Neil Sheehan
In 1988, C-SPAN presented a five part interview with Neil Sheehan. He was promoting a book, A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. Mr. Sheehan was a reporter in Vietnam during the early years of the war. Here are some highlights.
LAMB:(Brian Lamb, host of Booknotes) Neil Sheehan, author of “A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam.” What role did the press play in the war? Mr. SHEEHAN: At the beginning, I suspect the press helped us to go to war in Vietnam. The the press was in gen the the the the news media of this country, in my opinion, tend to be quite conventional. They reflect conventional ideas. They are not the cabal of liberal plotters that the right wing would have us believe, at least, that thus that thesis doesn’t stand up to reality in my experience.
Mr. SHEEHAN: Let me back up for one moment. There’s a considerable misimpression about the role of the press in Vietnam all along and particularly in this early period. The reporters who went to Vietnam early on, like myself, were not anti war dissenters. We were very much in favor of American intervention in Vietnam. We had the same set of illusions everyone else did. What we wanted to what we felt was our well, was our duty excuse me we felt our duty was to report the truth, so that the president would know what was happening in Vietnam the president and the rest of the leadership and win the war. And the advisers in the field, like John Vann, told us, `Look, this isn’t working. The policy isn’t working. We’re losing. And here’s why.’ And we were writing these stories and and they were being denounced.
Mr. SHEEHAN:… the South Vietnamese army wouldn’t fight, that the Diem regime (Ngo Dinh Diem, President of South Vietnam before November 2, 1963) was deliberately holding deliberately holding it back from fighting, that they wouldn’t take on the Communist guerrillas. Because Diem wanted to preserve his army as a force in being to to preserve his regime. The Americans thought of the army, the South Vietnamese army, as a force with which to fight the Communists. Diem saw it as a force to keep him in power. And so he had a he had a secret order out to his commanders not to take casualties. And the advisers couldn’t get them to tangle with the with the guerrillas, and they would tell us this.
Mr. SHEEHAN: .. it was stupid to be shelling and bombing civilian hamlets, that we were just killing women and kids and we were turning the population against us. He (John Paul Vann) showed us the extent to which the ARVN, the Regular South Vietnamese Army, was avoiding contact with the enemy and would not fight the Viet Cong, would not take them on. He showed us the extent to which we were arming the guerillas through these outposts. Again, John would gather the data, precisely how many American arms were going to precisely how many outposts and we ended up – as I said in the book, we ended up arming the Viet Cong in South Vietnam with American weapons because the American generals were pouring weapons into the South Vietnamese Militia and the Viet Cong were collecting them from these outposts. And so, you were giving a communist guerilla who had a bolt action French rifle a fast firing semiautomatic M1 Garand, which was a World War II weapon, but which was a very good weapon in the mid – in the early 60s. This was prior to the fully automatic weapons, the M16, et cetera. The Garand was a fine weapon and we were arming our enemy. … the United States of America, are arming our enemy and giving them far better weapons than with than they already have and we’re going to change the whole the whole kind of wa we’re going to change the war we’re fighting. We’re we’re creating a a monster here.’
LAMB: Given your experience, and this book and other books, could a Vietnam ever happen again to the United States? Mr. SHEEHAN: No. Well, not in the foreseeable future. I think Vietnam has changed this country, for the foreseeable future, at least. I an event like Vietnam is unique in the history of a country. Vietnam was our first bad war …. And it was the first it was the first war in which Americans could get could and did get killed for nothing. Now the Europeans had learned that you could go to war and get killed for nothing, that you could go to war and and your in which you could get involved in a war in which your le leadership was was was driven by illusions rather than reality. We had never learned that as a nation. … And so I think the impact of that on us has been so profound, because the war was so divisive that it remains with us today and you ca the president of the United States cannot so blithely send Americans off to war as he does not have the power to do it that Kennedy and Johnson had, because the public doesn’t give him the credibility that it gave them those presidents.
