A Trillion Dollars
This is a repost, with pictures from The Library of Congress. The full text of one section is available, and has amusing stories about Richard Nixon and Antonin Scalia. This feature is about the national debt. When BHO took office, the annual federal budget deficit was over a trillion dollars. According to this source, the annual deficit is now $439 billion. This is more than the total national debt that the late Everett Dirkson was losing sleep over in the sixties. Nonetheless, it is considerably less than the deficit when BHO took office. BHO, bless his drone firing heart, is given credit for reducing the deficit more than any POTUS in history.
… The last quote is from another POTUS who is no longer with us, Ronald Reagan. “I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself.” Mr. Reagan was a professional actor, and he knew the value of a good script.
This slogan is another one that Mr. Obama may find handy. It should be noted that it was a big deal when the national debt (the grand total of the deficits) went over a trillion dollars. This was during the first term of Mr. Reagan. Today, under Mr. Obama, the annual deficit is over a trillion dollars. Sooner or later, you are talking about real money.
PG suffered brain damage trying to find out more about the quote from Mr. Reagan. He went through six pages of google. There must be 25 sites which have lists of quotes from Mr. Reagan, and all of them feature this quote. None have an actual source.
What was the context? When did he first say it? One site says it was “(during the latter years of his administration)”. Another site says it was “Said often during his presidency, 1981-1989”. Maybe this is an urban legend. As Mr. Reagan said, don’t believe everything you read on the internet.
Those of a certain age remember Everett Dirksen. A Republican Senator from Illinois, he was blessed with an operatic voice, and cursed with a face that could stop a clock. He is credited (or blamed) for the quote ” A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.” The Dirksen Congressional Center can neither confirm nor deny if he really said that. The discussion of this reputed quote does turn up a passage, that is germane to today’s conversation.
“One time in the House of Representatives [a colleague] told me a story about a proposition that a teacher put to a boy. He said, ‘Johnny, a cat fell in a well 100 feet deep. Suppose that cat climbed up 1 foot and then fell back 2 feet. How long would it take the cat to get out of the well?’
“Johnny worked assiduously with his slate and slate pencil for quite a while, and then when the teacher came down and said, ‘How are you getting along?’ Johnny said, ‘Teacher, if you give me another slate and a couple of slate pencils, I am pretty sure that in the next 30 minutes I can land that cat in hell. If some people get any cheer out of a $328 billion debt ceiling, I do not find much to cheer about concerning it.” [Congressional Record, June 16, 1965, p. 13884].
Senator Dirksen went to the fundraising dinner in the sky September 7, 1969. Twelve years later, the Reagan revolution was getting started. Taxes were cut, and spending increased. In a couple of years, the national debt went over a trillion dollars. (The annual budget deficit is now over a trillion dollars.) For those new to the game, a trillion is a billion, multiplied by a thousand. For all the numbers above, multiply by a thousand, to get a trillion.
In 1965, Senator Dirksen was losing sleep, over raising the national debt to $328 billion. The current national debt is estimated at $16,964,687,666,420. This is 5171% of 328 billion.
In 1965, the national debt was $328 billion, and we were losing 100 men every week in Vietnam. One of the more expensive things the government does is fight wars. Currently we are officially killing people in Afghanistan, and several more countries that no one knows about (nudge wink).
On September 11, 2001, The United States was attacked. Revenge was the order of the day. There are now indications that this was one of the goals of Al Queda. The Soviet Union imploded, in large part, because of the strain of fighting a war in Afghanistan. Now, the United States is waist deep in the same big muddy. Whoever is elected in 2016 will have to deal with this matter.
Afghanistan has a gross national product of $27 billion. The Congressional Research Service estimates the cost of American operations in Afghanistan for 2011 to be $119 billion. This is over four times the gross national product of Afghanistan. Pretty soon, you are talking about real money.
