Why Are Conservatives Against Freedom?

 Why do books scare them?

They started at the bottom, and now they are coming down from Washington, and I did not know this until I read What to Know About the National Book Ban Bill (Reactor Magazine).

However, H. R. 7661 would expand the definition of “sexually oriented material” to include material that “involves gender dysphoria or transgenderism.” Along with suggesting that matters of identity should be considered a sexually obscene topic, the inclusion of that language has significant legal implications. That choice of wording makes it clear that this bill will most directly and immediately affect transgender students, transgender-related materials, and it could be argued, gender non-conformity topics in general, which may include discussions of specifically prohibited subjects in affected schools. 

What’s important to remember is that the bill specifies works that will be excluded, but it is more vague regarding what, exactly, could be impacted. It could, for instance, be determined that a variety of LGBTQIA+ books that make passing reference (or even perceived passing references) to such materials could also be effectively banned from federally funded schools. The policies for such determinations and review procedures are not set. It should also be noted that the use of “sexually oriented material” and similar pieces of broad language have often been contested as the basis for similar pieces of legislation (more on those below). 

 Obscenity? We're going back down that path?

 Of course, they are using the canard of protecting children, just as with the sex offender registry. It becomes a political third rail. Do they really think that teenagers are not going to find their way to the books they want banned? Nothing sells like censorship. It is the way of slipping the camel in the tent.

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News and Views from the past few days

My health issues continue; I am too lethargic. This has left me behind in my writing - all of my writing.

I still need to do a post on No Kings and the one on my group therapy. 

That did The Dumpling House on Friday, hoping that getting back into a routine will help me get out of this lethargy. Then I went to group. After that, it was back to lethargy. I felt like I was about to fall asleep in group. I did nothing of any substance after I got back to the apartment.

Grocery shopping at Payless, then letharic for the rest of the day. I finished revising “Scenes from a Small Indiana Factory Town.” I sent the concluding section to KH. He did not like it.

Church on Sunday. I talked to J for a very long time, then I worked on the first section of a new story, “Alternate Histories.” I sent this to KH but have had no response from him. It should have shocked him into a response. I am going where I never thought to go. 

Alseep by 7 pm, and awake around 10. Another day like I have been having this past month. 

Yes, we have a homeless problem in Muncie, Indiana:  Large fire in homeless camp behind train station.

Readings from the past few days follow.

The Stupidity May Save Us (Sheila Kennedy)

We are in this situation thanks to a lethargic citizenry that has ignored civic duties in favor of a focus on personal interests. We are going to pay a heavy price for that lethargy. When we finally get rid of Trump and the assembly of cranks and buffoons he’s installed, it will no longer be possible to ignore or downplay the magnitude of the necessary reconstruction.

Internationally, America will never regain the trust we once enjoyed–but ultimately, that may lead to a safer world where other nations pick up the slack. Domestically, the sheer extent of the damage is operating as a wake-up call. Had Trump been less stupid, less incompetent, less psychotic, had he pursued the strategy Sykes outlined, Americans would probably have continued down a path of complacency, ignoring the massive economic and social disparities that were tearing at our civic fabric. We might have failed to recognize the morphing of the GOP into a fascist cult until it was too late.

AI lectures, Old West folk heroes and Mark Twain: what is Bob Dylan up to joining Patreon? (The Guardian). After having seen Dylan live last week, eccentricity remains his calling card, attraction, and his greatest artistic achievement.

I thought Bruce Hornsby had  disappeared - a burst in the Eighties and then fizzle. Guess not: Indigo Park (Pitchfork)

Only for those interested in spies, Irish nationalism, and Roger Casement: A Rebel and a Traitor by Rory Carroll review – the extraordinary story of Roger Casement (The Guardian).

At the end of the book, I did find myself wishing it went on to analyse the reasons for the eventual defeat of British rule in the years following Casement’s execution, and to describe more fully the more consequential Irish leaders of the time. However, that is not what Carroll is here to do, and he succeeds in his core task of humanising a complex man, giving him credit for his strengths while never hiding his flaws, not least his penchant for young and vulnerable sexual partners.

