Disaster Strikes

The only good news in this post: How to improve Indiana’s economy? A question-and-answer fireside chat offers an analysis. What makes it good news is that someone out there wants to improve Indiana's economy. Personally, I think the first step is getting rid of Republican control of our state government.

I thought the Saturday morning curse might be past when I got up yesterday morning. The laundry was piled up, ready to. I mopped up the bathroom and the hallway. I started working my way through the email. Then I started watching fishing videos.

The back hurt, so I decided to spend some time with the heating pad. That became several hours. If I took the bus down to the post office, it would be an hour waiting for the return. I decided to wait on Monday. The laundry, I put off until today (Sunday). I would go get more cleaning supplies and start on the kitchen. That is what I told myself after crashing for several hours.

The number 2 was later, so I walked down to the station. I had the latest New York Review of Books to read while I waited for the next batch of buses.

My plan was to catch the #3 up to Dollar General. Only it did not appear on time, the Downtown Sizzle festival was screwing up routes. I decided to go to the north Walmart. 

In the old days, I kept switching plans because my temper would flare up and I would lose my patience. Yesterday, I reverted to this way of thinking.

All seemed to be going well until it came to check out. The debit card would not work. I tried and tried and time was too close for comfort. I was not happy. The bank's fraud detection has been flagging ordinary payments as possible fraud and the service was not in my good books. I suspected this as the culprit. I bought bleach with the little cash I had in my pocket. How annoyed was I? I left the NYRB in the cart.

I got off the bus at the Washington Street bridge and started walking back. Wondering if the problem had only been Walmart and needing cigarettes, I stopped at the convenience store on Jackson. The same problem at check out. Also, the same problem at the ATM.

Back home, I decided to see the problem was the fraud detection service. It was then that I found my phone missing. Back to the convenience store, where I did not find the phone. Then I walked to the bus station, no phone reported missing. Then I came home. It did not matter if it was the fraud service - without the phone, I could not fix the problem. 

I had a $50 in the house for emergencies, and this was an emergency. One last trip to the convenience store and I came back with some supplies. No enthusiasm to do anything. It was getting around 6 pm by now.

Without gloves, I was not wanting to tackle the rat's leavings. I did go through the email. I did a few more fishing videos - ideas for 2025. No writing - which is why this report is coming in today.

I sent an email to my sister to call CC. My sister says she did not have CC's number. I looked through my email and found where I had sent CC's number months ago. She may be coming over today with the supplies brought last week.

Rejections from earlier in the week that I forgot to post and today seems like the right time to do so:

Thank you for your recent submission to Litbreak Magazine. Unfortunately, “Problem Solving” doesn't suit the present needs of the magazine. We hope you'll find a place for it at another publication, and that you continue to keep us in mind as a destination for future submissions.

Sincerely, 

Editor

Litbreak Magazine

***

We appreciated the chance to read "No Ordinary Word." Unfortunately, we do not feel the piece is a good fit for us right now. We wish you luck with it elsewhere, and hope that you consider submitting more work with us in the future.

Thanks,

The Emerson Review 

Submitted "Problem Solving" to Long River Review 

The day seemed appropriate to include this bit of reading from my email, Genesis of the Modern American Right

Historians have debated the extent, details, and composition of what’s been called the Business Plot and Wall Street Putsch conspiracy. James Van Zandt, commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, acknowledged the existence of the conspiracy; years later as a Republican Congressman, Van Zandt would declare Americans should delete the communist-corrupted word democracy from their vocabulary. Neither Van Zandt nor the head of the American Legion, Frank Belgrano, were called to testify in what Fronczak calls the “disquietingly quiet death” of the official Congressional investigation of affair. Belgrano, as it happened, belonged to the committee that sent MacGuire to Europe and worked for banker Amadeo Giannini—whose Bank of Italy became what it is still called today, Bank of America, in 1930—and who was a prominent Mussolini supporter. MacGuire himself was avowedly enthusiastic about fascism.

There was, of course, no American coup d’état in 1934. But what Franczak calls the “design to couple high capital and popular mobilization” was a “genetic event” for the “US modern Right, which has been defined, and bedeviled, by its distinctive bonding of the two elements.”

It’s important to remember that before Pearl Harbor, support for Mussolini and Hitler were strong among America’s business leaders; many, for instance, hoped the fascists would sweep away both Bolshevism and the “class traitor” Roosevelt. But it wasn’t just elites: fascism was a form of mass mobilization inspired by fantasies of national renewal/revival and/or racial purity, and united by hate and violence aimed at common enemies (leftists, Jews, homosexuals, Blacks, liberals, Mexicans, transpeople…). It was a global phenomenon, notes Fronczak.

I ended last night watching this Guy Ritchie/Jason Statham movie. Enjoyable as most Ritchie movies are, but I think Hugh Grant is the one having the most fun. I also now know who Aubrey Plaza is, even if I do not know why she is.

 I finished this post and also another. Dishes are washed, and I have dinner in the crock pot.

I have some blog posts to do, eat lunch, and then I walk over to the laundry. Hoping it does not rain.

Oh, I had more videos playing in the background about fishing the White River:

Who knew we had a famous smallmouth bass river?

sch 11:40 AM