Chamblee54

There was a story in the fishwrapper this morning, Gov’t survey: Illicit pot smoking on the rise. It repeats an AP story. PG has a taste for government induced brain damage, and wanted to read the report. He sent to phrase “A new government survey says more Americans are smoking marijuana” to Mr. Google, and waited 0.51 seconds.
The Sacramento Bee has the top result. They print the same AP story verbatim, including the headline. They advertise Verizon, and a local Toyota dealer.
It is the same at the Houston Chronicle , the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Kansas City Star. They copy the AP story verbatim, including the headline.
The *fifth* result at google city is from The National Institute on Drug Abuse. The report is titled “NIDA InfoFacts: Marijuana. ” The information in the report was last revised November 2010. There is little new information in the report.
Yahoo News, the Seattle pi, the Miami Herald, the Bellingham Herald , Forbes, and the Huffington Post all repeat the AP story. None of the news sources, on the Google front page, wrote a new headline. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress . They were taken by Dorothea Lange.

There was a post at this facility recently about aphorisms. As it turns out, there are a lot of expressions in english for a clever combination of words. A prominent one was epigram. No, this is not a message to Aunt Eppie, although it could be. (The “real” name of former advice columnist Ann Landers is Esther “Eppie” Friedman Lederer. She was the twin sister of Pauline Friedman Phillips, who dispensed advice under the handle Dear Abby.) The first non wikipedia result at google city for epigram was The Best Epigrams from Literature, Poetry, Politics, Science, Sports. It is a lengthy piece of work by Michael R. Burch. He says that aphorisms are a subset of epigrams… “Epigrams which convey truths or principles are called aphorisms.” Mr. Burch mentions other names for clever sayings: adage, anecdote, aphorism, apophthegm, axiom, bon mot, boondoggle, bromide, buffoonery, catchphrase, cliche, chestnut, chiasmus, dictum, doggerel, encomium, epigram, epitaph, epithet, etcetera, folk wisdom, formula, gag, gnome, ha-ha, hillbilly humor, homily, horseplay, hoodwink, jape, jest, joke, lark, leg-pulling, limerick, maxim, monkeyshine, moral, motto, mummery, one-liner, pithy saying, platitude, precept, proverb, quip, quirk, quote, raillery, rib, sally, saw, saying, short poems, snow job, spoonerism, tomfoolery, truism, vagary, waggery, whimsy, wisdom of the ages, witticisms, zingers. This page is a pretty good effort. There is at least one mistake, and it is a doozie. He credits the phrase “take my wife, please” to Rodney Dangerfield. The owner of that catchphrase is Henny Youngman. While his effort to give Mr. Dangerfield some respect is appreciated, this is just plain wrong. If you are not prone to wisdom fatigue, this site is a good place to visit. Mr. Burch covers various types of epigrams, and gives numerous examples. He does dwell on some traditional heros of wordplay, such as Oscar Wilde, Dorothy Parker, Mark Twain, Will Rogers, and Yogi Berra (the only one of that crowd with a World Series ring.) He has a fine section with the racy title Epigrams about Epigrams. This will be part two of today’s story. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. These men were Union soldiers during the War Between the States … What is an epigram? A dwarfish whole; Its body brevity, and wit its soul. —Samuel Taylor Coleridge … Since brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief. —William Shakespeare … To write an epigram, cram. If you lack wit, scram! —Michael R. Burch … An aphorism can never be the whole truth; it is either a half-truth or a truth-and-a-half.—Karl Kraus … An epigram is a flashlight of a truth; a witticism, truth laughing at itself.—Minna Antrim … An epigram is only a wisecrack that’s played at Carnegie Hall.—Oscar Levant … Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams.—W. Somerset Maugham … Certain brief sentences are peerless in their ability to give one the feeling that nothing remains to be said.—Jean Rostand … Epigrams succeed where epics fail.—Persian Proverb … There are aphorisms that, like airplanes, stay up only while they are in motion.—Vladimir Nabokov … An aphorism ought to be entirely isolated from the surrounding world like a little work of art and complete in itself like a hedgehog.—Friedrich Schlegel … Exclusively of the abstract sciences, the largest and worthiest portion of our knowledge consists of aphorisms: and the greatest and best of men is but an aphorism.—Samuel Taylor Coleridge … In the mountains the shortest route is from peak to peak, but for that you must have long legs. Aphorisms should be peaks: and those to whom they are spoken should be big and tall of stature.—Friedrich Nietzsche … It is the nature of aphoristic thinking to be always in a state of concluding; a bid to have the final word is inherent in all powerful phrase-making.—Susan Sontag … Most maxim-mongers have preferred the prettiness to the justness of a thought, and the turn to the truth; but I have refused myself to everything that my own experience did not justify and confirm.—Lord Chesterfield … Aphorisms … are the forms of ”eternity”; my ambition is to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a book.—Friedrich Nietzsche … Our live experiences, fixed in aphorisms, stiffen into cold epigrams. Our heart’s blood, as we write it, turns to mere dull ink.—Francis H. Bradley … If, with the literate, I am, Impelled to try an epigram,  I never seek to take the credit;  We all assume that Oscar said it. — Dorothy Parker … Brevity is the soul of lingerie. —Dorothy Parker … Selah.

