Chamblee54

The six word memoir is popular
Ernest Hemingway might have the first
“Baby Shoes for sale never worn”
the inbred cats on Key West
six toes on all four paws
Tennessee Williams did not believe sober

Bloggingheads celebrated the 75th birthday of Elvis, by talking to a man promoting a book, about Elvis. The fact that Elvis has missed the last 33 celebrations did not make the event any less festive. The cultural contributions of “the King” were enumerated, and a link was supplied to a 1957 article in Jet Magazine. Someone quoted Mr. Presley ( who performed under his birth name) as saying rude things about African Americans. The only trouble is, no one is sure when he said it.
January 8 is a lively day in musical history in other ways. In 1815, the battle of New Orleans was fought. The war had been over for two weeks.
Several other performers made their planetary debut on January 8. 1911 had Gypsy Rose Lee, and Shirley Bassey was born in 1937. Last but not least, on January 8, 1947, David Bowie was found in a cabbage patch.
With all those births, someone has to die to make room. In 1642, Galileo Galilei met his maker. Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas went to the drive through in the sky in 2002. Yvonne De Carlo made the big move in 2007.

There is a phrase these days, existential threat. The birthday of Elvis might be a good day to consider it. The existential threat to Elvis, was Elvis.
The phrase existential threat today means a threat to the existence of a nation or a people. This means a war or movement that could eliminate a nation from existence. With nuclear weapons, a nation could indeed be totally eliminated…as could all of mankind.
One country that regularly talks about existential threats is Israel. A geographically small territory, Israel could indeed be wasted by a few well placed nukes. There is concern about Iran getting the bomb. This concept…Iran with nuclear weapons…is probably the number one use of the phrase “existential threat”.
The philosophical movement called existentialism was first articulated in the aftermath of World War Two. According to Wiktionary, existentialism is “A twentieth-century philosophical movement emphasizing the uniqueness of each human existence in freely making its self-defining choices, with foundations in the thought of Soren Kierkegaard (1813-55) and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) and notably represented in the works of Karl Jaspers (1883-1969), Gabriel Marcel (1887-1973), Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), and Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-80). “
PG is trying to make a connection between existentialist philosophy and the concept of the existentialist threat.

Another inmate of Georgia’s death row has self executed. Leeland Mark Braley hung himself in his cell. He was found at 5:12 am., January 1, 2010.
A story about death penalty representation had this about Mr. Braley. ” In Braley’s case, Jacobs said, she knew the jury would consider his crime sociopathic, and that meant she’d need to connect that characteristic to his childhood. Braley, who was born in Korea, was dumped at a Georgia police station by his immigrant parents and later placed in foster care with a woman who refused to hold him for fear that he’d become attached to her.”
The GDC inmate query tells us the Mr. Braley was born in 1973, his race was “Indian”, and that he stood 5’10”. He had been incarcerated after some incidents in Gwinnett County, and was on parole September 2, 1998. This is the story of what allegedly happened that day.
“Leeland Mark Braley of Lawrenceville was sentenced to death for the slaying of Kelli Hammond. Ms. Hammond, 25, was stabbed numerous times Sept. 2 at the business she operated just north of Zebulon. Mr. Braley was arrested the next day in Atlanta after he used Ms. Hammond’s credit cards. In addition to murder, Mr. Braley was convicted Tuesday of kidnapping with bodily injury, armed robbery and aggravated battery. He was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences and 20 consecutive years in prison on those charges. According to testimony, Mr. Braley went into Ms. Hammond’s business to solicit money. When she refused, he returned with a knife and a gun. Prosecutors said Mr. Braley cut Ms. Hammond’s throat and then stabbed her.”
Timothy Pruitt died, on December 6, after an incident at the Jackson Prison. His death was labeled an “alleged suicide”. Many believe he was killed by another inmate.

PG is up to chapter/day 28 of “A box of matches” by Nicholson Baker. The man takes self fascination to a different level. Every day starts with the time he woke up, and goes downstairs to start a fire. Firestarting is better in the dark, as is coffee making.
As he writes this, PG is listening to a file of Tom Waits in a NYC studio in 1976. It was recorded as a radio show, with just Mr. Waits on piano and somebody from a temp agency on drums. Right now the number is “Tom Traubert’s Blues” which keeps going back into “Waltzing Matilda”. There is something about a song about a dancing kangaroo, that is some sort of Australian national anthem, this leaves PG puzzled. There is a song about Gallipoli called “and the band played waltzing matilda”, which is even more tarrantular that Tom Waits. Tonight he sings like an ashtray that hasn’t been dumped out in a month.
The relationship of darkness to coffee making got PG to thinking about a dialog from a week ago. Somehow, some folks got to comparing esoteric verses out of the bible, and PG hopped into say , who cares what the bible says, it is not the word of G-d. Well, it seems like someone had a reply. PG sent a note back to him that started ” if you can’t wander in the darkness when discussing the bible, when can you?” This got the other party going, about the symbolism of darkness in the bible.
The scriptures say everyone is wandering in darkness until one “sees the light.”
It occurs to me that the “Light” image can be used in two ways: Is the “light” (bulb/torch/candle) what we seek, or do we use the light to illuminate the way or something else. The biblical literalists seem to be worshiping the light bulb…
Bruce Springsteen wrote a song called “Blinded by the light”. Manfred Mann had a hit song with that tune. The singer keeps saying “wrapped up like a douche”… that is what it sounds like. This was thirty years before douche became the all purpose insult that it is today. PG finds the concept of using a hygiene device, as an insult, to be tasteless.

