"Bradbury Stories" by Ray Bradbury, Thoughts On Reading 100 Short Stories By The Master

This massive collection of Ray Bradbury's short stories was first published in 2005, seven years before the author's death, and contains an introduction by Bradbury himself. The book is 893 pages and contains stories which Bradubury wrote and published in a multitude of magazines and a few of his own books roughly between the years of 1945? and 2000. Much of the world, even the literary world, think of Bradury as a "science fiction writer" which he was having written two of the best novels ever in that genre, "Farhenheit 451" and "Something Wicked This Way Comes". But Bradury was much more than just a science fiction writer or even "one of the best science fiction writers". It is much more accurate to say that Bradury was "a writer", period, the end. He wrote in many genres, and nearly all genres of stories appear in this collection. If you love the short story as I do, you need to read this book. In terms of time from the first published story in the book to the most recently published story, it covers roughly sixty years in the development of the American Short Story. In terms of genres of short stories, it covers science fiction, mystery,suspense, coming of age, humor, and nearly every generally accepted type of short story in the American oeuvre. My wife and I often read the same books together with me reading aloud while she washes the dishes in the morning, and then I rinse the dishes becasue it requires more motion and she is in a wheelchair. We usually take turns choosing a book to read in the mornings which is customarily a novel with an occasional work of nonfiction. But we have also, of late, decided to read a single short story after supper each night, sometimes from an anthology, sometimes from a complete collection by one author such as this one. This is the most massive collection of stories we have ever attempted and, at one story a day, it naturally took nearly four months since sometimes we are out and about and just don't have time to read a story when we get back home. But this collection was well worth that time. It contains many of the Bradury stories you might have heard or seen mentioned in magazines, books, and on television as being among his best. It also contains some others of his best which don't usually get mentioned in those common settings. In the introduction, Bradury specifically mentions several which I assume he considered among his best, or simply his favorites. One of those is "The Laurel And Hardy Love Affair" about a man and woman who both love a particular scene in a Laurel and Hardy movie, The Piano Movers Scene as it is generally known. They reenact some of their favorite moments from the work of Laurel and Hardy as a part of their love affair and that love for the two comedians helps bind their love for each other together. Actually, Bradury's love for Laurel and Hardy is the subject matter of more than one of his stories. Other stories also highlight parts of the lives or works of other Bradbury heroes, great writers, great actors, great politicians, and all of the stories which fall into this subset are among his best. There are also seveal stories which fall into a genre known as Coming of Age Stories in which teenage boys are the protagonists. Those stories, much like the novel "Something Wicked This Way Comes", leave you believing that Bradbury must have had a wonderful childhood. One of those stories, "All On A Summer's Night", is about a young boy who lives in his grandmother's boarding house with a broad collection of both men and women; some young, beautiful women; some single men who often buy gifts for those young, beautiful women; and one somewhat older, less attractive, female librarian who has helped the young boy to enter the wonderful world of books. That story is typical of several others in the collection which are set in the literary world or feature literary authors or their worksHe watches the older males buy gifts for the beautiful young women on the Fourth of July, heads off to the store to spend his savings on fireworks for the night's celebration, and changes his mind after he gets to the town's commercial district. He decides to spend his savings to buy the ignored librarian some perfume and to ask her to go out with him on the town that night to observe the celebration. It is a touching story and one of Bradbury's best. There are also several stories set in an Irish pub owned by a man named Heber Finn and peopled by a group of local men who typify the Irish whom Bradbury met during time he spent working in Ireland on a movie script. They are a fine group of local characters including a well offman with a fine collection of wine who directs in his will that the wine be opened and at his burial and poured into his grave. Heber Finn and his customers, including the local priest, find a way to both carry out the man's directive and subvert it simultaneously. The humor of the Heber Finn stories is among Bradury's best. The book contains stories which have been published in "Playboy", "McCalls", "Collier's", "Saturday Evening Post", "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction", "Harper's", "Weird Tales", "The New Yorker", "Esquire", and at least a couple of dozen others. Few writers in American literary history can say that they have been published in such a wide ranging collection of magazines. But then Bradbury wrote and published over 600 short stories in his life. Who else can say that?

March 19, 2025, An Interesting And Informative Day In Prestonsburg, Kentucky

On March 19, 2025, my wife Candice and I took a trip to Prestonsburg, Kentucky, to complete a variety of intended actions including a minor amount of shopping, eating out for lunch, and a hike for me at Jenny Wiley State Park where I often hike when we are in Floyd County. Our first stop was at Wal Mart to do a minor amount of shopping, and then off to Jenny Wiley State Park where one of my favorite hiking trails starts near the lodge and has about 4 miles of linked trails around the mountain, over and along the ridge, and a connecting trail which can take you off the mountain to the site of the former Jenny Wiley Amphitheater which still exists as a building but is, sadly, no longer in use due to the demise of the Jenny Wiley Summer Music Theater which functioned there for several decades. When we got to the park, I left Candice reading in the van as I often do and headed out to hike toward the trailhead near the lodge. As I approached the trailhead, I could see yellow construction barrier tape across the start of the trail with a printed message taped to a post. The message stated that this portion of the trail was closed due to a mudslide, and that the remaining portions of the trail could be accessed at the amphitheater spur. I started back in that direction, stopped for a few minutes to read the names and text on a monument to the children and bus driver who died in the 1958 Floyd County School Bus Wreck, and then headed on toward the amphitheater which is situated near the convention center which is used for a variety of purposes including state employee training sessions, weddings, banquets, and other public events. I have even once seen a rained out performance of the Roger Miller written musical "Big River" in the convention center. As I approached the convention center parking lot, I realized that several vehicles including a group of travel trailers, several cars from various othet states, and one or two vehicles actually marked with signs for the American Red Cross were in the parking lot. I realized the convention center must be in use as the stationary site for the Red Cross Disaster Response to the recent flooding in Eastern Kentucky which had devestated larger portions of Eastern Kentucky and Floyd County in particular. I also remembered that the Jenny Wiley State Park Lodge was once again in use as emergency housing for flood victims as it has been used on at least one other occasion under the incredibly effective and compassionate leadership of Governor Andy Beshear. I had to walk past the rear entrance of the convention center to get to the trail and when I turned that corner I saw two people sitting at a table outside the rear entrance. I suspected they were Red Cross volunteers and stopped to verify that and thank them for their work. We introduced ourselves and my hike turned into a long conversation with these two people and a third who showed up a bit later. They were from three different locations in the country, all long term Red Cross workers, one with ten years of service, one with sixteen years of service, and the third with an amazing forty-one years of work with the American Red Cross and on their third deployment to Eastern Kentucky in disasters. Our conversation quickly turned political and they opened up to me about their fears for the future of FEMA and the likelihood that TRAITOR Trump will destroy that agency and further worsen the disaster response to upcoming hurricanes, floods, forest fires, and other disasters. I expressed my own identical opinions and they reassured me that the Red Cross will always continue to provide disaster services since it is a private non-profit agency. But we all agreed that the future response from the federal government to disasters in the next four years, if TRAITOR Trump is not removed from the White House, will be slipshod at best with any federal funding likely to come to the states in block grants which will be pillaged on two or three levels before any of it actually reaches victims themselves. One of these Red Cross workers had actually been part of the response to the most recent Puerto Rican hurricane disaster when TRAITOR Trump was living in White House the first time and sent almost nothing to the people of Puerto Rico for a variety of reasons including his racism, ignorance, TREASON, and total lack of compassion and empathy. It was very refreshing to have this conversation with people who have traveled the world doing good works for the betterment of the human race, who understand the dire straits our country has been in since January 20 2025, and who can speak as openly as I do about the danger which is presented to the country by TRAITOR Trump and his Criminal Syndicate. I never finished my hike due to the length of that conversation but I have put in about a half hour between my parking location at the parking lot of the old golf course, the lodge, the closed trailhead, and the convention center. I also got a second half hour afterward at the Big Sandy Community and Technical College walking track and campus. As I walked across the campus, I encountered the sign at the top of this blog post, realized immediately that it would be considered a violation of TRAITOR Trump's malicious executive order against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and decided to document these signs for my readers before the Right Wing Radical Repugnican head of the state community college system in Kentucky can force these signs to be removed from the campus, and order that racism, sexism, and mysogny be practiced in the community college system across the commonwealth. Below is the seond sign which was available on the BSCTC campus and all the other community colleges in Kentucky.