While researching a post about Molly Ivins, PG stumbled onto a lovely site called Booknotes. ( Auto start warning. Nobody is perfect.) This site enables authors promoting their latest books. It seems to have gone out of business in December 2004, but the interviews are still available. PG likes to listen to “stuff” while he edits pictures, and Booknotes appears to be a treasure chest.
The multi tasking soundtrack last night was a chat with Hendrik Hertzberg, who is familiar to readers of The New Yorker. BTW, the majority of TNY readers live west of the Hudson River. Supposedly, the biggest number of readers is in California.
In 1965, Mr. Hertzberg was about to get drafted. At the time, this meant a one way ticket to Vietnam. Young men looked for alternatives to this, some of which were legal and moral. Mr. Hertzberg heard about an organization called the National Student Association. “And so I went to work after college for the National Student Association for a year. And it wasn`t just because the National Student Association was a wonderful cause that advanced liberal ideas and fought communism abroad and all of that sort of thing. Later, we learned that it was a CIA front, but I didn`t know that. What I did know was that if you worked for the National Student Association, you didn`t get drafted, that — it wasn`t exactly that you were deferred, but anyway, nobody got drafted while working for the National Student Association, so it was a way to have a year without worrying about getting drafted.”
The National Student Association has a facebook page, which one person likes. “The 1967 revelation of NSA’s ties to the Central Intelligence Agency sparked a national scandal, but did not measurably damage NSA.”
The CIA was involved in all sorts of things in those days. ( It still is today.) One of the fronts was Radio Free Europe. When PG was a kid, the cartoon shows had a commercial for Radio Free Europe. (It was different from the one embedded here.) These fund raising commercials were part of the scam. These commercials netted around $50k a year, out of a total budget of several million dollars. ( source )
Soon after the war stories, the conversation turns to religion/tribal allegiance. LAMB: Explain this. “The Nuremberg laws would say I`m Jewish. The Law of Return would say I`m not.” HERTZBERG: Well, according to the Nuremberg laws, if you have a — if you had a Jewish father, the Nazi classification, you were a Jew. But the Law of Return, where — what entitles you to citizenship, automatic citizenship in Israel, you`ve got to have to have a Jewish mother. So I`m Jewish one way, I`m not Jewish the other way. I guess I feel sort of 51 percent Jewish because my name, Hertzberg, sounds Jewish, and therefore, people respond to me, often assume that I`m … 100 percent Jewish.”
This conversation was in 2004, when BHO was a little known Senator. Today, BHO, who had a white mother, is routinely considered black. If you go by the laws of the Nazis, BHO is black. If you go by the laws of Israel, BHO is white.
Mr. Hertzberg took a break from journalism to write speeches for President Jimmy Carter. Mr. Hertzberg is a member of the Judson Wellover Society. HERTZBERG: Judson Wellover was the very first White House speech writer. Not the first person to write speeches, ghost write speeches for a president — that would probably be Alexander Hamilton for George Washington — but the first person who was ever hired just to write speeches in the White House was Judson Wellover. He was hired by Warren G. Harding, and he — it was such a matter — it was such a shameful thing to have somebody writing — hired to write speeches that they hid his salary in the budget of the White House garage. And when we started, when Bill Safire and I started the Judson — the society of sort of a marching and chatter society or dinner — we have a dinner every couple of years of White House speech writers from all administrations, we named it after Judson Wellover.
Warren Harding is credited/blamed for coining the phrase “founding fathers”. It is not known whether Mr. Wellover was involved. Pictures today are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”. The spell check suggestion for Hertzberg is Herbert.

