There Is A Vague Sense of Discontent This Winter's Day

My discontent may be wintering at Boca Raton, but I am doing better than some people.

The big news of the day is that I am not moving this week.

I got home at 3 pm, I made only one trip to McClure's, and I cannot say what has been the problem tonight. I am tired. It took me an hour to get out of here to the convenience store. The move is not on and that wrecked my plans for the night. I decided I might as well get more downloads from YouTube. I ate dinner. Nothing of any importance. The cat disappeared this morning for points unknown. Maybe they can get him to the vet.

Yesterday's items that I did not get published follow:

 Ball State trustees approve Village revitalization plan agreements - it not only the bringing in of students that helps Muncie prosper, but BSU also brings in people to events on campus.

Okay, this one is just for fun: Dr Strangelove at 60: is this still the greatest big-screen satire?

The release dates were like a reversal of Karl Marx’s famous line about how history repeats itself, “first as a tragedy, second as a farce”. The farce, Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove, came first. Then the tragedy, Sidney Lumet’s Fail Safe, arrived in October. There was a lot of messy legal fallout over the common origins of the two films, but they complement each other beautifully, with only a slight difference in perspective on our inability to manage weapons of such god-like destruction.

The message of Fail Safe: human beings are fallible. The message of Dr Strangelove: human beings are idiots.

On balance, Kubrick’s message is more persuasive. Dr Strangelove remains the greatest of movie satires for a host of reasons, not least that it hews so closely to the real-life absurdities of the cold war, with two saber-rattling superpowers escalating an arms race that could only end in mutual annihilation. There’s absolutely no question, for example, that the top military and political brass have gamed out the catastrophic loss of life in a nuclear conflict, just as they do in the war room here. Perhaps they would even nod sagely at the distinction between 20 million people dead v 150 million people dead. All Kubrick and his co-writers, Terry Southern and Peter George, have to add is a wry punchline: “I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed.”

 From Zanzibar to Marbach: Abdulrazak Gurnah on German East Africa Abdulrazak Gurnah touches on a little history I knew of (go see The African Queen).

Muncie community members hope to establish program for formerly incarcerated individuals to help change how the community interacts with troubled youth in 2024 by Daniel Kehn is from Ball State's Daily News has a long headline on an important subject, do think about this:

According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation website, which supports the Credible Messenger Mentoring Movement (CM3), the movement helps establish training that allows community members across the country to learn from each other to hone what works when it comes to supporting youth involved in the justice system.

Malone said it took somebody believing in him to open his eyes to how he could help mentor youth. That somebody was Niel Kring, a pastor with Urban Light Community Development.

“By doing this work of training credible messengers for employment in communities are able to both interrupt gun violence, create safety, wrap kids up into networks of relationships that are positive, all those sorts of things,” Kring said. 

***

Malone said schools are quick to expel and suspend students with behavioral issues, rather than looking for mentorship and rehabilitation, which leaves students with nowhere to go during the day.

Rediger said that MCS leadership is looking to change that course.

“Our goal would be to have a partnership where credible messengers are working in the school systems alongside students,” she said. “Right now there are some barriers to getting some folks that have criminal justice backgrounds into the school systems, but they are open to figuring out how to do that.” 

A few paragraphs were done in "Love Stinks" and a little email reading and drafting blog posts. I am unsubscribing to anything that comes every day. I may be cutting myself off from the world, but this is not 2009. I am not cutting out of anger or disgust with the world and how little I could do about it. No, I am losing my free wi-fi and I do not want to overrun. It has been a close thing these past few weeks, with the email winning over the writing. I do not want to be demolished. That was a feeling I had back in 2009 of information overload. I will only be able to post as I can get wi-fi access. There may be less current stuff on here, but so it goes.

The Darkest Week of the Year: Fosse’s Septology by Sean Thor Conroe was published on the Paris Review site. I like the essay, but I am fairly certain I will pass on reading Fosse.

Black Pastoral – Ariana Benson by Ashia S. Ajani; pastoral poetry collection reviewed. I like how it points out in America, the land is not an escape as it was in Europe but the scene of forced removals and genocide.

Notes from today: 

Were These Giant Carved Stones Used to Make Ancient Italian Wine?Rocky artifacts may offer insight into an Etruscan industry. (a little fun, a little archeology)

Owain Glyndŵr: Last Welsh holder of the title Prince of Wales from Unruly Figures (subscribe!) was a fun read; this site does make history accessible.

I have all these videos on YouTube that I have saved to watch later and decided later is coming soon. When I do move, I will have no TV and this is my solution (for a few hours), But I did stop to listen to a few. This one is about Aaron Burr, a rational revision of the popular view:

I also checked out this one on Anne of Cleves:

My short story collection, "Only The Dead and The Dying", received its first rejection:

Thank you so much for your submission, but I'm afraid we are going to pass on this. Good luck placing it elsewhere.

Best wishes,

Jessica Bell

vineleavespress.com

Office hours: Tues - Fri, 9am - 5 pm EET (Athens, Greece).

And another rejection for one of the stories in "Only The Dead and The Dying":

Thank you for sending us "Running Away From the Dying and the Dead". We are honored by your choice to entrust us with reading your work.

Unfortunately, we are unable to accept your piece at this time. Due to a high volume of submissions, we must often decline examples of promising work.

Thank you again for your submission. We at Blue Earth Review wish you the best of luck with finding a home for "Running Away From the Dying and the Dead"mu

Sincerely,

Annie Lindenberg,

Fiction Editor

Blue Earth Review

JStor's What Is Punctuation For? deserves to be read.

I skipped over political stuff. I want to spend my time on other things.

Off to shower and then to "Love Stinks".

sch