"Getting The Spirit" by Vernon Abner, Thoughts About An Interesting Little Book

The author "Getting The Sprit", Vernon Abner was a former US Navy sailor who was born in 1937 presumably in Jackson County Kentucky where he spent most of his life. After leaving the US Navy, he entered Berea College in Berea, Kentucky, as a nontraditional student at the age of about 36. During his time at Berea, he took at least one class from my friend Bill Best whose work I have written about several times on this blog. During his career at Berea, Bill Best encouraged many hopeful Appalachian writers and Vernon Abner was one of those. Bill Best actually wrote the preface to this book which was the only published work, to my knowledge, by Vernon Abner. This book was illustrated by Jon Howson with wonderful black and white drawings including the cover which is a portrait of Vernon Abner. Bill Best concluded his preface with these words: "The other students remember him as being "real", as someone who "understood his own life. He helped create in them a desire to understand their own lives more deeply. Those who take seriously this collection of his story will understand." In an essay on the back cover of the book, Carl and Sally Glover wrote "As you read this collection, we hope you celebrate Vernon Abner's humor and wit, feel his sorrow and depression, and share in his love and appreciation for all living beings. We trust that your venture into Vernon Abner's world will reward you for your time and effort." I am unable at this time to verify my belief that the Glovers were the owners of Kentucke Imprints which was the publisher of this book and is now defunct. "Getting The Spirit" was published in 1985, just 4 years before Vernon Abner's death. It is my understanding that this book was his only published work. The book is broken into three sections: Fiction, Poetry, and Philosophy. The Fiction section is composed of six short stories which are clearly Appalachian in nature. They are replete with examples of Appalachian aphorisms, cultural qualities, and demonstrate a writer who clearly knew the lifestyle of Appalachians quite intimately and effectively. I cannot say that these are great short stories. But I must insist that I enjoyed them a great deal and would gladly defend them as good examples of short fiction based on Appalachian mores and cultural values. They are at time riotously funny. They contain two central figures, teenage males and neighbors who love to play practical jokes on those around them. The title story is about the boys decision to place a hornet nest under the floor boards of a home where a local preacher is holding a service with the entire neighborhood in attendance with the nest situated in such a way that the hornets are able to invade the church service. Without using direct quotations from the story, rest assured that it is quite funny. For those of you with little direct experience in the Appalachia of the period in which Vernon Abner grew up in the 1940's and 1950's, such home based church services were common and I have attended many in my own childhood. This story is a fine reminescence of life in an Appalachia which is now almost entirely lost. The third story, "Did The Fleas Get To College?" is a rendition of another practical joke which is played on a visiting nurse who travels by horseback. It involves the use of a large number of aggressive fleas which the boys have managed to capture from some hogs which one of their fathers has bought and brought home. It is not quite as funny as "Getting The Spirit" but it is well worth reading. The other stories in the book are not at the same level of writing and humor as the two I have discussed but collectively the group of stories in the book make we wish that Vernon Abner had lived long enough to polish his demonstrated talent, produce more and larger books, and become the writer which his potential could have produced. The Poetry section is composed of three poems which are not at the same level of work as the short stories. The final section of the book, labled Philosophy, contains nineteen short essays of about a page each, perhaps averaging 500 to 750 words each. They discuss a variety of common subjects from everyday life in an interesting, but less than perfect, manner. It is regretable that Vernon Abner had not been able to produce a more lengthy book composed entirely of his short stories. He had obviously been compelled to live a life which required time in the US Navy before his college days, the need to earn his daily bread after arriving at adulthood in one of the more poverty stricken counties in all of Appalachia. Like many native Appalachians, he was born with a sizeable amount of talent and intelligence, a prodigous sense of humor, and a desire to share his world with the greagt world outside. It is a shame that life is sometimes not exactly fair.

Reflections On Reading "Appalachian Anthology: Histories, Historiographies, and Oral Histories of Appalachia" by Diane Alexander

Frequently, I buy books about Appalachia, with Appalachian titles, or some which allegedly cover Appalachian subjects, and sometimes I buy some I have to ask myself later, whey did I do that without digging deeper. This book was described on Amazon as "A collection of Appalachian journal articles, research papers, historiographies, and oral histories prominently featuring Appalachian culture, dialect, and stereotyping. Vignettes of oral history from the 30s and 40s..." It is also apparently one of those books which have been published over the last ten or so years by Amazon under deals which have them sold as printed on demand. As a class of books, I have usually found them to be less than the most rational purchases I have ever made, and I have often stated my intentions to never order another one of this type. But before I come off as totally negative about this book, let me say that it does have some merit, primarily in the purely oral history sections of the book. But it is amazingly redundant in the first two articles or chapters. The first is called "The Forties" and listed as being credited to a Joseph Alexander instead of the listed author Diane Alexander. The second article or chapter is called "Appalachian Youth in World War II: An Oral History" and Diane Alexander is listed as the author of that article or chapter. The first, "The Forties" is a genuine oral history which was apparently written by Joseph Alexander about his experiences during World War II both in the mountains of North Carolina and in Newport News, Virginia, where his parents emigrated to for employment during World War II. As pure oral history, it has merit, is relatively well organized, acceptably written, and covers the emotions of the young man about being removed from a rural Appalachian mountain life to life in a Tidewater city during the war. The second, credited to Diane Alexander, is nothing more than an article, or most likely a high school or college term paper, based on the oral history in the first section. It gives her rendition of several of the same episodes Joseph Alexander discussed in his oral history and the quotes from that oral history are ethically attributed to him. But the highly repetitive and redundant nature of the paper or article leaves it only slightly more than useless. Ms. Alexander would have been far better served to have used only one of the chapters in the book, either the pure oral history or her own conclusions about that oral history with credit to Joseph Alexander. But putting both in the book was a waste of both time and paper. By the time I had read both of these sections of the book, I considered abandoing the remainder which is an act of which I am rarely guilty. But I perserved as I almost always do in such cases since I know that I have also written some things which some people did not really choose to suffer through. I have always thought that is another person suffered through the effort to produce a book they at least deserve the respect to have me finish reading it since I chose to buy it and spend my money on it. The third section of the book, entitled "Firewood", is another piece of oral history written by Joseph Alexander about a chore of his youth in the North Carolina mountains. It has a degree of merit equal to that of his first contribution to the book although most modern readers outside a group of off gridders would find it more meaningful than simply something to read for a brief while. It is acceptable as oral history from a prior era and a man's discussion of a portion of the life which made him the man he was when he wrote it. Thankfully, Ms. Alexander does not insert her own article about this particular oral history. The next section, "Spotlight on Appalachia: Settlers and Speech, Music and Moonshine" by Ms. Alexander makes an attempt to discuss all three of the listed elements of Appalachian Culture over the next fifty pages of the book. After having spent the first twenty years of my life in an Appalachian area of Kentucky where moonshine was commonly made, sold, and consumed, and having grown up in a country grocery store where my parents regularly supplied sugar, malt syrup, cracked corn, yeast, and other items to several local moonshiners, I do know a little more than the average novice about this subject. Ms. Alexander does a minimally acceptable job of discussing the topics, but they would have been better served by having been individually discussed in shorter papers. This particular section also shows what is a common problem with the entire book. It would have been much more readable with a higher level of editorial input from a qualified person. That is a common problem in these books which are produced and sold by Amazon without editorial input. Most of those I have seen by all such authors whose work I have read are short on editorial input and long of errors of both omission and commision in all aspects of writing and language. I did think think about this book long enough to produce a blog post about it. I have also saved some of my readers both their time and money if they take my advice and never buy a copy. If you do decide to ignore my advice about the purchase, please do follow my advice about the utility of Joseph Alexander's oral history and the lack of utility in Diane Alexander's writing about it. It will save you half the time it would otherwise take you to read the book and glean most of the value from it.

