Tall Awareness
PG has been blogging for almost four years. There have been a total of 937, about a variety of topics. The one missing subject is tall awareness.
PG is 6’5″ tall. This is also 196 cm, or 5’17”. He has never played team basketball, and cannot remember the last time he watched a game. Ceiling fans do make him nervous, as do doorways in old buildings.
In 1938, Kae Sumner was a cell painter at Walt Disney Studios. One of her projects had been “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”. Miss Sumner was 6’2″, and always banging her knees under the desk. Finally, she wrote an article for a Los Angeles newspaper about the perils of being tall, and mentioned that she would like to hear from other tall people. On May 1, 1938, the first meeting of the ” Longfellows Club” was held. This later became the California Tip Toppers, and was the start of Tall Clubs International.
In 1984, PG had heard about the Atlanta Sky Hi club from numerous people. One night in September, he attended a get together at a house in Stone Mountain. He was voted into membership at the November business meeting, and has paid his dues every year since then.
TCI has a convention every year (Atlanta hosted in 1989 and 2000). At this convention, there is a Miss Tall International pageant. When PG joined the Sky Hi Club, Miss TCI® was Anna Rowan, from the Atlanta club.
“The club” did not change PG’s life, but it did make it more fun. It is now known as the Atlanta Tall Club, after years of jokes about the mile high club. ATC is in a slow period now, and there is talk of disbanding it. This has happened before, and somehow it kept going.
Getting back to tall awareness, there is not a whole lot of there there. Numerous celebrities are known for being height enhanced, and maybe a historic event or two was influenced. PG promises to do research on the subject, and have a suitable post about tall awareness before the end of the world.
August 9
Today is August 9. Next year, it will be 080910.
It is day 221 of 2009, with a gross of days left.
Sixty four years ago, Nagasaki got nuked.
Fifty four years ago, Peter Schmuck was born in California.
Forty five years ago, Whitney Houston was born.
Forty years ago, the Manson Family visited 10050 Cielo Drive.
Thirty five years ago, Richard Nixon resigned.
Thirty two years ago, Elvis Presley had one week to go.
Fourteen years ago, Jerry Garcia died.
Drone Terrorism
The United States has killed Baitullah Mehsud. He was the leader of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. He is blamed for a lot of things, including the murder of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Mr. Mehsud held together the factions of the TTP.
Mr. Mehsud was at the home of his father in law. He had an iv in his arm, for what is reported as a kidney ailment. He was also known to be diabetic. His wife and others were killed in the raid.
The missile that murdered Mr. Mehsud was from an unmanned US aircraft. The Pakistan government is playing both ends against the middle here. On the one hand they denounce the US raids on their soil, but seem certain to be cooperating with America in these actions. The Pakistan government has issues with the Taliban. This is ironic, since the Taliban was the creation of Pakistani intelligence. This was when the Soviet Union was fighting in Afghanistan.
The raid has gotten little press in the United States. A conservative website was more concerned about a report that BHO (wisely) does not want to use the phrase “war on terrorism”.
PG has a few questions. How many raids have been launched in the search for Baitullah Mehsud?How many people have died in these raids? How many of those to die were women and children?
Are these raids legal, both either American law and International law? The United States has not declared war on Pakistan. For that matter, unless PG missed something, the USA has not declared war on anybody in the Iraq-Iran-‘Stan country region. This question does not cover the morality of killing women and children from unmanned aircraft, but rather asks if it is legal.
Is killing women and children with unmanned aircraft terrorism?
What are our goals in the ‘Stan country war? We have long ago punished Afghanistan for 911. We are stuck in Iraq. We are playing with nuclear fire in Pakistan. What do we hope to achieve from all this killing? How long will it take, and how much will it cost?
Lives Of The Circus Animals
PG is returning “Lives of The Circus Animals” to the library today. LOTCA is written by Christopher Bram, and is set in New York theater world at the turn of the century, but before 911. To Georgia stuck PG, it reads a bit like science fiction.
This is the third Bram novel that PG has read, the other two being “Hold Tight” and “Gossip”. Some patterns are starting to emerge. Mr. Bram is good at drawing characters, and invoking the atmosphere of a time and place. The bad news is that the stories don’t make sense after a while. LOTCA is in this pattern.