There have been attempts to film Casement’s life in the past – a 1934 Hollywood screenplay even imagined a tearful parting from a blond girlfriend – and I would not be surprised if a producer reads this book and decides to have another go. There would surely be a lot of competition for the chance to play the role of this strange, fascinating, improbable man.

A questionnaire I had to answer for the PO. It may not be clear from the questions asked, but most of them do nto apply to me. I never was "on the street", did not steal anything, did not deal in drugs; it is really not relevant to my crimes or my history. This is typical of my supervised release: that no one in the government really knows what to do with me except to run me through their bureaucratic routine. It does make ansewring the thing rather simple. Anyway, another example of your tax dollars at work.

 

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Five Days Up In A Haze - My New PO Visits - Bob Dylan!

 I did the group thing on Friday. I did not make it to Dumpling House. But I did get some groceries at Payless.

The new PO showed up Friday, just when I had thought to get a nap. He seems as clueless as the first one. For example, I explained the group sessions were not therapy. I offered him releases for anything he needed. I finally got an explanation of the government's interest in masturbation: it is an indicator of my emotional health. Uh huh. Not that I really disagree that is a sign, but the keenness of the interest has always seemed far more prurient.

What I forgot to ask was the diagnosis for which I was receiving therapy.

The piles have wrecked any interest in such acts - the pain, the numbness, have left me a capon. 

 Lethargy struck Saturday. All I did was go to Payless.

I did go to church on Sunday. I had volunteered to provide food; this gave me a reason to do something.

The brain concentrates on the wrong things. It is like I cannot keep my thoughts concentrated, except on things that might have happened and did not. At least, I have an idea for a story called “Alternate Histories.” Only I wish I had energy for more.

I swapped out the CPAP equipment with the hope that it helps me sleep.  

Tonight, I went to see Bob Dylan at Emens. The smallest venue on which I have ever seen him.  I have no idea who was in his band - his Dylan garble is intact. The concert lasted 90 minutes. Nothing from the last century, but “All Along the Watchtower.” Tow covers - “I Can Tell” and Eddie Cochran's “Nervous Breakdown.” I think there is an art to Dylan concernts - they are all going to be strange, probably unsettling, but this is how he does things.

I went to “No Kings” on Saturday, but I mean to put that into a separate post.

Out in the wider world, things are still crazy. These are items I've been keeping in open tabs

 Millions of Americans are now eligible for Canadian citizenship and many are applying ‘just in case’ 

Ball State Student Newspaper To End Weekly Print Edition 

The decision, approved unanimously by the newspaper’s editorial board, was driven by financial challenges and changing media consumption habits. Annual printing costs exceed $25,000, while advertising revenue tied to the print product has remained minimal. Approximately 5,000 copies are produced each week, with many left unread or discarded.

Student journalists, not university administrators, made the decision during a final vote held without staff present. The board determined that continuing to invest in weekly print production was no longer sustainable given current financial realities.

 Muskism by Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff review – how Elon Musk is reshaping the world 

Like Fordism, it is a modernising project. Unlike Fordism, it does not aim to distribute its rewards widely. Its central promise is “sovereignty through technology”: the fantasy that, in an increasingly unstable world, states and individuals can become more self-reliant by plugging into Musk’s infrastructure. This is Muskism’s version of a social contract. But, as the authors point out, the reality is quite different: rather than self-reliance, we are offered merely greater reliance on the Techno-king of Tesla himself.

This might seem like an obvious point to make, but it develops into one of the book’s strongest insights, as Slobodian and Tarnoff follow the thread of dependence across Musk’s empire, from SpaceX (a near-monopoly provider to the Pentagon and Nasa, accounting for 95% of all US orbital launches) to Tesla, which sells electric autonomy in the shape of vehicles and batteries while drawing buyers deeper into Musk’s walled garden; and, more recently, to X and Grok, which promised a new town hall for the exercise of “free speech” before consolidating Musk’s own voice and his increasingly far-right agenda. 