American Democracy Is In Grave Danger!

"Democracy is a poor system of government at best; the only thing that can honestly be said in its favor is that it is about eight times as good as any other method the human race has ever tried. Democracy's worst fault is that its leaders are likely to reflect the faults and virtues of their constituents--a depressingly low level. But what else can you expect? (Robert A. Heinlein, "Stranger In A Strange Land", Unabridged Edition, page 232.)

"On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by an downright moron." (H. L. Mencken)

Those two quotations above tell us all we need to know about the present incredibly dangerous and destructive events which are being perpetrated by the current occupant of the White House, TRAITOR Trump, who literally personifies all that H. L. Mencken and Robert A. Heinlein had to say in those two quotes. While Democracy is the greatest form of government ever created by the human race, it is a system whose very nature causes it to fall prey to dangers which lie within the system of electoral politics which is inherent in a democratic government. For the simple minded, I find it necessary to say that the word "democratic" in the preceding sentence is used in its most generic form. While I am a proud and dedicated lifelong member of the Democratic party, I do admit that there have been times when elected representatives of the Republican party have provided the country with a democratic government which usually functioned in the best interest of the country, the human race, and the world at large. But today, since January 20, 2025, TRAITOR Trump and the Criminal Syndicate which he has managed to install in power after the tragedy of the 2024 election have been working daily, hourly to destroy America, American Democracy, Ukraine, Iceland, Greenland, the Panama Canal, NATO, and literally all forms of democracy in the world today. We have seen a Criminal Syndicate placed in positions of power while posing as a "cabinet". Literally none of these so-called cabinet officers is worthy to hold any position of public trust at any level. This Criminal Syndicate is composed of a Convicted Felon, TRAITOR, Russian Agent, Serial Rapist, Career Criminal, Tax Cheat, and Idiot at its head, one former heroine addict, another accused sex offender or two, a woman who shot her hunting dog because she didn't like the way it hunted, a wife beater whose own mother called him the same to his face, and a motley collection of other miscreants, misanthropes, and idiots. We are seeing thousands of dedicated career employees of the United States government being fired without cause, and many of those firings are coming in departments where the absence of qualified professionals literally creates untold danger to our very nation. Homeland Security has lost at least 400 employees and many of them are intelligence analysts, translators, and undercover agents whose work is necessary to defend our democracy from any future attacks such as September 11, the USS Kohl attack, and January 6, all of which were grave assaults on democracy. Others of the 17 total US intelligence agencies are also losing hundreds of professionals whose lives and careers are dedicated to preserving democracy itself. The Pentagon is also losing hundreds of civilian workers who do the same kinds of work in support of US military forces. We have seen five seperate plane crashes in this country in the last month and the worst of those was apparently in part because air traffic controllers were being fired and one person was attempting to do the job of two when that plane crash happened. The NIH, CDC, and othe agencies working in the area of public health are losing hundreds of workers.The US Department of Health and Human Services has been placed under incredible risky by having a former heroine addict and the world's worst anti-vaccine idiot in charge after his entire extended family stood up in public to tell the entire world that he is incompetent to be in the position he has been given. The FBI is in the hands of a man who has said publicly many times that he wants to destroy the agency. The ambassador to France is the convicted felon father of TRAITOR Trump's son-in-law who is apparently on a mission to attack France because the government of that ally is being run by the man who helped President Biden expand NATO and support Ukraine in their war against the aggression of Vladimir Putin and Russia. A group of young highly questionable computer hackers are now, under the disguise of being government employees, attacking the computer security systems of literally every government agency in the country. And they are being directed and controlled by Elon Musk who is holding billions of dollars of questionable NASA contracts where the lifelong employee at the head of that incredibly important agency was immediately removed becasue he was actually doing the same high quality job he had for his entire career. Just as the two quote above say, democracy's leaders now "reflect the faults and virtues of their constituents--a depressingly low level" and the "White House is adorned by a downright moron who is attempting to destroy our most important strategic alliances in support of his Russian owner Vladimir Putin. NATO, our most important strategic alliance, is under attack by TRAITOR Trump and his Criminal Syndicate which places both Ukraine and all of Western Europe in danger. Literally the world is falling apart due to TRAITOR Trump and his Criminal Syndicate and nearly half the country don't understand the nature of the danger and cheer him on. GOD HELP US ALL!

"Remember Me? A collection of recipes from my years at the Courier Journal" by Alice S. Colombo

