Chamblee54

The Facebook post was simple…So and So’s name is 91% sexy (which is D*** sexy!). PG is all about hot and trendy, so he went to Google City to investigate “How Hot is Your Name”. It is the full moon in June, in Atlanta GA. It is as hot as a preacher who has been caught. Pictures for this feature are from The Library of Congress .
As some of you already know, PG’s “real” name is Luther. It was an easy decision for his folks, since it is a copy of the handle his father used. The original plan was to call PG a nickname, Cam. The plan was in effect for 56 years. Change is a good thing, especially with socks and motor oil.
The first result today is from Quibblo . You get what you pay for. The ad is a picture of a lady who wants to meet you. The result of the quiz is Pretty. Your name is probably something that you don’t hear a lot. That doesnt mean its not popular. Sweetie, you’re special! You’re name shows that you’re from a very important backround.
The next stop on the tour is the imaginatively named Ismynamehot.com. In an ironic bit of digital synchronicity, the sidebar ad is for a box set of Ozzy Osbourne product. Included in this package is an “iconic Ozzy replica cross”, The results are “Luther is 44% hot Not bad, but not great “. Since this is a free service, PG decided to look up his other “real” name. “Sorry, “Cam” is not in the database. Please check your spelling and gender selection.” Spelling correction does not require surgical reassignment.
Militaryphotos is the next stop on our journey. The Ozzy collector’s edition box set is advertised here, as well as Ashford University ( Distinctive benefits for the military community. Duty, Honor, Education.) Here, the only thing that matters is the first letter of your name. The writeups read like a horoscope, which may be where they copied the prose.
Quizazz is a frequent flyer at the internet airport. They have six questions, with multiple choice answers. Number two is a doozie…Do you think your hottr than anyone in your Grade? 1-no but kinda one boy liked me befor e but i dont think that matters 2-What kind of questin is this! Its R A CiST! Of cource im HO TT! 3-No 4-YES. The answer: 33% You answered 2 out of 6 questions correctly. Gotta get it good. Get your style commin up wit your friends. and go shoppin and gotta get it good. your almost hot but you still have half away to go nice tryin to bee so cool! XD Your still Awsome!
Hulchul is a “true family forum”. There is a header ad for the Ozzy package. They have a number based approach…”HOW HOT IS YOUR NAME? add the letters in your first name using the numbers below =) And Write it at the bottom! And re-post it with “H0W HOT & Spicy UR NAME””. Luther is 1071, which is “beyond 600= beyond verry verry verry HOT & Spicy!!!! “
Parenting does not have an ad for Ozzy’s boxset. This result is the digital version of those little books about, the meaning of names for your baby. Luther is a German word for warrior. Cam is short for camera, or a part from an automobile engine.
The next result is a gamer forum, “How HOT was your Name Grab? What cool ones did you get ??.” Some of the handles were goddess, doc, Louie, Dr. Horrible, and phobia. One post was “ps – if you haven’t seen dr horrible’s sing-a-long blog…i recommend watching it. It is on netflix streaming.” There are no ads for Ozzy’s iconic cross.
The bottom result on page one is The sexy name decoder. There is an ad for the Ozzybox, as well as a new tv show called “Necessary Roughness”. The plan is to enter your name and gender, select an icon, and be awarded a sexy name. Luther is “L.U.T.H.E.R.: Lover Undertaking Touches and Hot, Erotic Recreation.

This is a double  repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress
You’re An EXTREME Redneck When….. 1. You let your 14-year-old daughter smoke at the dinner table in front of her kids. 2. The Blue Book value of your truck goes up and down depending on how much gas is in it. 3. You’ve been married three times and still have the same in-laws. 4. You think a woman who is out of your league bowls on a different night. 5. You wonder how service stations keep their rest-rooms so clean. 6. Someone in your family died right after saying, ‘Hey, guys, watch this.’ 7. You think Dom Perignon is a Mafia leader. 8. Your wife’s hairdo was once ruined by a ceiling fan. 9. Your junior prom offered day care. 10. You think the last words of the Star-Spangled Banner are ‘Gentlemen, start your engines. 11. You lit a match in the bathroom and your house exploded right off its wheels. 12. The Halloween pumpkin on your porch has more teeth than your spouse. 13. You have to go outside to get something from the fridge. 14. One of your kids was born on a pool table. 15. You need one more hole punched in your card to get a freebie at the House of Tattoos. 16. You can’t get married to your sweetheart because there’s a law against it. 17. You think loading the dishwasher means getting your wife drunk. 18. An East Texas couple, both real-life rednecks, had 9 children. They went to the doctor to see about getting the husband “fixed”. The doctor asked them why, after nine children would they choose to do this. The husband replied that they had read in a recent article that one out of every ten children being born in North America was Mexican, and they didn’t want a Mexican baby because neither of them could speak Spanish.

This is a two part post. The first part is a list of 15. It is fun facts about the commode. These are borrowed from a site called Listserve. LS has lots of lists. The Chamblee 54 addendum is part two. 1. The film “Psycho” was the first movie to show a toilet flushing – the scene caused an inpouring of complaints about indecency 2. Pomegranates studded with cloves were used as the first attempt at making toilet air-freshner 3. Hermann Goering refused to use regulation toilet paper – instead he bought soft white handkerchiefs in bulk and used them 4. Over $100,000 US dollars was spent on a study to determine whether most people put their toilet paper on the holder with the flap in front or behind; the answer: three out of four people have the flap in the front 5. King George II of Great Britain died falling off a toilet on the 25th of October 1760 6. The average person spends three whole years of their life sitting on the toilet 7. The first toilet cubicle in a row is the least used (and consequently cleanest) 8. An estimated 2.6 billion people worldwide do not have access to proper toilet facilities, particularly in rural areas of China and India. 9. The Roman army didn’t have toilet paper so they used a water soaked sponge on the end of a stick instead! 10. The toilet is flushed more times during the super bowl halftime than at any time during the year. 11. 90% of pharmaceuticals taken by people are excreted through urination. Therefore our sewer systems contain heavy doses of drugs. A recent study by the EPA has found fish containing trace amounts of estrogen, cholesterol-lowering drugs, pain relievers, antibiotics, caffeine and even anti-depressants. Modern urine is expensive. 12. Lack of suitable toilets and sanitation kills approximately 1.8 million people a year, many of them children. 13. The toilet handle in a public restroom can have up to 40,000 germs per square inch. 14. While he didn’t invent the toilet, Thomas Crapper perfected the siphon flush system we use today. He was born in the village of Thorne – which is an anagram of throne. 15. In a 1992 survey, British public toilets were voted the worst in the world. Following quickly behind were Thailand, Greece, and France. Add.1-An amusing feature of the water closet is the tendency of people to die there. Elvis comes to mind immediately. There is some debate about this, as some say he was stricken on the throne, fell off, and perished on the floor. Judy Garland is also known to have met her maker while doing number two. Add.2- It seems that this is a real problem with older people that have constipation issues. When you are in delivery mode, and you push too hard, you can cause something called Valsalva’s maneuver. To make a long story short, all that squeezing can pinch the arteries going into the heart. This is not good for you. According to a commenter here, it is .06% of all deaths.