The cast of players is a hoot. There is Caleb Doyle, a playwright, and his sister Jessica. Their mother plays a key role in the conclusion. Jessica is the personal assistant for Henry Lewse, a British stage actor slumming in a Broadway musical. He becomes buddies with Toby, a young actor fresh out of Wisconsin, and a relationship with Caleb. Toby is in an off off off Broadway show directed by Frank, who is in love with Jessica. And you think Atlanta is an incestuous small town.
The action comes to a head one Friday night. Mr. Lewse attends a performance of the ooob show. He then goes to Caleb’s birthday party, along with all the other players. Not all of these people are welcome. That is quickly forgotten when the drama comes to a explosive conclusion.
LOTCA is not great literature, but is better than anything PG has done. It will not change your life, or the oil in your car. It is fun to read, which is all PG cares about.
Divas Part Three
It is time for Diva Thursday. It was 64 years ago last night that we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. On August 6, 1930, Judge Crater got into a taxi and was never seen again. This is the birthday of Lucille Ball (1911), Andy Warhol (1928), and Jon Benet Ramsey (1990). On the first Hiroshima day, Major Bong, ace pilot, was killed while testing a P80 jet.
The first of four divas for today is Joni Mitchell. Born Roberta Joan Anderson on November 7, 1943, she is famously Canadian. The wife of Chuck Mitchell is very much alive today, despite years of chain smoking. All four of today’s divas grace the earth with their presence.
One night in 1976, PG took a study break ( he scored 100 on the test the next day). Joni Mitchell was playing at the UGA coliseum a few blocks away, and the door was not watched after the show started. PG found a place to stand, on the first level of the stands. The LA express was her band that night, and created a tight, jazzy sound. The one line PG remembers is “chicken scratching my way to immortality” from “Hejira”.
The next diva is Etta James. She was born Jamesetta Hawkins on January 25, 1938. PG has no clue how the stage name came about. She was portrayed by Beyonce’ in a recent movie, and Miss James was not pleased.
The next voice on the cd is Francoise Hardy. Francoise Madeleine Hardy was born 17 January 1944 in Paris. There are probably some good stories, but the lady has the grace to keep them out of wikipedia.
This is a four diva thursday, and the last part is Carole King. She was born Carole Klein in Brooklyn February 9, 1942. Three of the four divas today were War Babies, with one born under Nazi occupation. They went on to be popular in the sixties, when the saying was make love, not war. According to Pat Paulson, in France our soldiers did both.
Carole King has had an interesting life, sometimes in the chinese curse sense. There is a book, Girls Like Us, about Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon. All three knew James Taylor. When Mr. Taylor made a tour, after hitting the bigtime, his piano player was Carole King. She sang a couple of songs, and was what people talked about the next day.
Soon “Tapestry” was released, and sold an obscene amount of copies. Miss King was never able to duplicate that success. She still performs sometimes, and still has the power.
The Nuclear Age Is 64
At 8:15 am, August 6, 1945, Hiroshima got nuked. It was the start of a new era. Since Japan is 13 hours ahead of Georgia, and standard time was used, the literal anniversary is 8:15 pm, August 5.
The device dropped on Hiroshima, the Little Boy, had an estimated force of 13 kilotons of Trinitrotoluene, or TNT. A kiloton of TNT is roughly a cube whose sides are ten meters. This device is fairly tiny compared to many of the warheads developed since. Many of the modern appliances are measured in megatons, or millions of tons of TNT. The Soviet Union had a bomb with a capacity of 50 megatons, or 4,000 times the size of the Little Boy.
The largest weapon tested by The United States is the Castle Bravo. This device destroyed Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. The two piece swimsuit was named for this island. The Castle Bravo device had a yield of 15 megatons of TNT. This is roughly 1,000 times the power of the Little Boy.
The decision to drop the bomb has long been controversial. There are a lot of factors and gray areas, and the issue does not lend itself to sound bite solutions. The conventional wisdom is that Japan surrendered because of the nuclear attack. This meant the war was shortened by at least a year, there was no invasion of Japan, and many lives were saved. PG is scared by the moral calculus involved in a decision like this….do 100,000 civilian deaths prevent the deaths of 500,000 soldiers? PG suspects that even G-d herself would lose sleep over that one.