I have often said on this blog that I love cookbooks, especially local fundraising type cookbooks from Appalachia and I often buy them from Goodwill, Salvation Army, and and other independent "junk stores". Yesterday, February 14, 2025, I ran into a slightly different type of cookbook and bought it at Goodwill in Paintsville, Kentucky. The title "Remember Me? A collection of recipes from my years at The Courier Journal" is a bit odd for a cookbook. But this one was compiled by a former food writer at the Courier Journal in Louisville, Kentucky. Even though it was from well outside Appalachia, I bought it. It was compiled by Alice Colombo and contains many recipes she had been allowed to publish over the years by restaurant owners she had met in her work, some of her own recipes, and others from God only knows where. It was published by a company called Publishers Printing Company in Shepherdsville, Kentucky, and that company now appears to be defunct since I can't locate a website or anything about them other than one article saying they had moved several years ago to another location they owned in Lebanon Junction, Kentucky. The book is spiral bound, 8 1/2" x 11" and printed on high quality, heavy, slick paper. It does contain a note from the author saying that any of the recipes which carry the "Copyright" symbol had previously been published in the Courier Journal and are copyrighted. This is not either Appalachian or purely Kentucky in nature since it contains several recipes from restaurants the author had either visited in her professional writing days or during personal visits for other reasons and had obtained the owners permissions to publish them. The most interesting of these recipes are from the first three chefs at the famous Brown Hotel in Louisville and are there particular and progressive recipes for the famous Kentucky Hot Brown. They include the recipe of Laurent Gennari who was the first chef at the hotel and worked from 1923 to 1927 and presumably invented the Hot Brown. The next is labeled "The original Hot Brown by Fred Schmidt who worked at the hotel from 1927 to 1930. Although it is labeled "The original Hot Brown...", it is clear that if Mr. Gennari was using his own recipe in the preceding four years, Fred Schmidt didn't invent the Hot Brown and his recipe is not the original. The third Hot Brown recipe is credited to "Mr. Harter" who seems to have worked at the hotel from 1930 to some unknown date which Ms. Colombo reported by saying "Mrs. Clark didn't give the year Mr. Harter left the Brown." But considering the fame which the Hot Brown has achieved in Kentucky and elsewhere, it is nice to find these historic recipes of its development over the early twentieth century. For those of you who don't know about the Kentucky Hot Brown, it is a construction of sliced turkey, cheese, and bacon on white bread toast and is served all over Central Kentucky and several other areas since its invention by whomever, most likely Laurent Gennari, at the Brown Hotel in Louisville close to a hundred years ago. The three recipes in this cookbook don't agree on the spices and minor ingredients. But they show some combination of the following: butter, milk, eggs, salt, pepper, white pepper, and whipping cream. The book also contains recipes from famous or somewhat popular restaurants in Kentucky, Nevada, South Carolina, Indiana, North Carolina, Minnesota, New York, Louisiana, Florida, California, Ohio, Tennessee, Massachusetts, Illinois,Georgia, Missouri, Michigan, and Virginia. The book is broken into somewhat more sections than most cookbook authors bother to do. They include Appetizers and Beverages; Soups, Chili, and Stews; Salads and Salad Dressings; Breads, Rolls, Muffins, and Sweet Rolls; Vegetables; Grits and Rice; Dairy and Cheese; Sandwiches, Stuffings, and Dressings; Marinades and Sauces; Entrees; Seafood; Casseroles, Eggs, and Quiches; Pasta and Pizza; Nationality foods; Cakes; Frostings, Fillings, Sauces and Syrups; Fruits;PIes and Tarts; Cheesecakes; Cookies and Brownies; Desserts and Puddings; and Candy. Other than the Hot Brown, I have not found a particular recipe which stands out to me as one I would love to try. But the book is over 352 pages and I have to admit that I have not yet fully examined it from cover to cover. The information page of the book states that at the time my copy was published two printings had been produced, the initial of 1,000 copies and a second of 500 copies. Somewhere in a used book store, junk store, or yard sale, you might be able to find a copy. The book does list a website which works as of February 16, 2025, which has a page with a contact form for interested parties to fill out along with an e-mail address for the author. If the book interests you, take a shot at it and you might find a copy. There is also a list of businesses which were selling the book at the time of publication. But with the 2011 publication date, it is probably not a good bet that they are still holding unsold copies.

"The Civil Disobedience Handbook" James Tracy, Editor--A Book Every American Needs To Read---TODAY

The blurb on the back cover of this important little book states "Civil Disobedience is an American tradition, an essential element of a working democracy." Truer words were never spoken. In this terribly tragic time in which TRAITOR Trump is once again is living in the White House and working daily with his Criminal Syndicate which is now posing as a "cabinet", there has has never been a more important time for that majority of American citizens who understand just how endangered our country and our democracy are by this tragic outcome of the most recent election to Stand Up, Speak Up, and Speak Out about the destruction of our country by this worst of all TRAITORS. This book is a brief 94 page primer on the practice of civil disobedience with very valuble information on both the practice of civil disobedience and advice on how to conduct that practice without unduly endangering the practitioners. The one drawback to the book is that it is a bit dated having been published in 2002. James Tracy, the editor, is described on the cover as "...a long time organizer active in anti-poverty work. He is coordinator of Rightto a Roof,a part of San Francisco's Coalition on Homelessness." After having worked in the field of homelessness for over 8 years, I can assure that anyone who has Tracy's experience knows a great deal about the need for civil disobedience. Tracy also lives in Berkeley, California, a location which has always been a proving ground for protest activity in America. The book begins with a short history of civil disobedience in America, then moves on to a full length copy of The Patriot Act. But a word of caution about the reading and acceptance of that version of the Patriot Act is in order since the Patriot Act has been renewed, revised, and replaced by the USA FREEDOM (Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ensuring Effective Discipline Over Monitoring) Before taking any actions based on Tracy's rendition of The Patriot Act, one should find a copy of Freedom Act as it which has been passed by congress. The book also contains a lenghty list of resources which can come in very handy to anyone who is seeking to use their constitutional freedoms to express discontent with the actions of the current TREASONOUS occupengt of the White House. Much of the general information in the book is just as valid today as when it was published. It would be wise to obtain and read, as will I, the more recent second edition of the book which was published in June of 2024 by Tracy and Jennifer Joseph. But, whatever you do, read one or the other, remember the Freedom Act is now the law, and feel free to express your discontent with the current occupant of the White House both privately and publicly.

"This Proud Heart" by Pearl Buck

On several occasions on this blog, I have written about the works of Pearl S. Buck, one of the small handul of American writers to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature and one of my favorite writers of all time. I have writte3n about "The Good Earth", her most famous novel, which I believe is also one of a very small group of the best novels in all of literature. She followed "The Good Earth" with two other novels in the "Good Earth" trilogy, They are "Sons" and "A House Divided". While either of those novels could have been a career best for many writers, they are not among Buck's best works. I read everything I come across by Buck and still have numerous of her books to be read. Fortunately, a year or so ago, I bought a large collection of books, actually 5 commercial peach boxes full, from the estate of a local school principal. This one we are discussing today I found in a small group of books I bought at a small "junk store" in Rowan county Kentucky which also included a unique first edition of Jack Kerouac's first novel, "The Town And The City", which was published under his legal name John Kerouac, the only one of his books to have been published that way. "This Proud Heart" is one of Buck's lesser known novels which is set in the United States with purely American characters for the most part. The protagnonist is a brilliant woman, Susan Gaylord, and begins when she is a high school student who has shown a great deal of talent in more than one area. She is the daughter of a professor father and a dedicated housewife mother, has one sister, Mary, several years younger and not really close to her older sister. Her father is a somewhat frustrated poet in addition to being a professor in a small college. He has chosen to devote his life to his familiy and his primary profession but does manage to write poetry and publish some of it in small magazines. Susan comes to understand her father's frustration with his life decision and vows to do more to control her own life and its outcomes. She is a talented artist and piano player as the book begins but chooses to marry her high school sweetheart, Mark, who is a totally devoted husband to her and works in the real estate business after they marry. But Susan finds herself interested in sculpture and uses a barn on the old farm they buy to create a piece in wood which is composed of a family of four, a husband, wife, and two children, a son and daughter. That piece is submitted to a contest for a piece to be placed in the lobby of a hospital financed by a very rich man in New York. The piece and her work in general is supported by a famous male sculptor, David Barnes, who has a house in the small New England town in which Susan and her family live. Barnes is a brusque, short spoken man who has strong opinions about Susan's talent and her inablility, as he sees it, to succeed as a sculptor in the United States. He strongly encourages her to come with him to Paris to study under another great sculptor and a man who teaches anatomy to sculptors. She refuses until the untimely death of her husband Mark due to typhoid fever. After his death, she packs up her children and their maid to travel to Paris to actually do what Barnes has suggested. During her time there, she meets another man, Blake Kincaid, who is also a sculptor of much less talent than Susan. They fall in love and she marries Blake which proves to be a less than perfect decision. They return to New York where he lives in considerable wealth and she grows more and more hampered by his efforts to control her, minimize her talent, and disparage her work as a sculptor. She comes to realize these things about Blake and rents a studio in the poor neighborhood near his ostentatious home where she meets and sculpts marble statues of some of the people in the neighborhood. David Barnes returns to the novel from Paris and assists Susan in getting her works into a gallery for an exhibition which confirms her talent and leaves her with a full understanding that she cannot succeed as a sculptor if she remains with Blake. She moves her family back to her hometown after the death of her father and decides to end her relationship with Blake. The novel leaves the whole situation somewhat in midair at the ending but we see that Susan has been able to understand that she must be independent in order to do her best work. The novel is also widely discussed as one of Buck's better works in support of feminism. Susan Gaylord is a strong, successful, competent, talented, and highly motivated woman. For the time in 1938 when the novel was published, she is an amazingly modern woman. I suspect that this novel is somewhat biographical with the sculpting being a substitute for Pearl Buck's writing and Blake being a character based on Buck's missionary first husband whom she divorced to marry her editor and publisher after her early work caused such a stir in the literary world. While I would not say this is one of Buck's best novels such as "The Good Earth", "Imperial Woman", or "The Living Reed", it is a fine novel and well worth reading.