PG read I Am Ozzy, the autobiography of Ozzy Osbourne. (The copyright is given to “Ozzy Osbourne”.) The ghostwriter is Chris Ayers, who PG suspects did the majority of the writing. John Michael Osbourne is dyslexic, among other things. Honestly doctor, I thought the bottle said six pills every hour, and now you say it was one pill every six hours.
This is quite a story. John grew up poor in Aston, England. When he was through with school at 15, he faced a life of manual labor, or prison. The first few jobs he had were horrible, and a stretch behind bars made an impression on him. He put an ad up, saying he wanted to be a vocalist, and was about to give up when Tony Iommi (spell check suggestions:Mommie, Commie) came knocking on his door.
Mr. Iommi was well known in Aston as a musician, but he had to keep a day job. Before he left the factory to become a star, an accident cut off the ends of some of his fingers. He had to change his style, and developed his own, unique way of playing guitar.
The original name of the band was the Polka Tulk Blues Band. They were named after a brand of cheap talcum powder Mrs. Osbourne used. They would load their gear into a vehicle, and hang out by arenas where famous bands played, in case the headliner didn’t show up. One night, Jethro Tull’s truck broke down, and Earth (as the band was then known) played the gig.
Soon, the band…Osbourne, Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward… settled into the business of playing heavy music, with satanic themes. They never took the black magic business seriously, but the combination of a good gimmick and ….their music….clicked, and they began to make buckets of money.
Or rather, somebody was making buckets of money. There was the management, which were typical rock and roll crooks. A few cocaine merchants got some of the revenue, as well as liquor merchants. Ozzy was off on a forty year bender, taking every substance in sight. Supposedly he is clean today.
So Black Sabbath fired Ozzy, and he started a solo career. Ozzy divorced his first wife, and married the daughter of a management heavyweight, Sharon. The alcoholic escapades got more and more bizarre. One night, someone handed him something that looked like a plastic bird. Ozzy bit the head off, and went into rock and roll infamy. (Leviticus Chapter 11:13 And these ye shall have in detestation among the fowls; they shall not be eaten, they are a detestable thing: … 19 and the stork, and the heron after its kinds, and the hoopoe, and the bat.)
The stories come one right after another. After a while your bs detector sends out a warning, but the stories are so much fun to read. Besides, many of these stories were headlines, and can be easily verified. How many people would claim to be arrested for pissing on the Alamo, while wearing his wife’s nightgown? Before long, he is starring in his own reality TV show.
A lot of the credit for this book goes to Chris Ayers, and whoever helped him. Mr. Ayers has a keen ear for British slang, and keeps the action zipping along. Once you get started with these stories, they are tough to put down.
When PG was young enough, he didn’t think it was cool to like Black Sabbath. He was able to ignore them for a while, until that night in 1980 when PG stood outside a stadium in Seattle WA, and listened to Sabbath ( with Ronnie James Dio) play inside. Two years later, he pulled up to the triangle building in Century Center. 96 rock was in this building, and a man was standing outside giving away something. By the time PG got to him, he had run out of free tickets to the Black Sabbath concert, at the Omni. The next encounter with the band was at a job. There was an eight track tape player, and a copy of Paranoid. PG played that tape once, and a square salesman immediately left the building.

“What I meant by grace was a more realistic approach to the process of living to arrive at perhaps some tranquillity”/// When you change the central vowel in grace, you get grease and gross. /// “She wants candles married to her womb by the color of a telescopic saint, so that all her children will be adventures in light.” /// Existentialism is the subjective experience, /// “Thinking hard about you I got onto the bus and paid 30 cents car fare and asked the driver for 2 transfers before discovering I was alone.” /// I own everything about me: my body, my feelings, my mouth, my voice, all my actions, whether they be to others or myself. I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears. I own my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes. Because I own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me. By so doing, I can love me and be friendly with all my parts. /// “The silence of the snow in the mountains will be roaring in the creek by my house in a few days.” /// The leaves in South America will be snow in the craniums of North America before the World Series. /// “I lift the toilet seat as if it were the nest of a bird and I see cat tracks all around the edge of the bowl.” /// The cat was trying to keep the dog from taking a drink./// “Television crippled the imagination and turned people indoors and away from living out their own fantasies with dignity.” /// The ancient Greeks said the same thing about the singing chorus in the theater./// “Your heart is like a sea gull frozen into a long distance telephone call.”/// Your appendix is like a high school guidance counselor, trying to be useful before she explodes and causes great pain. /// “That is the last place in the world where you want to be but you have to be there, like a movie, because it features you.”/// I am a workaholic. Also a beach bum. I am portuguese so I have dark skin and blue eyes. i hate game players I am a very serious person. /// “I could feel somebody inside of her looking out as if her body were a castle and a princess lived inside.” /// The truth is that her body was a McMansion, and a soccer mom, three juvenile players, and a henpecked husband lived there. /// “Half-children are playing in the street below. Their voices travel up to us like a piano with half its keys missing.” /// Rahsaan Roland Kirk once composed a piano tune using only the black keys of the piano. How a blind man knew the difference is a good question./// “It is against the natural order of death for a trout to die by having a drink of port wine.”/// Word of the Day: “Brustwarzen” = nipples= “breast warts” Sometimes German can be just so darn “cute” /// “I just spent the last half-an-hour watching a Japanese children’s program on television… We know what we like.” /// LOL. My stalker returns. Rejections a bitch. Get a life instead of continuing to contact me. I’m not interested /// “I always considered my body to be more possessions than I ever needed and so everything else had to be simple.” /// “The poet is the master ontologist, constantly questioning existence and reinventing it.” /// “Japan begins and ends with Japan. Nobody else knows the story. / … Japanese dust in the Milky Way.”/// “Ah, that is a perfume in which I delight; when they roast coffee near my house, I hasten to open the door to take in all the aroma.” /// “Mouths that kissed in the hot ashes of Pompeii are returning” /// The message you have entered is too short. Please lengthen your message to at least 1 characters. /// “The thing that she was looking at was inside of herself. It had a shape that only she could see.” /// I would like to have a guy cum over and i Leave front door unlocked, you just cum in and strip and cum upstairs where i will be waiting on bed naked and blindfolded, surprise me with your touch and then climb up and feed me, then quietly leave /// “We have the power to transform our lives into brand-new instantaneous rituals” /// The authorities will denounce them as a threat to the republic, and deal accordingly. /// “I can see at a glance, though, that you are something like me. You’re not at home in the world.” /// What if there were no hypothetical questions? ~ GEORGE CARLIN /// “Her face had that soft marble quality to it that beautiful women have when they are suddenly awakened and are not quite ready for it” /// You’ve reached the end of the Top Tweets for #2thick4jewdick. /// “She loves flowers but she doesn’t have any windows in her hotel room, so she grows them by candlelight.” /// yes we candlelight yes we candlelight yes we candlelight /// “Her lips are so red they make blood seem dull, a useless pastime.” /// His neck is so red that it makes blood seem a tame, though useful, medium. /// “Cobalt Necessity: It’s just one of those things. When you need cobalt nothing else will suffice.” /// Laugh when you can .. Apologize when you should.. And let go of what you can’t change … Love deeply and forgive quickly… Take chances and give your everything … Life is too short to be anything but happy … You have to take the good with the bad … Love what you have … Always remember what you had … Forgive and forget … and always remember … that life goes on … Post if you agree … Life is short /// “Burn all the maps to your body. I’m not here of my own choosing.” ///