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
Tax Law
There was a bloggingheads discussion with Bob Wright and Ann Althouse. If you are worried about the visuals, it was a split screen, and they kept their clothes on. At the 12:30 mark, Ms. Althouse discussed a DOMA case that is going before the SCOTUS.
The plaintiff in question is probably Edie Windsor. “On Monday, lawyers filed a petition on behalf of Edith “Edie” Windsor, an 83-year-old lesbian from New York, asking the Supreme Court to review her case, … Windsor sued the government in 2010, after the death of her partner of more than 40 years forced Windsor to pay more than $363,000 in federal estate tax on her partner’s estate. Windsor and Thea Spyer were married in 2007, in Canada, and while New York recognized the marriage, the federal government did not. When Spyer got sick, she chose to leave her entire estate to Windsor. Had Windsor been married to a man, she would not have had to pay any estate tax, according to court documents; therefore, her suit argues, DOMA violates the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.”
The rest of the discussion was lively. PG listened to the entire thing. Mr. Wright explained why there was a closed coffin when JFK was buried. Somehow, this secular twosome got onto religion. Ms. Althouse said that people believe what they want to believe. The peroxide did not seem to affect her delivery. There were no commercials.
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
The Girls’ Guide To Hunting And Fishing
PG was riding his bike one afternoon. He rode by a house with trash at the curb. Part of the loot was paperback books. A few months later, the time to read had come. The amazon one stars would say not to buy The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing, that it was not worth the hype. When you find a book that is thrown away, this is not a factor. PG had never even heard the phrase “chick lit”.
GGTHF got off to a slow start. The hero, Jane, goes to the beach with her parents, and meets her brother’s gf. PG was about to put the story down, until dad said, “Hair is the roof of the soul”.
There are seven sections to this book. They are loosely connected by the participation of Jane Rosenal, the daughter of a Philadelphia doctor. In one chapter, her only participation is living in an apartment upstairs from the action. This chapter is confusing. Someone’s son shows up for dinner with a new gf. The son announces that the gf is pregnant, as is his ex wife, and he is the daddy for both babies.
The author of this tale is Melissa Bank. The book is copyrighted 1999, and took twelve years to write. Ms. Bank is still alive, and stays in East Hampton, NY. At the 96 minute mark of this video, she explains why her continued existence is remarkable. While riding a bike home from radiation treatment, Ms. Bank was hit by a car. She landed on her head, and forgot vocabulary. This is a problem for a writer.
The last two chapters of GGTHF have a different feel from the first five. PG speculated they were written by a another person. After hearing about the bike wreck, this different style makes a bit of sense.
The last chapter is puzzling. Jane gets a book on manipulating men, and talks to the authors. In the end, she ignores the book, and gets kissed.
Debaptism
PG is a recovering Baptist. However, he was never baptized.
The Baptists like to pressure pre adolescent children into making a “Profession of Faith”. Every Sunday, the mob would sing “Just as I am” and the kids would walk down the aisle, shake the preachers hand, and be recruited into the Baptist way of life.
Every few weeks, the Church would fire up the Baptismal pool, and go to work. The house lights would dim, and the young Baptists were dunked in the pool.
A while back, the wiring was carelessly installed in a Baptist building. The Preacher was electrocuted when he used the microphone in the Baptismal Facility.
Now, the British have an answer. The Church of England goes for infant baptism, using the sprinkle on the noggin. This is too much for some, who object to the indoctrination into the cult of Jesus Worship, made before a person is eating solid food. One answer is the “Certificate of Debaptism”
The certificate is the work of the National Secular Society , which suggests hanging it in the loo. The various churches involved thus far decline to remove the baptized from any church records. The certificate is purely symbolic.
The text above is a repost. HT (for the original post) to JoeMyG-d. Pictures (with one obvious exception) are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
The importance of baptism is questionable. To some , it is a big deal. In a society without an official state religion, there are few measurable benefits or penalties for being registered in a religious organization. The concept of baptism is essentially symbolic. It is usually practiced on children, often on infants. Many adults realize that this children’s ritual no longer fits the person they are.