"How Democracies Die" by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, A Warning To All Americans

In late October of 2024, just a few days before the most direly fateful election in American History, I wrote about the book, "How Democracies Die" by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt although I had not fully read the book. At that time I was reading and studying intensely, writing as much on this blog as I could, and doing everything in my power to help prevent the return of TRAITOR Trump to the White House. Sadly, all that could be done by several hundred thousand to a few million writers like myself, that incredible dangerous election was lost and TRAITOR Trump was returned to his occupation of the White House. "Occupation" is a word I use in the military sense. The White House is now "occupied" by a TRAITOR and the Criminal Syndicate he is constructing with the aid of the Right Wing Radical Repugnican congress. Now is an appropriate time to fully rexamine the book "How Democracies Die". At no time since the day Fort Sumter was fired upon by Confderate forces has America and American Democracy been in more danger. This book is one of many by competent authors in America which can point out the dangers and show us all the ways we need to work in order to save our nation. I state for the record that I have now fully read the book, slowly, thoroughly, and thoughtfully. The original edition of this book was published in 2018, The current edition of the book which I am discussing today was published in paperback format in 2020 due to the fact that it was a best seller and the upcoming election of 2020 made it both necessary and advantageous for the authors and publisher to reissue the book in paperback due to the danger being presented to the country by TRAITOR Trump at that time. Today, that danger does not just persist. It exists now in an even more virulent form than four years ago. We now have seen several million American voters ignore the warnings of dozens of major public figures who have worked closely with TRAITOR Trump actually using the words "Fascist" and "Facism" to describe him and his goals. During the 2024 election campaign TRAITOR Trump has discussed jailing his political enemies, deporting millions of hard working immigrants, destroying several branches of the US government, and even acting as a "dictator on the first day" which he has and will continue to do as long as the populace allow it. Now that the tragedy of his actual election has occurred and his TREASONOUS crimes are happening by the hour it is long past time for every decent American to step up and do whatever is in their power to put an end to this TREASON. TRAITOR Trump has even exceeded his own previous levels of fascist speech by stating on multiple occasions that Liz Cheney, one of only two Republicans in the entire country fit to hold public office at any level, should be forced to face "nine rifles pointed at her face". Despite preemptive pardons of all the members of the January 6th congressional committee by President Biden, all their lives are now in danger. That danger to those patriots from the committee has been greatly increased due to the absolutely TREACHEROUS pardons to the January 6th TRAITORS. The only bright spots in that arena are the fact that one of them is now on the run in Texas after being charged with criminally soliciting a juvenile, another has been killed by a police officer after having resisted arrest, and a handful have admitted their guilt and refused the pardons. At some point, some of those January 6th TRAITORS will construct and attempt to carry out a plot against Liz Cheney or some other member(s) of the January 6th Committee and that is a primary reason they were pardoned. We are seeing military planes and personnel being utilized to deport hundreds of hard working immigrants and that number is growing every day in a manner, with the use of the military on American soil, that many constitutional scholars say is unconstitutional. In the United States, as Donald Trump's campaign against immigration intensifies, it is sweeping untold numbers of undocumented workers of all backgrounds into the arms of ICE agents, loading them onto airplanes, and forcing their native countries to accept them through the threat of such things as loss of foreign aid and even military intervention These kinds of actions by TRAITOR Trump and his allies are clearly fascist in nature. While this book was reissued in 2020, recent statements about his fascist tendencies by several American generals who have worked closely with TRAITOR Trump fully support what the authors have said about him and his danger to the country. In a politically related book, Bob Woodward's new release, "War", tells a story of meeting General Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at a party: We have got to stop him!” Milley said. “You have got to stop him!” By “you” he meant the press broadly. “He is the most dangerous person ever. I had suspicions when I talked to you about his mental decline and so forth, but now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is the most dangerous person to this country.” His eyes darted around the room filled with 200 guests of the Cohen Group, a global business consulting firm headed by former defense secretary William Cohen. Cohen and former defense secretary James Mattis spoke at the reception. “A fascist to the core!” Milley repeated to me. I will never forget the intensity of his worry." (The Atlantic, October 16, 2024, "The General's Warning". https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2024/10/the-generals-warning/680279/ ) In "How Democracies Die", the authors discussed several important tendencies toward fascism in TRAITOR Trump which we are now seeing in full blown practice. In the next to last chapter of the book which is entitled "Trump Against The Guardrails" they discuss how he had the tendency at the time of their original publication in 2018, and the republication date in 20202, to become every dangerous and criminal thing he is today...and more. One of the signs of impending fascism which they discuss in the book is what they call attacks on "the referees", those people such as judges, inspectors general, and others who guarantee ongoing democracy. Just two days ago, on January 25, 2025, TRAITOR Trump illegally fired 15 inspectors general from their government agencies. Federal law requires that before an inspector general can be fired a thirty day notice must be given to the congress. That notice was never given and, sadly, we have a congressional majority in both houses of congress which are so deeply involved in his TREASON that they will never ask for it or require it. The congressional leaders will also use congressional rules to stymie any effort the minority Democrats attempt to utilize to require that notice or any oversight on their part to require any form of general compliance with the laws of the land. He also attacks judges on a daily basis. He has also contructed, with the help of the Project 2025 criminals, a so-called "cabinet" list of people who are markedly and universally unqualified to be in any positions of public trust at any level. These coconspirators will be assuming the jobs, with the assistance of the Right Wing Radical Repugnican congress, of the highest level referees in the government, and they are being placed in those jobs solely because they are willing to destroy the agencies. The authors discuss in the book "also mounted efforts to sideline key players in the political system" during the years he was illegally occupying the White House the first time. Today, key players such as resistant memnbers of congress are being openly threatened with being opposed in upcoming elections, impeachment, and violence is even being encouraged against them. Benito Mussolini would not have been any more blatant in his practice of fascism than TRAITOR Trump. THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS! I WILL COMPLETE IT IN A DAY OR SO. PLEASE COME BACK IN A DAY OR TWO AND SEE THE CONCLUDING SECTION.

