Photos 4-28-2026

I finally figured out how to get the images off my camera. Muncie, again, from the convenience store to downtown.

 sch 5/20 

 

Waiting for the bus at University and Reserve

Laundromat & coffee shop 

Goodbye Vera Mae's

A self portait of a sort

Walnut Street views

And goodbye Casa del Sol.

 

All The Good Trump Is Doing

 Like weakening our global influence through starving American research:

Self‑censorship, more stress, tougher recruiting – we asked US researchers how the Trump administration’s science policies have affected them  

 Like lining his own pockets with our tax dollars:

IRS barred from auditing Trump’s old tax returns  

Republicans defeat Gallego amendment pushing back on fund to compensate Trump allies 

Trump’s stunning IRS settlement  

Vance defends stock-trading spree in Trump financial filings: ‘Come on, man’ 

Trump’s $10 Billion IRS Shakedown Takes Darker Turn, Unnerving Experts 

America’s Fascist Playbook Is Wreaking Havoc around the World 

Chomsky was not convinced the US had turned completely fascist yet—but he did think it was heading there. For Chomsky, the saving grace of the moment was that Trump was a cartoonish figure. “I’ve said for a long time that the United States is very lucky that we haven’t had a charismatic figure who is honest, dedicated, committed to establishing fascist rule. What we’ve had are clowns: Joe McCarthy, Jim Bakker, Donald Trump, who’s just a narcissistic megalomaniac. We haven’t had a real Hitler type. Well, we could get one.” 

***

Should American democracy fall, other democracies will fall with it. Constitutional systems and charters of rights and hard-won battles for freedom that took centuries will crumble. This cannot be our fate. Nor can the eventual lurch into doomsday be our future. The great challenge before us now is to defeat fascism and save the planet. It will fall on people alive today to build a new consensus and win this struggle for democracy and freedom. 

 Or as some fellow once said:

... It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. 

sch 5/19 

5-17-2026: Anderson to Indianapolis; a Day of Futility

 I finally figured out how to get the images off my camera. It was time to catch up with my travails and troubles of this past Sunday.

Anderson's Applewood - Target is gone.

I stopped for lunch here close by IU

I had the chicken shwarma, and it was good. The Chinese restaurant I went to after my sentencing with CC and Ray S is gone. Perhaps it was an omen of things gone. It was the last time I saw Ray.

Then I got to the IU campus:

 I think I knew there was to be a fair at Military Park across the street from the McKinney Law School. If I knew, I had forgotten. The day being hot and not being able to find a parking spot, so I headed towards the closest parking garage I knew of. It cost me $20.

Walking from the garage to the law school, I passed across the canal. It looks like a bit of Venice dropped in on Indianapolis, or so it is probably hoped.

 When I got to the law library, it was closed. Sweating, tired, and put out with my lost time. The event at the park looked like it would cost money. Between that and my inflamed temper, all I wanted was to get out of the area.

 Some views of the area then:

 

 

I headed east looking for K's 2-in-1. I stopped at Irvington Plaza, or what there was of it. When I was a kid, more than 53 years ago, there was life and business here. 

The building in the background was a bowling alley. I remember going there with my cousin Paul. It had to be 1971 or 1972, when he was at Purdue. I associate The Loggins & Messina song “Your Mama Don't Dance” with the visit, so most likely 1972. The red-roofted building was the Dairy Queen my mother would take us to; she had a milk allergy and it seems to me she could eat at DQ.

In the second photograph, there was a Haag's Drug Store at the corner. Here was where I first saw Vampirella and Creepy comics. There was an S & H Green Stamps store further up the buildings. Mom collected stamps, I recall putting them in the books and a couple of shopping trips there. Haag's and S & H are long gone.

 

All is empty, as decayed as the pavement.

Continuing east searching for an office supply store, I found a Karma store. Once our most wide-ranging record store. This is at Post Road and Washington Street. I recall buying my copies of Mott the Hoople's Mott, Graham Parker's Squeezing Out the Sparks, and Stiffs Live there. All three records are now long, long gone. 

 

Also decayed was Washington Square. Memory says it was to be built after my family moved back to Anderson in 1973. It forced the closing of Eastgate, the mall we most often shopped at when I was a kid and the first enclosed mall in Indianapolis. 

 I did not find the store I looked for, so I went searching for my great-aunt's grave. 

 

 

I falled in that, too.

 

Then I headed north to another Staples. I had some old woman start to sideswipe me. Driving regresses me into a foul-tempered, cranky old man. No luck finding what I searched for, so I came home with my nerves frayed and my temper throbbing.