There is also evidence that the bomb was not needed. Japan was whipped in August 1945. The air raids were conducted in daylight with little resistance. A debate was going on in the Japanese government on whether to continue the fight.
An event happened the day between Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, which influenced the Japanese decision to surrender. The Soviet Union had agreed to help the United States with the war against Japan. On August 8, The Soviet Union invaded Japanese occupied Manchuria. There are indications that Japan knew the fight was hopeless at this point, and would rather surrender to The United States than The Soviet Union. This is one of the gray areas that never seems to be mentioned, in debates over the use of the atom bomb.
The United States wanted the war to end quickly for obvious reasons, and a few subtle ones. America did not want to share the spoils of Japanese war with The Soviet Union. There were already tensions between the two allies, and the cold war was not far off. Many felt The United States used the Little Boy as a warning to The Soviet Union.
When you get your moral software out, you might want to figure in the effect of opening the nuclear Pandora’s box. Would the nuclear bomb have been developed by other countries if America had not led the way? The science is not that complicated…after all, America hit paydirt with the Manhattan Project fairly quickly. Nonetheless, there is karma involved in using a terrible new device on a civilian population. The United States started the wind of the arms race, and has yet to feel the whirlwind.
Webcam on Twelth Street
There is a nifty webcam up now. It shows the progress of a high rise going up now at 12th and Peachtree in midtown. The location of the camera itself is not certain, with the speculation centering on 999 Peachtree, two blocks south on Tenth Street.
A glance at the image reveals a curve in the road, between the two glass boxes under construction. Atlanta does not have wide, straight boulevards extending to the horizon. It is said that Atlanta did not build roads, but paved the cow paths.
People of a certain age will remember this area as “the strip”. The tenth street district was a neighborhood shopping area, up until the mid sixties. At some point, the old businesses started to move out and the hippies moved in. For a while, it was a festive party. Soon enough reality returned, and the area went into a crime filled decline.
The 999 complex is the neighborhood story in a nutshell. Before 1985, it was a block of small businesses. There was a hardware store, with the peace symbol set in tiles in the sidewalk. On Juniper Street stood the Langdon Court Apartments. They were named for PG’s great uncle Langdon Quin. Ru Paul used to stay there. He would sit out on a balcony, and wave to the traffic going by.
Across the street was a chinese restaurant, the House of Eng. A staircase on the side led to the Suzy Wong Lounge. Behind the building was an apartment building. It was one of the residences of Margaret Mitchell, while she wrote “Gone With The Wind”. She called it “the dump”, which was fairly accurate.
PG went to the House of Eng for lunch one day in 1985. He noticed that he was the only customer in the house, at 12:30 pm on a weekday. After finishing his lunch, PG knew why.
At some point, it was decided to build a high rise there. Heery was one of the equity partners, along with a law firm and an ad agency. The building was designed by Heery (duh).The ad agency folded before the building opened, followed within a couple of years by the law firm. Heery was sold to a British company. PG does not know who owns the building now.
Thank you Atlanta Time Machine for many of the photographs in this feature.
Masked Gunman At Large
PG has read a few internet reports about the shooting in Tel Aviv. It seems like a masked gunman went into a meeting hall while a group of GLBT youth were having a meeting. Two died, and more were injured. It seems like one of the fatalities, 17-year-old Liz Trubeshi, was a straight lady sitting in on the meeting. The other person to die was 20 yo Nir Katz.
Israel has had a reputation for tolerance. There are suggestions in the Israeli press that this may not be the case. The various political leaders have issued a ritual denunciation of the killings. There is also a report that the Heredi sector is concerned about being blamed. “Under a facade of love, the abnormal community in Israel spreads hatred and blackballs the entire haredi sector.”
The Israeli Defense Force does allow homosexuals to serve. Armies drafting men, for likely combat duty, do not always accept sexual orientation as a valid excuse. Recent reports of undisciplined slaughter in Gaza do not mention the sexual orientation of the killers.
