Nine Eleven Story
This is my 911 story. I repeat it every year at this time. If you saw it last year, it has not changed. Feel free to skip the text and look at the pictures.
I was at work, and someone called out that someone had run a plane into the World Trade Center. I didn’t think much of it, until I heard that the second tower had been hit, then the Pentagon, then the towers collapsed, then a plane crashed in Pennsylvania.
I focused on my job most of the day. There was always a lot of melodrama at that facility, and concentrating on my production duties helped to keep me saner. This was roughly the halfway point of my seven year tenure at this place.
One of the other workers was a bully for Jesus. He was a hateful loudmouth. After the extent of the damage became known, he shouted “They are doing this for Allah,” and prayed at his desk. The spectacle of the BFJ praying made me want to puke.
I became alienated from Jesus during these years. Once, I had once been tolerant of Christians and Jesus, as one would be with an eccentric relative. I began to loath the entire affair. I hear of others who found comfort in religion during this difficult time. That option simply was not available for me.
Flood Facebook
There is a meme going around. With tomorrow the anniversary of our national humiliation, this sort of thing seems to be rampant. The text reads:
Everybody, let’s do this… let’s flood facebook with this: “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands. One nation under G-d, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all” RE-POST IF YOU THINK G-D, OUR COUNTRY, OUR FLAG, AND OUR MILITARY DESERVE RESPECT!!! Let’s just see how AMERICANS will repost!
Posting ugly graphics does not show respect. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Who Is The Racist?
A few weeks ago, this blog published a feature, James Baldwin And The Six Letter Word. At the center was selection of James Baldwin talking about the n word. There was a transcript available, which makes today’s exercise a lot easier. Pictures for this adventure are from The Library of Congress.
Mr. Baldwin was discussing this nasty word, and offered an insight into who the user of this nasty word was really talking about. Now, there is another nasty word being casually tossed about these days. This other nasty word is racist. What would happen if you took Mr. Baldwin’s talk, and substituted racist for nasty? It is an interesting way to look at things.
Who is the racist? Well i know this…and anybody who has tried to live knows this. What you say about somebody else (you know) anybody else, reveals you. What I think of you as being is dictated by my own necessities, my own psychology, my own uhm fears…and desires. I’m not describing you when I talk about you…I’m describing me.
Now, here in this country we got somebody called a racist. It doesn’t in such terms, I beg you to remark, exist in any other country in the world. We have invented the racist. I didn’t invent him, white people invented him. I’ve always known, I had to know by the time I was seventeen years old, what you were describing was not me and what you were afraid of was not me. It had to be something else. You had invented it so it had to be something you were afraid of and you invested me with it.
Now if that’s so, no matter what you’ve done to me I can say to you this, and I mean it…I know you can’t do any more and I’ve got nothing to lose…and I know and I have always known you know and really always..…I have always known that I am not a racist…but if I am not the racist…and if it is true that your invention reveals you…then who is the racist?
I am not the victim here. I know one thing from another. I know that I was born, am gonna suffer and gonna die. And the only way that you can get through life is to know the worst things about it. I know that a person is more important than anything else. Anything else. I’ve learned this because I’ve had to learn it. But you still think, I gather, that the racist is necessary. Well he’s not necessary to me, so he must be necessary to you. So I give you your problem back. You’re the racist baby, it isn’t me.
Nuclear Unclear Number Nine
The folks at Bloggingheads.tv have another glowing diavlog with John Horgan and Rod Adams. They talk about nuclear energy. Chamblee54 has written about these gentlemen twice. Mr. Adams thinks nuclear energy is safe, cost efficient, and just plain dandy. In this appearance, his moustache is no bigger, and he has a full beard to go with it. The new look works well.
As noted in the previous two posts, Mr. Adams is a master of rhetoric. He gets going along, throwing out twenty kiloton words like beads at a Mardi Gras parade. Before long, your eyes are glazing over. PG could only listen to sixteen minutes of the latest installment.