A blog called Unqualified Offerings has a thought provoking story this morning. It is about the apparent victory of rebel forces in Libya. There is a quote from The Economist that puts the net up.
“Libya will have an impact on NATO too. The military alliance that faced down the Red Army might have been expected to crush the clumsy forces of Colonel Qaddafi in days. Instead it took five months of fighting and 17,000 air sorties. An embarrassment for NATO? Not at all. The alliance has had a good war so far (who said “stalemate” not long ago?) and is winning the best kind of victory given the circumstances: one achieved mostly by Libyans themselves. Rebels entered the capital without a single Western soldier visible on the ground (though there were some special forces). NATO air attacks, as well as weapons supplied by friendly Gulf states, aided the rebels. But they alone manned trenches, which will give them added legitimacy in months to come. “
Those weren’t boots on the ground, they were Gucci loafers. The CIA, and the for profit contractors, have been active in Libya for a long time. This “coalition of the billing” represents the USA just as much as the young troops we love to love. And the people they kill are just as dead.
Another item in the Economist quote was the 17k air sorties. It is assumed that most of those were by the United States. It is another safe assumption that with jet fuel, and laser guided smart bombs, that these air sorties cost a pile of money. At a time when the government is broke, and the Washington wise guys are screaming for cuts in spending, the cost of these air sorties needs to be looked at. ( The special forces are also more expensive to operate than uniform troops.)
PG first heard of Unqualified Offerings in the fallout after the Mavi Marmara incident. There were two posts, I Already Shot You, and 60-Year Mortgage . . . Of BLOOD Bwa Ha Ha! Here are a few quotes.
“Israel not only no longer faces any enemies who pose an existential threat, it doesn’t even have enemies who can thwart any strongly held Israeli policy aim. No state is going to go to war to “destroy Israel.” I doubt any state particularly wants to. Certainly no state that might want to can do so. But beyond that, no state is going to go to war on behalf of the Palestinians and the Palestinians lack the power to launch an effective war on their own behalf.”
“For all practical purposes, Israel has its original goal, formal control of all of Mandate Palestine west of the Jordan, within its grasp. Because it’s not completely insensible to global political reality, it can’t just annex the West Bank and be done with it, but it can plainly add any given piece of the West Bank to itself at any time. Roughly ten percent of Israel’s Jewish population lives in the West Bank or East Jerusalem. They’re not moving back. Israel does have to finesse the public-relations of the process, but the public relations are subordinate to the process. And Israel has to deal with the demographic issue: there are all these darn Palestinians. Everyone thinks that eventually Israel has to make nice with them somehow. Israeli actions suggest that Israel thinks it just needs them cowed and poor. And while a visible expulsion would look bad for the cameras, there’s always “encouraging” Palestinians to emigrate over time.”
” Viewed institutionally and leaving moral questions aside, it counts as a triumph of grand strategy. Israel bought off Egypt with Egypt’s own territory. It convinced Jordan to bow out, and plain beat Syria like a rodeo clown. Lebanon could be broken any time and was, and the Lebanese were always falling all over themselves to help. At this point, Israel has also destroyed the ability of the Palestinians to mount any consequential resistance of their own. Just as Hezbollah couldn’t occupy a single Israeli exurb in a trial of a thousand years, no Palestinian organization can stop Israel from planting its flag on any particular spot of the West Bank for so much as a week.”
” This is not Israel “shooting itself in the foot.” This is Israel winning. Be for that or against it, but at least recognize it.”
“On the other side, frequently foreigners make sad faces. I am thinking that Israel counts this among the acceptable costs. You can consider this anything from a travesty of justice to the fulfillment of God’s Divine Plan. But it sure looks like “winning” to me, on its own terms. “
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress .

Some may find this hard to believe, but sometimes I don’t have anything to say. That is what archives are for. A few items from this time in 2007 will provide space between the pictures. These images are courtesy of ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”
Four years ago, I was making local deliveries. Talk radio was a part of the delivery lifestyle.One day I was at a red light next to the Big Chicken … I was at a stop light by The Big Chicken. I asked her, “What do you think of Newt Gingrich?” The Big Chicken rolled her eyes. The beak opened and shut.
One post from those more innocent times has the festive title he told her the time . Those who read “The catcher in the rye” remember how the girls always knew what time it was. In all fairness, I have not heard the commercial described in this story again. Either the radio network had a fit of morality, or the advertiser did not pay for any more time…
I was listening to a radio whiner named Mike Gallagher. He is flamboyantly conservative, with a special emphasis on illegal immigration. He speaks often about his Christian beliefs. (I can’t bring myself to use the word faith…it has been ruined by the Jesus worshipers)
The station he is on in Atlanta is 920 WGKA. It is owned by Salem Broadcasting, which will not carry Neal Boortz because he is pro choice and supports Gay Marriage. (OK, I am taking Squeal’s word on this. It could be that his syndicate wants too much money to carry the show).
I first became aware of WGKA two years ago, when they had billboards all over town…”WGKA 920 AM…LIBERALS HATE US”. Most Liberals don’t even know they exist. I am not sure that Liberals exist.
Now, there is a certain commercial that I hear on the Mike Gallagher show on WGKA 920. It is for a souped up radar detector that claims to block the signals from police radar. They advertise that if you get a speeding ticket while using their device, that they will pay for it. An actress in the commercial says “I’ve got a smart man in a fast car. Lets get moving”.
This product helps people violate the law. Excessive speed has been shown time and time again to be a major factor in highway deaths. And this “Conservative Christian” is promoting a product that helps people violate this life saving law.

PG should have listened to his inner guiding voice. Those were some great dreams, and you can have some more if you just stay in bed. Call Uzi, tell him you don’t feel like going to that silly parade, he will understand. Of course, PG does lots of sleeping in these days, and feels the need to go out and be part of humanity. The first indication that this might not be a very good day was the dreaded smell of burning food. PG forgot to turn down the flame on his breakfast veggies, the water in the steamer boiled up, and the result was not pleasant for any of the senses. He made some ramen noodles, opened the windows and doors to the kitchen, and got a call from Uzi. Just meet me in front of the GP building. Uzi and PG live off different branches of the Marta north line. The logical thing to do was ride the trains downtown, and meet up there. Two years ago they did this, and while there were a lot of people, the crowds were manageable. You could make plans to meet someone, and actually do it. At the Chamblee station, there was a line of people at the Breeze card machine. This is bad omen number two. Those machines are temperamental at the best of times, and waiting behind families, unfamiliar with breezecardmachine use and loaded with children in costume, is trouble waiting to happen. PG got the trips loaded onto his card, and made his way up to the platform. Chamblee is the next to last stop on this line, and when the train arrived, it was standing room only. It got progressively more crowded, until the mob scene at Peachtree Center. Doing anything… going through turnstiles, going up an escalator, even walking up the 169 step stairs… involved waiting in line. PG had some vague idea about going to the food court and getting coffee. He left the station through the unfamiliar north end, and saw that one of the exits was boarded over. This seems to happen every time he goes downtown. Thinking he was doing the right thing, he climbed the 169 unit stairs. When he left the station, he was horrified. It was a mob scene. Not only was it a struggle to take two steps in any direction, PG was on the side of Peachtree across from Georgia Pacific. He got his phone out to call Uzi, but tracphone was only doing emergency calls. PG looked at the entrance to Marta, and almost went home. The crowd was a bit less intense going north, towards the Regency. The Marching Abominables  played, and PG decided to try to find a better place. He walked around the Sun Trust building, where the bronze Barbie dolls outside looking bored. If you went around the block, you could find a spot on Baker Street, where the nurses home for St. Joseph hospital used to sit. A building could block the direct sun, and the crowd was thin enough to see the marching weirdos. One of the issues PG faced … in addition to hunger, heat, crowds and lack of coffee … was a general lack of enthusiasm for the whole fantasy trip. Not that he wasn’t tolerant, it just didn’t amuse him. The nonstop barrage of marching chemicals, medieval wenches, starship troopers, and red eyed mutants just plain got boring after a while. (There was a subtext of violence. Many of the costumes were based on critters offing other critters. Many of these killers wouldn’t last five minutes in a real firefight. This make believe murder was another reason to be over this scene.) Is PG an old fogey? An elderly dullard with no life? Maybe. YOU GOTTA PROBLEM WITH THAT? Finally, enough was enough. PG made his way to a train station, and was on the way home. There were six messages on his machine. Uzi had gotten his message, and had sent calls to PG’s home phone. Other comments are borrowed from twitter. Some people enjoy DragonCon. They are welcome to it. Spend your money here, and go home when it is over… Dear guy at #DragonCon wearing the shirt that says “Dead girls can’t say no”: what is wrong with you? No, seriously. What. … Attn. MARTA ride customers: If you are barking like a dog all the way to the dome, you probably shouldn’t be rude to our #DragonCon riders ,,, If anyone has a photo of me being chased through the Marriott lobby by a xenomorph, please email it to me … Just saw Darth Vader with a Mickey Mouse head walk by. #DragonCon (nightmares) … Finally in the Walking Dead panel.. After the staff let in the side of the line that had NOT been waiting an hour like us. Dbags … A 20-sided die in UGA colors! My worlds are colliding today. … To the ultimately annoying person behind me in the Grand Ballroom, turn off the bloody beeping!! … $70 for William Shatner’s autograph … Apparently everyone going to the big football game is staying in our hotel. It’s like high school again … Thought for the day: “I love the sound of zip ties in the morning.” … There are too many Waldos at #Dragoncon. Takes the challenge out of it, you know? … Well, it’s only Saturday and already I’m sick of #DragonCon. … and to the #dragoncon staffer who was so gentle and polite when my temper frayed after the panic attack: thank you. You were awesome. … This conversation I can’t help overhearing is making me depressed. KackassCon? #DragonCon … #dragoncon is just no fun. No fun at all. If you aren’t here you aren’t missing anything! #hardtotypewithastraightface … I wish that people attending a Q&A, would ask a Q to get an A. … All of the costumes w/ random hipster glasses tacked on: NO. Automatic failure. … nerds at #dragoncon love to show off their #FatNerdBoobs … Shatner, after 10 minutes of storytelling, “So… what was the question again?” … Just saw Al and Peg Bundy cosplayers. That makes me very happy!! #dragoncon … holy #FatNerdBoobs Batman! #dragoncon … everyone knows he died in 1973, right after “Poseidon Adventure.” “@MarkArum: I just met Ernest Borgnine. #dragoncon rocks.” …. Pokemon drinks beer. who knew? #dragoncon … OMG. So many UGA fans on #MARTA. @itsjentastic and I might die. Where are the #dragoncon nerds or the crackheads. … When you are at #dragoncon, please take the time to check out “Rigamortis: A Zombie Love Story.” A 30m zombie musical 11:30PM on 9/3 … DragonCon. I believe I have all of my Steampunk outfits packed. The bike gets packed tomorrow for shipping on Monday. We live our art. …

