The PO Visits, I Collapse; Russians Attacking Writers

Off work early, I think I can get home early. All I have to do is get to the sheriff, right? Well, the #2 was late, so I missed the connection to the #17. I waited for the 1:15 Ivy Tech bus, that I took out to Daly and Memorial. From there I walked to the courthouse. I did my signing a little after 2 pm, I read awhile, and caught the 2:30 back to Morningside. Only I stopped at Dollar General for cat food and some items for myself. I walked back to the room. It was getting on about 4 pm. I ate, piddled with the email, and kept getting more and more tired. I crashed at about 6, and the PO came knocking a little after 7. He did not stay long. He wondered mostly about the reason for moving. I said that I was staying in Muncie longer than expected. I suspect he suspects something more nefarious, but that is his problem. I doubt if he would understand that a suitable place had come along and I wanted to move on. Then it was back to sleep. I woke at about midnight. The cat same when I opened the door. I decided I had slept as much as I usually did. Breakfasted on Fig Newtons, then came here.

Some notes for you follow.

 RUSSIA PLACES BEST-SELLING NOVELIST BORIS AKUNIN ON ITS WANTED LIST

(NEW YORK) — PEN America condemns the Russian government for placing London-based Grigory Chkhartishvili, better known under his pen name Boris Akunin, on its wanted list for alleged criminal activity. Akunin, a best-selling author of historical detective fiction and one of Russia’s most popular novelists, has been an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s atrocities committed in Ukraine.

“Since its invasion of Ukraine, Russian authorities have rushed to silence critical and dissenting voices, including writers, artists, and poets, who give expression to the kind of Russia that many dream of: free, democratic, peaceful. That the Russian government took the shameful and alarming step of putting Akunin on a “wanted list” speaks to the resonance of his anti-war statements,” said Polina Sadovskaya, PEN America Director for Advocacy and Eurasia. “Writers help people express their opinions and imagine a better future. The criminal charges against Akunin are baseless and pernicious efforts to vilify free expression in favor of false state narratives.” 

Russia-Ukraine war live: Russia and Ukraine exchange prisoners of war – as it happened 

Scientists Are Finally Taking Altered States of Consciousness Seriously(MIT Reader), interesting in general but also for this in a more specific way:

Scientific dogmas and attitudes to life are scarcely ever changed through rational argument. Such shifts require life-changing experiences, of the “road to Damascus” kind, that affect the researcher emotionally. Toward the end of his life and after a heart attack, the logical positivist A. J. Ayer, whose philosophy might be summed up as “only what can be empirically proven and is factually and logically correct exists,” had a near-death experience that at least got him thinking. The London Sunday Telegraph gave Ayer’s description of his near-death experience the strapline “What I saw when I was dead.” If Ayer had previously been an avowed atheist, who assumed that there was nothing after an individual’s death, he now spoke more cautiously. He still remained an outstanding analyst, and reasoned that for a time after the cardiac arrest brain functions might still exist that could have produced these experiences. In his last essay, “Postscript to a Postmortem,” Ayer describes how, affected by his experience, he relinquished his polemical position against the belief in life after death in favor of a still skeptical but nevertheless more open-minded attitude. For him the idea of an afterlife was now at least worthy of research. And indeed for some years there has been vigorous research activity into near-death experience, which is published in the most important medical journals.

The work on Dad's case is picking up steam. 

The cat sleeps. I will miss him.

The mystery for the day: why are so many viewers from Singapore?

Watch out for the greatest night of your life:

Now to work on "Love Stinks"!

sch