For those who are new here, PG is not totally anti nuke. The side effects of fossil fuels like oil and coal are considerable. In theory, nukes can be operated safely. It would require constant, corruption free oversight from somebody, usually a government of some sort. The problems of a mistake can be devastating. PG thinks solar is our best option, but realizes that it is not happening anytime soon in the you ess aa. There are no easy solutions, and a lot of problems any way you go.
Mr. Adams likes to respond to comments. This is in written form, and easy to paste into a blog post. Here is a comment from the recent discussion. “I’m pretty sure I did not claim that Fukushima cores were not melted. I did claim that only a small quantity of radioactive material would be released outside of the containments. I might have underestimated a little; but the quantities that were released really were tiny in physical terms when compared to the amount of material in the core or when compared to the billions of tons of waste products dumped every year as a result of fossil fuel combustion.”
Lets take a look at that. The size and weight of radioactive materials is not the problem. A relatively small plane was able to carry the nuke that destroyed Hiroshima. The problem with nukes is the radioactive juice contained in those small amounts of matter. The mass of the matter that was released at Fukushima is not the problem. Like the motivational slogan says, its not the size of the dog in the fight, its the size of the fight in the dog. To compare the mass of the material released from Fukushima, to the millions of tons of CO2 released into the air every year by fossil fuels, is misleading.
In a verbal discussion, Mr. Adams throws factoids like this out one after another. He spices these statements with big words, which may, or may not, deserve to scare people. It can be a bit overwhelming. It is like the last line of this spam email “NOTE : If You Receive This Message In Your Junk Or Spam Its Due To Your internet Provider.”
Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
090913
Henry Kissinger told a joke to Richard Nixon. It became known as Mr. Nixon’s favorite joke. A man asked Richard Wagner, Do you spell your name with a W. He replied, Nien, W.
)()()( oops, the shift key just loves to make trouble. Lets try this again. Be sure to leave the 9mm alone. Or use the canine squad. If you see Kay, give her love potion number nine.
090909 was a really neat day. And not just two days later was 911, and we know goes on then. 090909 was the last day of its type until 01/01/2101. A day expressed by three zeros and three single digits.
Nine is the largest of the single digit numbers. It is a baseball team, without the DH. A baseball game lasts nine innings, just like a pregnancy lasts nine months. A pregnancy is not considered a complete game if it is rained out after the fifth inning.
Nine is pronounced the same as No in German. Was 090909 known in Berlin as oh no, oh no? Did Yoko Ono make an appearance to celebrate? Did the mask work better for her than it did for John?
Nine is an odd number. Nine is three squared. If you multiply a number by nine, and then add the digits of the sum together, you will get nine. An example is 2×9=18, and 1+8=9.
Nine is six upside down. A pristine pastime popularized 69. Jimi Hendrix wondered if six turned out to be nine, he don’t mind. The Beatles did a song called Revolution number nine, which said “turn me on dead man” if played backwards. Number Nine, Number Nine, Number Nine.