Today is the first Monday after the New Year. A day to get back to what occupies us for most of the year. It is also the 11 day of Christmas, with 11 pipers piping, and the end of the NFL regular season. The Falcons had back to back winning seasons.
PG found a story about the Christmas season at another blog a few minutes ago. It is a feel good tale, even if you don’t completely agree with it. Much has been made recently about the “true meaning” of Christmas. This story says that Christmas is about being good.
Some atheists put up a sign, encouraging people to “be good for goodness sake”. While this is a *good idea*, it is also a line from a silly Christmas carol. It was written because it rhymes with “he knows when you’re awake”. Maybe we should just leave it as a silly rhyme in a song, and not make a rule for living out of it.
As we said, PG does not totally agree with this story (written in first person). Or maybe he wants to argue about the words, but agrees with the spirit behind the words. Sometime the spirit is what is important.
PG is a practice kind of guy. Belief is all well and good, but what is do is what is important. A gram of practice is worth a pound of belief.
I just said goodnight to Granny and turned off the lights in her room. After getting her settled in, I sat next to her on top of the covers. We propped ourselves against the headboard and watched TV for a while.
She got tired but wanted to hear the story of the nativity before she fell asleep. As you all know, I’m not the most religious person in the world, but I’d have to be a downright heathen to refuse to do that. So, I grabbed Granny’s Bible off the night table and read from the second chapter of the Luke. No room at the inn. Shepherds and their flocks and all. But no Wise Men. No kings.
At first I thought maybe I was reading from one of those contemporary editions or something. But when I looked at spine, it said “King James.” I asked Granny about it and she told me, “That’s Matthew.”
Then she told me she prefers Luke, which is why I guess that’s what she asked me to read. I asked her why she preferred Luke since it was essentially the same story. “Luke is more for regular folk. Matthew is too…too…” She searched for the right word, then finally finished her thought with, “too Republican.”
We both chuckled about that and I made a mental note to tell the Attorney, who has been known to have Republican tendencies.
Apparently there are differences in the facts of the Christmas story, depending on who told it. Luke talks about the manger and shepherds. Matthew talks about the kings. The shepherds heard from an angel. The Wise Men followed a star. Isn’t it kinda ironic that the Gospels are not necessarily the gospel?
So, I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that even now, 2000 or so years later, that Christmas is a different thing to different people. But whether your Christmas includes shepherds…or not. Kings…or not…Jesus, Santa, Angels, Rudolph, presents, trees, or stars…or not, we’re all celebrating the same thing. The easy answer is “the birth of Christ.” But the bigger answer is “goodness.”
You may not believe a baby was born in a manger to a virgin. Or, if you do, you may not believe that babe is the Messiah. But, if you celebrate Christmas at all, surely you can believe in the goodness that the story represents. And, if you don’t celebrate, surely you can believe in goodness nonetheless.
It’s all mankind truly has to give. Happy Holidays, dear friends and readers.