 

Everything hoped for went unaccomplished. Futility, all was futility. But it was a bright, sunny day.

 

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Photos From 4-29-2026

Much time has passed from these images of Muncie on an April afternoon as I went from the bus station to the doctor. I finally figured out how to get the images off my camera.

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The Guardian's 100 Best Novels; Cristin White's MFA List

 I love lists, always have. Who doesn't? The Guardian has published its 100 Best Novels. Vanity makes me want to say I have read most of them. Whatever improvement that has made in my character or my talents as a writer is unclear to me.

Wishing to make full disclosure (and it may disclose the holes remaining in my education) here is what I have not read: #99, #96, #94, #93, #91, #90, #87, #85, #80 - #77, #74, #72-70, #67, #62, #61, #58, #54-52, #50, #49, #46-#43, #40, #31, #29, #23, #19, and #14.

Perhaps this will further puncture my pretensions, but I have not even heard of #49, #61, #62, #74, #87, #91, #94, and #99.

And what is there to argue about? No Milan Kundera, no Mario Vargas Llosa, no Gunter Grass, no Martin Amis, no Camus? 

Go for it.

sch 5/18 

And a reading list from Cristin White: Ranking All 70 Books I Read for My MFA. Having only read Dubliners, The Portrait of a Lady, Emma, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Washington Square, My Brilliant Friend, and The Bluest Eye. Her capsule reviews made it worth reading.

And for a second opinion on The Guardian's #1 novel, Theo Hobson's Middlemarch is overrated. I did not read Middlemarch until I was in my fifties, which may explain my inclining towards Mr. Hobson's opinion. For me, with the issue being literary skill, it would be Proust by a nose ahead of Ulysses.

sch 5/19 

The Spectator's The problem with the Guardian’s top 100 books list has some of my complaints and some of their own.

Two omissions are unpardonable; one old, one young. Tom Jones, that most loved of rollicking adventures, is nowhere, and V. S. Naipaul’s The Enigma of Arrival fails to make the cut, in favour of A House for Mr Biswas. Perhaps Naipaul has been punished for holding the ‘wrong’ views on colonialism, but he will have the last word. The Enigma of Arrival is the book of a lifetime. Our lifetime.

We have been here before, and will certainly come here again. In 1983, when a list was drawn up of ‘the best 100 novels in English since the war’, there was scepticism about Angel, by Elizabeth Taylor. It was not, someone suggested, ‘important’.

Kingsley Amis, in a letter to this magazine, declared that ‘importance in literature is unimportant – good writing is.’ Which is why this latest approved list, endorsed by many well-read people, misses the point. Either read for pleasure, or not at all.

sch 5/20 

 

5/18-5/19/2026: Muncie to Indy to Muncie to Anderson

 I spent yesterday's morning in Indianapolis. First, still trying to find the computer K wanted. No such luck. What I did learn was not to trust Staples' inventorying software. Online, Plainfield was shown as having the computer. Plainfield said that their computer showed North Keystone had three. I went to North Keystone, they had none. When I called Plainfield, the fellow who went to see their actual stock could not find one. I gave up. K was going to work off money lent her by typing up the “Chasing Ashes” manuscript. Someone else will do it for me.

Then I spent hours at the McKinney Law School law library. Too fat, too hot, it was a struggle that it ought not have been. Memory kept losing instructions on how to use their scanner. It was also not helpful in finding the Indiana Reports. I did not finish the job, either. Which worked out to my benefit. There was a massive thunderstorm that hit as I was leaving and accompanied me all the way home. Indianapolis streets were flooding. When I got back here, I found out the biggest selection did not get sent from the scanner.

 I thought I would go back today, but I was too tired at 5 AM. I stayed that way for most of the day. I did manage a quit trip to Anderson and having two Spanish dogs from Gene's Root Beer. They were delicious.

I got the car back to Enterprise on time - 1 PM. Then I made my way back here. A siesta seemed like a good idea. Not ready for the heat; I need to get my inhalers. Two more hard rains came in the afternoon.

I think I heard frogs croaking this morning after the rains, and then again a little while ago. It might be something else. Not any bird song I recognized, so frogs seem likely, if bizarre. 

Indiana abortion ban law stands as state Supreme Court rejects challenge means I need to get the law research done and the article written. Finally.

The Future Fire got Unintended Consequences 

A rejection for “Agnes”:

Thank you for sending us your work. This particular submission wasn't chosen for publication, but we are grateful for your interest in our journal. We wouldn't be able to continue without writers like you.


Great luck with your writing, among all other things.