Detestable Horrendous Obnoxious
display of a link on this page is not an indication of approval ~ A Military Veteran Stands up for Colin Kaepernick ~ Crime in the U.S. • 2016 ~ table one ~ table three ~ 2015 Murder Statistics ~ Upcoming Execution Of Keith Leroy Tharpe Illustrates Legacy Of Lynching In US ~ Nashville church shooting suspect Emanuel K. Samson has Wednesday court date ~ Trump’s ugly battles with the NFL go way back ~ SCOTUS stays execution of Georgia death row inmate amid claims of racial bias ~ Why Conservatives on Campus Love Milo Yiannopoulos ~ Nashville parents charged with 1st-degree murder in son’s death ~ Ginger Baker: ‘I came off heroin something like 29 times’ ~ This Week’s Stupid 1-Star Review is from Kai Yes, kids are miserable, rotten, loathsome, ghastly, detestable, horrendous, obnoxious, bothersome, aggravating, vexatious, repugnant, revolting assholes, but that doesn’t mean that everyone who has to sit next to one gets free cheesecake. ~ Megachurch pastor begs for forgiveness after wife tells NFL protesters to wait for Jesus to fix racism ~ What Happens To Your Hotel Soap After You Check Out ~ Sasse calls out Richard Spencer in tweetstorm ~ 15 former restaurant chains ~ John Cale and David Bowie ~ Nobody’s Hero: 9 Inconvenient Truths about Che Guevara ~ Mother accused of plowing car into girls fighting in street ~ Razed in Atlanta: 6 great buildings we lost ~ @Kaepernick7 A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on. Winston S. Churchill ~ 9 Quotes From Winston Churchill That Are Totally Fake ~ Has Israel Effectively Colonized the United States? ~ I think it will take at LEAST another ten years of Hillary’s fans calling me racist to convince me to vote for her. ~ Pay ATTN:We share commentary, news articles, and videos that cover important societal topics as well as give you opportunities to take action. ~ “The post continues with what Americans must do to earn Kaepernick’s respect” I do not care if #7 does, or does not, respect me. I don’t have to do anything to earn that idiot’s respect. Just because he used to play quarterback, does not mean that I have to earn his respect. For that matter, I am not interested in his opinions about the flag, the national anthem, police brutality, or anything else. He is just a former professional entertainer. His opinions mean nothing to me. ~ If something is not racist, or you expand the definition of racism to include it, that is not being objective, that is being an idiot ~ Not once have I thought, “You know, I wonder what Colin Kaepernick thinks about this.” ~ Did anyone talk about Dylan Roof’s religion? BTW, both Mr. Roof and Mr. Samson were arrested alive. ~ the re-election tradition of the “my turn” candidate for the opposition ~ Jon Ossoff attacked Karen Handel for her auto allowance, and her traveling, while she served as Secretary of State. “The luxurious life of Karen Handel” turns out to be mild, compared to what Tom Price is doing. ~ The juror was drunk when he made the statement. I question the integrity of the attorney who took his statement. ~ TWITTERSPAT ~ @docrocktex2662% of Whites said a major reason police violence happens is civilians confront the police, rather than cooperate. ~ Half of blacks say police have treated them unfairly ~ @salanfann Implicit bias effects all around this. ~ @chamblee54 or maybe reading the reports on officer involved shootings ~ @salanfann What? Are you familiar with implicit bias research? ~ @chamblee54 i have taken an online version of the implicit bias test i don’t think it tells you anything i also follow police shootings ~ @salanfann And police reports are a paragon of veracity. Too many officers are closet racists or exercising their status with a rage addiction. ~ @chamblee54 the reports i read are from news outlets i believe media reports, on many cases, over twitter/fb, on selected cases ~ @salanfann @APNews was the source of the article “Half of blacks say police have treated them unfairly” Implicit bias study’s sponsored by Harvard, and ½ or more Media Outlets routinely comb AP for “news.” If you give implicit bias no credence, kindly seek professional help for your denial. ~ @chamblee54 go fuck yourself I have read about implicit bias – it is possible the tone of this message is bullshit most ois are justified ~ @salanfann It’s not enough to read about it, if 1 wishes to be aware of implicit bias’ impact. When 1 sees their own, vulnerability of others’s clear. ~ TWITTERSPAT @BenSasse No one loves American-vs-American fighting more than Putin. His intel agencies stoke both sides of every divide. ~ @RichardBSpencer In the minds of goober conservatives, the Russians are to blame for racial divisions. ~ @BenSasse 1/Oh let goobers & nongoobers agree on this: Racists like you are to blame. But Putin’s agencies also love using you as their divisive tool ~ 2/Don’t get me wrong: we’ll always have brown-shirt-pajama-boy Nazis like you & your lonely pals stoking division. But here’s America 101: ~ 3/ You don’t get America. You said: “You do not have some human right, some abstract thing given to you by God or something like that.” ~ 4/Actually, that’s exactly what America declares we do have: People are the image-bearers of God, created with dignity& inalienable rights. ~ 5/Sadly, you don’t understand human dignity. A person’s skin, ancestry, and bank balance have nothing to do with their intrinsic value. ~ 6/ This declaration of universal dignity is what America is about. Madison called our Constitution “the greatest reflection on human nature” ~ 7/ You talk about culture but don’t know squat about western heritage–which sees people not as tribes but as individuals of limitless worth ~ 8/ The celebration of universal dignity IS our culture, & it rejects your “white culture” crybaby politics. It rejects all identity politics ~ 9/ Sometime after moving back into your parents’ basement, you knock-off Nazis fell in love with reheated 20th century will-to-power garbage ~ 10/ Your “ideas” aren’t just hateful, un-American poison–they’re also just so dang boring. The future doesn’t belong to your stupid memes. ~ 11/11 Get a real job, Clown. Find an actual neighbor to serve. You’ll be happier. Have a nice day. ~ @RichardBSpencer Wow. I take an evening off and miss epic butthurt from America’s cuckiest senator. This is going to be fun! ~ That search was amazing, but the world isn’t ready for it. ~ Has Mike Pence gotten enough attention today? ~ pictures today are from The Library of Congress. ~ selah
Clickbaitery
Today’s adventure in clickbaitery began with a headline, Math is racist: How data is driving inequality. It seems to be a rule that you get the r-word into every title, whether it is justified or not. The story promotes a book, Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy. “A former Wall Street quant sounds an alarm on the mathematical models that pervade modern life — and threaten to rip apart our social fabric.” This is a repost.
The thesis of the book is that big data is running amok. “Denied a job because of a personality test? Too bad — the algorithm said you wouldn’t be a good fit. Charged a higher rate for a loan? Well, people in your zip code tend to be riskier borrowers. Received a harsher prison sentence? Here’s the thing: Your friends and family have criminal records too, so you’re likely to be a repeat offender.”
Is this racist? Maybe, and maybe not. Are records secretly coded with with an indication of the persons race? (With the Health Insurance Marketplace, this information is explicitly on the application.) Or, is race just a divide and conquer tactic? While America has a hissy fit about a second string quarterback sitting down, big data is making life tougher for the ninety nine percent.
“O’Neil calls on modelers to take more responsibility for their algorithms and on policy makers to regulate their use. But in the end, it’s up to us to become more savvy about the models that govern our lives. This important book empowers us to ask the tough questions, uncover the truth, and demand change.” This sounds good on talk shows, but ultimately big data is going to continue doing what they do. With the Donald and Hillary show going full bore, there will be plenty of distraction.
The one star reviews at Amazon make their points. Aaron C. Brown skewers the book. His review is well written, but too long to quote here. “This book tackles an important subject on which the author had a lot of knowledge and expertise, and interesting incisive opinions. Unfortunately it is marred by appalling journalistic lapses, bad enough to taint not just author, but publisher as well. Crown Publishing Group should have done a little fact and reference checking.”
The other one star folks have the zesty quotes. “She claims to be a mathematician; she’s certainly not a logician.” ~ “Author clearly wasn’t payng attention is math class. The logic used in the book is contradictory at best, nonsensical at worst and racist all throughout.” ~ “Expected a nice educational read, got a book written by a SJW with an ax to grind.”
PG saw another race based article yesterday, It’s time to stop talking about racism with white people. It was written by Atlanta resident Zack Linly. Out of 1869 words, they appears 28 times, or 33 if you include they’re. (There is used 4 times, and their is used 12 times.)
The fifth sentence of this paragraph has two, of the three, homophones. “I understand that white people are mad. They’ve gone their whole lives being the default for social and cultural normalcy and never really had to think critically about race at all. Now a black first lady addresses the nation, and she talks about slavery. Now social media identifies and challenges their micro-aggressions. They’re getting the tint snatched off of their rose-colored glasses; that “Shining City on the Hill” they know as America is starting to lose some of its gloss. And they ain’t here for that — but we are.
The full article is available at the link. Here are a few more quotes.
“When Rachel Dolezal got her counterfeit black card snatched, we struck comedy gold for black meme-makers all over the web. The “Ask Rachel” hashtag was born, and scrolling through your Black Twitter feed became something like running a marathon, only the people on the sidelines were handing out little paper cups filled with white tears instead of regular drinking water.”
“When Beyoncé released the video for “Formation,” featuring a black kid in a hoodie, a “hands up, don’t shoot” banner and a sinking police car — then performed the song while paying homage to the Black Panther Party smack in the face of white America during the Super Bowl halftime show — she provided us with a bottomless open bar of white tears.”
“The fact is, we can fight systemic racism without white validation. We can continue shutting down bridges and highways every time there’s a new Alton Sterling, Philando Castile or Korryn Gaines in the news and let white folks complain about the intrusion on their lives.” (The names of citizens killed by other citizens are not said.)
As this feature is written, there are 3280 comments. scotpowell 6:29 AM EST “I bet this guy is fun at parties…..” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
The Parable
A facebook friend gave PG the link to a video, The Power of Parable , and set some events into motion. It did not end well.
TPOP is an interview with Peter Rollins. He says that “a parable tries to get beyond something in the head, and rupture something in the heart.” A parable is like a painting, with a different meaning every time you look at it. It should make you think, it should move and transform you. A parable “is not giving water to those who are thirsty, it is giving them salt to make them thirsty.”
PG had been thinking of the story of The Prodigal Son , and decided to publish this story on his blog. He found the text, in Luke 15. PG’s late father was named Luke.
The story of The Prodigal Son (a phrase that does not appear in Luke 15) had long been a favorite of PG. It is about family, acceptance, forgiveness, and welcome. The disgust that PG feels for the abusive ways of Jesus worshipers does not affect his enjoyment of this story.
At about this time, PG saw a comment thread at a blog . The writer of this blog, ZSB, had butted heads with PG before. A few comments were made, including one snide remark by Frank Turk. For some reason, PG decided to send a link to The Prodigal Son , The story was about forgiveness and kindness, and PG hoped to build a bridge.
ZSB … Chamblee, I like the photos (although, as usual, they seem unlrelated to the post), am ambivalent about the video,dig the rainbow-text effect, and LOVE the words contained in the text… but what on earth does it have to do with this post or this meta? Oh, wait, I get it—you’re further showcasing how the Internet often fosters random non-sequitur-style communication. September 15, 2011 3:27 PM
chamblee54 …. 1- I did not read the complete dialog. I seldom have the patience for long discussions like this. When I saw the comment “G-d has given us a perfect bible”, I realized that this was built on a shaky foundation. I simply do not agree with that concept. 2- The story that I used is The prodigal son. It is about not giving up on people. It is about not labeling someone a troll, and ignoring everything they say. I see that as highly relevant to the dialog between Mr. Turk and myself. 3- I linked to a video in the story. It is a monolog about the value of parables. It is about taking a text and thinking about the many different meanings that it can have. This is different from calling this text the “word of G-d”, and saying that it has a literal meaning. The story of the prodigal son can have many meanings. 4- The Prodigal Son was a parable. It was a made up story, used to teach a lesson. When you call a text a literal piece of work, you contradict the nature of parables. The Prodigal Son story may have happened, or may not have. This is beside the point to the overall story. 5- The video is a song by Tom Waits. While not a direct cause and effect companion to the story, there is a connection. Whatever happens to little boys who never comb their hair? September 15, 2011 3:42 PM
ZSB … Chamblee54 said… “. [The Prodigal Son] is about not giving up on people. It is about not labeling someone a troll, and ignoring everything they say. ”
Um, no. No, a thousand times no! That is not what the Lord’s parable of the lost son is about. Look at the context. It’s about salvation. It’s about something you won’t hear because you’re tripped up by the words “God has given us a perfect Bible.” Reject it, laugh at it, spit on it, but don’t turn it into a benign little collection of nice-isms that you can live with, because, while it doesn’t harm God’s Word, it makes you look silly to do so. September 15, 2011 4:27 PM
chamblee54 … My point exactly. A parable is like a poem … it should have a different meaning every time you hear it. When you take an allegory, and call it a literal work, you are not always going to have the “correct” interpretation.
This story was written by someone. It was written many years after Jesus had his ministry. It was translated at least twice. It was copied by hand, probably more than once. It was compiled into a book by the council of nicea. This is not a copy/paste of a word document written by Jesus.
But, when someone disagrees with your view, and you have a hissy fit, then it makes YOU look silly. September 15, 2011 5:01 PM
ZSB … Okay, I’ve dealth with the tired, ill-founded claim of “twice-translated” words of Jesus, allegedly far-removed from his ministry here . And parables aren’t allegory. Fairly common rookie mistake.
And this comment thread is actually about the subject of the blogpost. Like all of my blog comment threads, it’s not about your beef (and borderline obsession) with Frank Turk.
Comment thread is now un-hijacked. i.e. all comments unrelated to the post (particularly by those who admit to not having read it) will be deleted post-haste. That is all. September 15, 2011 5:15 PM
PG was had many ups and downs with Jesus. Some of the bad experiences were not his fault. In this case, he should have known better. You don’t discuss poetry with Jesus worshipers, at least ones who care mostly about life after death. It is a “fairly common rookie mistake”. Jesus was spoiled for PG a while back. This visit was a reminder. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
Did BHO Say He Is A Liberal?
PG listened to The Allen Hunt Show on his way home from Piccadilly Sunday night. The radio talker was discussing charitable giving. It was said that WMR, who calls himself a conservative, gave X% to charity. Meanwhile, BHO calls himself a liberal, and gave Y% to charity. The question PG had was, when did BHO say, in so many words, I am a liberal? At 7:25 PM – 23 Sep 12, this tweet went out: @chamblee54 “@AllenHunt When did Barack Obama say “I am a liberal?” If there is a reply, it will be shared here. This is a repost.
One viewpoint is that conservatives enjoy labels more than liberals do. You seldom hear anyone boasting about how liberal they are, while conservatives seem to get off on selfapplying the c word. It could be that conservatives enjoy putting labels on people more than liberals.
Part of the problem is the changing definitions of the L and C words. It used to be that an activist foreign policy was considered liberal. Then conservatives discovered the fun of sending armies out to kill people. Since BHO has been the POTUS, the war in Afghanistan has been escalated. The use of futuristic drone airplanes to kill women and children in neutral countries has dramatically increased. Is this the behavior of a liberal?
One easy test is to use wikiquotes. The BHO page has 40k words. The search term is liberal. The first thing to come up is the classic routine from his 2008 campaign. “There is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America.” Another BHO quote is “We cannot disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretence of liberalism..” There are three quotes from others who describe BHO as a liberal. The quote we are looking for is not there.
If you ask Mr. Google “has barack obama ever called himself a liberal”, you get 17 million results. For “I am a liberal” Barack Obama”, there are 188k results. These two first pages may, or may not, give a time and place for this alleged quote.
On September 11, 2012, the Daily Kos posted Are you more (or less) liberal than President Obama? Take the Quiz!. “This quiz was in no way intended to represent the political spectrum in America in a traditional way.” Nor does it tell us the context for this “urban legend” quote.
The rest of the first page for I am a liberal” Barack Obama is useless. It is a bunch of blog posts containing the phrase “I am a liberal”. One exception is a book review, Review: ‘I Am a Liberal’ is the Mocking Liberals Deserve.
The other search page does not show this magic unicorn of a quote. It does have some seriously weird stuff. Fact Check Project: Allegations that Barack Obama Does Not Exist. 7 Reasons Obama is NOT a Christian. Wikiality, the Truthiness Encyclopedia, gives you a choice: “THIS IS ABOUT THE REAL MOOSLIM OBAMA, FOR THE THEORETICAL OBAMA THAT SOME REPUBLICANS HAVE FOR THERE FANTASY, SEE: THIS PAGE.”
Before we leave this page, there should be a visit to Liberty Counsel – Adopt a Liberal. “Pick one or more of the liberals from the list we have posted online at http://www.LC.org, or choose your own liberal(s) to adopt. If you are led to choose one or more of the liberals we have selected for consideration, please read their brief biographical statement, including the reasons they stand in need of prayer.” One of the choices is “The unknown Liberal.” “There will likely be additional liberals the Lord may bring to mind who desperately need your prayers. Feel free to select your own unique liberal and adopt them for prayer, perhaps even nominating one or more liberals for listing on our website by emailing us at liberty@LC.org.”
The question remains, did BHO ever say “I am a liberal”? In a way, it doesn’t matter. People are going to believe whatever they want to believe. It would be fun to know the context of any such statement.
Out of a misguided sense of fairness, PG decided to investigate whether WMR ever said ” I am a conservative”. When you ask Mr. Google “did Mitt Romney”, the suggested searches are dodge the draft, outsource jobs, start staples, and really save the olympics.
You don’t have to go far to get results here. There is a story, Romney Has Conciliatory Remarks on Obama and Health Overhaul. “Reminded that he had once called himself a “severe” conservative, Mr. Romney seemed to play down that description. “I am as conservative as the Constitution,” he said.” This comment could be taken in different ways. The Constitution was a fairly liberal document for the 18th century. Maybe amendments made it conservative.
Mr. Romney’s reputed conservatism combined with Oxycontin to put Rush Limbaugh on cloud nine. “I was a severely conservative Republican governor,” Mitt Romney told the crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February 2012. Severely conservative? Conservatives snickered. “I may be a little giddy here,” Rush Limbaugh said. “I have never heard anybody say, ‘I’m severely conservative.'”Here is the source: Mitt Romney’s ‘Severe Conservatism’.
On the trip to Piccadilly, the theme of the Allen Hunt show was a sign on NYC busses. The poster was produced by Pamela Geller. The text reads “IN ANY WAR BETWEEN THE CIVILIZED MAN AND THE SAVAGE SUPPORT THE CIVILIZED MAN SUPPORT ISRAEL DEFEAT JIHAD PAID FOR BY THE AMERICAN FREEDOM DEFENSE INITIATIVE ATLASSHRUGS.COM SIOAONLINE.COM JIHADWATCH.COM.”
Two of the web addresses on the sign are not valid. Spell check suggestions for the websites: ATLASSHRUGS/ GLASSHOUSES, SIOAONLINE/ NONLINEAR, JIHADWATCH/ BIRDWATCHER.
Mr. Hunt said the sign was accurate. He consulted a dictionary, and said that any definition of savage fits Muslims. Mr. Hunt said he did not approve of the sign, and would tell his audience why after a commercial break. By this time, PG was in the serving line at Piccadilly. Chicken tenders taste better than the opinions of a radio whiner.
During the invasion of Gaza, Israel killed children using depleted uranium shells. During an incident with a Turkish ship, Israel shot an American citizen four times at point blank range. On the West Bank, Israel bulldozes homes to build illegal settlements. Maybe Israel is the savage.
Hey White People
In more dog bites man news, there is a viral video about racism. . It shows a bunch of adorable black children reading a script. The kids are modeling a shirt. The shirt says, in all caps, 216 point text, “RACISM IS NOT OVER. BUT I’M OVER RACISM.” You can buy the shirt. This is a repost.
To begin with, all caps is yelling. People do not like to be yelled at. The correct response to this is “you don’t like hearing that, how would you like to live it?” There is not a cause and effect connection between the two. Listening to one does not reduce the effect of the other.
The script is a cliche fest. There is little to learn here. Some of this is true. Some of it is questionable. It is tough to see how this will have any positive impact. It has the feel of preaching to the choir.
The video is supposedly directed at white people. The title is “Hey White People: A Kinda Awkward Note to America by #Ferguson Kids.” How PWOC will react is uncertain. What is interesting is the reaction of some POC to this video.
@chescaleigh I’d take @FCKH8’s allyship way more seriously if they weren’t so passive aggressive when being called out. This tweet is from Franchesca Ramsey, the auteur behind Shit White Girls Say…to Black Girls.
The tweet links to a blog post, What Happens When Businesses Use Black Tragedies To Sell Products. It seems like the shirts are marketed by a company called FCKH8. (As an aside, is anyone else tired of this gratuitous neo-profanity?) Supposedly, five dollars from every shirt sold will be donated to “charities working in communities to fight racism.” The key phrase is will be. This promise is not made under oath. Accountants have lots of wiggle room here.
An online entity called Colorlines has a post, This is the T-Shirt Company Making Money Off of Ferguson. “There’s an entire economy around black death—and this ad campaign illustrates it all too well. Ironically, this economy’s profit margins depend on upholding the very racism this video claims to want to eliminate. So there you have it, folks. Everything, it seems, can distilled, packaged, bought and sold—including racism.”
The publisher of Colorlines is another outfit called Race Forward. They issued this statement. “It has been brought to our attention that outlets have been reporting our affiliation with Synergy Media and FCKH8.com. Race Forward has never received any money from Synergy Media nor do we have an agreement with the company or FCKH8.com campaign. To be clear, Race Forward would not accept any proceeds from this effort.”
There was a comment. “Hello guys this is Mike with FCKH8.com we had selected your organization from hundreds to receive portion of the proceeds from the video. I was not aware that we had to receive permission to donate money. If you do not want our money there are plenty of other organizations out there that would greatly benefit from it. We just thought that you did awesome work and we wanted to support it.”
Pictures from The Library of Congress. UPDATE: Fckh8 is bad at damage control.
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. This is a repost. This version is edited, out of concern for the attention span of the audience.
Tubby Boots
PG found Classic Television Showbiz while reserarching a recent feature about the late Sherwood Schwartz. The site is a treasure, with youtubes of classic tv shows, and interviews with “entertainers”. Somewhere in the sidebar was a link to a story about Tubby Boots. This is a repost.
Charles “Tubby” Boots was born around 1926 in Baltimore MD. He was a nightclub comedian. Mr. Boots weighed 375 pounds, had bleach blond hair, and often performed without a shirt. He wore pasties on his boobs, and would twirl them simultaneously in opposite directions.
The parts in blue are borrowed from Classic television showbiz. Tubby’s parents were a vaudevillian dance team called Boots and Barton. At the age of seven this youngster was clocking in at an astounding two hundred pounds, a constant target of ridicule in his Baltimore schoolyard….During his childhood, Tubby managed to witness a performance by comedy’s greatest cult icon, Lord Buckley … Tubby Boots recalled shortly before his death, “[Lord Buckley] was like a father figure to me. I met Buckley when I was seven years old when I was working at the Hippodrome in Baltimore, Maryland, and I was in awe of him. I saw his act every time he would come back to play the theater … I would sit in the theater all day and watch the shows. I’d stay out of school for the whole week – my mother would pack me a lunch – she knew what I was doing because I wanted to learn about show business. Buckley would do his hat-switching act. Every other show he would get me to do it with him. I’d hang out with him backstage, we’d go out for lunch or dinner, he’d sneak me back into the theater and I’d watch the whole stage show again. I started working nightclubs when I was eleven. I weighed 250 pounds and passed myself off as twenty-one. I got arrested in a strip joint and the police said: ‘We’re not going to throw you in jail but you’re not going to work in this town again – you’re too notorious.’ So they actually put me on a train and said ‘Where you wanna ticket to?’ I said, ‘New York.’ I didn’t run away – I was forced to leave. So when I got to New York I called Buckley and, pretending to sob, said, ‘My mama died in a car crash…my father was with her…’ Unbeknownst to me, he called my mother and told her, ‘He’s with me.’ So he got me a job at The Three Deuces, passing me off as twenty-one.” The Three Deuces was one of Manhattan’s major jazz holes in the thirties and forties, regularly featuring Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. Lord Buckley was connected to the jazz world for most of his career, performing in their clubs and utilizing a great deal of the Black hipster vernacular in his act.”
Mr. Boots got a job as the emcee for burlesque shows, frequently in traveling carnival shows. He was doing well, when Lord Buckley called him from Hollywood. Supposedly, there was a movie job waiting for Mr. Boots. When he got to California, he found out otherwise. “Tubby became affectionately known as Princess Lily. “He used to call me Princess Lily but Prince Charles of Booth was my title. Buckley used to say: ‘Lil! You had the misfortune to be born with the beautiful body of a woman in the ridiculous body of a man!””
In 1959, Mr. Boots was in a bizarre accident. He was taking a bath, and the controls for the hot and cold water were in another room. Lord Buckley was handling these controls, and poured scalding hot water into the tub. Mr. Boots was stuck in the tub, and was badly burned. He spent a week in the hospital, and was not friends with Lord Buckley later.
After he recovered, Mr. Boots moved to Miami Beach. He performed in motel lounges for many years, and developed a following. Comedy albums were becoming popular, and Mr. Boots contributed “Thin my be in but fats where its at”. The albums were sold at his shows. The legend is that no copies exist that were not autographed.
The various search engines are sketchy about Tubby Boots. The Lady Bunny tells about going to see Mr. Boots in a supper club on Long Island in the eighties. Reportedly Mr. Boots did well during the comedy club explosion of the eighties.
PG saw a show by Tubby Boots. It was December 1974, at a dingy Atlanta bar called The Cove. PG was hanging out with someone we will call McClain, who liked the drag shows at The Cove. The bar was a former electronics warehouse, with a sign for Ballantines Beer by the front entrance. Ballantines had not been sold in Georgia for a long time, but the sign stayed. This was on Monroe Drive, behind Piedmont Park. Tubby Boots was a friend of somebody, and did a show at The Cove one night.
If you can stand to look at the embedded video, you get an idea about his show. Forty years later, PG can remember a few of the jokes. There was a one liner about an *African American* who took a shit, and thought he was melting. There was a routine based on the role Katherine Hepburn played in “Suddenly Last Summer”. My boy is not queeyer, he’s carnivorous. After a while, the shirt came off, and he twirled pasties from his boobs in different directions.
After the show, PG talked to a black friend, who did not want to meet the comedian. Meanwhile, Tubby Boots and McClain were making out. Before long, McClain came over to PG, and said he wanted to go somewhere else. McClain died in July, 1992. Tubby Boots died in August, 1993. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
I’m Christian, Butt I’m Not
PG does not keep up with viral videos. He depends on warm-and-fuzzies like Matt Walsh and Mollie Ziegler Hemingway for periodic outrage alerts. The latest target of the screed stoppers is from Buzzfeed Yellow, I’m Christian, But I’m Not. The latest report from YouTube shows 765,694 views. Viral is not as hot as it used to be. This is a repost.
The video shows some well scrubbed younguns. They say things like “I’m Christian but I’m not close-minded … but I am not judgmental … but I don’t place myself on a pedestal.” (Thank you Mollie Ziegler Hemingway for the transcript.)
The next part is the answer to the question “What are you?” The high point of this is where the girl says “I do believe in monogamy before sex but I will give you sex advice if you need it.” The last part is answers to “What do you want people to know about Christianity?” “We shouldn’t be judged on just the people that you see in the media, or just the people that you’ve met in everyday life. every Christian is different, and we deserve a chance to explain ourselves.”
Well, no you don’t. PG has had a horrendous experience with Jesus. The “bad Christians” are often the loudest, and make the deepest impressions. The “bad Christians” are usually supported by the “good Christians.” The sorry behavior is somehow excused by the ideology. After all, Jesus died for your sins, we are going to heaven, and you are going to hell. And we deserve a chance to shove that rhetoric in your face one more time.
If you type in “I’m Christian but I’m not” to Google, and it’s wholly owned subsidiary YouTube, you will see the critics loud and clear. Many have pointed out that ICBIN does not say the name “Jesus.” Others say that Christians are supposed to be hated. The YouTube comments are bizarre, as usual.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Cemetery Blues
PG and Uzi had their usual Sunday phone call, and agreed to go to “Sunday in the Park”. It is a festival in Oakland Cemetery, with live music, people in costumes, open mausoleums, and lots of good clean fun. It wasn’t until that evening that PG learned that today is Dead Poets Remembrance Day. Edgar Allan Poe met his maker on this day in 1849.
There was a Chamblee54 post about DPRD two years ago. The idea is to go to a cemetery and read a poem. An effort will be made to do that tonight, although promises about dead poets are notoriously unreliable. The 2010 post is included as part two of this feature.
The first poem read that afternoon was “Looking for the Buckhead Boys” by James Dickey. In the intervening two years, PG listened to a podcast with Christopher Dickey, the son of the writer. Sometimes bard is short for bastard.
So PG, Uzi, and Hazmat went to a festival in Oakland Cemetery. Like everything else, it is more popular and expensive. You had to pay to park, which Uzi generously took care of. The brick walls around the boneyard have been repaired, and no longer look like they are going to fall down. Those walls are important, because people are dying to get inside. This is the second time that PG and Uzi have attended the October festival in Oakland Cemetery.
There are always things that you need to see at Oakland. Margaret Mitchell, the Lion Statue, and the mausoleums are important stops. PG followed the signs to the grave of Bobby Jones. It had golf balls and a putter, which was not necessary.
Don LeVert was a member of the Atlanta Sky Hi Club for many, many years before his departure in 1997. PG and Uzi always seek him out, and it is usually a bit of an adventure finding him.
After visiting Don, PG found the marker for “Brother John Wade”. His time on earth was September 23, 1865 to January 15, 1916. This was from the autumn just after the War Between the States until 37 days before PG’s father was born in Rowland, North Carolina. There was a renewed sense of connection to the stone monuments.
The facebook friend said “Today is Dead Poets Remembrance Day, Oct. 7th, the day Edgar Allan Poe died. Be sure to visit a graveyard and read some poetry today”. PG didn’t have anything better to do.
The first obstacle was finding a book of poetry. PG is not a poetry person. A look at the shelf turned up a paperback, “125 years of Atlantic “. Poetry was to be found between those covers.
The book had two stickers, both saying 69 cents. At the old Book Nook, this meant that the book was half the price on the sticker. With tax, that would be 38 cents.
125YOA had stayed in PG’s car for a few years. Whenever he was stuck somewhere with time to kill, this book was waiting. One afternoon in 1998, there was a slow day at work. PG read a remembrance by Gertrude Stein, about life in France at the start of World War II.
The cemetery of choice was connected to the Nancy Creek Primitive Baptist Church. PG has driven by this facility thousands of times. He walked past the graves until he found a fallen tree to sit down on.
The first poem was “Looking for the Buckhead Boys” by James Dickey. PG began to read out loud, and soon could smell the drug store air of Wender and Roberts. The author bought fifty cents worth of gas at a Gulf station. Today, fifty cents might buy a tablespoon of gas, and Gulf was long ago bought out by BP. Wender and Roberts became a bar, which was torn down, to make way for a shopping destination.
Buckhead is not what it used to be. When Mr. Dickey was the bravest man in Buckhead ( he took a shit in the toilet at Tyree’s pool hall), PG was not even thought of. The traffic jams on Peachtree Street are still there, as the blue haired ladies follow poets into the ground.
When PG finished reading Mr. Dickey, he put a teal postit in the book, where the poem stood. PG looked up, and the graveyard seemed different. Maybe the sun had sank a bit in the sky, and maybe the poem had changed PG in a way he could not put into words. Maybe another poem was the answer. Take the glasses off, open the book at random, and turn the pages until a poem shows up.
On page 404…the historic Atlanta area code…was “The Wartime Journey” by Jan Struther. The 1944 work was unknown territory. A group of people are traveling on a train. The wounded vet, the untried recruit, the salesmen shared the space with a lady, taking a baby for her soldier husband to meet. The theme of the rhymes was that America was totally at war, and that war is different from peacetime. Today’s war in Babylon is not like that.
Halfway through the reading, a freight train pulled by. Today, passenger trains are a novelty, and freight rules the rails. The shipment today was double decked containers, ready to pull off and slap on an eighteen wheeler.
Deaths are said to come in threes, and reading poetry in a graveyard should be the same. PG went on a random search for a Moe, to go with the Curley and Larry already digested. A page of poems by Emily Dickinson was the result. These pages left PG unmoved. It was as if he was back in the sixth grade, with a horrible English teacher forcing him to memorize Hiawatha. It was time to go home.
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