PG had a great day at the yard sale. For two dollars, he got cds by David Bowie, the Police Creedence Clearwater Revival, Emmy Lou Harris, and a book by T.C. Boyle. When the cd case for Emmy Lou Harris proved to be empty, PG got a box set of the Moody Blues as a replacement. It was better than ordering a venti cup of coffee from Starbucks. /// “What do we do now, young ladies? Kill the monster or bury the butler?” /// No, at this point you fire the monster, and send the butler out to make sandwiches. If the butler is already dead, this may cause a problem. /// “Hinged to forgetfulness like a door, she slowly closed out of sight, and she was the woman that I loved” /// People have learned to escape reality very well but too often lose their way back. /// “Cuckoo cuckoo cuckoo cuckoo cuckoo cuckoo cuckoo… The cuckoo in that clock was a really hardworking cuckoo.” /// The wife of the cuckoo is fooling around. The cuckoo is a cuckhold. /// “Playing games / playing games, I guess I never really stopped being a child playing games / playing games” /// Did Joseph think it was his kid? /// “We who do not have regular names spend a lot of time by ourselves. It suits us.” /// Most names are constipated. This is why initials are so popular. /// “The day they busted the Grateful Dead was like a flight of winged alligators carefully measuring marble with black rubber telescopes.” /// Pictures two and three in my profile are face pics. I can wear the paper bag, but it makes it tough to kiss. /// “Pauline’s shack is made entirely of watermelon sugar, except the door that is a good-looking grayish-stained pine” /// Some say they only work when they feel passion. These people probably have a lot of unfinished projects. /// “I thought about it for awhile, hiding it from the rest of my mind. But I didn’t ruin my birthday by secretly thinking about it too hard” /// Rights assessment is your responsibility. /// “The dream depended on the purring of the cat for existence and now that the cat had stopped purring her dream was falling apart.” /// “Misery is not an ultimate truth. Authentic wisdom is a laughing matter.” – James Broughton/// “There are comets that flash through our mouths wearing the grace of oceans and galaxies.” /// There was a car once, the cross between a comet and a volvo. It was called the vomet. It had bucket seats and a throw up roof. /// “She’s mending the rain with her hair. She’s turning the darkness on. Glue / switch! That’s all I have to report.” /// Try for the perfect effect, but realize when you are whipped. Sometimes second best is ok, when you are the only one who will know the difference/// “I was trying to get some sleep this afternoon but the people in the next room took that opportunity to fuck their brains out.” /// It is more fun to fuck your elbows off. This is not recommended for people who like to do chin ups. /// “He was leaving for America, often only a place in the mind.” /// “As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand.”/// “My body was like birds sitting on a telephone wire strung out down the world, clouds tossing the wires carefully.” /// Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play? /// “Your face is so beautiful that I cannot stop to describe it, and there’s nothing I can do to make you happy while you sleep.” /// “honey maple ham sliced by your hands is like eating a sandwich made of clouds” /// “The blossoms will be gone and their brief February spring silenced and no longer immortal.” /// Perhaps if they believed in a real God, liberals wouldn’t have to keep creating an endless stream of human gods … Ann Coulter /// “It’s raining somewhere, programming flowers and keeping snails happy. That’s all taken care of.” /// Atlanta is not somewhere, and another drought is looking us in the face. This does not people from watering their lawns, or building new apartments. /// “I am always the last person to know what’s going on in my life, but I have a feeling that’s maybe the way it is with everybody” /// “I have never been noticeably reticent about talking on subjects about which I know nothing.” Prince Philip addressing a group of industrialists in 1961. /// “The future held only two directions: They were either going to open up a flea circus or commit themselves to an insane asylum.” /// This was before the internet, when blogging was a third alternative. /// “It’s so nice to wake up in the morning all alone and not have to tell somebody you love them when you don’t love them any more.” /// There is a tape somewhere of about thirty people saying that line. It is not known how many were sincere. /// “Oh, how good those bears would taste: roasted, fried, boiled or made into spaghetti, bear spaghetti just like the Italians make.” /// Any regrets? Yes. That I didn’t have sex with Jimi Hendrix, that I’ve never been to the Middle East and that I never learned to ride a horse. That’s about it….Grace Slick /// “We stopped at perfect days and got out of the car. The wind glanced at her hair. It was as simple as that.” /// The shampoo commercial based on this line fell through. The actors made a cigarette commercial instead. You used to have more choices. /// “I like this taxi driver, racing through the dark streets of Tokyo as if life had no meaning. I feel the same way.”/// This is another conversation with the ghost of Richard Brautigan Some of the replies were written by PG, and some were borrowed from the Internet. Pictures are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”