Sincerely,

The Editors

New Ohio Review

Warren Zevon's Warren Zevon; The Eagles' “Hotel California” tried but never hit the mark set by Zevon.

For something lighter: How a shifting Nile landscape shaped the rise of the ancient empire of Kush in Sudan 

New editions of Georges Simenon's non-Maigret novels are coming out: The Crimes Georges Simenon Declined to Investigate. I admire the Maigret stories but find his non-Maigret novels fascinating. I did not even know of them until I was in my fifties. Do not wait so long to read them.

 Cradle to Career Muncie Lifted as National Example

At the center of the recognition is Muncie Community Schools’ dramatic improvement in early grade reading. During the 2024-2025 school year, districtwide reading proficiency climbed from 69.8 percent to 79.2 percent, a 9.4-percentage-point increase that outpaced statewide gains. Grissom Elementary posted one of the most significant improvements in Indiana, increasing its third-grade reading proficiency rate from 46.6 percent to 79 percent in a single year.

StriveTogether leaders described Muncie as an example of how place-based partnerships can drive long-term systems change when communities align around shared data, coordinated strategies and collective accountability. The national organization’s annual report noted that more than 70 organizations and 200 individuals participate in Cradle to Career Muncie’s work through The Opportunity Blueprint: 2030, a strategic plan shaped by more than 150 local voices.

Local leaders say the progress reflects years of intentional collaboration.

Massie lost in Kentucky. Trump now owns the Republicans. Considering what happens when Trump[ owns anything, this should be the end of the Republican Party. 

What is INvestEd? Indiana’s own student loan provider could see a surge in demand 

A little-known nonprofit created by Indiana lawmakers more than four decades ago could become a major lender for student loan borrowers.

The Indiana Secondary Market for Education Loans — which operates under the name INvestEd — issues private student loans at interest rates starting at 4.26% to 8.51% — far below the maximum 17.99% interest rate charged by some of its for-profit competitors.

The nonprofit’s motto is simple: The best student loan is no loan at all.

But leaders at INvestEd anticipate a surge in demand for private loans once tighter federal student loan restrictions and borrowing limits take effect July 1.

I never heard of this, but then after 1987 I had no interest in the subject.

 Still, very long energy.

 

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Orhan Pamuk Speaks - What I Found on YouTube

 I read Pamuk after I turned 50. What has attracted me to his novels is his writing about places and times. 

He sees the Turk as European and Middle Eastern. He sees Turkey as both modern and historical; a place trying to find its place as a former empire, a former Great Power, and a modern state of importance. 

 So what? It has to do with me being in the Midwest. The East Coast has its economic, cultural, and political power. The South lies across the Ohio River with its scars of slavery and the Civil War. The West's romance is hours to the west.

Let me put that another way. 

Edith Wharton, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Melville, Henry James, Colson Whitehead, Michael Chabon, Gore Vidal, Joseph Heller, Dennis Lehane, Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, Edgar Allan Poe, Norman Mailer, John Updike, and Stephen King are to the east of me.

William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Conner, Jessamyn West, Walker Percy, John Kennedy O'Toole, Jonathan Franzen (being from Missouri) and William Styron are to the south. 

Turning west I find John Steinbeck, Larry McMurty, Craig Johnson, Cormac McCarthy, A.B. Guthrie, Mark Twain (who also suddenly seems the most cosmopolitan of American writers - he could be southern, he spent time fitting into the east, and, if I could fit a slave state into the Midwest, and Midwestern), Raymond Chandler, Annie Proulx, Dashiel Hammett, and Ross MacDonald.

Those belonging to my Midwest: Kurth Vonnegut, Booth Tarkington, Theodore Dreiser, Nelson Algren, Sinclair Lewis, Toni Morrison, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Sherwood Anderson, Richard Wright, and Michael Martone.

Put another way: the Midwest supplied the men who destroyed the Slave Power, then built the factories that supplied the country and the world, and then lost the peace to the South and saw their factories shuttered. It is an empire that lost its power and holds onto former eminence while wandering in the desert searching for its future.

Yes, I think Pamuk might have something to teach us. 

He is also an engaging human being with a lively intelligence.

Orhan Pamuk in Conversation with Merve Emre 

A Dialogue on Facts Fiction History: Umberto Eco - Orhan Pamuk (Full Version)

Orhan Pamuk - VO (4) - William Marx (2022-2023)

Big Think Interview With Orhan Pamuk | Big Think

Why he made a nveol into a museum

 

Finally, what I had collected into a YouTube Playlist

My other Orhan Pamuk posts are here. 

 

sch 5/18