The National Secular Society has a web page about the efforts of people to make their de baptism official. Some of the stories are worth reading.
From Chris Taylor: After reading about other NSS members successfully managing to ‘de-baptise’ themselves I thought that I would give it a crack with the CofE mob. I emailed the diocese where I was dunked many years ago asking if I could be struck from the record as I have always thought it to be a load of old rubbish and said that if my parents had given me the choice of going through some sort of black magic voodoo ceremony performed by a probable child abuser in a dress I would, even at the age of 6 months, have said thanks but no thanks. I received a reply telling me that there was nothing that I could do about it. I replied asking again, suggesting that it would be easy, and a good christian deed (as these christers like to call it) to simply remove me from their register but it was to no avail. They replied again saying that it was just not possible and that I would just have to live with it. I would be interested to know if anyone has been successful with CofE as the RC lot seem to give different answers to different people. Maybe it depends on how god is feeling at the time!
Here is the reply sent by the Catholic Church, to someone who wanted to officially cut his ties :
If you have decided formally to renounce your Catholic faith, there is a simple procedure. You need to write to an official known as the diocesan chancellor for the area within which you were baptised. Give him as much detail as possible about where and when you were baptised, and briefly state the reasons why you wish no longer to be considered a member of the Catholic Church. Keep it factual and avoid anything that he might construe as aggressive or insulting to the Catholic religion.
A note will then be made in the baptismal register of the Church where you were baptised stating that you have formally renounced your membership of the Catholic Church. For all legal purposes, both in the law of the Church, and, where applicable, in civil law, you will no longer be considered a Catholic. It is not possible to cancel your baptism as such, since baptism is regarded by the Church as leaving an indelible mark on the soul, but of course, this will not concern you since you no longer believe in that.
2013 edition: If you click on the National Secular Society spot, you get this: “Sorry, the page ‘/official-debaptism.html’ is no longer available.” In it’s place is Debaptized dot com. The symbol of the new movement is the hair dryer. (Perhaps if Jesus had died at the hair salon, people would worship the hair dryer.) The Debaptist Church is pastored by Reverend Thomas Wubby.
TDC offers many services, including debaptism by proxy. Recently debaptized people include Andreas Jambak Nilsen, Ivan Popovski, Craig Nicholson, Christopher Price, and Peter Von Burg. The FAQ does not indicate if donations are tax deductible.
Sunday Afternoon
PG: you can see more scenery at the park without listening to my comments
Uzi: you assume that i am listening
Fools Quotes Religion
The conversation started when East Point Man posted a graphic of Mark Twain. The beloved writer is clutching a pipe, leaning back in an easy chair, with his white hair flying in a hundred directions. The quote is “Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool.” Readers of this blog should know what happens next.
PG- Wikiquotes does not show Mr. Twain saying this. I searched under religion, invented, and fool. He might have said it, but I do not see a source. While I agree with the concept, I strongly suspect that Mr. Twain did not say this.
EPM- Wikiquotes is not a reliable source..
EPM- Goodreads Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool. – Mark Twain
PG- Do you know when, where, and under what circumstances? Also, the context would be fun to know. Online quotes can be fun, but they leave out a lot of useful information.
EPM- Like you I agree with the concept.. as for the validity.. hard to say.. I have found it listed on several well known sites.. but it is not listed on the Mark Twain quote website. and i also found this
EPM- Ne’er the Twain did speak it
EPM- whether or not he said it is not as important as the message that so many others agree on..but in this digital age.. anyone could have said anything lol
PG- When you go looking for information, or to verify information, you are liable to find out something unexpected. Often the journey is far more interesting than the destination. I agree with the essential truth of the original quote, even as I dispute who said it. I have long suspected that people like Twain and Oscar Wilde had interesting friends, whose witty sayings were borrowed by the famous scribe. Thank you for the link to Zebra fact check.