This is a repost . The word advice, for all the condescension implied, does have a neat composition. Ad is short for advertisement, and vice is a forbidden pleasure. Unless you are talking about Vice President, who should be forbidden.forgotten, and fornicated.
For some unknown reason, the subject of discourse today is advice from William Seward Burroughs. No, the TV station on Peachtree Street was not named for him.
Before we reprint this consultation, (Chamblee54 did not write the advice) we should ponder the concept of William S. Burroughs, and wonder why anyone would ask this man for advice.
Mr. Burroughs is the namesake grandson of the man who invented the adding machine. The elder Burroughs left his heirs a bunch of money. The young Burroughs wound up in New York, and became friends with Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg.
Mr. Burroughs was married twice (to women). The first was a platonic relationship with Ilse von Klapper, a Jew who wanted to get out of Europe. In 1936, this counted as a good deed.
The second wife, Joan Vollmer, helped make his life interesting. She is the mother of William S. Burroughs III, and was fond of speed. Mr. and Mrs. Burroughs were living in Mexico in 1951, when they decided to play William Tell. Mr. Burroughs missed the apple, and Mrs. Burroughs died.
Mr. Burroughs went on to write a few novels, including Naked Lunch. He was famous in hipster circles, and gave lie to the saying “there are no old junkies”. Mr. Burroughs settled in Lawrence KS, and lived to be 83. This leaves out a few inedible details, which are widely available, in various levels of truth. Real life is bad fiction.

People often ask me if I have any words of advice for young people. Well here are a few simple admonitions for young and old. Never interfere in a boy-and-girl fight.Beware of whores who say they don’t want money.The hell they don’t.What they mean is they want more money. Much more. If you’re doing business with a religious son-of-a-bitch,Get it in writing.His word isn’t worth shit. Not with the good lord telling him how to fuck you on the deal. Avoid fuck-ups. We all know the type. Anything they have anything to do with, No matter how good it sounds, Turns into a disaster.Do not offer sympathy to the mentally ill. Tell them firmly: I am not paid to listen to this drivel. You are a terminal boob. Now some of you may encounter the Devil’s Bargain, If you get that far. Any old soul is worth saving, At least to a priest, But not every soul is worth buying. So you can take the offer as a compliment. He tries the easy ones first. You know like money, All the money there is. But who wants to be the richest guy in some cemetery? Money won’t buy. Not much left to spend it on, eh gramps? Getting too old to cut the mustard. Well time hits the hardest blows. Especially below the belt. How’s a young body grab you? Like three card monte, like pea under the shell, Now you see it, now you don’t. Haven’t you forgotten something, gramps? In order to feel something, You’ve got to be there. You have to be eighteen. You’re not eighteen. You are seventy-eight. Old fool sold his soul for a strap-on. Well they always try the easiest ones first. How about an honorable bargain? You always wanted to be a doctor, Well now’s your chance. Why don’t you become a great healer And benefit humanity? What’s wrong with that? Just about everything. Just about everything. There are no honorable bargains Involving exchange Of qualitative merchandise Like souls For quantitative merchandise Like time and money. So piss off Satan And don’t take me for dumber than I look. An old junk pusher told me – Watch whose money you pick up.

Jesus and Satan were having an on-going argument about who was better on the computer. They had been going at it for days, and frankly G-d was tired of hearing all the bickering. Finally fed up, G-d said, ‘THAT’S IT! I have had enough. I am going to set up a test that will run for two hours, and from those results, I will judge who does the better job.’
So Satan and Jesus sat down at the keyboards and typed away. They moused. They faxed. They e-mailed. They e-mailed with attachments. They downloaded. They did spreadsheets. They wrote reports. They created labels and cards. They created charts and graphs. They did every job known to man. Jesus worked with heavenly efficiency and Satan was faster than hell.
Then, ten minutes before their time was up, lightning suddenly flashed across the sky, thunder rolled, rain poured, and, of course, the power went off. Satan stared at his blank screen and screamed every curse word known in the underworld. Jesus just sighed.
Finally the electricity came back on, and each of them restarted their computers. Satan started searching., screaming: ‘It’s gone! It’s all GONE! ‘I lost everything when the power went out!’
Meanwhile, Jesus quietly started printing out all of his files from the past two hours of work. Satan observed this and became irate. ‘Wait!’ he screamed. ‘That’s not fair! He cheated! How come he has all his work and I don’t have any?’ G-d just shrugged and said, “JESUS SAVES”.
This story is courtesy of gartalker. Pictures are from The Library of Congress .

There latest facebook fad is to post “I am cleaning up my Facebook friends… let me know if u would like to stay”. Presumably this means to go through the list, and weed out those are who deemed unworthy. It could mean going to your fbf with a bar of soap, which might not be a bad idea. In search of the truth, it is time to visit Google City.
The top result (which may be sponsored) was from an outfit called Facecrooks. ( The Grateful Dead used to say “Steal your face”.) These people say this thingie is not a virus, but a “facebook question” gone viral. We are not making this up. There is a button on the application called “ask friends”. If you click this button, all your friends will be asked if they want to remain friends. The message goes on… “If you or your Facebook friends are falling for tricks like this, it’s time to get yourself informed of the latest threats. Be sure to join the Facecrookspage (spell check suggestion: Facecloths) on Facebook to be kept informed of the latest security issues. ”
The next five results say basically the same thing as the first one, but with different ads. The sixth result is from Cynthia Perla . Her story is “How To Delete All Facebook Groups And Wall Posts From Facebook Using Imacros”. If PG was a member of more than three groups, there might be a need to try this device.
Result seven is a puzzler. It for the blog of Scott Kenan . Mr, Kenan, a former resident of Stone Mountain, spent a few years as the personal assistant of Tennessee Williams, and wrote a book about it. The title of the post is “Cleaning Up My Errors (before the book is written) “. Perhaps some of these fb friends are mistakes.
The bottom result on page one is from ABC news . (There was a joke in the fifth grade about asking someone if they want some abc gum. In this joke, abc means already been chewed.) This page has a header ad for a rotating selection of products, including hand towel analyzers, and a drug called SYMBICORT. The content headline is “Unfriend Day? Not for Girl With 5,000 Facebook Friends”.
Pictures are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.

