3/1:

Chruch, cleaning, a walk down to the convenience store, revising “Going for the Kid,” watching “Dark Skies” in the wee hours, and submitting to three outlets. 

“Going for the Kid” - Bourbon Penn, Wyldblood Magazine

“Pieces About A Small Indiana Factory Town, 1976 - 1984”: Twisted River Review

 

3/2:

 Up at 7 AM, to Payless at 8:45, and back here at 9:15.

A rejection to start my day:

Thank you for submitting your work to Straylight. Although we enjoyed reading your submission, "Pieces About A Small Indiana Factory Town, 1976 - 1984," we're afraid we won't be able to use it in our upcoming issue. Feel free to try us again. 

You can find us online at http://straylightmag.com/, or follow us on Instagram @StraylightMag and Facebook as Straylight Literary Arts Magazine.

Annika Lewis

Straylight Editor

Straylight Literary Magazine

http://straylightmag.com/

I found I sent out the wrong “Pieces” file. One step forward and two backwards may now be three backwards. Similar problems sending files to MW in the past month. Either my mind is going or I am just plainly stupid. 

I will go with stupid. 

How I found out was revising the piece, trying to cut down a story whose word count exceeded what I thought it had been. Yeah, it had other stories attached for a particular submission. I did some revising, so I might as well get it out.

After Happy Hour  

Wallstrait 

Some posts written for publishing in the next few days, nibbling on cookies, waiting to take a break (a nap). 

sch  

 

Lent Has Started

 Some lessons from the Orthodox Church by way of The Orthodox Christian Studies Center of Fordham University.

Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy: Dr. Sarah Livick-Moses 

To be good Christians is to become poets? I can see it; I'm not sure if I've got the talent. 

Dr. Nadieszda Kizenko - Forgiveness Sunday

 

Protestants might find this as useful as Orthodox Christians. Just think about it.

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International Fascism - A Bug or A Feature?

Reading It Really Can Happen Here (Los Angeles Review of Books) raised a few questions for me.

Did we feed the beast of fascism, thinking it was the shield against Communism?

This fascist transnationalism continued after the war, becoming in many ways more considerable than ever. With East-Central European populations now strewn across the globe due to border changes, deportations, migration, and asylum claims, many former fascists set up movements in their new nations, paradoxically creating stronger international ties. The Ustaše had ruled a German-occupied Yugoslavia as the Independent State of Croatia, and had committed genocide against Jews, Serbs, and Romani during the war, but many prominent members of the organization were allowed to resettle in Australia, the United States, and Canada—where they created new movements, campaigning against the Tito regime in communist Yugoslavia. In the United States, the clandestine Operation Paperclip recruited Nazi scientists for government employment after the war, with over 1,000 finding new homes in the country. It was not until the 1970s that an Office of Special Investigations was established by the Department of Justice to track down and deport Nazi collaborators.

My first stepfather brought me John Birch Society books; there was a reading room in Anderson back in the Seventies. He was as ardent an anticommunist as he was a Democrat. My recollection was that everyone in government was a Communist; the only anti-Communists were them. It made no sense to me, who even then had developed a sense of paranoia. I had also learned enough not to believe that the Soviet Union would take us over - if anything, we would destroy them. Civil War history had already taught me the Puritan streak was dangerous; the Germans and the Japanese learned this lesson just as did the Confederacy.

But underlying this question was another: is there something inherent in human nature that favors fascism?

I almost wrote “America” instead of “human nature,” but the review essay addresses transnational fascism.

That Nazi propaganda postcard from the 1930s questions whether “the United States [would] be willing to agree to such frontiers” of Canadian conquest. The transnational fascism at work in this message involves not merely the specific Nazi connections to American ideals but also the more general implication that fascism is able to take root and grow anywhere, as Sinclair Lewis’s 1935 dystopian novel It Can’t Happen Here acknowledged. Fascism’s blood-and-soil ideology is paradoxically capable of appealing across national borders, manipulated to evoke universal aspirations and local traditions. Reposition the map in that postcard slightly further north and we perceive Trump’s greed for Greenland. Fascism doesn’t just cross borders—it’s been everywhere all along. It can happen here.

There is a great appeal in protecting and loving our own. 

Fearing those from elsewhere who do not look, act, and/or talk like we do is natural.

Love is a grand thing.

But there is a point where the gentleman caller becomes a stalker. Loving one's own can justify abusing one's own.

We are always The Other to someone. 

In America, we have the rich who think they should rule. It has always been that way. Watch Meet John Doe for an example. 

However much we aspire to be rich, there has always been a distrust of them.

