Another Day Not Working

I mollycoddle myself. I was going into work late, but it is cold and a good quarter mile walk from the bus station. I do not even want to walk to McClure's for supplies.

I woke and found it hard to stand on my left leg. I ate, took my ibuprofen, went back to sleep. Thinking I could make work in the afternoon. Thing is, it is really cold.

So, not working, and have this feeling of chasing my tail. No clear way forward.

I read Cheney hits back as Pence says January 6 committee has ‘no right’ to testimony from The Guardian. I am not exactly buying the separation of powers argument Mike Pence puts forth in the article - Congress cannot investigate an attempted coup because it was plotted from the Executive Branch? No, what really irks me is Pence decrying the January 6 Committee as partisan while refusing to appear and refute that partisanship. Long ago, but not so far away, I knew Pence was ambitious. Anyone buying his public image as moral, as bound by his faith, as a humble servant of the people needs to dig a little deeper. Not that I think there are the usual scandals; only the scandal of moral hypocrisy and a moral certainty that I always thought more dangerous than Trump. He showed these traits when he invited President Obama to a Republican conclave, sure he could show up the President as a vessel empty of intelligence, knowledge, and competence. He proved his ambition when he left Congress to be Indiana's governor. When he accepted to run as Trump's VP, he proved his morality took second to his political ambitions. Now he is talking out of both sides of his mouth, hoping to get where he meant to go all along: the Presidency. He will lose. His urges to present himself as guided by principles and morals have left him too lifeless to be a good candidate. Not that I think he thinks this way, I bet he thinks if he runs he will have behind all the good church people of this country.

I managed a walk down to McClure's. It is 29 degrees. Probably wise not tot have gone into work. Tomorrow is supposed to be a rough one, but I will be there. Worst thing: I left my lunch there for today! I bought a pot pie at McClure's.

I read a bit from The Herald-Bulletin, ’23 economic outlooks vary, say IU experts. What caught my eye was this:

Consumer spending will play a big role in the nation’s economy, according to a panel of experts from Indiana University Kelley School of Business. They spoke during the annual Business Outlook at Tuesday’s Rotary Club meeting.

Mark Frohlich said last year’s prediction was that the U.S. economy would grow by 4%, but it ended up this year at 1.8%.

“In the past six months, interest rates (have) increased to deal with inflation and to slow the economy,” he said. “The housing markets are down because of the higher mortgage rates.”

Frohlich said the optimistic look for next year is economic growth of up to 1.5% but that unemployment will increase nationally to 4.5%.

“The pessimistic outlook is that there will be recession in the second and third quarters,” he said. “Unemployment could be at 6.5%.

###

Rogers said that in Indiana, from 40,000 to 50,000 people have left the workforce this year.

“There is a lack of day care,” she said. “The hope is the state will address the problem.”

Rogers said transportation is another concern because people can’t afford to purchase a car or make necessary repairs.

“Indiana is historically the first into a recession because of our manufacturing base, but normally the first out,” she said.

Rogers said the IU business team is looking at places like Madison, Howard and Lake counties in terms of job loss and job growth.

“The unemployment rate in Madison County is 2.4%,” she said. “The job market is so tight.

“Another concern is that some Indiana counties are facing a population loss,” Rogers said. “You have to look for ways to attract people to Anderson because of the quality of life.”

That last bit, quality of life, will be a hard one for Anderson. Muncie has Ball State and the history of the Ball family to help with quality of life here. Anderson has... I do not know what.

I wonder how wages are growing in Madison County. All I hear here makes Anderson sound like a wasteland.

Surely Indiana will start funding daycare, the Republicans are so concerned about the welfare of small children and improving our economy.

I am glad I am out of all of this, I have only to worry about my job and my writing. That Hoosiers have let themselves be led around by the nose for decades should be more offensive. It once made me angry, but the anger became self-directed for my ineffectiveness. I am now comfortable being ignored and being ineffectual. I have done what I can to help, time for me to wind up my affairs.

The Herald-Bulletin piece came out yesterday, and today came New report says rural Indiana needs more investment to ensure economic stability, growth from the Indiana Capital Chronicle. ’Tis a long article.