PG got into a discussion with a Jesus worshiper a few days ago. We will try to keep this recap brief; the whole nine yards is available here. (The host of this discussion did not indulge in personal attacks, or label PG a “troll” and ban him. He is to be commended for this. His words will be used sparingly in this account, but are available at the link above.) The theme of Chamblee54  is “pretty pictures and ugly opinions”, and if you want to skip the text and look at the pictures, no one will say anything. The pictures today are Union soldiers, from the War Between the States, from The Library of Congress  (The final product is 2300 words. So much for good intentions.)
The other party, who we will call Saul, had gotten into a typing contest at Pyromaniacs, a Jesus worship blog that does not lack self esteem. Saul posted the whole shooting match at his blog. (If the internet charged by the word, Saul would be broke.) PG saw this, and made a comment: “I am also banned from commenting at [edited]. Unlike you, I am not a Jesus worshiper. I saw this debate spilling over, and was tempted to look through it for a minute. Then I saw how many words you were spilling into the internet. I will say the same thing here that got me banned from [edited]…good grief.”
Saul wrote back that PG should be a Jesus worshiper, and tossed a few Bible verses at PG, who replied “Thank you for your concern. I have had too many bad experiences with Jesus to ever want to follow him.” Saul asked for an example, and PG replied “I see Jesus in the words and deeds of his believers. I don’t see the point of specifics, but it has been awful. I should mention that I do not agree with your scheme for life after death.”
PG did not participate in the next part of the conversation. Saul, and another reader, exchanged thousands of words about fine points of Jesus worship doctrine. There is a three part rule that PG has for discussions like this… I don’t understand what is discussed, it is none of my business, and I am not interested. Finally, PG made a two word comment… “Good grief”. Saul responded with talk about life after death. (The frog asked the scorpion why he was stung,  after the frog took the scorpion over the river. The scorpion said, it’s my nature.)
PG was getting warmed up. “Growing up in Jesus happy America, there are things which you are told to be true. As I get older, I have decided that I don’t agree with many of these ideas.
It is a given in our culture that Jesus is the Christ. This is assumed to be true, and seldom challenged. As you may know, Jesus and Christ have two very different meanings. (Some think that Christ is the last name of Jesus.) I don’t think it is profitable to argue one way or another about this, so lets just say I am neutral…Jesus may be the Christ, and may not be. I don’t see how this affects my life on earth, or what happens after I die.
I do think the Jesus Worship obsession with life after death is morbid and sick. If you have faith in G-d to take care of you after you die, what is there to worry about? You might have to base your religion on taking care of each other on this planet, where we can make a difference.
A reader named David chimes in. “Well, it is your decision about the true identity of Jesus that affects you. If Jesus is the Christ, then His words from the Bible are true. If He is not the Christ, then His words are meaningless. In the end, you have the free will to decide for yourself what you believe.”
PG had a reply: “Thank you for taking the time to participate in this discussion. There are some serious flaws in your argument. I could go over them one by one, but I don’t see the point of it. Your statement is based on conjecture about life after death, despite the talk about “dead to sin”. I have two core differences with Jesus worship religion. 1-G-d does not write books.2- My opinions about Jesus have nothing to do with life after death. The Bible based talk I see in these blogs does not impress me.
Saul’s reply is a key part of this discussion. “Chamblee, I ask, what is your authority for truth?”
PG replied: “I am beginning to suspect that the word truth is obsolete. Not the concept, the english word we use to describe it. I have recently posted a three part series that was prompted by this comment on facebook… “I think we’re having a misunderstanding about what I mean by emotional truth aka “your truth.” It’s a new concept for me too.” The word truth is taking a beating, and may be down for the count.
Before I answer your question, I should discuss a bit further my views about the “magic book”. It is a collection of texts, from different languages and cultures, that had been copied by hand. These texts were assembled, translated (often more than once), and edited by a committee of the Catholic Church. They are the product of man, written in man’s languages, and are subject to the fallibility of man.
In addition, when you say that a text is “the word of G-d”, you raise that text to the level of being a G-d itself. This is a violation of the first commandment. ( I prefer to call these common sense rules commandments. You can have your fancy talk about Decalogue.) Also, just because I don’t consider your magic book to be the word of G-d, that does not mean I cannot appreciate parts of it as commonsense rules for living. Maybe that is an authority for truth, but it is easier for me to follow if I just consider it good advice.
As for your question…what is your authority for truth?…there are several reactions:
1- Maybe that should be plural. There is more than one authority.
2- Are you familiar with the concept of authoritarianism? There is a psychological scale that measures authoritarianism, aka dogmatism and facism. People have different rankings in this scale. I hesitate to say that this is a matter of right and wrong. Maybe some people like to think for themselves, and don’t believe everything they are told…even if there is language in a magic book that agrees with it.
3- I trust what I see, hear, smell, taste, and feel. There is the possibility of deception in all these senses, which should be accounted for. However, I am sometimes correct in what I sense, even if lots of people tell me I am wrong.
4- The importance of trust should not be underestimated. Not everyone who is telling you something is telling the truth, or has good motives. If you do not trust this person, then he is speaking in vain. For more information about this, see the third commandment.
5- Some people believe things because it is correct. Some people believe things because they think good things will happen when they have these beliefs.
Maybe this is not the best answer to your question, but it will do for now. Thank you for allowing me to continue this conversation, without resorting to personal attacks and/or “banning” me. You are a better person for having done so.