EPM- agreed..like the email warnigs that you get sometimes warning you fo a product and such.. I usally attempt to find out if something is true or not before I send it out to anyone else.. Facebook posts are different as most people agree with the content and pay less attention to the delivery of it
EPM- You are welcome.. the Zebra page is new to me too.. and will be using it to check on things
PG- This is a favorite subject of mine. You can fool all the people all the time, if the people want to be fooled. The christian religion places great emphasis on believing, and less on whether this belief is the truth. Even for those who have moved away from religion, this emphasis on belief… on mythos over logos… is present.
PG- Also, I don’t know if wikiquotes is a total authority, but it is a good place to start your search. While the absence of a quote in wikiquotes does not mean the quote is completely bogus, it is evidence thereof. There is a difference between prove and indicate. While a quote not being in wikiquotes does not prove that it is phony, it certainly is evidence that something is amiss.
EPM- I personally find all the wiki sites to be unreliable as they let anyone put in the information and I do not see any actual checks and balances. but as a starting point.. they can always be a starting point as long as you do not rely on them soley. just my opinion
Two links are used in this discussion. Goodreads parrots the quote without any more information. The page is sponsored by a cleaning product called Swiffer.
Zebra Fact Check is the star of this story. They do more than searching for key words on wikiquote, which is what this slack blogger does. Here is the key paragraph from “Ne’er the Twain did speak it”.
“We were poised to interview experts on Mark Twain and do searches of available databases of the author’s works, but the patterns in simple Google searches suggested an easier alternative. All the Google hits for our set of keywords lacked a source attribution, a classic symptom of spurious quotations, and more importantly the hits were recent. We revised our search criteria to look for an origin of the quotation. It didn’t appear before 2002 on the Web. Anti-religious quotations from famous people just don’t go unused over that length of time. If Twain wrote or said it, somebody would have quoted it online before the year 2000.”
Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
World Premieres In Atlanta
Several movies have had a world premiere in Atlanta. We will take a look today. Pictures are from the “Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”. Information about the films is from the Internet Movie Database. This is an encore presentation.
As some of you may know, “Gone With The Wind had it’s world premiere at the Lowes Grand Theater on December 15, 1939. The Lowes Grand site is the current location of the Georgia Pacific building. There is a vacant lot next door, on top of some MARTA paraphernalia. This lot was the site of the Paramount Theater, another movie palace that did not survive.
The GWTW premiere was a big deal. Ten year old Martin Luther King Jr. sang with his church choir. Clark Gable requested a private meeting with Margaret Mitchell, who became the envy of every woman in America. When Mr. Gable checked out of his hotel, a lady was going to be given his room. The clerk asked for a minute to change the sheets on the bed, and the lady said, no, I want to sleep on the same sheets as him.
It was the golden age of movies, and the next year Atlanta hosted the first showing of “Who Killed Aunt Maggie”. The premiere was at the Rialto, on October 24, 1940. The review at IMDB said it was an enjoyable mystery, even if it was a cliche fest. It is not often seen today.
In 1946, “Song Of The South” had it’s premiere at the Fox Theater. SOTS is a controversial item these days. It was based on the Uncle Remus stories, which were written down by Joel Chandler Harris. For those who don’t know, these stories were told by the rural black people that Mr. Harris knew when he was growing up near Eatonton GA. As Wikipedia tells the tale “Controversy surrounding his southern plantation themes, narrative structure, collection of African-American folklore, use of dialect, and Uncle Remus character, however, has denigrated the significance of Harris’ work”. In other words, Brer Rabbit is not politically correct.
The reviews at IMDB tell a different tale. To them, SOTS is a happy children’s movie. The Disney company seems to wish it would go away and be forgotten. Copies are tough to come by these days. PG would say to see it for yourself and make up your own mind, but Disney won’t let you.
The female lead in SOTS was Ruth Warrick. Miss Warrick was a versatile talent. Her first movie role was in “Citizen Kane”, as Kane’s first wife. She was in many movies, before moving to television. She was perhaps best known as Phoebe Tyler, in the soap opera “All My Children”. Wikipedia tells a story about her, that is ironic for the female lead of “Song Of The South”
“In July 2000, she refused to accept a lifetime achievement award from the South Carolina Arts Commission because she was offended by legislators’ decision to move the Confederate flag from the state Capitol dome to another spot on the grounds in response to a boycott of the state by flag opponents. A lifelong supporter of African-American rights, she felt the flag should be removed completely, and commented, “In my view, this was no compromise. It was a deliberate affront to the African-Americans, who see it as a sign of oppression and hate.”