This was originally posted 090909. It was adapted on 090913 for use in the Trifecta writing challenge. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
It Works For Dolly Parton
Back when he trolled Jesus worship blogs, PG saw many of his helpful comments being deleted. He learned to keep a word document open on his desktop, and to compose his comments there before going live. When facebook happened, this habit came in very handy. Often, what seemed like a good idea, upon reflection, looks like something best left unsaid. What follows is a collection of these comments. Some were posted. Some were not. They might not make much sense in this format. You can always skip over them and look at the pictures. These pictures are from The Library of Congress. They are Union Soldiers from the War Between the States. They did not get a chance to see if their actions were appropriate before taking them. ~ All three labels are useless and misleading. I try not to let the labels of others describe me, but sometimes it happens. It is a bit of poetic license. ~ That food has so many preservatives that it does not matter. ~ I remember the drought of 2007. This is a blessing. It would be best if we had the reservoir capacity to keep some of this water. I am afraid we are little better at managing water than we have been in the past. The powers that be are more concerned with building football stadiums, and divide and conquer race baiting, than they are with providing for our water needs. This surplus will not last. ~ Originally known as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (later the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, still later British Petroleum) ~ The only DC thing I have ever done is the parade. After the nightmare of 2012, I learned to stay in Brookhaven that weekend. ~ “even those whose hearts have grown cold” That is unfair. Many people have had a tough time with religion. Often, it is because of the “person in a family who truly prays”. Often, when this prayer makes a person “feel it”, what they feel is pain and despair. ~ 1-I have been checking the list on the site for the past two weeks. I did not know about the layers that could be turned off. 2- There ore only six walls shown for 2013. 3- The condescension in your comment is neither appropriate nor helpful. ~ 1-I know how to use the zoom tool. This, however, is the first time I have seen the parallel lines for layers. Actually, this interactive popup thing is not that great. Last year I made a list of the walls, and I had to click on every wall to get the address. I then pasted this list into the side of a map. Of course, I had a list of all the walls, and the conference was still going on. I did not go to the goat farm party, so I cannot comment. I realize that this is a volunteer effort. Still, it shouldn’t be that complicated to post a list of the walls. And sarcasm from the producers does not make up for a lack of basic competence. 2- My offer to help stands. I can call someone and have the list dictated to me over the phone. ~ I don’t think that is a good idea. They have some privacy issues, and they are probably valid. ~ Don’t forget Metastatic memes ~ You can turn the TV off and ignore her. ~ It is not just celebrities. Many nobodies seem to feel that rude behavior somehow makes them a somebody. This applies to both poc and pwoc. ~ Lilly Von Schtup ~ porpoise tv show ~ commercial hustle treasure ~ spring pollen tree seed ~ ~ yellow lemon peel ~ slurp down florida orange juice ~ grapefruit is left out ~ ~ As if the ban on gay donors wasn’t enough, there is the reality of the blood business. ~ reheated leftover pancakes are almost as good as the fresh variety ~ The VPOTUS is supposed to go to funerals and dedicate buildings. The fact that Mr. Cheney had the power that he did is a significant failing of the Bush43 administration. The good news is that Laura Bush kept a low profile. ~ You could always wear a wig. It works for Dolly Parton. ~ Except make money for political patrons. ~ I have only made it to number three. I might finish, and I might not. The rant about perceived racism is a reason to not finish this piece. It is ironic to see this anti racist pearl clutching combined with snark about alcoholism. Many of the extreme anti racists I have known are heavy drinkers. ~ “…talking smarter and showing more leadership than any of the disappointments we have had since he left office. ” You might say that about Ronald Reagan. ~ Which is why he should not do jokes about comedy. ~ There is a popular saying that uses the three words everyone, opinion, and asshole. An especially obnoxious sort of opinions/beliefs are those about G-d, or lack thereof. ~ There is a space to the left of anus, just wide enough for another letter. ~ There comes a time when silence is betrayal Dr. M.L. King ~ What about making noise when you don’t know what you are talking about? ~ Not everyone who motivates you to action has good intentions. It takes wisdom to tell the difference. The problem is that when you are angry you are not as smart. ~ just as awesome as Iraq ~ the reality of the blood business. ~ Not responding to a facebook post should not be mistaken for lack of concern. ~ Which makes it rather offensive when people invoke his legacy for selfish reasons. ~ Georgia is not going to fall into the Pacific Ocean. ~ One problem is when one of the haters talks to someone. It can be an unpleasant surprise to see who has been infected. ~ Were any of those site run by law enforcement to entrap users? If so, were these people busted? It is tough to know what is going on here. Child pornography is the reddest of red herrings. ~ was that the video with a cow flying upside down? Could this be why? ~ I found this meme last march. Do you notice how they don’t have a date for Mental Health Awareness Week? ~ That is a nice looking image. So many memes are graphically challenged. ~ I guess you had to be there. BTW, the “racist” joke was about Indians. ~ Selah.
Leo Frank And George Zimmerman
About this time one hundred years ago, Leo Frank was convicted of murdering Mary Phagan. Within two years, with the sentence commuted to life imprisonment, some people kidnapped him from a state prison. Leo Frank was taken to Marietta, and hung from an oak tree.