Saul gave his reply, which is in the transcript. PG answered:
1-You don’t have to shout.
2-The middle three letters of believe are lie.
3- Philosophy is the disease, for that which it is supposed to be the cure.
4– Philosophy is useless, theology worse. Dire Straights
5- This is why I like to post pictures. If you get tired of the text, you can always look at the pictures.
6- I am not sure there is a difference between G-d and man. Where do you draw the line?
7- The justification of authority is one of the oldest dilemmas faced by man.
8- A man who says “I don’t know” is usually telling the truth, except when under oath.
9- I just don’t know about this G-d and authority business.
10- Even the best top ten lists can use a bit of filler.
Saul replied by promoting the Jesus worship scheme for life after death. PG replied: “Jesus was killed because he was a troublemaker, That has nothing to do with life after death. Trust G-d to take care of you after you die. If talking about Jesus helps you to do this, fine.”
PG had seen a show on PBS about The Buddha . There was talk about Mr. Siddhartha’s ideas about life after death, which PG wanted to bring into the conversation. When he found the transcript, there was also a comment about spiritual authority, and thinking for yourself. At 4:20 pm, on June 7, this comment went out:
I went looking for the transcript of a PBS special about Gautama Siddhartha. Some say he is the Buddha. ( If we are going to question whether or not Jesus is the Christ, I suppose it is fair to wonder if Gautama Siddhartha is the Buddha.) This transcript is not the inerrant word of G-d, but it gives us some ideas about the legend of the Buddha. I found the quote about Life after Death that I was looking for, and I will share it with you. As a bonus, I found a quote about the Authority of Truth. Sometimes, all you have to do is look.
“Siddhartha had put his faith in two gurus. They hadn’t helped him. He had punished his mind and body. That had almost killed him. Now, he knew what he must do: to find the answer to his questions, he would look within, and trust himself. …
There are stories of people coming to the Buddha, and saying, “I am leaving your teaching because you have not told me about whether there is a life after death, or whether there is another world. And the Buddha says, ‘Did I ever say that I would give you the answers to these things?’ ‘No, Lord, you didn’t.’ ‘Why do you think that I ever said that I would give you the answer to these things? Because these are not the things that you need to know. The thing that you need to know is how to deal with suffering, because at this very moment, what made you ask that question was suffering.”
Saul replied: “Buddha is dead, Christ lives, and the Bible gives detailed instructions to Christians about how to think, how to pray, and what to do in the midst of suffering. ” PG replied:
“The physical bodies of both men are long gone. The nature of their souls is open to speculation. If Jesus is indeed alive, it is as a spirit that lives in the hearts of his believers. This is how I know Jesus, through his believers. It is much more reliable than a book compiled by a Catholic committee.
The lifespan of the hero is not an issue in Buddhism. ( I don’t know much about Mr. Siddhartha’s religion. There may be a sect that thinks he is still alive, in some form or fashion.) In any event, I don’t see how this affects their teachings.
The Bible is a cause of suffering. The Bible teaches people to hate gay people. This is a major problem. While this may not be the intention of the Council of Nicea, it is the 21st century effect. If Jesus is a living critter, then he is changing and evolving. From what I see, Jeus is nothing I want anything to do with. The vulgar claims regarding life after death do not make Jboi any more palatable.”
Saul wrote back, and said it was time to take this dialog to private email. PG wrote back:
I am Luther Mckinnon, aka chamblee54.
I don’t see much else to discuss. It seems apparent that we are talking at cross purposes here ( pun not intended). I have told you my views on authority and life after death, and you keep coming back with the same rhetoric.
You might consider that I was raised in the Southern Baptist Tradition. I decided when I was 17 that I did agree with them. I have had dalliances with Daishonin Buddhism and the Unification Church. They did not do much for me. I have settled into the ideas I have about G-d through thought and prayer. I do not claim to have all the answers, but am comfortable with my ideas.
I have heard the Jesus worship scheme for life after death thousands of times. I simply do not agree with it. I feel that the attention given to life after death is misplaced. Hearing a few verses from the Bible, and hearing about the scheme for yet another time, is not going to change my mind.
When you “preach” to me without trust, you are speaking in vain. This is part of what the third commandment speaks about.
As you may know, I have my own blog. I like to write about religion. This dialog would be good material for this blog…if you don’t like the text, you can always enjoy the pictures. If you object to me using your words, then I can leave them out. If you don’t object to this, then I can include them, to show your side of this discussion.
Once again, thank you for hearing me out, and not throwing a hissy fit and banning me. That is the easy way out, and to your credit you did not do this.
At this time, Saul has not replied.

ALLEN GINSBERG’S MIND WRITING SLOGANS *** “First thought is best in Art, second in other matters.” –William Blake *** I. GROUND (Situation, or Primary Perception) *** “First Thought, Best Thought” –Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche /// “Take a friendly attitude toward your thoughts.” — Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche /// “The Mind must be loose.” –John Adams /// “One perception must immediately and directly lead to a further perception.” –Charles Olson, “Projective Verse” /// “My writing is a picture of the mind moving.” –Philip Whalen /// Surprise Mind –Allen Ginsberg /// “The old pond, a frog jumps in, Kerplunk!” –Basho /// “Magic is the total delight (appreciation) of chance” –Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche /// “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, (I am large. I contain multitudes.)” –Walt Whitman /// “…What quality went to form a man of achievement, especially in literature? …Negative capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.” –John Keats /// “Form is never more than an extension of content.” –Robert Creeley to Charles Olson /// “Form follows function.” –Frank Lloyd Wright /// Ordinary Mind includes eternal perceptions. –A.G. /// “Nothing is better for being Eternal Nor so white as the white that dies of a day.” –Louis Zukofsky /// Notice what you notice. –A.G. /// Catch yourself thinking. –A.G. /// Observe what’s vivid. –A.G. /// Vividness is self-selecting. –A.G. /// “Spots of Time” –William Wordsworth /// If we don’t show anyone we’re free to write anything. –A.G. /// “My mind is open to itself.” –Gelek Rinpoche /// “Each on his bed spoke to himself alone, making no sound.” –Charles Reznikoff *** II. PATH (Method or Recognition) *** “No ideas but in things.” “…No ideas but in the Facts.” –William Carlos Williams /// “Close to the nose.” –W.C. Williams /// “Sight is where the eye hits.” –Louis Zukofsky /// “Clamp the mind down on objects.” –W.C.Williams /// “Direct treatment of the thing…” (or object.)” –E.Pound, 1912 /// “Presentation, not reference…” –Ezra Pound /// “Give me a for instance.” –Vernacular /// “Show not tell.” –Vernacular /// “The natural object is always the adequate symbol.” –Ezra Pound /// “Things are symbols of themselves.” –Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche /// “Labor well the minute particulars, take care of the little ones — He who would do good for another must do it in minute particulars — General Good is the plea of the Scoundrel Hypocrite and Flatterer — For Art & Science cannot exist but in minutely organized particulars” –William Blake /// “And being old she put a skin/On everything she said.” –W.B.Yeats /// “Don’t think of words when you stop but to see the picture better.” –Jack Kerouac /// “Details are the Life of Prose.” –Jack Kerouac /// Intense fragments of spoken idiom, best. –A.G. /// “Economy of Words” –Ezra Pound /// “Tailoring” –Gregory Corso /// Maximum information, minimum number of syllables. –A.G. /// Syntax condensed, sound is solid. –A.G. /// Savor vowels, appreciate consonants. –A.G. /// “Compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome.” –Ezra Pound /// “…awareness…of the tone leading of the vowels.” –Ezra Pound /// “…an attempt to approximate classical quantitative meters…” –Ezra Pound /// “Lower limit speech, upper limit song” –Louis Zukofsky /// “Phanopoeia, Melopoeia, Logopoeia.” –Ezra Pound /// “Sight, Sound & Intellect.” — Louis Zukofsky /// “Only emotion objectified endures.” — Louis Zukofsky *** III. FRUITION (Result or Appreciation) *** Spiritus = Breathing = Inspiration = Unobstructed Breath /// “Alone with the Alone” –Plotinus /// Sunyata (Skt.) = Ku (Japanese) = Emptiness /// “What’s the sound of one hand clapping?” –Zen Koan /// “What’s the face you had before you were born?” –Zen Koan /// Vipassana (Skt.) = Clear Seeing /// “Stop the world” –Carlos Casteneda // “The purpose of art is to stop time.” –Bob Dylan /// “The unspeakable visions of the individual.” –J.K. /// “I’m going to try speaking some reckless words, and I want you to try to listen recklessly.” –Chuang Tzu, (Tr. Burton Watson) /// “Candor” –Whitman /// “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.” –Shakespeare /// “Contact” –A Magazine, Nathaniel West & W.C. Williams, Eds. /// “God Appears & God is Light … To those poor Souls who dwell in Night … But does a Human Form Display … To those who Dwell in Realms of day.” –W. Blake /// Subject is known by what she sees. –A.G. /// Others can measure their visions by what we see. –A.G. /// Candor ends paranoia. –A.G. /// “Willingness to be Fool.” — Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche /// “day & night/you’re all right” –Corso /// Tyger: “Humility is Beatness.” –Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche & A.G. /// Lion: “Surprise Mind” –Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche & A.G. /// Garuda: “Crazy Wisdom Outrageousness” –Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche /// Dragon: “Unborn Inscrutability” –Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche /// “To be men not destroyers” –Ezra Pound /// “Speech synchronizes mind & body.” –Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche /// “The Emperor unites Heaven & Earth.” –Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche /// “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” –Shelley /// “Make it new” –Ezra Pound /// “When the mode of music changes, the walls of the city shake” –Plato /// “Every third thought shall be my grave” –W. Shakespeare, “The Tempest” /// “That in black ink my love may still shine bright” –W. Shakespeare, Sonnets /// “Only emotion endures” –Ezra Pound /// “Well while I’m here I’ll do the work– and what’s the Work? To ease the pain of living. Everything else, drunken dumbshow.” –A.G. /// “…Kindness, sweetest of the small notes… in the world’s ache, most modest & gentle of the elements… entered man before history and became his daily connection, let no man tell you otherwise.” –Carl Rakosi. *** These jewels of wisdom are courtesy of TheHuffingtonPost. HT to Darrell Grizzle. Pictures are from ” Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”