PG was going to write about some depressing subject. People that are not kind to each other. People in Israel and people in Gaza just don’t seem to get along. Somebody driving a “faded red F-150 pickup truck” in Livonia MI was mean to a little girl. (HT to Neo Prodigy .)
There is a saying, “if a story seems too bad to be true, it probably isn’t”. PG tried to google that phrase, and got confused. Then he seemed to remember reading it in a column by Molly Ivins. Another google adventure, and there was this film. Miss Ivins, who met her maker January 31, 2007, was promoting a book. She sat down with a bald headed man to talk about it. PG could only listen to 24:30 of this video before being seized with the urge to write a story. There is a transcript, which makes “borrowing” so much easier. This film has 34 minutes to go, which just might yield another story or two.
Molly Ivins was a Texas woman. These days there is a lot of talk about Texas, with Governor Big Hair aiming to be the next POTUS. Mr. Perry claims that his record as Texas Governor qualifies him to have his finger on the nuclear trigger. Miss Ivins repeats something that PG has heard before… “in our state we have the weak governor system, so that really not a great deal is required of the governor, not necessarily to know much or do much. And we’ve had a lot of governors who did neither. “ It makes you wonder how much of that “economic miracle” is because of hair spray.
Texas politics makes about as much sense as Georgia politics. For a lady, with a way with words, it is a gold mine. “the need you have for descriptive terms for stupid when you write about Texas politics is practically infinite. Now I’m not claiming that our state Legislature is dumber than the average state Legislature, but it tends to be dumb in such an outstanding way. It’s, again, that Texas quality of exaggeration and being slightly larger than life. And there are a fair number of people in the Texas Legislature of whom it could fairly be said, `If dumb was dirt, they would cover about an acre.’ And I’m not necessarily opposed to that. I’m–agree with an old state senator who always said that, `If you took all the fools out of the Legislature, it would not be a representative body anymore.'”
We could go through this conversation for a long time, but you probably want to skip ahead and look at pictures. ( Which are from The Library of Congress ) There is one story in this transcript that is too good not to borrow. For some reason, Molly Ivins went to work for The New York Times, aka the gray lady. In August of 1977, she was in the right place at the right time.

