Catching Up

 Early to rise does not seem to have made richer or wiser.

I should have gone riding on Saturday. The best I did yesterday was walk over to Cheers for lunch and then down to Dollar General for my Coke Zero and dish soap. Cheers has a very good mushroom Swiss burger. 

I started early on putting together posts for the blog. I have a post a day for half of July and cleared out almost all of my notes. I went back to it after my little trip.

One reason for not riding was the thunderstorms that came through in the morning. We did not have sun until around 1 pm. I shut down the laptop for a bit, the storms were overhead and quite noisy.

Another rejection for "Local Boy Made Good":

We appreciate the opportunity to read your work, but unfortunately this submission was not a right fit for One Story.

Thank you for trying us.

Sincerely,

The Editors of One Story

And my other rejection for the week:

Thanks for sending "The Psychotic Ape" our way, but it's not for us. I wish you the best of luck in finding a home for it.

Regards,

Alfred Smith

Editor, Triangulation

I have a rewrite out there, so let's see what happens.

Saturday's reading from The Guardian:

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes at 70: Marilyn Monroe remains a dazzling star. Maybe - finally - I get the thing about Marilyn Monroe, but Jane Russell still distracts me in this movie.

‘Am I still any good? Have I still got it?’: PJ Harvey on doubt, desire and deepest, darkest Dorset. I probably like PJ Harvey more than Marilyn but still she is not one that I have really followed. All I know is she is mart and to pay attention when she is on the radio.

Harvey is happy to have a foot in the past, in some respects. Music consumption has changed a lot even since her previous album. She worries about how music is valued, even by herself. “If I don’t like it after a minute, I might go to something else, and I keep pulling myself back on that: Polly! Just sit and listen!” she says. As a songwriter who emerged decades before streaming, she was “lucky enough to have had a good grounding when things weren’t like that. I’ve been able to grow confidence in my process. But I wonder how it affects the younger generation that is having to write in this new climate?”

She’s been listening to conversations about AI and creativity. “But,” she says with a rhapsodic sigh, “I can’t imagine that the imperfection of the human touch will be outridden by the perfection of a computer. I think there’s something beautiful about imperfections and failings of us as human beings.” She comes back to the making of I Inside … “I believe that people will still want that homemade-ness of it – going full circle to us holding things together with bits of tape to make a sound.”

Interesting statistics from The Sydney Morning Herald's Is Sydney in the grip of a crime wave? The facts are surprising:

The daylight murder of bikie kingpin Alen Moradian this week was the latest in more than a dozen gangland murders since late 2020, sparking promises of a police crackdown on gangs. But the impression of a lawless city projected by the nightly television news could not be further from the truth.

Crime in Western democracies has been declining since the turn of the century, and particularly so in Sydney, which compared to other cities has a vanishingly small crime rate.

And some thoughts on why:

Only one hypothesis stood up to scrutiny: improved security. Technology such as central deadlocking systems, electronic immobilisers and CCTV appeared not only to have driven down property crime but arrested a pathway to crime that often began with property theft among adolescents.

###

“The low rates of crime that we’re currently enjoying in NSW, people will say that police have contributed to that, and they might have,” Fitzgerald said.

“But I think it’s also a macro societal issue, of economic good times, low unemployment and a low rate of participation of young people in crime. That’s a big factor in pushing the crime rate down.”

 Now consider this news from Muncie:

 Winkle attorney: Attacks on arrestees result of 'insecurities,' inadequate training

MUNCIE, Ind. — As a Muncie police officer, Chase Winkle attacked arrestees "to overcompensate for his own insecurities about what might happen if an arrestee ever got the first blow against him."

That was one contention made by Winkle's attorney in a memorandum submitted June 20 in advance of the ex-city police officer's sentencing in U.S. District Court for 11 federal crimes — five counts of depriving his victims of their constitutional rights by physically abusing them, and six counts of obstruction of justice.

Muncie woman, 19, charged with battering her mother, 11-year-old girl 

Barnes was charged this week, in Delaware Circuit Court 1, with battery resulting in bodily injury to a person under the age of 14, a Level 5 felony carrying up to six years in prison.

She was also charged with strangulation, a Level 6 felony with a maximum 30-month sentence, and a misdemeanor count of battery.

Arrested on June 18, she continued to be held in the Delaware County jail on Tuesday under a $15,000 bond.

At the time of her arrest, Barnes already faced a count of neglect of a dependent, a Level 5 felony, filed in Delaware Circuit Court 4 in January 2022.

By accident, I learned Alan Arkin died. Goodbye, Yossarian.

Now for something lighter: Doubting Shakespeare’s Identity Isn’t a Conspiracy Theory

I finished out the night with mail and editing my "Love Stinks" sections.

I spoke with K last night, she does not want to go see Indiana Jones, she had surgery on an elbow. CC texted me, she sounded at wit's end - working, moving, whatnot.

Up at 5 this morning. I have the Downtown Abbey movie on, I am not sure if I really understand the pull of the show.

This morning's read: Radiant by Andrea Lewis on Sequestrum. It may a long time before I submit anything there - it is a rather good short story.

The skies look like more rain, while the weather reports say it will get close to 90. I will go riding today, so long as there is no rain.

The calendar is sending me alerts. I need to work on the novella first.

The Supreme Court has shown us, it is not the left that wants to take away the rights of Americans.

I like the new keyboard, I do not like my typing skills.

sch 6:40 AM