The dialog on bloggingheads today is between Charles Johnson and Conn Carroll. Mr. Johnson is Mr. “Little Green Footballs“, who recently had a post on why he is leaving the “right wing“. Mr. Carroll is connected to the Heritage Foundation, which is a conservative thingamajig. Mr. Carroll is fond of saying “fair enough”.
One of the tipping points in the past for Mr. Johnson was the memos in 2004 regarding the service of George Bush in the Alabama Air National Guard. When the memos came out, Mr. Johnson saw them, and immediately realized that they were fake. Dan Rather was fired, and George Bush won the election.
PG was puzzled by this controversy. Mr. Bush had served in the Air National Guard rather than go to Vietnam. His opponent, John Kerry, served in Vietnam. There was controversy about Mr. Kerry’s service. Nonetheless, no documents, real or faked, changed the basic facts…John Kerry went to Vietnam, and George Bush did not. People who are under 40 and reading this might not realize why this is an issue, but it is.
One of the issues that LGF has changed sides on is climate change. At first, LGF had doubts, but began to read a few reports, and changed his mind. Mr. Johnson made a connection between those who would deny the reality of climate change, and those who support the teaching of “creationism”. It seems as both sides make their judgment first, and then look for evidence to support their opinion. There was a controversy recently regarding climate change and doctored statistics, which was not mentioned in this discussion. PG suspects there is a comparison between “climategate” and the forged Bush memo.
The debate goes on for nearly an hour, until Mr. Carroll gets a call from his wife at the pediatrician. As the discussion goes on, Mr. Carroll says “fair enough” less, and plays rhetorical games more. A discussion about abortion morphed into one about doctor assisted suicide. Mr. Johnson is a cool debater, and does not fall for the gimmicks trotted out by Mr. Carroll.
PG has never been a conservative. The first time he heard the expression, a conservative was someone who was opposed to civil rights legislation. To PG, the terms liberal and conservative are meaningless labels, intended to divide and confuse. The so called conservatives were calling for smaller government, while supporting an expensive war on drugs… it just didn’t add up. When the small government crowd was calling on maintaining an army of 250k in two wars, eight time zones away, it got plain silly. Unlike Charles Johnson…actually a great deal like Mr. Johnson…PG was never a part of a “movement”. You can’t quit something you never joined.

PG looked at facebook, and saw the quiz results. OK, it was only one this time, but quiz results are a mainstay on facebook. The only trouble is, you have to click away personal information to who knows who if you click on that link to see what famous poet YOU are.
The good news is that Google (which NEVER collects personal information) has a never ending list of questionnaire. PG started this sunday morning by asking “what farm animal am I?” The result was “yoor a person not an animal! but if you were you would be a ~pangwin~ “
The next step was “what zoo animal are you?” The ad above the fold was for a vampire quiz, with a white pasty faced woman drooling a red liquid. The answer is “monkey..You are clever and sneaky you are nice but you can sometimes betray them. Be careful! Because you aren’t a Quibblo member yet, we aren’t going to save this result for you, so make sure to grab it now! If you’d like us to save your results, please become a member.”
From farm and zoo animals, it is down the slippery slope to rock stars. The first result of the search had “what dead rock star are you“? Party on Duuude. The only problem is, you have to join the site to get your results. Moving down that slope, the next stop from dead rock stars is …ABBA Songs.
This quiz ( which also asks you to join a service) gives you a score, based on how many questions you answer correctly. PG got 6 of 10. One was missed on purpose. The question was, what was the first number one hit in America for ABBA, two words. PG answered Water Lew.
Speaking of ABBA, yesterday was palindrome day. 01022010. Haras Sarah. Racecar. Radar. Madam I ‘m Adam. Egad, a base tone denotes a bad age. The next palindrome day is 11022011.

Chamblee 54 is two days into the new year, and has not been updated. Maybe a repost of blasts from the past will do. Last year, the first post of the new year was about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and a few of his wise words. It seems that sometimes Farsi does not translate well into English.
The year before, there was an essay about Black Sabbath and eating cold spinach for lunch. The first use of the phrase “heavy metal” was in a book by William Burroughs. In “The Soft Machine, there was a character named Uranian Willie, the heavy metal kid.
In 2006, there was a tribute to spell check. Once an exotic technology, spell check is found in almost every digital text device today. This is our repost for today.
Spell check is a wonderful feature. When you misspell a word, you look stupid. It takes away from the message you are trying to present, by focusing attention on your spelling mistakes. (“Profanity” serves the same function, but that is a topic for another day.) It is like the old ad slogan: “Aren’t you glad you use Dial soap, don’t you wish everyone did?”
When spellcheck catches a mistake, it helpfully offers suggested correct spellings. PG began to notice some of the suggested spellings. Some are, well, poetic. It is what you could call a synchronistic connection. Often, the suggested spelling is truer than the real word.
An example of this is inerrant. For those of you fortunate enough not to be baptist, inerrancy is the belief that the bible is perfect. There are no errors, it is inerrant. The spell check suggestion for inerrant is ignorant .
PG started to save spell check suggestions, with the idea of posting them to the blog (blob). A best of list has been thoughtfully made.
blog…blob/// Cheney…teeny/// christian…tearstain/// crockpots…crackpots/// elvis…Elvis levies elves pelvis envies olives selves elsie/// i ching….chink///inerrancy….ignorance/// jesus…Jesus jests guess gases gooses guesses disuse disease/// Latino…lotion/// mens…mess/// rupaul…rural/// Saddam…sadism sadder sad sadie sodium sodom/// Satan…stain