LAMB: And how long did you spend with The New York Times as a reporter?
Ms. IVINS: Six years with The New York Times. Some of it in New York as a political reporter at City Hall in Albany and then later as bureau chief out in the Rocky Mountains.
LAMB: Would you take a little time and tell us about reporting on the funeral of Elvis Presley?
Ms. IVINS: Oh, now there is something that when I’ve been standing in the checkout line at the grocery store and if I really need to impress people, I just let fall that I covered Elvis’ funeral. And, boy, people just practically draw back with awe. It may yet turn out to be my greatest claim to fame.
I was sitting in The New York City Times one day when I noticed a whole no–knot of editors up around the desk having a–a great scrum of concern, you could tell. It looked sort of like an anthill that had just been stepped on. And it turns out–The New York Times has a large obituary desk, and they prepare obituaries for anybody of prominence who might croak. But it turns out–you may recall that Elvis Presley died untimely and they were completely unprepared.
Now this is an enormous news organization. They have rock music critics and classical music critics and opera critics, but they didn’t have anybody who knew about Elvis Presley’s kind of music. So they’re lookin’ across a whole acre of reporters, and you could see them decide, `Ah-ha, Ivins. She talks funny. She’ll know about Mr. Presley.’
So I wound up writing Elvis’ obituary for The New York Times. I had to refer to him throughout as Mr. Presley. It was agonizing. That’s the style at The New York Times–Mr. Presley. Give me a break. And the next day they sold more newspapers than they did after John Kennedy was assassinated, so that even the editors of The New York Times, who had not quite, you know, been culturally aton–tuned to Elvis, decided that we should send someone to report on the funeral. And I drew that assignment. What a scene it was.
LAMB: You–you say in the book that you got in the cab and you said, `Take me to Graceland.’ The cabbie peels out of the airport doing 80 and then turns full around to the backseat and drawls, `Ain’t it a shame Elvis had to die while the Shriners are in town?’
Ms. IVINS: That’s exactly what he said. `Shame Elvis had to die while the Shriners are in town.’ And I kind of raised by eyebrows. And sure enough, I realized what he–what he meant after I had been there for awhile because, you know, Shriners in convention–I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a whole lot of Shriners in convention, but they were having a huge national convention that very week in Memphis. And they tend to wear their little red fezzes, and sometimes they drink too much and they march around the hotel hallways tooting on New Year’s Eve horns and riding those funny little tricycles and generally cutting up and having a good time. That’s your Shriners in convention, always something very edifying and enjoyable to watch. But they–every–every hotel room in Memphis was occupied with celebrating Shriners, and then Elvis dies and all these tens of thousands of grieving, hysterical Elvis Presley fans descend on the town.
So you got a whole bunch of sobbing, hysterical Elvis fans, you got a whole bunch of cavorting Shriners. And on top of that they were holding a cheerleading camp. And the cheerleading camp–I don’t know if your memory–with the ethos of the cheerleading camp, but the deal is that every school sends its team–team of cheerleaders to cheerleading camp.
And your effort there at the camp is to win the spirit stick, which looks, to the uninitiated eye, a whole lot like a broom handle painted red, white and blue. But it is the spirit stick. And should your team win it for three days running, you get to keep it. But that has never happened. And the way you earn the spirit stick is you show most spirit. You cheer for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You cheer when the pizza man brings the pizza. You do handsprings end over end down the hallway to the bathroom. I tell you, those young people will throw–show an amount of spirit that would just astonish you in an effort to win that stick.
So here I was for an entire week, dealing with these three groups of people: the young cheerleaders trying to win the spirit stick, the cavorting Shriners and the grieving, hysterical Elvis fans. And I want to assure you that The New York Times is not the kind of newspaper that will let you write about that kind of rich human comedy.
LAMB: Why?
Ms. IVINS: Because The New York Times, at least in my day, was a very stuffy, pompous newspaper.
LAMB: What about today?
Ms. IVINS: A little bit better, little bit better than it was.
LAMB: And…
Ms. IVINS: Has–has–it has a tendency, recidivist tendencies, though. You–you will notice if you read The Times, it–it collapses into pomposity and stuffiness with some regularity.
LAMB: Why did you leave it?
Ms. IVINS: Well, I–I actually got into trouble at The New York City Times for describing a community chu–chicken killing out West as a gang pluck. Abe Rosenthal was then the editor of the Times and he was not amused.
LAMB: Did–but did they let it go? Did they let it…
Ms. IVINS: Oh, no. It never made it in the paper. Good heavens, no. Such a thing would never get in The Times in my day.
POSTSCRIPT PG found some pictures, marked up the text, and was ready to post the story. He decided to listen to a bit more of the discussion between Molly Ivins and the bald headed man. When he got to this point, it became apparent that he could listen to Molly Ivins talk, or he could post his story, but he could not do both at the same time.
Ms. IVINS: Oh, well, of course, I’m gonna make fun of it. I mean, Berkeley, California, if you are from Texas, is just hilarious.
LAMB: Why?
Ms. IVINS: Well, of course, it is just the absolute center of liberalism and political correctness. And it is a veritable hotbed of people, of–bless their hearts, who all think alike, in a liberal way. And, of course, I’m sometimes called a liberal myself, and you would think I would have felt right at home there. But I just am so used to–I’m so used to Texas that I found the culture at Berkeley hysterical.