Buffalo Night At Jenny Wiley State Park, January 25, 2025

Yesterday, January 25, 2025, my wife Candice and I went to Buffalo Night at Jenny Wiley State Park. Historically, these events have always been held in the lodge dining room. In fact, we had the Thanksgiving Dinner there this past November. When we arrived at the park, we found that the event was being held in the convention center near the now abandoned amphitheater. I had been in that facility once or twice before including once, not long before the long running Jenny Wiley Summer Music Theater had been abandoned along with the amphitheater. At that event, we had gone to see the Jimmy Dean written musical "Big River". It got rained out and instead of offering rain checks the theater gave the performance in the convention center which had been a total bust. There is actually a large commercial kitchen in the convention center. But the room where this Buffalo Night was held is simply a large, windowless convention room set up with tables, all of which are designed for eight people doing work sessions in which they must face each other. That was a bit of surprise to be seated at a table for eight when, at brief times, the dining room door was left open and others, waiting to be seated for as much as half an hour, were able to look through the door and see two people seated at a table for eight. A windowless room is never a good site for anything other than a jail. Despite some bad weather in the last three weeks, the turnout was predictably large and the place was reasonably well staffed. But for these events, all of the state parks seem to schedule employees in the park system who have nothing to do with food service to work on event night and many of them have no experience in the areas in which they are working. We spoke to one woman who said she was working as a housekeeper in the lodge. We were seated at that large table conveniently in the front row near the buffet line which makes it a lot easier on Candice if she serves herself, or if I serve her and make two trips to the buffet for each of us to get a plate. The room was probably 40 feet wide and buffet was set up with the salad bar against one wall, the dessert table across the opposite wall forty feet away, and the main buffet line across the end wall at least fifteen or twenty feet away from the other two sections of the buffet. Thankfully, we had a young male waiter serving our drinks, napkins, etc. who was excellent, highly attentive, and robustly working the room all the time we were there. Ethan was a blessing in the middle of much that wasn't in other areas. In general, all of the staff, despite their sometimes being forced to work well outside their expertixe, are friendly, congenial, and nice. But it would be far better if other food service staff could be shifted from within the state park system for these high volume special events. The buffalo was served three ways, roasted and sliced on the line, presliced and cooked in deep hotel pans in boiling water, and as meat loaf. The roast was excellent and the female employee who served it was gracious, friendly, attentive, and experienced. The meat loaf was excellent, self service on the line, and made in the Eastern Kentucky style with catsup on top. The presliced and boiled was unappetizing looking and I niether of us even tried it. The vegetables were short sections of corn on the cob (over cooked but tasty); good, well made scalloped potatoes; green beans;greens with ham hocks sliced in them; and, there was also buffalo chili and fried catfish which Jenny Wiley usally serves as an alternative to the main meats at any special dinner. There were only two deserts, banana pudding in which I never saw a banana, and a berry cobbler. I happened to reach the dessert table after a cobbler had been demolished and left with only a thin skim of berries in the hotel pan. But I had manfully picked up one of their overly small, plastic (I assume disposable but maybe not) dessert dishes and was ready to settle for berries only (they appeared to have been mixed berries.) when a servers stepped up beside me and said, "I'm getting ready to set another cobbler down, would you like to wait." I had the pleasure of taking the first piece of that cobbler out of the pan to my table. I enjoyed some parts of the meal and the trip, was very appreciative of the waiter Ethan, and won't totally slam the event. But it did have some things lacking and could definitely be improved on before the next event. It is usually done far better at Natural Bridge State Park in Slade, Kentucky, where we also go regularly. Yes, I will probably be at the next special event dinner at Jenny Wiley, but I must insist that it be held in the lodge dining room.

"Yesterday's Treasures Today's Memories" Cookbook by McDowell-Minnie Area Senior Citizens 1998

I regulary say here in blog posts, for one reason or another, that I regularly go to low end resale stores, junk stores, such as Goodwill, Salvation Army Stores, and little local places which do the same thing to browse for and buy used books. I happened to be in Prestonsburg, Kentucky, yesterday, January 25, 2025, for Buffalo Night at Jenny Wiley State Park, and went inside the Goodwill store there where I came away with three or four interesting used books including a hardback copy of "Ulysses" by James Joyce. But the real treasure of that trip was a little fundraising type cookbook called "Yesterday's Memories Today's Treasures" by the McDowell-Minnie Senior Citizens which had been published in 1998. It is small compared to many of those types of cookbooks but I really like them especially if they are from the Central and Southern Appalachia Region. This one is centered in two old coal camp communities on Left Beaver Creek in Floyd County Kentucky located between Martin and Wheelwright. I grew up across the ridge on Right Beaver Creek in Knott County, and have known these communities ever since I was big enough to remember. I grew up about 3-5 miles away from them as the crow would fly directly over the ridge, but probably 10 or 15 miles if you actually drove a car. But I have to say I don't recognize any of the names of the contributors to this particular cookbook. It is small for such fundraising cookbooks, just over a hundred pages, and several of those pages, perhaps a dozen of those pages are just the typical filler material which the publishing companies always add to such books, things like lists of measurements, weights, temperature guides, and advertising for the company. But this little cookbook is loaded with recipes which are worth remembering and trying. Some of them I had never seen. Some I have cherished since I was a little boy watching my mother cook at home. There are recipes for both Pickled Beans and Pickled Corn which rarely show up in any cookbook. But when I was growing up, many people around that area still made both Pickled Beans and Pickled Corn in five gallon crocks and ate them all winter. This book lists both recipes in the "Appetizers, Relishes, and Pickles" section, but in my childhood both were seen as staples for winter survival and eaten fried just a bit as a regular vegetable. I can't automatically recall another cookbook I know which has those recipes in it. Most people think of making good white milk gravy only with regular or "sweet" milk. This book contains a recipe for "Buttermilk Gaavy" which I don't recall ever seeing my mother make. But we always had "sweet milk" because we always owned a cow. Amazingly for the time about thirty years ago, it has a recipe for what it calls "Frog's Eye Salad" with the possessive spelling instead of the normal singular which I had always known. This salad is a relatively modern addition to foods in that area and I grew familiar with it probably twenty to twenty-five years ago in my extended family. It contains sugar, flour, fruit, and spezzielo pasta. The book could have a misspelling of the name but the pasta in question is small, round, bits of pasta which gave the salad its name "Frog Eye Salad" due to the size being about the same as a frog's eye. When made well, it is a delicious dessert and often seen in the area at family gatherings and church events. There is also a recipe for "Seven Layer Salad" which I have always loved and a former roommate of my Eve Downey used to make it to perfection. There is a recipe for "Fried Dry Land Fish Mushrooms" or morelles. But Dry Land Fish has always been the local colloquial name for morelles in Knott and Floyd counties. There are recipes for Fried Rabbit and Fried Squirrel. I love both squirrel and rabbit but not fried although that has always been the most common way to cook them in the area. I make a joke sometimes that in that area you can mention strawberry pie and somebody will yell out "I like mine fried.". There are recipes for Turnips, Pinto Beans, Cushaw, Squash, Hominy, and a couple for Poke, both boiled and fried in stalk form. All those vegetables are becoming less and less common in most people's everyday cooking. There is also a recipe for "Pinto Bean Pie" which I only recently discovered at Jenny Wiley State Park doing a special event dinner. But it was obviously being made on Left Beaver in thos coal camps at least thirty years ago. The book also contains a great, classic recipe for "Corn Bread" to my great delight, not becasue I don't know how to make it but because most others don't. This recipe contains five ingredients, the correct five: meal, flour, baking soda, buttermilk,and water. And, as it should be, sugar is nowhere to be seen. If you wnat to bake a cake, bake a cake, but don't add sugar to it and try to call it cornbread. This is wonderful treasure of a little Eastern Kentucky cookbook. But the odds that you can ever locate a copy for yourself are mighty slim. It was most likely published thirty years ago in 1998 in an edition of about 500 to 1,000 copies and most of those are probably either treasured in the now deceased contributors extended families or lost forever. I am truly glad I located this one by accident, or intention, simply by walking into a Goodwill Store at the right time. I hope you can find one.

