1. I had sat by while the messages in my gmail inbox kept increasing and today I deleted a ton of material with still more to get rid of. I also knuckled down and set up things so that I'm ready to do our taxes. All I need is our income statements. They will start floating into our mailbox before too long. Then I can fill out the forms as soon as possible and submit them to Oregon, Idaho, and the federal IRS.
2. Ed and I painted uptown Kellogg for a couple of hours late this afternoon. We began our rampage at the Elks. I enjoyed a burger with fries and an ice cold can of Miller High Life. Then we skated across McKinley and plopped ourselves down at the plank in The Lounge. I enjoyed a couple Champagnes of Bottled Beer. Just as we were nearing the end of our party at The Lounge, three women walked in and we scooted into other stools at the bar so they could be next to each other. The women told us a fourth friend would soon arrive, so we scooted one more stool down. She arrived and OMG! she was born and raised in Cataldo (like Ed) and Ed has known this woman since she was young. A happy reunion took place. Ed and his longtime friend yakked and laughed and reminisced for a while. Ed took a group picture of her and her friends. I finished my beer and when Ed and I left, he was ecstatic.
Our session at The Lounge ended with Ed's pure joy!
3. Back home, Debbie and I listened to more of the podcast, Ultra. It's gripping. The story of bringing American Fascist/Nazi sympathizers to trial and the bedlam that ensued in the court room was a huge story in the early 1940s, but has all but disappeared as our attention later became so much more focused on the US entering WWII. I suppose I had always thought that people in the USA in the late 1930s and on into the 1940s unified themselves in opposition to Hitler's authoritarian rule and to the tenets of Fascism and Nazism.
I was wrong.
For a variety of reasons, a significant number of US citizens and members of the House and Senate supported Hitler and worked with people in power in Nazi Germany on campaigns that involved distributing propaganda (through mailings paid for by taxpayers) and bombings, most notably, of US munitions factories.
The ultimate goal of these Fascist/Nazi sympathizers was to overthrow the US government.
We have two more episodes left to listen to.
It's a sobering reminder that in case we think things that are happening/have happened in the 2020s are unprecedented or unique, by and large, they aren't. Methods, tactics, actions might have a different look, but the underlying ideologies have been a part of life in the USA forever.
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