I have been busy being busy since Friday, or whenever I made my last report on my existence as a federal prisoner on paper.
The PO did visit Thursday night. He came around 8:45. I heard knocking, not sure if it was not at the back apartment, and called out who was there. No answer. I went to the door, expecting who knows what. No one visits me but my PO. He said I looked happy to see him. Having been scanning for hours, after taking a nap (yeah, sleep is getting in my way), so I was tired, as well as wary of who was on the other side of the door.
He had his usual question about relationships, health, that I keep thinking are more appropriate to 2009. Then he asked about CC. I told him she had saved my life, no sex involved. I said she had saved my life twice. He wanted context, which kind of amused me since he has never been interested in context before. I think he is just surprised that there is a woman in my orbit.
I did not mention that she was in rehab. CC called me Friday. It seemed that rehab was going good for her.
Friday was group, a trip to Payless, a nap, and working on the scanning I had not finished on Thursday.
Saturday, I decided I had enough food to skip the Quaker food bank. I also decided to put off laundry until Sunday. I finished up the work I had started on Thursday. However, I went out to Payless for what I had forgotten on Friday and to Office Deport for a new keyboard. The other had gone on the fritz in the morning. I was working away when CC called, saying she was leaving rehab. I came close to turning her down; she claimed she had had food poisoning, and her boyfriend needed me to drive to Indy. So, I gave in. On the way there, I decided I had been played, and coming home I caught a lie or two from her. That she seemed rather healthy did not help justify my doubts. I drove for about 4 hours - and learned night driving might no longer be for me - and returned angry tempered only exhaustion.
Enough is enough, I decided. She saved my life, I have been trying to help her save herself, but she cannot back up her talk with action. I told her ages ago, she could waste my money but not my time.
I let my ride to church that I was not going today. Which was a good thing. I slept about 9 hours last night, without feeling really rested.
I have spent 3 hours doing some reading, and working on this post. Well, more like finishing off this post. I had started it a few days ago, saving links.
I should probably mention what I have been watching on Netflix, but won't.
Friday:
‘The Celts: A Modern History’ by Ian Stewart review | History Today
Trump’s Latest Tariff Stunt May Be His Most Deranged Yet | The New Republic
How Trump Brought a Divided Canada Together—Against Him | The New Republic
Why Canada should not cancel – for now – the American-made F35 warplanes | Opinions | Al Jazeera
Songs for the day:
Saturday morning:
Keira Knightley at 40: her 20 best films – ranked! The Guardian (She is 40?)
‘Fever in the Heartland’ author Timothy Egan talks history, resistance
In his book, “A Fever in the Heartland,” Egan tells the history of how Stephenson and the KKK ran Indiana in the 1920s.
The impact was startling: One in every three white men in Indiana swore fealty to the Klan, and in Indianapolis, nearly every public office — from the governor to the mayor — was under the Klan’s influence.
Egan’s book made a point to emphasize that Klan members weren’t on the fringe of society, they were “pillars of the community” — and the fact that the Klan was everywhere brought in more members.
“That was one of the most powerful things,” Egan said. “There was this feeling that you were missing something if you didn’t join this secretive organization.”
***
In addition to reading “A Fever in the Heartland,” here are some places you can go to learn more:
- Visit the Indiana Historical Society’s RESIST! traveling exhibit about Notre Dame students standing up to the KKK in 1924
- Take a walking tour of Irvington March 29
- Learn about Dr. John Kaylor Kingsbury, the doctor who testified against Stephenson, at an Irvington Historical Society exhibit
- See the new mural in honor of Madge Oberholtzer at 5606 E. Washington St. in Irvington
This guy is a hoot:
Song of the day:
Sunday:
In light of all this, it’s perhaps surprising that we haven’t seen more housing crisis ghost stories, or, as Róisín Lanigan’s debut has been billed, a “gothic novel for generation rent”. I Want to Go Home But I’m Already There is the story of Áine and Elliot, who have just moved into a rental together in a gentrified area of London. It’s a flat that, ominously, no one else seemed to want. They are both keen to enter a more adult stage of life, but something about the place unnerves Áine from the very start.
It’s a familiar premise, albeit given a fresh spin. Lanigan is a wry and witty observer of how it feels to live now, and some sentences are a delight (“she finished the fizz and put the tinsel in their recycling bin and thought about how long it would take before it disintegrated into the earth. A long time. Maybe never, actually”).
Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah review – love and betrayal from the Nobel laureate The Guardian
Debt, both as a real monetary burden and a symbolic relational pact, has been a recurring feature of Gurnah’s writing. In his 1987 debut novel, Memory of Departure, impoverished Hassan Omar invites himself into his wealthy uncle’s home in Nairobi, on the basis of an inheritance that is owed to his mother. By the Sea featured two Zanzibari migrants who reunite in an English seaside town, years after a loan gone awry had led one to lose his family home to the other. Paradise, shortlisted for the Booker prize, told the story of young Yusuf’s quest for freedom after he is pawned to an ivory merchant by his parents. It is set in what is now Tanzania; then, at the turn of the 20th century, a beleaguered place on the verge of German colonisation.
Theft is in dialogue with these books, with the motif of debt grounding wider ruminations: on hospitality, autonomy and servitude as well as the nuanced distinction between obligation and generosity. For Gurnah, the record-keeping principle underlying a ledger is also one that animates human exchange more broadly, corrupting even the most innocent of bonds. As the tale progresses, Karim increasingly hectors and dominates Badar, demanding gratitude, deference and eventually even subordination and silence, convinced that without his help, Badar “would have ended up living on the streets as some kind of a criminal”.
10 Novels in Translation You Should be Reading This Winter and Spring - Electric Literature (I have read only one of the writers mentioned, was very much impressed with what I did read, and this is why the following excerpt is here.)
The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica, translated from the Spanish by Sarah Moses
Following the unsettling dystopian horror of Tender Is the Flesh, Agustina Bazterrica returns with The Unworthy, a novel that once again examines violence, hierarchy, and survival. This time, Bazterrica shifts her gaze toward a cataclysmic world where the very air could kill. To find shelter, a group of women have turned to the House of the Sacred Sisterhood: a brutal religious order run with an iron fist by Mother Superior, who herself only answers to a mysterious entity referred to as ‘Him’. In a series of letters, the protagonist recounts ceremonies, events, and nightly discoveries as Bazterrica touches on climate disaster, religious fanaticism, and, in the midst of all the darkness, the potential power of friendship. Gory and grotesque, this may not be for the faint of heart but for those who wish to delve deeper into the dark recesses of human nature.
I keep thinking foreigners are writing novels that should be read here because their interests should be ours, and American writers that I know of are not writing about these issues.
Who knew South Africa had a cyber-punk science fiction scene, then I saw the name Neill Blomkamp, and I went duh. Elon Musk and Peter Thiel have South African connections - most obviously Musk - that disturb me. What if Trump is not (only) a Russian asset but an Afrikaner one? Do give Science Fiction Predicted the Rise of the Tech Bro Oligarchy | The Nation a chance.
It should be underlined that birthplace isn’t destiny. Many South African Whites, Beukes and Blomkamp among them, are committed to democracy and determined to make their multiracial country work. Musk and Thiel have made a choice about how to respond to the racist culture in which they were raised, seeking to use Donald Trump and crew to create a 21st-century order based on digital authoritarianism and discrimination. Sadly, we have yet to see any of the libertarian racists now in charge of the US government grow a conscience as Blomkamp’s Wikus did.
I ended with The Reforestation of American Civic Life: What Publishing Can Do in the Face of the Trump ‹ Literary Hub. Of course, I like Josh Cook's ideas - they jibe with mine.
Instead of acting like we’ve already lost, we should respond to the radical ambition of the Trump administration with our own radical ambition. For every dramatically destructive policy this administration attempts, we should attempt something as dramatically constructive. He is trying to completely remake society, so we should try to completely remake society. What’s the worst that can happen if we fail? A white supremacist rapist grifter with dreams of being a king becomes president for life with the support of both chambers of Congress and the Supreme Court?
***
That idea of starting from one drop, also speaks to the critique that far too few people would actually read this to have any impact on national politics. Like losing our focus on local and state elections, I wonder if our focus on grand displays and gestures has actually hindered our ability to sustain the awareness and activism needed to keep fascism at bay. The Women’s March after Trump’s first election might have been a source for much of the organizing that lead to flipping the House in 2018 and, as positive as that was, Democrats couldn’t keep the House in 2022 and Trump has both chambers now. As big as Planned Parenthood is, it didn’t prevent the overturning of Roe v. Wade or the passing of abortion restrictions that followed. The Harris campaign raised record breaking amounts of money and still lost.
I keep wanting to write the Indiana Democrats, tell them they need to do something radical - take on the power structure of this state, change the state constitution. Procrastination of a sort has kept me doing this - I have only so much time left to myself, so I need to get business taken care of rather than being ignored. Considering how few people comment on anything I write on this blog, tells me how likely anyone listens to me.
I do believe that introducing the referendum, term limits for the General Assembly and county judiciary, an amendment removing political consideration from legislative districting, the recall for all elected officials, ranked voting in primaries, and proportional representation is the solution to many of Indiana's political problems. It would mean that Indiana Democrats would need to stop playing the game of being Republican Lite and learn to fight for their ideas instead of merely accepting second-place status.
Songs of the day:
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