In 1949, the Paramount had the first screening of “The Gal Who Took The West”. The female lead was Yvonne De Carlo, who later achieved immortality as Lily Munster. In November 1951, the spotlights returned to Lowes Grand for “Quo Vadis”.
The last film in the GSU picture collection is “The Last Rebel”. This western had it’s premiere at the Rialto, May 27, 1958. The movie was a return to Atlanta glory for Olivia De Havilland. The film is the story of a man, whose wife dies in a fire during the war between the states. PG questions the use of the Stars and Bars on the marquee.
In 1974, Ringo Starr produced and acted in “Son of Dracula”. The movie had it’s world premiere at the Cherokee Plaza Theater. Cherokee Plaza is a shopping center on Peachtree Road, just east of the Atlanta city limits. The theater was torn down during a renovation, and the space is currently the produce department at Krogers.
A local radio station hired a band to play in the parking lot at the premiere. At some point, a long limousine pulled up to a stage, and Ringo Starr and Harry Nillson got out. Both were wearing sunglasses, even though it was after dark. Ringo got on the stage, waved a wand at the crowd, and said “I am turning you into frogs”. He went inside to see the movie, the crowd went home, and the movie was mercifully forgotten.
In 1981, PG went to a supper in an apartment building (now a vacant lot) across from First Baptist Church on Peachtree Street. There was a commotion down the street at the Fox, and PG went to see what it was. “Sharkey’s Machine” had it’s World Premiere that night.
Turn The Beat Around
The 1996 version of TTBA
was playing in a Buckhead dancehall.
HG: when did that girl last eat a decent meal?
PG: the first time this song was a hit.
The girl in tonight’s video gets plenty to eat.
HT Grawly Get Well Soon.
International Women’s Day
PG heard about International Women’s Day on facebook. A fbf friend posted a link to the event. A picture went along with that link. A lady was holding up a sign, “DISCOVER BP’S FEMININE SIDE”. The lady was smiling, and the picture was cropped so that the fingers were seen holding the picture. These fingers were in the same position, on opposite sides of the sign, pointing in. Slick.
This is not getting off to a good start. Fortunately, twitter nation is onto this. Whle BP has facebook, Chevron has the top spot on twitter. @Chevron Happy Intl Women’s Day! How will you celebrate women’s achievements? We help women start businesses. Watch:http://spr.ly/6013neXV #IWD 
@WomensHumor Happy International Women’s Day! Let us remember that we may have a long way to go, but we will always have men by the balls. #IWD
@whitehouse Statement from the President on International #WomensDay: http://at.wh.gov/izQ1H #IWD
@AnnieLennox Please watch & share: @AnnieLennox personal video message: End Gender Based Violence #IWD #MakeItHappen
@safeworld4women #IWD Child brides, female foeticide, genital mutilation: what has changed in 100 years?
@lindatheactor A man just said “Happy Women’s Day Madam” to me. I explained why I would be happy when we no longer need an #IWD. It ain’t Christmas, is it?
@DaveMc99TA :( RT @peterdaou This stat is horrendous beyond words: leading cause of death for pregnant women is homicide http://po.st/nxTsHR #IWD
@yoisthisracist khyros asked: Happy International Women’s day, dogg.
@YourAnonNewsThank the earth for women, especially on this, International Women’s Day. Thanks for everything comrades! We salute you! | #Anonymous #IWD
@BarbieStyle Happy #WomensDay, dolls! Remember… If you can dream it, you can do it. If you believe it, you can be it! #IWD pic.twitter.com/JrI5A9xr5l
@GOPunplugged Mitt Romney celebrated International Women’s Day by only firing women today.