We have been racist. Ask the American Indians. Then ask the immigrants: the Irish, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Italians, the Jews, the Hispanics, the Germans, the Greeks, the Vietnamese, the Indians, the Pakistanis, the Arabs, the Poles, and the list goes on. Ask the descendants of slavery. 

And we have tried to rise above our racism, but fear is always hunting us.

Democracy requires courage. Not everyone is up to that requirement; they will seek succor in what stills their fears. Even if that succor will end by slitting their throats.

Democracy has enemies on two sides: fascism and Marxist-Leninism. We can call them authoritarians, or we can call them totaliarians, but those words obscure their shared danger to us. Worse, when they were used, they sanitized the authoritarians. Our ancestors had a better word for both: despots.

sch 3/1

What's Been The Past Few Days?

I have not written much here the past month. It has not been a healthy month for me, and it has been busy with writing.

Feeling better today, but that is not saying much. I got a few changes done to "Going for the Kid," but nothing new submitted. Trash collected and some organizing done, then out of energy. I can't sit for long, and the attention span keeps getting interrupted. Old age, I am falling apart, no longer able to sustain the pain. 

I have found a writing group in Muncie. Once more, I am the oldest, but probably the one with the least time spent writing. It is good to be meeting new people, and it is good to be hanging with people who want to write as much as I do. 

I woke today to find Trump has decided to drop bombs on Iran. He may have even killed The Supreme Leader.

Trump says Khamenei is dead, Iran says he is 'commanding the field' (Reuters)

Congress to vote on Trump’s war powers in aftermath of Iran strikes (CNN) - hard to get the horse back in the barn when the doors were left wide open.

 How Trump's Iran gamble breaks from past regime overthrows (Axios)

What to watch: "It's not clear whether this regime will fall, or whether this regime would depart, would step down, because of these bombings," says Kieran. "And the real question also is, what it would replace it?" 

Three Massive Questions Concerning Trump’s War in Iran (The Bulwark)

Not that Trump has any plans for what we do after the bombs drop. He may find Iran is not so ready to drop dead. I wonder what will happen to gas prices. There are reports that Iran fired on the Gulf States.

Tehran strikes back at Gulf states after U.S.-Israel launch massive attack on Iran (CNBC)

Not is everyone in the neighborhood is all that happy with Trump and Israel: Türkiye calls on US, Israel, Iran to cease attacks 'immediately'  

I thought the time I spent years ago in Yahoo Chatrooms was bad enough for my mental health. Then I started reading Why You’re More Likely to Develop AI-Psychosis than to Join a Cult  (Nautilus), and I wondered, what are you people doing to yourselves? Worse, what kind of people are dreaming up this stuff?

 I subscribed again to Netflix and have wasted time there.

Wednesday, I ran into a problem renting a car for a trip to Indy. No one mentioned I needed a copy of my lease. The kid asked if it was on my phone. I said, I don't have internet on my phone. He asked if I had any utility bills on my phone. I said, I don't have any email on my phone. I get the bright idea that my landlord can email the lease to their email (albeit I said your). He said that was personal information that he could not give out. I asked if the business had an email. No. Did they have a fax? (I was grasping at straws.) No. He asked if they could not email it to me. I said, No internet on my phone. I said I would be back in the morning. He said, as I was leaving, did I know there was a $300 deposit? I had already said twice that I had rented from them before. To say I was not  in a good mood is an understatement. I was close to just canceling the whole thing. I have a thing scheduled about the Democrat Party platform, and I decided I needed to cool my jets. Lent was off to a good start. It didn't help that the pain in my lower back was throbbing.

Call me a Luddite, but I will certainly answer to curmudgeon. I think having to tell him three times I had no internet on my phone is two times too many.

 Turned out, I had the date wrong on the calendar and missed the whole thing. 

I slept in on Thursday. Good thing I did not go to Indy. There were still these little problems with the research project for MW.

 Friday: lunch with CC, a trip to the bank, group session, a visit from the PO.

CC is losing her mind. It has gone from Swiss cheese riddled with holes to just shredded. I get accused of lying about things. When I ask what, she's muddled about dates and what happened. I think her imagination has twisted her memory. Of the several things I will still not tolerate, it is bringing back matters that were settled to rake me over the coals. Saying things are done when they are still being used against me, I think, is a form of decit.

I did hit Payless after group. 

 The PO announced he was being replaced. Great. Now, I need train another. The usual questions about health (mental and physical), relationships, masturbation (a threat to the Republic for which it stands), and whether the group was doing me any good. I was honest - it isn't doing a thing for me as therapy, but it is ordered by the court.

