Tag: Despair

The backstory’s beginning to look presciently ominous for today

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In my revisions of the novel Daffodil Sunrise into a more sweeping Daffodil Uprising, I added backstory involving Indiana politics and efforts to extract personal wealth from one of its state universities.

Considering the current effort of the governor to seize control of the school’s board of trustees has me realizing my dark imaginings were all too naïve.

We know what one-party rule did in Germany and also in the Soviet Union.

In my book, the administration had little interest in listening to the students, much less in responding to their needs.

You can bet that will be a renewed breakdown ahead.

Price check alert

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

He promised lower prices. Here are ten you can bet will go up because of his promise of “lower taxes.”

  • Fuel. As in gasoline, diesel, and home heating oil. We pump and refine some in the United States, but not nearly enough to meet demand. When demand outstrips supply, as basic economics theory contends, prices go up. It’s part of what’s ironically known as a free market.
  • Coffee and tea. Imported and subject to new, stiff tariffs.
  • Vanilla. Ditto. Along with a lot of other spices and flavorings.
  • Chocolate. The beans are imported, as are some chocolate products. If you were considering cocoa as your new beverage of choice, think again.
  • Olives. Yes, we raise some, mostly California, but the U.S. is not in the top five olive-growing countries. Spain and Italy top that list. As for olive oil, which many fine cooks consider essential and which nutritionists tout as healthy? There will be suffering.
  •  Cars, SUVs, trucks, and parts. It’s a complex picture, but you can’t build new factories and hire and train workers overnight.
  • Electronics. Ditto.
  • Clothing. Check those labels. As for building factories and hiring and training workers? Once again, it won’t happen overnight.
  • Wine and spirits. Yes, we make these in the USA, too, but imports are major. There are no substitutes when it comes to discriminating tastes. And here’s another case of demand outstripping supply in a so-called free market.
  • Bananas. Most of them come from plantations in countries formerly controlled by American owners. You know, banana republics.

One place prices seem to be going down is stocks.

There’s still a feast awaiting on this plate

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

As the calendar year ends, it’s fair to ask What’s Left in your own life as you move on for the next round.

In my novel, the big question is stirred by a personal tragedy, leaving a bereft daughter struggling to make sense of her unconventional household and her close-knit extended Greek family.

In the wider picture, she’s faced with issues that are both universal and personal.

For me, it’s somehow fitting that my most recent work of fiction returns to Indiana, the place where my first novel originated before spinning off into big city subways. The state is also home to more Hodsons than anyplace else in the world, as far as I can see, not that I’ve been back in ages.

What’s Left is one of five novels I’m making available to you for free during Smashword’s annual end-of-the-year sale, which ends January First.

Get yours in the digital platform of your choice, and enter the New Year right.

For details, go to the book at Smashwords.com.

 

There’s even a Summer of Love

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The places I lived in the settings covered in my novel Pit-a-Pat High Jinks long ago fell to the wrecking ball, yet the memories live on. The fictionalized story covers friends and lovers, along with near-misses and poverty-line entry-level work life in an out-of-the-way town and surrounding countryside while venturing out on one’s own after college. It had its downs and ups, including a Summer of Love that included a remote mountain lake.

Believe me, you can’t make up details like these, though you can amplify or reshape others.

It’s one of five novels I’m making available for FREE during Smashword’s annual end-of-the-year sale, which ends January First. The ebook comes in the digital platform of your choice. Do note that it includes adult content, so you may have to adjust your filters when ordering.

Think of this as part of my after-Christmas sale, except that these items are FREE! Remember, you risk nothing in acting now.

For details, go to the book at Smashwords.com.

Of housemates, lovers, and friends

 

How do you feel about family?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Cassia would have to say she’s in a big happy extended family, but she would disagree with

Tolstoy on his other point. Hers is not the same as any other. As for the unhappy part, she carries a world of grief after the disappearance of her father in a mountain avalanche.

My novel What’s Left follows the bereft daughter in her quest for identity and meaning over the decades that follow. Bit by bit, she discovers that he’s left her far more than she ever would have imagined, in effect guiding her to some pivotal choices.

The ebook is one of five novels I’m making available for FREE during Smashword’s annual end-of-the-year sale. Pick up yours in the digital platform of preference.

Think of this as my Christmas present to you. How can you not be interested in insights about family, especially at this time of year? Even if this one does have some Goth twists, probably unlike yours.

For details, go to the book at Smashwords.com.

When passion gets terribly tangled

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Have you ever been in a committed relationship, only to be struggling against what you later learn was a triangle? The third party doesn’t even have to be another person, for that matter, but secrecy does tip the balance.