The Minimization, Normalization, and Endorsement Of TREASON!

On Janaury 20, 2025, TRAITOR Trump signed a blanket pardon form for somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,600 individuals who had all been charged in the worst insurrection ever perpetrated against the government of the United States since the Civil War. Not only was it the worst insurrection of modern history against the USA, it was perpetrated by the very TRAITOR who was pardoning those other TRAITORS, Insurrectionists, and enemies of the legally constituted government of the United States. The text of that pardon statement only names 14 of the TRAITORS but attempts to also provide "a full, complete and unconditional pardon to all other individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021". The language in that pardon statement is highly suspect from a legal standpoint. It attempts to provide that "full, complete and unconditional pardon" to some uncounted number of unknown and unnamed criminals whose crimes are not even known and can have been perpetrated at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021". The geographic area is not remotely delineated and could even be construed to cover the crimes of the still unknown TRAITOR who placed two bombs near the headquarters of the Democratic and Republican parties. I sincerely doubt that this "pardon" document would be held to be legal if reviewed by an unbiased court of law. Would the horribly dangerous Right Wing Radical Repugnican majority on the US Supreme Court uphold that document? I honestly don't know the answer to that question. But you can bet your ass that some prosecutor in the general area at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021" should file an appeal and take the case all the way to the US Supreme Court to find out what they would do. But with the US Department of Justice now being in the control of TRAITOR Trump and whatever nominee for US Attorney General he can manage to get approved by the US Senate, you can bet that no appeal of the order will come from any US Attorney under that jurisdiction. But it is my impression that the City Attorney For The District Of Columbia should file that appeal before the Supreme Court and force them to take some position or other on this release of at least 1,600 TRAITORS and the possible intervention into the cases of any future TRAITORS the law enforcement community can manage to charge for crimes such as the attempted bombing of those two political party headquarters. This attempted pardon is also already placing the United States government and its citizens under a great deal of danger because those 1,600 TRAITORS have already been released from the US Bureau of Prisons and are walking free in our country just as their TREASONOUS supporter, TRAITOR Trump. This attempted pardon is just as criminal, just as TREASONOUS as the crimes of January 6, 2021, by both those named and unnamed in the document. It is just the first of what are certain to be other crimes by TRAITOR Trump, the Criminal Syndicate which is now being composed in the US Senate to pose as a "cabinet". God Help Us All!

"Maggie: A Girl Of The Streets" by Stephen Crane

Many time on this blog, I have mentioned that I often buy books at what I refer to as "junk stores", Goodwill, Salvation Army Thrift Stores, etc. I find all kinds of less common books in such places. One of my favorite little places to buy such books is at a little shelf outside the door of the snack shop, gift shop near the entrance to Pavilion H at the University of Kentucky Hospital. It is actually located in the hall between the entrance to Pavilion H, the old main hospital section, and the kiosk where patients sign in. I believe the little gift shop is operated by some arm of the hospital auxillary. The little book shelf operates solely from donated books which must come from a variety of sources including medical staff, auxillary members, patients and their visitors and might contain anything at any given time. All the books sell for some minimal price, usually 75 cents. Due to the fact that my wife has frequent appointments at the Kentucky Clinic across the street, I often take a long walk around the medical buildings in order to get my exercise, cruise past the little bookshelf, about 2 feet wide and 4 shelves high, browse what it contains, and buy anything that interests me. My last purchase there included the book I am writing about now, "Maggie: A Girl Of The Streets" by Stephen Crane, the author of "The Red Badge of Courage" which is a much better known book. The edition of "Maggie..." which I found there is actually A Norton Critical Edition which contains a great deal of critical and historical material in addition to the full text of "Maggie..." which is actually a novella of only 58 pages. But this edition also contains about 200 more pages of the supporting writings, photographs, and maps of New York City in the late 19th century. It was edited by Thomas A. Gullason, Ph. D., an English Professor at the University of Rhode Island. It is an excellent piece of work both from the simple aspect of being a fine novella by one of America's best early novelists, and by virtue of being a fine piece of editorial work by someone who clearly understood his materieal well. The book was originally published in 1893 and the text Dr. Gullason used is that original text. He has wisely not fiddled with the language of the time, has inserted numerous and sometimes voluminous footnotes to provide extensive information about the language used, geography at times, and other aspects of life in New York City in the late 19th century. I read the book with my wife Candice as we do nearly every day. I read aloud from our chosen book as she washes our breakfast dishes. When she finishes, I rinse the dishes. We take turns choosing the books we read and it is an exercise that works well for us in terms of both literature and personal relationship. This was obviously a fast read, in terms of the text of novella alone. In light of its brevity, it was a very nice book to read. Crane's writing does use some now antiquated words at times but he was a fine novelist as anyone knows who has ever read "The Red Badge of Courage". His writing style was actually much more modern in nature than most of his peers at the time. The novella still stands up to just about anything from any modern author in today's times. Maggie is the oldest daughter of a poor, Irish, working class family living in an early tenement in New York. Her mother is an abusive, alcoholic. Her father is an abusive, heavy drinking wagon driver in the streets of the city. Her brother Jimmie is a street urchin with a violent nature. The entire family and every one around them is simply striving to stay alive in a very hostile environment. As Maggie matures into a young woman, she becomes enamored with a friend of her brother named Pete who is a bartender and passes himself off as being much more than he actually is in terms of his money, lifestyle, worldly ways, etc. Maggie falls for Pete, leaves home to be with him after a particularly violent incident with her mother. She is wined and dined by Pete early in their relationship, taken to concerts, bars, and other forms of entertainment and comes to believe that Pete will improve her life. As the novella progresses, it becomes apparent that Pete is a womanizer who is totally in everything purely for his own satisfaction. Eventually, Maggie leaves Pete after he tires of her and moves on with an older woman whom he considers more interesting, charming, and attractive. Maggis is rejected by her mother and the family as a "fallen woman", and dies on the streets. It is obviously a very dark novella filled with poverty, alcoholism, womanizing, prejudice toward minorities, and nearly everything negative that New York offered in the 1890's. But it is a fine novella and well worth reading. If you can find a copy, get it, read it, and come to understand the poverty that immigrant working class families suffered in the early days of our country. And, in light of the recent hatred, animosity, and aggression toward the immigrants who once were and still are the real builders of our country, it is fine novella to read in today's politically disastrous times.

The Blackest Day In American History Since April 12, 1861!