 Today, I went early to the grocery for items forgotten and have mped around here. I found my tax documents, but that is all I had meant to do that actually was accomplished.

And I am 66 years old and a day. 

sch 

 

 

Working and Its Results

It has been a rough week, but here are the rejections for the week. 

2/22:

Thank you very much for submitting Theresa Pressley Attends Mike Devlin's Viewing to our open reading period. We were blown away by the many remarkable manuscripts that came across our desks, but we can only accept a few titles for publication each year. You make our jobs hard. We appreciate you.

I'm sorry to let you know that we have decided not to publish your manuscript. However, we very much appreciate you considering Black Lawrence Press as a potential publisher for your work.

Open reading period manuscripts are read and responses are sent on a rolling basis. You will find announcements of our selected open reading period manuscripts on the Black Lawrence website during the coming months.

For more, please visit the Resources for Writers page on our website.

Sincerely,

Diane Goettel

Executive Editor, Black Lawrence Press

Imagination, Hopes, Delusion: Ukraine Invasion

 A war foretold:how the CIA and MI6 got hold of Putin’s Ukraine plans and why nobody believed them (The Guardian) inspired this post with the following:

Few in Ukraine believed a full-scale invasion was likely, but the country’s intelligence agencies had been picking up worrying signs of increasing Russian activity. Ivan Bakanov, the head of the SBU domestic agency, recalled that while Russian spy services had traditionally focused on trying to recruit high-level Ukrainian sources, in the year prior to the invasion “they were going after everyone”, including chauffeurs and low-level functionaries. Often, these pitches were “false flag”: the Russian recruiters would pretend to be from one of Ukraine’s own intelligence agencies.

The SBU also tracked clandestine meetings between officers from Russia’s FSB and Ukrainian civil servants or politicians. These meetings often took place in luxury hotels in Turkey or Egypt, where the Ukrainians travelled under the guise of tourism. Russia hoped these people, motivated variously by ideology, ego or money, would act as a fifth column inside Ukraine when the time came.

“Before I came to the SBU, I also thought we could do a deal with the Russians,” said Bakanov, who was an old business partner of Zelenskyy’s and had no intelligence background when appointed in 2019. “But when you see every day how they are trying to kill and recruit people, you understand that they have a different plan, that they are saying one thing and doing another.”

Still, the prevailing mood in Kyiv was that the US warnings were overegged. Ukraine had been fighting Russian proxy forces in the Donbas for eight years, but the idea of a full-fledged war – with missile attacks, tank columns and a march on Kyiv – seemed unimaginable. 

Similarly, How the Navy Prepared to Fight the Japanese Empire (The Dispatch) with this paragraph:

These strands of learning, arguing, and adapting converged in the Fleet Problems, a series of 21 naval exercises in the 1920s and ’30s that addressed specific concerns or operational expectations. Surface, air, and subsurface vessels all took part, and several incorporated Marine Corps landings as part of the exercise. Fleet Problem XIII included a wildly successful surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, but top Navy officials completely disregarded it because they insisted no enemy would actually be able to achieve that level of surprise and, furthermore, attacking on a Sunday morning was illegal. Overall though, the Fleet Problems provided valuable experience to virtually every senior officer who commanded in World War II and meaningful proficiency in the technologies that shaped the war. 

We are limited by our biases and our experiences (which may overlap) to deal with the future. History is littered with examples.

Ukraine has survived—so far — and America survived December 7, 1941. Survival came not from being prepared in particulars but from preparing for the possibilities. 

 

sch 2/21 

 

American History: Ideology

 With the law, I have no use for originalism. Not in law school and certainly not now has it made sense: the past informs, it is not a prison.

Considering the rampant ignorance of historical knowledge in Americans, it is dangerous. I have a sister who believes this country was set up as a Christian nation. She sent me this link: https://www.facebook.com/share/16XTpKuTji/. I sent her this response:

I sent you the piece about the applicability of Sahria law - this is some BS dreamt up to scare people. But what most people don't understand is that if you weren't from England proper you came here under a different law. Scotland, Germany, France, Switzerland all had a different system of law. The Irish had the Brehon law but I think the English took that from them. Louisiana operates under a different legal system than Indiana. Are we to get to get rid of that state?

People who come here are not slaves anymore. Slaves have to accept what their masters tell them. Free people can say whatever they like. The real question is if their complaints are justified or not? We are not getting Danes and their like here because we do not have a real national health care system. I suppose this fellow would tell anyone complaining about no national health care should be sent back to Denmark.

He repeats that nonsense about this being a Christian country. It was not. We were set up as a country without a national church. Our ancestors knew how vile that institution could be. Especially the Scots who weave in and out of the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention.I was going to suggest googling conventeer but just go here: https://scotland-history.com/the-rise-of-the-covenanters-and-religious-conflict/. I suspect the Livingstons came over here to get away from that. But you can google Thirty Years War.

How does one baptize a nation? Without baptism, there is no remission of sins.  What soul does a nation have? A nation has no more soul than a rock. We are a nation of Christians - and Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims. We always have been.

But then the question comes down to what kind of Christian. If only Protestants, then kiss colonial Maryland away. And if you will allow Roman Catholics, why are you a Protestant? Better check out the Northern Ireland Troubles if you want to see what "Christians" can do - in our own time.

Tell this fellow to read Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists. He should also read the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and his state's Bill of Rights. 

But, assuming this was a Christian country, it is not now. Christians do not turn away the stranger; Christians do not applaud torture and governmental murder; Christians favor feeding the poor. This was the Gospel reading for today:

    MATTHEW 25:31-46

    The Lord said, “When the Son of man comes in his glory and all the holy angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.’ Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.’ And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

I do not know why people keep repeating this nonsense. I suppose it's not having stayed awake in their history classes. Or they are too weak-minded to double check what they are being told. I notice he gives nothing to support his blather. That should have told you something right there.

She has not responded.

I want to add Joseph Ellis's  Leadership of the Founder from American Heritage. Ellis is not some wild-eyed fanatic, nor is American Heritage a publisher of flaky ideas.

 Second, they created the first wholly secular state. Before the American founding, it was assumed that state support for an established religion was a mandatory feature of all viable governments, because it enforced a consensus on the common values that made a collective sense of purpose possible. While many of the states retained various Protestant establishments well into the nineteenth century, the founders insisted on a complete separation of church and state at the national level, thereby overturning the long-standing presumption that only shared religious convictions could hold a nation together.

Third, they rejected the conventional wisdom, agreed upon since Aristotle, that political sovereignty was by definition singular and indivisible and must reside in one agreed-upon location. The Constitution defied this assumption by creating multiple and overlapping sources of authority in which the blurring of jurisdiction between federal and state levels, as well as between and among branches of government, became an asset rather than a liability. The very idea of sovereignty became problematic, and its rhetorical depository, “the people,” an inherently elusive location.

Ellis points out the Founders failures and their particular successes—they were human beings who met their moment in history as best they could. It was a white country; their imaginations and nerves failed them to abolish slavery and integrate the former slaves into the citizenry. But they knew their hypocrisy on this point; they knew what they created was not limited to whites.

Peter Cozzens's book review, Being Thomas Jefferson (American Heritage) makes a relevant point:

Any discussion of Jefferson and slavery must consider his relationship with his teenaged slave Sally Hemings, his late wife’s half-sister. Because Jefferson never wrote of her, Burstein is unable to provide any significant insights into what attracted Jefferson to the girl. But he was an ardent pursuer of beauty, so Burstein suggests she was beautiful. He assumes Jefferson felt tenderness toward Hemings but no inclination to elevate her from her subordinate position in the Monticello orbit. Burstein posits that the loss of his wife so devastated Jefferson that he was unwilling to expose himself again to such pain. Rather than remarry, as was customary in Southern society, he took a concubine with whom he could maintain a sexually active life without deep emotional involvement. Burstein summarizes the relationship in the context of Jefferson’s nature thusly:

“I am suggesting that we should reckon with the ‘Saly Hemings story’ as we do with evidence of Jefferson’s personal anxieties as these emerge in all he wrote over the years. He rationalized almost effortlessly. On the basis of his extensive reading and thinking, he was convinced that he knew what was best. He felt morally secure. He doled out advice. He willfully shaped his legacy (or at least tried to), and he managed his little mountain [Monticello] as he saw fit.”

In Jefferson’s feud with Alexander Hamilton over the future of the federal government, which Burstein explores in depth, he delves into the darker side of Jefferson’s psyche. Toward this political rival who orchestrated his removal from the Washington administration, Jefferson felt the deepest “contempt and disgust.” He was unable to recognize any good in an enemy, whom he could only traduce, and against whom he maintained smoldering revulsion. In the political arena, Hamilton “didn’t just frustrate Jefferson. He was the better Machiavellian.”

 If you want originalism, then you need to acknowledge what the Founders knew where they were acting wrongfully.

By stoppering up American life and thought into a sterile past, we ignore how we have risen above our limitations. Therein is the true greatness of America,

 sch 2/21