Don’t Call MAGA “Conservative”

Conservatives once talked about the virtue of compassion; the importance of good character and the need to encourage courtesy and decency–opinions MAGA mocks as woke. Wehner concludes that conservatism is now politically homeless. 

MAGA replaced conservatism with fascism. Call it what it is. 

 An Indiana town shows two sides of Trump's factory "boom"

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Neglected Notes

 Some items AI have been sitting for so long that I am just going to list them with my apologies:

 Broad Ripple Review - Winter 2026 Issue: What We Carry

Calm Sea and Hard Faring by Yiyun Li (The New Yorker and might be behind a paywall).

It was possible to find out about Jude’s friends, but Lilian refrained. Her own best friend from middle school, upon learning of Jude’s death, six years after Oscar’s, had e-mailed, reminiscing about their school days in Beijing. In the hot months, they would buy ice pops from the dining hall for three fen each. The ice pops, colored with yellow food dye, were, in reality, more gray than yellow, offering only a hint of sweetness, and a few times they’d found remnants of vegetable leaves frozen inside. Once, they pooled their money and bought an ice-cream bar in the shape of a snowman, but before they could take a bite the snowman loosened itself from the stick and fell. It had cost sixty fen—twenty ice pops to while away many lunch breaks! They squatted in the sun and watched the snowman melt. Soon, ants congregated.

Lilian’s friend had made a fortune in real estate; still, nothing would take the astonishing sting off that loss. Lilian was touched and replied that she, too, remembered the snowman. Of her children’s deaths, she could say nothing, so she quoted a few lines of a third-century poem from the Jin dynasty: “Those who have accompanied the funeral procession / Are now ready to return home / The sorrow remains for the family / Others have begun to sing / What’s so exceptional about dying / But to entrust your body to the mountain?”

 Unbound: A Collection of Indiana Stories

Hell’s Belle: A True Crime Dark Comedy about Indiana’s First Serial Killer by Amalia Howard is coming to the Shelton Auditorium Apr 23 – May 3.

 

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Moral lessons from Vichy France

 Donald J. Trump started a war with Iran without approval from Congress; he has killed without any moral justification - there will be no regime change, no saving the Iranians slated for death due to their protesting against their oppressive regime, but there will be a diminishment of America. The American people lost their heroic illusions during the Vietnam War, but we could say our best angels caused us to see the errors of our ways. We kept up the tug-of-war between our public morality and our power up to Trump. With the arrival of Trump, there arrived the thinking that power made right.

All that came to me from reading The Philosophers and Churchmen Who Fell for Fascism and listening to Is Trump’s VILIFICATION Of Democrats Worse Than Past Presidents?

That essay contains the following:

In that frothy age in France, there were many forks in the road. A person did not wake up one day and decide to collaborate with the Third Reich. There was a slow, almost imperceptible process of decision whereby someone was led one way or another. Of those who counted themselves faithful Christians, many adapted to Vichy, but many others stood against it in favor of a different idea of France—and a different idea of faith.

It is instructive, however, to consider how individuals who began from similar starting points went two separate ways. Some, like the philosophers Jacques Maritain and Étienne Gilson, saw the wickedness of Vichy for what it was, while others, like Bishop Auvity, compromised themselves morally step by step. How to maintain moral clarity and avoid a blind wandering into wickedness is a question of perennial importance. This age in France can tell us something about it. 

Think how we should apply this to us, and our times.

The Chuck Todd podcast has no explicitly moral axe to grind, but what else underlies politics and our ability to judge the actions of politicians.

 sch 3/24

 

Readings - Stroll Along

 I have been trying to catch up on too many fronts. What energy I have had today is long gone. Therefore, some notes on readings for the past few days.

Chain of Ideas by Ibram X Kendi review – anatomy of a conspiracy theory (The Guardian)

The central thesis is that the ideological origins of what Kendi terms “our authoritarian age” lie in the so-called “great replacement theory”. This is defined as “a political theory that powerful elites are enabling peoples of colour to steal the lives, livelihoods, cultures, electoral power, and freedoms of White people, who now need authoritarian protection”.