On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter in South Carolina which was the beginning of the Civil War. For many years, it could be considered the blackest day in American History. That is no longer necessarily true. Today, January 20, 2025, at noon has become the blackest day in American History at least since the firing on Fort Sumter. There is a perfectly rational argument that it is actually the blackest day in all American History. Today, for all time, will surpass other dates such as December 7, 1941, the date Pearl Harbor was attacked; September 11, 2001, the date of the attack on the World Trade Center; April 14, 1865, the day President Lincoln was assassinated; and October 24, 1929, the date of the stock market crash which preciptated the Great Depression. This date, January 20, 2025, the date TRAITOR Trump has managed to slink inside the White House again accompanied by the worst Criminal Syndicate ever assembled in American History, a criminal syndicate which is far more dangerous than any of the Five Families of Cosa Nostra due to the fact that this Criminal Syndicate and TRAITOR Trump have every intention of destroying the United States, American Democracy, and the entire federal government. TRAITOR Trump and his TREASON are, without a doubt, the worst case of TREASON ever documented in this country or the entire world. After having been impeached twice during his original illegal occupation of the White House, having been indicted for 94 felonies for stealing government documents and lying to the FBI about those thefts, being found judicially responsible for the rape and defamation of woman whose reputation every day of her life has been far better than his on the best day of his life, after having been the perpetrator of the worst insurrection against the US government since the Civil War, and after having been the leader of a previous lesser Criminal Syndicate whose members collectively were indicted in at least 215 cases, this worst of all TRAITORS in all of history has managed to construct the worst conspiracy against the United States in more than 275 years of lesser history. He is a far worse TRAITOR than Aaron Burr, Sacco, Vanzetti, or Aldrich Ames. He is literally the most dangerous man in the world with the single exception of Vladimir Putin, the man who actually has owned and controlled TRAITOR Trump ever since the day Russian money saved him from his casino bankruptcy. God Help Us All!

The Public Creation Of A Criminal Syndicate In America!

For the first time in the history of the United States, a major criminal syndicate is being formed in full public view of the entire country, covered daily by all the news services of the world, generally ignored by a majority of the populace, and endangering the continued existence of the United States and American Democracy as it has not been endangered since Fort Sumter was fired on. This criminal syndicate is also being supported in its organization by the full press power of the government. The criminal syndicate I am speaking of is being labled as the "cabinet" of TRAITOR Trump as he prepares to complete his lifelong goal of destroying the United States for his Russian Owners. Not one of the nominees is qualified to hold the position for which they have been nominated. None of them is fit to lead a one car funeral. They have been chosen for two criteria: 1) they have sworn personal allegiance to TRAITOR Trump instead of the US Constitution; and, 2) they are willing to commit TREASON in the group effort to rob the United States Treasury and destroy the country for TRAITOR Trump. Nearly all of them have long histories of public statements about destroying the particular departments for which they have been nominated. There has never been a more unfit group of individuals suggested as directors of the departments of the US government in the entire history of our country. The titular head of this criminal syndicate, TRAITOR Trump, has been indicted on 94 felony accounts in recent years; convicted of 34 of those felony charges without ever having served a day in prison; held judicially responsible for the rape and defamation of a woman, and ordered to pay her more than 80 million dollars for those crimes; found, along with 2 of his sons to be unfit to head a business in the state of New York; and found to be guilty of robbing the coffers of a fake charity he created along with having robbed the "students" of a fake "university" he created. At least two more of the male members of this criminal syndicate have also been accused of being sexual predators including one whose own mother confronted him about his total disregard for women in a now public e-mail message. Another has publicly stated that "a worm ate my brain". He has never been doubted in the accuracy of that statement. He is also a well known cocaine addict whose own extended family very publicly refused to endorse his own effort to run for the presidency. Yet another of the members of this criminal syndicate has been suggested as an ambassador to France after having served actual penitentiary time for major business crimes. A female member of the criminal syndicate bragged in her autobiography that she shot her hunting dog because she didn't like the way it hunted. Yes, for the first time in American History women have been admitted to the top tier of a criminal syndicate. If you have read this far and failed to understand that the members of TRAITOR Trump's criminal syndicate are unfit to be seen in public without a parole officder present, you are much more naive than I believe my readers generally are. We are facing the greatest danger to American Democracy in the history of the nation. We are highly likely to suffer from this gang for the next four years and lose the most valuable aspects of our democracy along the way. They must be held judicially responsible for their crimes, both past and future, and all of them from top to bottom must be removed from any official or semi-official position they manage to gain. We must all make a heartfelt commitment to fight them every day until all of them are gone from public view. We must win every upcoming election for members of congress. We must demand that these criminals not be approved for the positions to which they have been nominated. We must resist this criminal syndicate on a daily basis and never allow such a tragedy to ever happen in the United States again.

The Truth About Greenland, Iceland, Panama, and TRAITOR Trump's TREASON!

In recent days, TRAITOR Trump made numerous asinine and inflammatory statements about wanting the US to own Greenland, Iceland, the Panama Canal, and even Canada. He also suggested that he would like to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America despite the fact that it has been known as the Gulf of Mexico since 1607. I have seen at least one of his minions, who have all be chosen for the lack of credentials and willingess to commit any crime including TREASON for TRAITOR Trump, attempt to support his claims that the US should own and control all those countries, islands, and bodies of water. Others have reacted in extreme fear of the possibility that he might actually carry out his despotic threats to use military force to achieve these goals. So what we have to ask ourselves is why did TRAITOR Trump prove to such an overwhelming extent to prove once again in public that he is an idiot and a would be despot. There are several reasons he did those things besides the widespread and fully justified belief that he is an idiot.

First and foremost, these kinds of statements from TRAITOR Trump are a diversionary tactic. They are used to divert attention from other crimes he and his co-conspirators are committing at the time. They are, in this case, also an attempt to divert attention from President Joe Biden, a person upon whose ass TRAITOR Trump is not fit to be a pimple. As the Biden administration is coming to an end far too soon despite his having saved the country and world from TRAITOR Trump and his co-conspirators, TRAITOR Trump wants to divert attention from all the good to great things which have been accomplished by President Biden both over the last four years and over the fifty years of his life in nonstop public service. These asinine statements from TRAITOR TRump divert attention from the fact that President Biden was recently voted our 14th president of all time while TRAITOR Trump was voted as the worst all time occupant of the White House. Keep in mind that I have never and will never use the word "president" to describe TRAITOR Trump, and use the word in this context only to report that the organization American Political Science Association polled its membership and those were the results they delivered. This asinine attempt by TRAITOR Trump is also intended to divert attention from the upcoming confirmation hearings for his nominees to various cabinet level positions by the US Senate. None of these nominees are remotely qualifed to hold the jobs for which they are nominated. They are simply willing to become members of what is actually TRAITOR Trump's Criminal Syndicate and to commit any crime up to and including TREASON at his behest.

Secondly, TRAITOR Trump loves chaos, especially chaos he has created. He receives both simple psychological pleasure from chaos and outright masturbatory glee from chaos, especially if it is chaos of his own creation. He is a relatively simple minded excuse for a man whose simpleton ways include a perverse and widespread sexual depravity. He receives gratification not just from the physical act of sex, if he is actually still able to perform sexually, but he also receives sexual gratification from any means by which he is able to exert control over others which is also the basis of at least 26 accusations of rape against him.

Thirdly, TRAITOR Trump is a megalomaniac. He wants to control everything and everyone he can. He actually believes the US military would obey commands from him to invade Canada, Mexico, Panama, Iceland, and Greenland which is actually a territory of Denmark which he no doubt believes he could also successfully invade. You should never doubt that he would do that if he thought he could get away with it as easily as he has previously gotten away with TREASON, Rape, Business Crimes, and thousands of other assaults, injuries, and injustices against both the nation and the world.