The Prairie-Grass Dividing

The prairie-grass dividing, its special odor breathing,
I demand of it the spiritual corresponding,
Demand the most copious and close companionship of men,
Demand the blades to rise of words, acts, beings,
Those of the open atmosphere, coarse, sunlit, fresh, nutritious,
Those that go their own gait, erect, stepping with freedom and command,
leading not following,
Those with a never-quell’d audacity, those with sweet and lusty
flesh clear of taint,
Those that look carelessly in the faces of Presidents and governors,
as to say Who are you?
Those of earth-born passion, simple, never constrain’d, never obedient,
Those of inland America.

When I Peruse the Conquer’d Fame

When I peruse the conquer’d fame of heroes and the victories of mighty generals,
I do not envy the generals,
Nor the President in his Presidency, nor the rich in his great house,
But when I hear of the brotherhood of lovers, how it was with them,
How together through life, through dangers, odium, unchanging,
long and long,
Through youth and through middle and old age, how unfaltering,
how affectionate and faithful they were,
Then I am pensive—I hastily walk away fill’d with the bitterest envy.

We Two Boys Together Clinging

We two boys together clinging,
One the other never leaving,
Up and down the roads going, North and South excursions making,
Power enjoying, elbows stretching, fingers clutching,
Arm’d and fearless, eating, drinking, sleeping, loving.
No law less than ourselves owning, sailing, soldiering, thieving, threatening,
Misers, menials, priests alarming, air breathing, water drinking,
on the turf or the sea-beach dancing,
Cities wrenching, ease scorning, statutes mocking, feebleness chasing,
Fulfilling our foray.

A Promise to California

A promise to California,
Or inland to the great pastoral Plains, and on to Puget sound and Oregon;
Sojourning east a while longer, soon I travel toward you, to remain,
to teach robust American love,
For I know very well that I and robust love belong among you,
inland, and along the Western sea;
For these States tend inland and toward the Western sea, and I will also.

Here the Frailest Leaves of Me

Here the frailest leaves of me and yet my strongest lasting,
Here I shade and hide my thoughts, I myself do not expose them,
And yet they expose me more than all my other poems.

No Labor-Saving Machine

No labor-saving machine,
Nor discovery have I made,
Nor will I be able to leave behind me any wealthy bequest to found
hospital or library,
Nor reminiscence of any deed of courage for America,
Nor literary success nor intellect; nor book for the book-shelf,
But a few carols vibrating through the air I leave,
For comrades and lovers.