Is this not just white nationalism by another name? Not exactly. “Since Trump’s election in 2016 great replacement politicians and theorists had been increasingly organising international meetings, networks, charters, and associations,” Kendi argues. “For a long time, these extremists had concentrated domestically … before shifting to the transnational battle to defend the White race … which is why terming great replacement theorists ‘white nationalists’ doesn’t fully capture their new identity and ideology.”

Crucially, great replacement theory is not a single concept but a chain of interlocking ideas. The idea that racism against peoples of colour is over is connected to the idea that anti-white racism is on the rise, which is connected to the idea that insurrections against democracy protect the nation and so on. These ideas are easily challenged when looked at in isolation; it is their interconnectedness that gives the great replacement theory its emotional resonance. If the chain concept sounds familiar, by the way, that’s because it is borrowed from a quote by the 18th-century French lawyer Joseph Michel Antoine Servan, cited by Michel Foucault in Discipline and Punish: “A stupid despot may constrain his slaves with iron chains; but a true politician binds them even more strongly by the chain of their own ideas.”

I should put Anne Fadiman on Essays, Personal and Historical over on the writing blog, but my idea for that blog is to showcase fiction. 

The Varieties of Religious Experience is the one William James book I  have meant to read for almost a half century. There is now a free e-book.

You probably have never heard of of Howard Jacobson. I ran across him in prison. In my mind, back then, I categorized him as an English Philip Roth without Roth's prickliness. If I can find time, I would read more Jacobson, but now he has a new a novel you might check out, The Guardian review, Howl by Howard Jacobson review – a tragicomic portrait of a Jewish man’s despair, makes a quick introduction that does not contradict my memories of what I read.

Howard Jacobson writes characters at their wits’ end; those characters are usually men, and those men are usually Jewish. Additionally, and problematically for both them and everyone around them, their collective wits are capacious: easily enlarged to allow idiosyncrasy to bloom into neurosis, preoccupation into obsession. And Jacobson’s men do the opposite of suffering in silence (although they do that too); they are much given to exhaustive and exhausting disputation, to arguing their point long after their interlocutors are longing for bed, and not in the fun way all parties might hope.

I am making the same decision for Empty Hiss; The short story form is an uneasy vessel for Helen Garner’s particular intensity by Max Callimanopulos (LARB). If not the short story, what format for intense emotions? Poetry?

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Lent, Orthodoxy and The Like

 I have already noted how a physical ailment is keeping me from doing as I think I should this Lent. It has left me too tired to attend church for one thing. However, I am learning from this conflict between body and spirit. It has given me an opportunity to look back at certain points in my life and think I made the right choices, even if the immediate reasons were not commendable. It also reminds me that while things could have been worse, they were bad enough that I need to keep my focus on behaving better to help counter the ugliness we too often let ourselves fall into.

Tonight, I read Are Evangelicals the New Liberals? (Marginalia Review of Books) is a bit misleading and, from my Eastern Orthodox perspective, sets out all that is wrong with Protestantism. Orthodoxy does not see the need to reinvent itself - neither Christ nor human nature have changed - but how to apply our Tradition to modern times. 

Why Orthodoxy Doesn’t Use Systematic Theology | Apophaticism, Mystery, and Lived Doctrine

 

About doctrinal differences:

 

  

Some books to explain Orthodoxy:

 I would add Timothy Ware's The Orthodox Way.

A brief introduction into Orthodox worship:

 A reminder we are not perfect:

 Looking in at one of our saints:

 Nasty Christians:

 Christian duty to their country:

 About Hell:

 Orthodoxy on Trial: Protestant Critiques and the Eastern Christian Response

 A Protestant Asks: What Is Orthodox Christianity (And Why Is It Growing?) w/ Jonathan Pageau

 Reject “Moralistic” Christianity!

 sch 3/19