PG finds it curious that the gunman is at large three days later. Israel is a country at war, surrounded by hostile neighbors. Security and government intelligence are essential, and the government seems to be competent at it. Why is a masked man allowed to open fire on a group of young people, escape, and not be caught three days later? PG suspects that if the gunman was Arab, he would have been caught by now.
There are also thoughts about karma, about living by the sword, and dying by the sword. Israel has fought for its survival all of its life. A lot of its neighbors have died, so Israel can live. PG can’t help but wonder if there is a connection between the overall Arab-Israeli hatred, and the masked gunman. (As long as the shooter is at large, he is assumed to be male.)
Losing two young people is a small price, compared to the thousands who died in Gaza last December. We know what some would say to this…that those two people did not launch rockets into Israel. Guess what. 99% of the children killed in Gaza did not launch rockets into Israel either.
Lenox Square
PG and Uzi were one week past having run out of places to walk on Sunday. Plus, it was raining off and on. It looked bad, until PG suggested Lenox Square. After the usual delays to watch the end of a tv show, they agreed to meet in the parking deck.
PG waded through the traffic, and found a spot in the deck. He called Uzi, who was pulling past Phipps Plaza onto Peachtree. PG later said that he felt so cool walking around the deck, talking on the cell phone. It was almost like he fit in. Uzi assured him it was an illusion.
Lenox Square is 50 years old this month. PG would ride by as a kid while they were building it, seeing the Rich’s, and later the Davison’s. His mother had worked there for 22 years, and PG spent a summer working at Dipper Dan’s and the Theater.
Uzi wondered why there were so many people at the mall. PG later heard something about a no sale tax weekend, which may account for the crowds. People were lined up to get in the apple store, which PG found rather strange. PG has not been caught by the apple allure.
After a trip around the upper and lower levels, it was time to eat. The food court required careful scrutiny. The samples were tasty. A second trip around the block was called for, but the sample ladies remembered them. A southern food outlet was decided on. PG got some chicken concoction, macaroni and cheese, and collard greens. Uzi asked for fried fish, but was told they had run out. He got something else, collards, and white rice that was dyed yellow. PG liked what he got, but Uzi was not impressed by the rice.
One thing that hasn’t changed in fifty years is the traffic. PG left a bit after six, when most of the stores closed. There were long lines of cars wherever he went.
White House Drug Party
Thursday, President BHO had a white man and a black man over to take drugs. They had a rather public disagreement, and BHO stupidly poured gasoline on the fire. Drugs were the answer.
There are those who will immediately scream that beer is legal. Yes, alcohol is legal, advertised on television, and served in the White House. It is also an addictive drug. If you take too much, it will kill you. It is easier to die using hard liquor, but the concept is the same.
There are a lot of people in the legal machinery because of drugs. Some of these drugs are legal, some are not. Your liver is not amused to hear that the alcohol it is processing is legal. Your lungs don’t care if cigarettes are legal. The worst thing about some drugs is the fact that there is a law against them.
In Dekalb County, there is something called drug court. If you are on this program, you go to endless meetings, and get screened for drugs. Every time a person is screened for drugs, a lab charges the county money to process the test. This money could be used to give school teachers a raise, or to repair the roads. Instead, it goes to testing the urine of people who got caught smoking pot.
Thursday, drug court was meeting at the same time as the White House drug party.
Yard Sale Saturday
PG walked down the street to a yard sale. At first, he thought it was just an excuse to take a stroll. Then he saw the bins of vhs tapes.
The tapes belonged to the son of the lady running the sale. This was the year for him to get his junk out of her basement. The sale was a device to get some money out of the deal.
With the advent of the dvd, vhs tapes are obsolete. Once the state of the art, they are today’s eight track tape. If you go to yard sales, you can get a nice collection for pocket change.
PG got 11 tapes for two dollars. This is roughly what a ticket to a first run movie cost in 1970.
The movies are: Rosemary’s Baby, Hamburger Hill, Zachariah, Bean, Night of the Living Dead, Lionheart, The Waterboy, Mean Streets, And now for something completely different, Full Metal Jacket, and Fantastic Planet.
Chamblee54 
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