@UNDP In some parts of the world a girl is more likely to be raped than to learn how to read. #stoptheviolence http://on.undp.org/ilA6W #IWD
And so on and so forth. Maybe the best way to celebrate International Women’s Day is to reclaim it from the oil companies and politicians. Celebrate by having a life. A woman played a key role in giving it to you. The pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Is This Racist?
Andrew Ti
an Asian man
writes Yo is this racist?
Andrew takes questions
and usually says yes
Andrew calls people “Dogg”
things are “wack”
Andrew throws many a stone from his glass house
Agnotology
Agnotology is the study of ignorance. It is not connected to Agnetha Fältskog, the Abba G-ddess. One messenger of this noun says “Today I learned the word “agnotology,” or the study of why we do not know what we do not know. These are the “unknown unknowns,” the questions we don’t even know to ask.”
PG found the messenger’s blog through a google search for the phrase “G-d is a concept through which we measure our pain”. The resulting post was about the death of John Lennon. The embedded video has a guest appearance by Howard Cosell, a well known scholar of ignorance.
There is a book, Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance. A two star review hits on a cause of ignorance, the inability to communicate knowledge.
Bartolo interesting, but beware, if you value good writing June 11, 2011
… It is the level of writing that is atrocious. Maybe I should have waited for the Bill Bryson version, or for anyone who could use these materials to fashion a book that doesn’t insult the language and waste one’s time. These writers, to a person, are academics, and almost all should be soundly thrashed with a hardbound copy of Strunk & White. This is a compendium of every fault scholarly writing is heir to: wordiness, redundancy, needless complexity of sentence structure (often designed to mask or extend mundane observations), pointless jargon, infelicitous phraseology, obscurantism, even lame humor (as per the double entendres in the essay on the clitoris, by a feminist no less!) that probably plays better in the senior seminar than in a book intended for mature adults. These scholars write as though being paid by the word–and for a nonexistent editor. The book could have been half its length with no sacrifice whatever to the content.
A facility called ResearchGate offers an article about agnotology. You need to pay to see the article. The disclaimer is free. “Data provided are for informational purposes only. Although carefully collected, accuracy cannot be guaranteed. The impact factor represents a rough estimation of the journal’s impact factor and does not reflect the actual current impact factor. Publisher conditions are provided by RoMEO. Differing provisions from the publisher’s actual policy … may be applicable.”
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This feature is written like H. P. Lovecraft.
Rob Bell Incorporated Wrote A Book
PG saw a link for “What We Talk About When We Talk About God by Rob Bell.” The first sign of trouble was the video starting by itself as the window opened. Auto start is the work of the devil.
So, the equal sign/arrow duality was clicked (does anyone know which is stop and which is play?), and the man started to talk. He had the preacher cadence, his voice rising and falling in every sentence. At one minute and one second, he said that for many people today, G-d is like Oldsmobile. There is only two minutes and nine seconds left, so it won’t hurt to listen to the rest.
There were few surprises in the rest of the video. Some people don’t agree with what they are told about G-d. Others believe, but don’t like it. Mr. Bell, in the biggest non surprise of all, has a book coming out, What We Talk About When We Talk About G-d. The video is a sales pitch for the book.
While looking for material to go with this post, PG found a 1932 cartoon. A young man rescues Lucille, and takes her driving in his Oldsmobile. The man and woman get married. The Parson does not look, or sound, like Rob Bell.
The youtube comment crowd is pushing pixels. javawocky I think you need to decide who you are going to trust – Rob Bell, or Jesus Christ. You may have noticed the Rob never quoted a single scripture here, its just his ideas. Rob never performed miracles, he never rose from the dead, and he never lived a sinless life. I strongly urge you go back and seriously study what the bible says not Rob Bell. kueagle1 No, I disagree. You believe or you don’t believe. Preachers like Bell are preaching to tickle liberal ears, not what is in the bible. The preacher here is talking about advocating the new modern liberal attitudes of reinterpreting the bible in ways to support their present opinions. What is written plainly in the bible doesn’t seem to matter, only the liberal heresy.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Chamblee54 
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