The desire was still there and burning, hoping for reconciliation and renewal. Just don’t call yourself a victim, OK? Not as long as you were actively engaged in the scene.

As for the evidence? In hearing your side, who knows what was factual or imagined, other than the reality of your feelings.

Move on, then, with the memories. Don’t say it wasn’t love, especially of an adolescent sort. Or maybe even your first time.

Having originally appeared in Thistle Finch editions, this collection is now available on your choice of ebook platforms at Smashwords.com and its affiliated digital retailers. Those outlets include the Apple Store, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Scribd, and Sony’s Kobo. You may also request the ebook from your local public library.

The move makes the poems available to a wider range of readers worldwide.

Do take a look.

Do we dare feel relief yet?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Looking ahead to the November national presidential elections, I had been in deep despair. Joe Biden, a decent man who has managed a respectable administration in the face of Republican obstruction and corruption, was obviously falling short in his campaign to gain a second term. No matter what the data presented in contrast to what he inherited, cosmic forces seemed to be aligned against everything holy.

Right-wing so-called Christians couldn’t realize which side they were really on, Satan’s or the Holy One’s.Yes, it was that dark. Who can stop the tide? From what I saw, the coming Kristallnacht repeatedly broke my sleep. Jews weren’t the only ones who the Orange Man’s zombie legions would be coming after. Just as many non-Jews were gassed in the Nazi concentration camps, millions of them. Remember that.

And then, against all odds, President Biden yielded to the hard labor of reason by Nancy Pelosi. Both of them, I would say, are true patriots in that struggle. The good of the nation and the world come first.

Suddenly, what an incredible and unexpected turnabout! With her Cinderella outbreak, Kamala Harris has been striking all the right notes and moves. The crowds reflect the sense of rescue. The interviews and policy positions can come later.

The unanticipated choice of Tim Walz, from my perspective, was absolutely brilliant. While I had thought Joshua Shapiro was the obvious pick for vice president, Walz suddenly throws the entire center of the continent into play, not just the two progressive coasts. It’s like Tim Lasso has suddenly entered the race.

Better yet, both Kamala and Tim have freed the Democrats from their deadly tone of lecturing the electorate. They’re willing to humorously and boldly tweak their opponents in ways that deflect the earlier nasty blasts from the other side. They boogey, they smile, they’ve comfortable in their own skins, unlike their GOP rivals. So far, it’s been deadly effective. Maybe because their new comedic shots at their foes reflect fact.

The race is no longer about policy, other than the Project 2025. It’s about character and integrity. Period.

My, how things have changed. No wonder the Democrats and others are suddenly charged. Could the bullies finally be on the run?

As a conservative editorial writer once reminded me, he saw too many dead causes rise up again. I hope that warning holds for the center and left, too.

Complacency can be deadly.

So that’s what I see from where I am as so much boils up.

Domestic pestilences

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 4 Comments

Let’s go alphabetically. Shudder or cringe as you will.

  1. Ants.
  2. Cockroaches.
  3. Deer, where I live. Doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy viewing them, but we know how much they devour. Even the flowers.
  4. Fruit flies.
  5. Houseflies. Even more than mosquitoes.
  6. Maggots.
  7. Mice.
  8. Rats.
  9. Spiders.
  10. Squirrels. And chipmunks. They may be cute, but when they get in the walls, watch out.

What are we overlooking?

How are you feeling about the trial’s revelations?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

You know the one I’m talking about. Even before getting to the others just ahead.

Let’s just say I’ve been watching this building up, step by step, for decades. The corruption by big money and trickery, the erosion of the middle class, the polarization, the sleaze, the breakdown of the checks and balances or a loyal opposition.

Working in the newsroom, I was bound to give both sides their voice, though one was doing everything it could to discredit us and those distortions went unchallenged. There was more, of course, going on in the dark, things we sensed but couldn’t prove outright.

Let’s just say I was outraged but had to keep it bottled up. But then, after retiring, I let it out by indulging in a stream of poetry I usually steered clear of – the polemic rant akin to Dr. Bronner’s Moral ABC or Allen Ginsberg’s The Fall of America collection or Phil Ochs’ protest folksongs.

The result is Trumpet of the Coming Storm.

While the pieces that spewed forth in my collection may look like history from the Reagan years through the Bushes, they do reflect the origins of what’s coming to a head today. Even the poems that can be considered sophomoric seem prescient.

There are good reasons I subtitled it Blasts of Alarm and Rage, 1976-2008.

Do take a look.

It’s available in the digital platform of your choice at Smashwords, the Apple Store, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Scribd, Sony’s Kobo, and other fine ebook retailers. You can also ask your public library to obtain it.