Rural Hoosiers “desperately” need state leaders and lawmakers to make greater investments in Indiana’s lesser-populated regions, especially as the younger and more educated workforce moves to more urban areas of the state.

That’s according to a new report released Wednesday by the Indiana Community Action Poverty Institute, an Indianapolis-based advocacy group that seeks to prevent and end poverty in the state.

The 38-page report is based on surveys of more than 1,000 Hoosiers, including business leaders, elected officials, economic developers and financially vulnerable residents. Rural researchers were also interviewed. In-depth data analyses and policy reports specific to 40 rural Indiana counties helped inform the briefing, too.

At the heart of the report is a message to policymakers and other stakeholders that — in order to boost the rural Hoosier economy and make rural businesses profitable — “rural people need to thrive.”

That isn’t the case currently, however. Rural Indiana’s economy is increasingly vulnerable to job loss, population decline, and shrinking prosperity, as educated young people leave for more opportunities in urban areas and low-paying service jobs replace good-paying manufacturing jobs, according to the report.

According to a Kelley School of Business report, census data shows the 44 Indiana counties that are part of a metropolitan statistical area combined to grow by 6.3 percent over the past decade. Meanwhile, the state’s 48 non-metro counties as a group declined by -0.9 percent over the same period.

As the rural economy struggles, business vulnerability is also rising — automation, offshoring and low educational attainment in the workforce threaten business competitiveness. That challenge is heightened by a lack of critical industrial infrastructure, including broadband and insufficient quality housing stock to attract workers of all incomes.

How long has manufacturing been leaving Indiana? How long has Indiana's infrastructure sucked? 

The article has seven specific proposals from The Indiana Community Action Poverty Institute, which seem commonsensical. Maybe the General Assembly will them to be so, too.

Away from politics and towards writing: Saying No Feels Great: The Millions Interviews Elissa Bassist makes me wonder what her book is like, and has me asking if men have learned so little these past 40 years:

Having read her feminist memoir, Hysterical, it’s easy to imagine Elissa Bassist, a la Arya Stark, sharpening her pen and reciting the names of all the men who’ve wronged her.

There’s the on-again, off-again boyfriend/fiancé/nemesis—dubbed Fucktaco—who sporadically ghosted her over a tortured decade. The bosses who berated and belittled her. And the parade of doctors who tuned her out, downplaying her suffering, then prescribing drugs that compounded the pain until it throttled every part of her body.

That may not sound like fodder for comedy, but Bassist is a brilliant humorist who knows how to balance weight with wit. She describes an antidepressant as “an SSRI, or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, if you’re nasty.” Envisioning losing her virginity as an adolescent, she swoons, “We’d do things to each other we couldn’t spell, and he’d whisper Pablo Neruda into my vagina.” With a voice so distinct, it’s no wonder her silence almost killed her.

Nancy Pelosi will step down from House leadership. I have come to appreciate Pelosi more over the past 10 years. She is not the fire-breathing radical the MAGA crowd would like us to think, but she is something even more dangerous - particularly to the MAGA types now controlling the Republicans - a competent leader. Glad to see her stepping down, though. The Dems need a younger crowd. Now, if they can find those who have wide social experiences.

What am I doing here? Procrastinating. An old, old character defect.

I should be writing. Doing something useful rather than recording my day's reading. 

I have decided that my life must have the purpose it used to lack, right? Then what is the purpose of these daily reports?

To show the life of one under federal supervised release. To show that if there is any reform, the government was no help. To show that one can improve on one's life even after prison. 

Do not think that I have become all sweetness and light. I do not like what Trump and the Republicans have tried and will try to do to this country. I find pierced noses to be unpleasant, and disturbingly so - whoever thought this was an aesthetic improvement needs to have their head and eyes examined - I do not think I could ever find any attraction to a woman so pierced. Muncie's women are either way too fat, or far too thin with an air of being chemically induced; the thin ones have numerous tattoos, too. False eyelashes are a surprise in their return and how little they do except to create an impression of strangeness. Why are there no anchovies on any pizzas in Muncie?

Well, glad that I got that off my chest.

I have a story to work on.

sch