PG found a feature about BHO from three years ago. It was posted just after Hilary gave up the struggle, and it was obvious who the Democratic nominee was going to be. At the time, many considered BHO to be a charismatic speaker with no substance. The feature below appeared in the fishwrapper , outlining some positions on key issues. PG thought it would be festive to go back to this post, three years later, and see how the man is doing.
There were two game changers before the World Series in 2008. The little known governor of Alaska was chosen as the repubs vice president candidate, and instantly became a superstar. A few weeks later, the economy melted down. Both of these events have affected the BHO presidency.
To the surprise of nobody, the repubs have done everything they could to hurt BHO. The “Tea Party” has erupted, and the corporate media has been on the offensive since Aretha finished singing. The opera is supposed to be over when the fat lady sings, but this one was just beginning.
IRAQ.. has said the goal of increasing troop strength so Iraq’s leaders can establish a stable government has failed. Would remove all U.S. combat brigades from Iraq within 16 months of taking office, except some to protect our embassy and diplomats. ON THE COST OF WAR..”I will spare no expense to ensure our troops have the equipment and support they need … But we also have to understand that the more than $10 billion we’re spending each month in Iraq is money we could be investing here at home.”
At the time this was written, Afghanistan was the forgotten war. It has been escalated and spread to Pakistan. Drone strikes have been increased, with thousands of women and children killed by planes controlled in Nevada. The flow of heroin from Afghanistan has increased. It is tough to see how things are getting better there.
In Iraq, American is supposed to be out by the end of 2011. Whether this will happen is a good guess. The violence and corruption in Iraq continues, although not at the levels of 2006. The issue of taking care of the wounded soldiers from these conflicts is ongoing, and will be for quite some time.
TAXES… would create a tax credit of $500 per person, or $1,000 per working family, for up to 150 million workers; and simplify IRS tax filings for millions of Americans. ECONOMIC STIMULUS.. would index minimum wage to inflation; invest in job creation, training and manufacturing HEALTH INSURANCE.. would make a national health insurance plan available to all Americans and a National Health Insurance Exchange as a watchdog group for all private insurance plans, ensuring fairness and afford ability. SOCIAL SECURITY… is opposed to privatization and would work with Congress on a payroll tax reform package to keep Social Security solvent. ON ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY..”If we unite this country around a common purpose, if we act on the responsibilities that we have to each other and to our country, then we can launch a new era of opportunity and prosperity.”
The economic meltdown, and republican obstructionism, have affected everything BHO tries to do. If the tax proposals went through, we didn’t see it. The stimulus (began by GWB) helped avert a total disaster, but has not made a positive difference. It also has increased the national debt.The health insurance debate, aka Obamacare, has been a partisan bloodbath. The sausage law that was enacted is being phased in, and we will have to wait and see. Social Security has been pushed aside as an issue. As for Economic Opportunity, the rhetoric sounds just as good today as it did in 2008. Yes we can.
STEM CELL RESEARCH… favors relaxing restrictions on federal financing MARRIAGE… opposes a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, supports civil unions. ABORTION… has consistently defended a woman’s right to choose. DEATH PENALTY… supports the death penalty in cases “so heinous the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage.”GUN CONTROL… favors measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners while keeping guns away from children and criminals. CAMPAIGN FINANCE… supports public financing of campaigns combined with free television and radio time to reduce the influence of special interests.
PG wonders when the last time he heard about Stem Cell Research. Same Sex Marriage marches on, with our without the support of POTUS. BHO has done little about Abortion, and a couple of million babies died. The Death Penalty is mostly a state issue, except for Osama Bin Ladin. As for gun control and campaign finance reform, little has been done. These six issues have little to do with POTUS, but are dynamite for exciting the excitable. The spectacle of Congress giving 29 standing ovations to Mr. Netanyahu shows both the need for campaign finance reform, and the difficulty of enacting it.
EDUCATION… would reform No Child Left Behind, expand Head Start programs and make math and science education a national priority. HOMELAND SECURITY… would improve security for chemical plants, keep better track of spent nuclear fuel and upgrade security for public drinking water systems. GLOBAL WARMING… would reduce carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050, invest in clean energy technologies, reduce America’s foreign oil consumption and address climate and environmental issues with the United Nations The homeland security position is common sense.
BHO gave a charming speech to schoolchildren on the first day of school in 2009. It is tough to see much else done about education. Regarding homeland security, that mess seems to be getting worse. We have fewer rights than before, airport screenings are more invasive, and pictures of Andrew Weiner’s goober are being shown. To be fair, there has not been a major terror attack. As for global warming, almost nothing has been done. The deniers are well funded, and telling the people what they want to hear. This might be a time for POTUS to get on the bully pulpit, and say loudly that if we don’t quit playing with the atmosphere we might not have a world fit to live in. On the other hand, BHO hopes to raise a billion dollars for his reelection.
IMMIGRATION… would improve security at borders; supports legalization for undocumented workers after they pay a fine and learn English; and favors a guest worker program. Supports giving legal status to immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, who finish two years of college or military service. TRADE… would fight for a policy that opens up foreign markets to support American jobs, amend the North American Free Trade Agreement to favor American workers.
Whatever has been done about immigration has happened at the state level. Georgia agribusiness is in trouble. BHO can do little right on this issue, and has just done little. As for trade, it is tough for a slack blogger to know what is going on there. BHO has not been outstanding, but we haven’t fallen off the side of the planet, yet.
Overall, it is tough to see much good the man has done. To be fair, there is a lot he does not have control over, and the republicans have openly said they want him to fail. The problem with that is that if BHO fails, American fails with him. You have to wonder about the patriotism of people who want to pay for wars by enacting tax cuts.
Getting back to BHO, this blog gives him a C-. It is a very tough job, but then he knew. Most Presidents have horrible problems in the second term, which makes you wonder why he wants to be reelected. The way the Republicans look now, he will probably win a second term. Maybe then he can do something. Maybe we can.

