1. Timothy Egan's book, which I finished today, A Fever in the Heartland has a revealing subtitle -- I guess you could call it a spoiler. Here it is: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them.
Egan's book develops early on as a history of the Ku Klux Klan, beginning soon after the Civil War, documents its collapse under the presidency of U. S. Grant, and then tells the story of the KKK's revival in the 1920s, especially in midwestern states north of the Mason Dixon Line and out west, particularly Colorado and Oregon.
Later on, Egan's book develops as a crime and courtroom story. The KKK kingpin in Indiana, D. C. Stephenson, lands in jail after assaulting (yet another) woman in his orbit and goes on trial.
I don't want to give away details about his brutal assault or the trial, but I will say that the trial and its outcome resulted in a sizable number of Klan members leaving the organization.
The Ku Klux Klan all but collapsed (again), but not its worldview nor the impact of its legislative victories. Jim Crow lived on. The KKK's adamant opposition to immigration lived/lives on. The KKK's vision of Christian Nationalism lives on as do its claims of White Supremacists.
Egan's book tells the story of events that have come and gone and, at the same time, a story of continuation.
2. Quite a while ago, I bought a pretty good sized hunk of pork shoulder at Costco and cut it up into several pieces. One of those pieces had been sitting in our upstairs freezer compartment for many months. Last night I thawed it and today I seasoned it with fennel seeds, salt, pepper, and umami and roasted it. I had rice medley and mashed cauliflower left over from family dinner and I warmed them back up and fortified the rice and cauliflower with sautéed mushrooms.
It was a pretty good little dinner and, lo and behold, I still have pork and rice and cauliflower and mushrooms left over for another dinner on Thursday.
3. As I've mentioned here several times, I am reading my way though the list of a dozen 21st century books Leah Sottile posted on her Substack page in response to a one hundred books list from the 21 century the NYTimes published.
Sottile is a free lance journalist/writer. Her focus in her articles, books, and podcasts is extremism in the USA, whether she's examining New Age cults, fringe LDS groups, radical environmentalists, or the Bundy family and, in addition, Timothy McVeigh.
Timothy Egan's book is not on her list, but Jess Walter's Ruby Ridge is. I read Timothy Egan's book as yet another book about a world view that puzzles me, as a follow up to Ruby Ridge.
This evening, I started reading another book on Leah Sottile's list, entitled Yellow Bird. It's a true crime book written by Sierra Crane Murdoch. It's set in North Dakota on and near the Fort Berthold Reservation. To give you a sense of what Murdoch's book deals with, here's its subtitle: Oil, Murder, and a Woman's Search for Justice in Indian Country.
The woman mentioned in the title and subtitle is Lissa Yellow Bird.
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