A Glimpse

A glimpse through an interstice caught,
Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room around the stove late of a winter night,
and I unremark’d seated in a corner,
Of a youth who loves me and whom I love, silently approaching and seating himself near,
that he may hold me by the hand,
A long while amid the noises of coming and going,
of drinking and oath and smutty jest,
There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little,
perhaps not a word.

A Leaf for Hand in Hand

A leaf for hand in hand;
You natural persons old and young!
You on the Mississippi and on all the branches and bayous of the Mississippi!
You friendly boatmen and mechanics! you roughs!
You twain! and all processions moving along the streets!
I wish to infuse myself among you till I see it common for you to
walk hand in hand.

Earth, My Likeness

Earth, my likeness,
Though you look so impassive, ample and spheric there,
I now suspect that is not all;
I now suspect there is something fierce in you eligible to burst forth,
For an athlete is enamour’d of me, and I of him,
But toward him there is something fierce and terrible in me eligible
to burst forth,
I dare not tell it in words, not even in these songs.

I Dream’d in a Dream

I dream’d in a dream I saw a city invincible to the attacks
of the whole of the rest of the earth,
I dream’d that was the new city of Friends,
Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love, it led the rest,
It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city,
And in all their looks and words.

What Think You I Take My Pen in Hand?

What think you I take my pen in hand to record?
The battle-ship, perfect-model’d, majestic,
that I saw pass the offing to-day under full sail?
The splendors of the past day? or the splendor of the night that envelops me?
Or the vaunted glory and growth of the great city spread around me? —no;
But merely of two simple men I saw to-day on the pier in the midst of the crowd,
parting the parting of dear friends,
The one to remain hung on the other’s neck and passionately kiss’d him,
While the one to depart tightly prest the one to remain in his arms.

To the East and to the West

To the East and to the West,
To the man of the Seaside State and of Pennsylvania,
To the Kanadian of the north, to the Southerner I love,
These with perfect trust to depict you as myself, the germs are in all men,
I believe the main purport of these States is to found a superb friendship,
exalte, previously unknown,
Because I perceive it waits, and has been always waiting, latent in all men.

Sometimes with One I Love

Sometimes with one I love I fill myself with rage for fear
I effuse unreturn’d love,
But now I think there is no unreturn’d love,
the pay is certain one way or another,
(I loved a certain person ardently and my love was not return’d,
Yet out of that I have written these songs.)

To a Western Boy

Many things to absorb I teach to help you become eleve of mine;
Yet if blood like mine circle not in your veins,
If you be not silently selected by lovers and do not silently select lovers,
Of what use is it that you seek to become eleve of mine?

Fast Anchor’d Eternal O Love!

Fast-anchor’d eternal O love! O woman I love!
O bride! O wife! more resistless than I can tell, the thought of you!
Then separate, as disembodied or another born,
Ethereal, the last athletic reality, my consolation,
I ascend, I float in the regions of your love O man,
O sharer of my roving life.

Among the Multitude

Among the men and women the multitude,
I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs,
Acknowledging none else, not parent, wife, husband, brother, child,
any nearer than I am,
Some are baffled, but that one is not—that one knows me.

Ah lover and perfect equal,
I meant that you should discover me so by faint indirections,
And I when I meet you mean to discover you by the like in you.

O You Whom I Often and Silently Come

O you whom I often and silently come where you are that I may be with you,
As I walk by your side or sit near, or remain in the same room with you,
Little you know the subtle electric fire that for your sake is
playing within me.

That Shadow My Likeness

That shadow my likeness that goes to and fro seeking a livelihood,
chattering, chaffering,
How often I find myself standing and looking at it where it flits,
How often I question and doubt whether that is really me;
But among my lovers and caroling these songs,
O I never doubt whether that is really me.

Full of Life Now

Full of life now, compact, visible,
I, forty years old the eighty-third year of the States,
To one a century hence or any number of centuries hence,
To you yet unborn these, seeking you.

When you read these I that was visible am become invisible,
Now it is you, compact, visible, realizing my poems, seeking me,
Fancying how happy you were if I could be with you and become your comrade;
Be it as if I were with you. (Be not too certain but I am now with you.)

Poems are from Leaves of Grass, Book V: Calamus by Walt Whitman.
Text is courtesy of Project Gutenberg.
Formatting of text, and pictures, by Chamblee 54. Calamus Part One  , Calamus Part Two
The spell check suggestions for Calamus are Camus, Musicals, Musical.