George Zimmerman is the object of the mob’s fury today. The two cases are different. There is little doubt that Mr. Zimmerman fired the weapon, that killed Trayvon Martin. There is considerable doubt about the guilt of Leo Frank. Much of the venom directed at Mr. Frank was because he was Jewish. Trayvon Martin was the unpopular minority in the current case.
The common thread in the two cases is media fueled demands for vengeance. The Supreme Court took note of this in the Frank case. “Mob law does not become due process of law by securing the assent of a terrorized jury.”
Tom Watson was one of the leading rabble rousers in Mr. Frank’s case. A politician and newspaper owner, Mr. Watson led the anti semitic charge. Today, a large bronze statue of Tom Watson is in front of the west side of the State Capitol. This side is the preferred site for rallies. Tom Watson is seen shaking a finger behind the speakers stand.
So far, the mob has not executed George Zimmerman. It is not out of the question. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
Kermit’s Finger
Jury Duty is BORING! Y’all need to send me jokes/stories/photos to my phone to entertain me!!!!!
Why do mama kangaroos hate rainy days? Because the kids have to play inside all day.
Why did the computer go to the doctor…?
Why was the calendar depressed? His days were numbered.
A Lawyer, a Doctor and a Priest are on a plane full of children.. About halfway through, the captain gets on the speaker and says “we have lost all engines and are going down. Please prepare yourselves the best you can.” The Lawyer runs to the cabin and asks the captain for a parachute. The captain replies we only have 3 spares. The lawyer grabs all 3 and returns to the Doctor and Priest. The Doctor asks “Are there really only 3 Parachutes??” The Lawyer replies “Yes” The Doctor Says “what about the Children?” The Lawyer says “Screw The Kids” the Priest replies… “Do we have time?”
What is green and slimy and smells like bacon? Kermit’s Finger!
A police officer attempts to stop a car for speeding and the guy gradually increases his speed until he’s topping 100 mph. He eventually realizes he can’t escape and finally pulls over. The cop approaches the car and says, “It’s been a long day and my tour is almost over, so if you can give me a good excuse for your behavior, I’ll let you go.” The guy thinks for a few seconds and then says, “My wife ran away with a cop about a week ago. I thought you might be that officer trying to give her back!”
What’s Irish and stays out in the rain? Patty O’Furniture
I would take you a joke about my penis, but its too long.
Mug Shots
These glamor shots are courtesy of Gwinnett County. The guests are held by a legal tether in the loft of bad behavior. With bravery and grace they wear the crown of presumed guilt.
Seven Brilliant Quotes
There is a little graphic floating around, Seven Brilliant Quotes. Some find these sayings to be inspirational. PG smells a rat. Here are the seven quotes:
William Shakespeare – Never play with the feelings of others because you may win the game but the risk is that you will surely lose the person for a life time.
Napoleon Bonaparte – The world suffers a lot. Not because of the violence of bad people, but because of the silence of good people.
Albert Einstein – I am thankful to all those who said NO to me. Its because of them I did it myself.
Abraham Lincoln – If friendship is your weakest point then you are the strongest person in the world.
Martin Luther King Jr. – We must learn to live together as brothers or we will perish together as fools.
Mahatma Gandhi – The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
Abdul Kalaam – It is very easy to defeat someone, but it is very hard to win someone.
If nothing else, research into the veracity of these quotes should provide some amusing text to go between the pictures. When you go looking in the land of google, there is no telling what you will find. During this expedition, the first page rule will be in effect. Only results on the first google page will be considered. The NB quote has 1.7 million results, which is too much work.
Lets begin with Willie the shake. Did he really say “Never play with the feelings of others because you may win the game but the risk is that you will surely lose the person for a life time.”? Or, as they say in the Yahoo village, Does anyone know where this Shakespeare quote comes from?
hugeshantz Does anyone know where this Shakespeare quote comes from? I’ve seen this quote all over the internet, always attributed to Shakespeare, but I can’t find a legitimate source of where it comes from (i.e. a specific sonnet, play, speech, etc.): “Never play….” Can anyone help me out here?
Dude the Obscure This is 20th/21st century psychobabble. Shakespeare never wrote anything remotely resembling that. Please never trust any of these idiotic “internet quote sites.” They are all, all, all crap. I can’t believe that any intelligent person could think for a minute that this was written by Shakespeare. Really. Get some critical-thinking skills, child.
The next quote is by Napoleon Bonaparte, not Napoleon Dynamite. “The world suffers a lot. Not because of the violence of bad people, but because of the silence of good people.”
Before we consider the veracity of this quote, lets consider two things. NB did not speak english, so there is likely to be translation confusion. Second, the wars NB started caused widepread suffering. Little of this suffering was caused by the silence of good people.
The sources on page one do little except show the quote, usually with the credit going to NB. No one shows when or where he said it, or in what context. Brainyquotes doea not show it on the NB pages.
Number three is from Albert Einstein.” I am thankful to all those who said NO to me. Its because of them I did it myself.” According to Shelly Winters, Marilyn Monroe did not say no to Dr. Einstein. Google has a doozy of a forum, Misquoting Einstein?.
Jimmy Snyder says the quote has been attributed to Dorothy Parker, Yogi Berra, William Shakespeare, The Bible, Benjamin Franklin, and Groucho Marx. This is a clue that the quote is bogus.
zoobyshoe’s I just found this an another wiki page discussing the quote page: “I am thankful …” This is being attributed to Einstein on the Internet, but it appears to come from Wayne W. Dyer’s book You’ll See It When You Believe It, page 54, according to Google Books. Dyer does not attribute it to Einstein, but mentions Einstein in the same paragraph. “In my office I have two framed posters. One is a picture of Albert Einstein, beneath which are the words “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.” The other poster is made up solely of words: “I am grateful to all those people who said no. It is because of them I did it myself.” Great thoughts!”
Ryan_m_b’s “Never believe quotes you read on the internet” – Winston Churchill zoobyshoe’s His actual words were: “The internet has nothing to offer, but blood, tears, toil, and misquotes.”
It should not be surprising that Winston Churchill finds his way into this discussion. He has a taste for the spotlight, even 47 years after his demise. He is an example of how truthiness is sometimes all you need. His most famous speech was a radio address during a bad part of World War Two. The speech was read by an actor. England was inspired, and went on to win the war. Why should anyone worry if an actor gave his speech for him?
This is enough fun for one day. There will be a part two soon, and it will probably be full of number two. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Welcome to part two of the Chamblee54 due diligence report on the Seven Brilliant Quotes. In part one, we checked out the first three. At no time was a source for the quote found. All three are suspect, with “misunderstanding” indicated in the Albert Einstein quote. It is amazing how quickly accepted these sayings are by the inspiration hungry public.
Getting back to business, did Abraham Lincoln say “If friendship is your weakest point then you are the strongest person in the world.” There are lots of links to this quote, in a variety of fonts and colors. Some have spectacular photography in the background. However, none of these links has a source for this quote, or any indication of the context.
Wikiquotes has 43,444 words about Abraham Lincoln. PG copied these words, and did a search for the word “friendship”. The quote from the poster was not found. The meme is missing. This wikiquotes test has been very useful for checking out quotes. It is not authoritative, but is a good place to start.
This type of research can be frustrating. Being inspired by beautiful words can give you strength and purpose. It can also make you feel foolish, when the lovely words are revealed to be lies. Being a cynic gets lonely. Children of all ages don’t like to be told that there is no Santa Claus.
The good news is that number five is for real. Martin Luther King gave a speech at Western Michigan University in 1963. There is a probably his standard speech, given many times. The second section of the speech is “Call for action.”
“The world in which we live is geographically one. Now we are challenged to make it one in terms of brotherhood. Now through our ethical and moral commitment, we must make of it a brotherhood. We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will perish together as fools. This is the great challenge of the hour. This is true of individuals. It is true of nations. No individual can live alone. No nation can live alone.”
“I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality. [W]e’re challenged after working in the realm of ideas, to move out into the arena of social action and to work passionately and unrelentingly to make racial justice a reality.”
