News and Views from the past few days

My health issues continue; I am too lethargic. This has left me behind in my writing - all of my writing.

I still need to do a post on No Kings and the one on my group therapy. 

That did The Dumpling House on Friday, hoping that getting back into a routine will help me get out of this lethargy. Then I went to group. After that, it was back to lethargy. I felt like I was about to fall asleep in group. I did nothing of any substance after I got back to the apartment.

Grocery shopping at Payless, then letharic for the rest of the day. I finished revising “Scenes from a Small Indiana Factory Town.” I sent the concluding section to KH. He did not like it.

Church on Sunday. I talked to J for a very long time, then I worked on the first section of a new story, “Alternate Histories.” I sent this to KH but have had no response from him. It should have shocked him into a response. I am going where I never thought to go. 

Alseep by 7 pm, and awake around 10. Another day like I have been having this past month. 

Yes, we have a homeless problem in Muncie, Indiana:  Large fire in homeless camp behind train station.

Readings from the past few days follow.

The Stupidity May Save Us (Sheila Kennedy)

We are in this situation thanks to a lethargic citizenry that has ignored civic duties in favor of a focus on personal interests. We are going to pay a heavy price for that lethargy. When we finally get rid of Trump and the assembly of cranks and buffoons he’s installed, it will no longer be possible to ignore or downplay the magnitude of the necessary reconstruction.

Internationally, America will never regain the trust we once enjoyed–but ultimately, that may lead to a safer world where other nations pick up the slack. Domestically, the sheer extent of the damage is operating as a wake-up call. Had Trump been less stupid, less incompetent, less psychotic, had he pursued the strategy Sykes outlined, Americans would probably have continued down a path of complacency, ignoring the massive economic and social disparities that were tearing at our civic fabric. We might have failed to recognize the morphing of the GOP into a fascist cult until it was too late.

AI lectures, Old West folk heroes and Mark Twain: what is Bob Dylan up to joining Patreon? (The Guardian). After having seen Dylan live last week, eccentricity remains his calling card, attraction, and his greatest artistic achievement.

I thought Bruce Hornsby had  disappeared - a burst in the Eighties and then fizzle. Guess not: Indigo Park (Pitchfork)

Only for those interested in spies, Irish nationalism, and Roger Casement: A Rebel and a Traitor by Rory Carroll review – the extraordinary story of Roger Casement (The Guardian).

At the end of the book, I did find myself wishing it went on to analyse the reasons for the eventual defeat of British rule in the years following Casement’s execution, and to describe more fully the more consequential Irish leaders of the time. However, that is not what Carroll is here to do, and he succeeds in his core task of humanising a complex man, giving him credit for his strengths while never hiding his flaws, not least his penchant for young and vulnerable sexual partners.

There have been attempts to film Casement’s life in the past – a 1934 Hollywood screenplay even imagined a tearful parting from a blond girlfriend – and I would not be surprised if a producer reads this book and decides to have another go. There would surely be a lot of competition for the chance to play the role of this strange, fascinating, improbable man.

A questionnaire I had to answer for the PO. It may not be clear from the questions asked, but most of them do nto apply to me. I never was "on the street", did not steal anything, did not deal in drugs; it is really not relevant to my crimes or my history. This is typical of my supervised release: that no one in the government really knows what to do with me except to run me through their bureaucratic routine. It does make ansewring the thing rather simple. Anyway, another example of your tax dollars at work.

 

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