craft of writing; interviews with emerging writers and published authors on The Writing Life Podcast; real and imagined explorations of Norwich City of Literature or dynamic new insights into literature, ideas, and creative writing; we have a vast digital library of content for you to read, listen to and watch below.  

Or listen to The Writing Life Podcast.

The Writing Life podcast is the podcast for anyone who writes. Every fortnight, we speak to writers and educators to help you improve your writing, from theme, structure and routine to language, character and writing specific genres.

 The podcast has featured Margaret Atwood, Jackie Kay, Sara Collins, Antti Tuomainen, Val McDermid, Sarah Perry, Elif Shafak and many more!

Subscribe by searching for ‘The Writing Life’ or ‘National Centre for Writing’ in your podcast app or choose an episode below and listen right here.

Unclear of The Creative Independent, but why not add it, too? Grace Bryon's On getting out of your bubble got my attention and my time. This turned out a good thing for me, and my projects:

From one Midwesterner to another, how does the Midwest stay with your writing? Has your creative approach changed since you’ve moved?

I’m haunted by the Midwest. I love the Midwest. That’s closest thing I have to an element of tribalism or loyalty. I always say, no one’s allowed to talk shit about the Midwest unless they’ve lived in the Midwest or really are from the Midwest. I hate it when people talk shit. When I first moved to New York, and told people I went to state school in Indiana, and I was meeting people who went to Bennington, the New School, NYU, etc., everyone’s eyes would just glaze over. And I found that to be so elitist and annoying. It’s still very real. It’s interesting to think about how many novels have characters from the Midwest who come to the city and try to remake themselves. That’s such an eternal genre for some reason. I don’t feel I’ve tried to remake myself or whatever. I’m interested in the dichotomy and tension of people who move back and forth, or from one place to another—who feel scarred and made, in both positive and negative ways, by growing up in a place like Indiana or Illinois or Ohio. And a lot of the people that I have met in New York, a lot of my close friends, are people who are from the Midwest. Sort of ironically, we’ve sort of come together as an enclave.

The shared trauma brings us together.

There’s that Vonnegut quote where he has something about, “You can go anywhere and find a Hoosier.” I feel that’s a little true of Midwesterners, as well as people from Indiana.

And I think Herculine is partly about that… It’s about leaving to find home and realizing that there’s a part of home that’s still left behind, or trying to find a new piece of it. Going back and forth, and being caught in the strangeness of it all.

I mean, you could say [the narrator] is possessed by the Midwest just as much as by demons.

The real demon is just the State of Indiana.

Makes sense.

 

 

sch 10/17 

 

White Women For MAGA

It seems white men get blamed for Donald Trump, what about white women?

Well, give a look at this.

 

 Geez, white women needing so much protection that they give the nuclear codes to a delusional, sexual predator.

 Maybe it is time for us white people to go back under the rock we came from.

sch 10/17