“[W]e must never substitute a doctrine of Black supremacy for white supremacy. For the doctrine of Black supremacy is as dangerous as white supremacy. God is not interested merely in the freedom of black men and brown men and yellow men but God is interested in the freedom of the whole human race, the creation of a society where all men will live together as brothers.”
PG has written about the problem of quoting Mohandas Gandhi before. Supposedly he said “I love your Christ, but I dislike your Christianity.” PG thinks this is a fabrication.
The quote on the poster is “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” Wikiquotes has a link to Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi Online. The next stop is page 302 of this section. Mr. Gandhi gave an “Interview to the press” in Karachi, on March 26, 1931. A freedom fighter named Bhagat Singh had been executed by the British three days earlier.
Do you not think it impolitic to forgive a government which has been guilty of a thousand murders?
I do not know a single instance where forgiveness has been found so wanting as to be impolitic.
But no country has ever shown such forgiveness as India is showing to Britain?
That does not affect my reply. What is true of individuals is true of nations. One cannot forgive too much. The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
The bottom line is from Dr. Abdul Kalam. (The name is misspelled on the poster.) The phrase is “It is very easy to defeat someone, but it is very hard to win someone.” Many viewers have no idea who this person is. Once again, Wikiquotes comes to the rescue. “Dr. Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam (born 15 October 1931) Indian scientist and engineer; 11th President of India; generally referred to as Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.” The quotes are from Wings of Fire: An Autobiography of APJ Abdul Kalam.
A search for the word “defeat” did not show results. A search for “win” shows a few, but not the poster child. The phrase on the poster is also credited to John Keats. There is also the story of the student who argues with an atheist professor, and ultimately wins. The student is sometimes said to be Albert Einstein. In this version, Argumnent : What, Who is GOD?, the coda is “This seems to be a true story, and the student was none other than APJ Abdul Kalam, the former President of India “.
The research for part one consisted of entering the quote into a search engine. It was not until the Lincoln investigation that the method of copying wikiquote, and searching for a key word, was discovered. Out of a sense of fairness, the first three quotes will be investigated using this method.
For William Shakespeare, the search word was risk. There were no results. For Napoleon Bonaparte, the search word was violence. There was one result. “There is no such thing as an absolute despotism; it is only relative. A man cannot wholly free himself from obligation to his fellows, and not the one on the poster. For Albert Einstein, the search word was thankful. There were no results.
So, there are seven quotes in the motivational poster. Only two of the seven have a apparent source. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The 2013 edition is a repost. This version is edited, out of concern for the attention span of the audience.
Road Rage Again
A slack blogger was driving down Button Gwinnett Drive, minding his own business. When he got to the light at Best Friend Road, an SUV pulled up in the neighboring lane. “You need to drive faster. The speed limit is forty, not thirty. Yea, go ahead and smile, I’ll kick your fucking teeth in.”
Button Gwinnett was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Less than a year later, he was in a dispute with Lachlan McIntosh. The gentlemen decided to settle the matter with dueling pistols, with fatal consequences for Mr. Gwinnett. PG was wondering if modern life was going to imitate history. The light turned green, and the SUV went forward, at an undetermined rate of speed.
A listener to this tale made the comment “no G-d no peace, know G-d know peace.” This is the spoken word, so the spelling is a guess. PG had the same reaction to this comment that he did to the angry young SUV speed racer. Say nothing, and avoid complicating discussion. Religion has been a source of misery for PG. Is this because of G-d, or the golden calf religions that man has instituted? Sometimes the best answer is to turn left when the light is green.
The Funeral Of Elvis
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.) This is a repost.
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.
Mr. 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.
Mr. 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.
Mr. 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.
Mr. LAMB: Why?
Ms. IVINS: Because The New York Times, at least in my day, was a very stuffy, pompous newspaper.
Mr. LAMB: What about today?
Ms. IVINS: A little bit better, little bit better than it was.
Mr. 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.
Mr. 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.
Mr. 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.
Mr. 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.
Chamblee54 
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