In an early morning discourse, I said that Martin Niemoller was rolling in his grave looking for the royalties from his poem, “First they came…“.For those of you with very short memories, here it is.
When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews, I remained silent; I wasn’t a Jew.
When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.
Martin Niemoller was the son of a Lutheran minister. In World War 1, he served on a U boat crew. Harold Marcuse tells this story: “Niemöller was a commander of a German U-boat in World War I. A seminal incident in his moral outlook, as he related in many public speeches later in his life, occurred when he commanded his submarine crew not to rescue the sailors of a boat he torpedoed, but let them drown instead. “ After the war he became a Lutheran Minister. He was originally a supporter of Mr. Hitler, but became an opponent. He was imprisoned in Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps from 1937 to 1945.
After the war, he began to speak out. The famous poem was derived from these speeches. It was never written down in typical poet fashion. There are several versions of it from him, and many more as the years rolled by. It has been quoted, updated, and quoted again.
In addition to the four groups mentioned above, the Nazis also came for mentally ill, incurably ill, or people in occupied countries. The legend is that when asked if he included Catholics, he said “I never said it. They can take care of themselves.” When the McCarthy fever hit America, he declined to mention Communists.
With regard to the royalties, PG could not see that it was ever copyrighted. Who knows who “owns the rights”? Some have even speculated that the poem was not composed by Mr. Niemoller.
“First they came”… is a favorite of rebels looking for a cause. Many people just want to fight about something, and the cause is secondary to the lust for battle. When a poem like this is used to fire up people for a shaky cause, it brings discredit to the poem.
There is the matter of the “Next Hitler” argument. During the run up to the first war against Iraq, Saddam Hussein was routinely called the next Hitler. While this may be a valid argument at times, it is like the boy who cried wolf if used too much. Maybe a general moratorium is needed on the use of “First they Came…”
This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress,

Juan Cole has an amusing commentary today about American news compared to Al Jazeera. It seems as though Americans are fed a diet of scandal and celebrity misadventure, while Arabs are told about fighting the power. It as if one people were eating fruits and vegetables, and the other people is on an all weiner diet.
“Americans live in a late capitalist society where the rich have gotten many times richer and the middle class has gotten poorer, where Wall Street bankers have stolen us blind and blamed us for living above our means, where persistent unemployment is worse than in the Great Depression, where most politicians and some judges have been bought by corporations or special interests, where authorities actively conspire to keep people from voting, where the government spies on citizens assiduously without warrant or probable cause, and where the minds of the sheep are kept off their fleecing by substituting celebrity gossip, sex scandals, and half-disguised bigotry for genuine news.
In the Arab world, masses of 20-year-olds have challenged their corrupt politicians and manipulative billionaires in the streets, demanding transparency, an end to arbitrary secret police, and free and fair elections untainted by influence-peddling and plutocracy. I have Arabic satellite t.v. on in the background most of the day, with its dramatic stories of personal risk and human tragedy and bold challenge to a rotten status quo. And I channel surf over to the American cable news and mostly find fluff or de-contextualized reports or, frankly, propaganda. So here is my life, the day’s news given synoptically, our news and their news.”
Much of what is said, and not said, is true. It becomes a matter of what the gate keeper lets through. There is only room for so many stories, and what we are told is often not what we need to hear. How many people know that our allies in Afghanistan export heroin to Russia? Or that saber rattling Israel continues to do business with Iran ?
On June 3, the fishwrapper posted a story about efforts of the state of Georgia to get access to water from the Tennessee River. As some of you know, Atlanta does not have a dependable supply of water. We are one drought, or one court order, away from drying up. The story about water was sandwiched between three stories about Herman Cain. The water story got 17 comments. The stories about Mr. Cain got 238 comments.
While researching this post, PG went back to the fishwrapper’s political page. The top story is State blocks info on ‘violent incidents’ at Valdosta State Prison. It seems like there was trouble in a prison recently, and the government has something to hide. The next story… Herman Cain says he would appoint gays to cabinet – if they weren’t Muslim .
The clip below is 29 seconds, and is fun. The headline is just a bit misleading. The fun loving Spacey G has this to say about Mr. Cain’s latest…”Note that pizza delivery guy’s effete, nervous little giggle at end. Dude is just a freakin’ weirdo.” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress .