Call Out Culture
Some people just like to argue. The topic of discussion is irrelevant…they just enjoy the thrill of verbal combat. There is little to be gained by engaging these people. You should never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level, and win by experience. If you wrestle with a hog, you get dirty, and the pig enjoys it. This is a repost
The idea that you should speak up, and call out, is popular these days. A popular quote, credited by some to Thomas Jefferson, says ” “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” Unfortunately, many people take sides without understanding the conflict. When you are goaded into foolish action, by irresponsible rhetoric, you choose the side of the oppressor. Often, the one claiming to be the victim is, in fact, the oppressor.
There are a lot of logical fallacies today. Two wrongs making a right. False equivalence. Whining about media coverage. Opinions are like elbows… everyone has two. Don’t talk about religion or politics. Don’t talk with your mouth full. If you can’t say anything good, don’t say anything at all. If everybody shouts, then nobody is heard.
Are you trying to create change, or are you like a dog that wants to bark? If you are going to influence a person, you have to earn that person’s trust. If this person hears you repeating things that are not true, then they are not going to trust you. Once lost, trust is very difficult to regain.
You should think about things like cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias, and mythos over logos. People are hit over the head with a lot of rhetoric and polemic these days. Sorting out the conflicting claims can be tough. You can get into narcotizing dysfunction. This is where you hear so much about something that you tune out new information. When you call out someone, are you pouring water into a barrel that is already overflowing?
This text between the pictures (“The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”) has focused on foolish talk. The word listen has not been used. We don’t need to talk more. We need to listen more. You have two ears, and one mouth, for a reason.
Do You Feel Safer?
No, there is no evidence that the F.B.I. organized the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Of course, the NYT is going to say that. Others disagree, and point to a plot to kidnap the Governor of Michigan. If the FBI was involved in planning the January 6 incident, it will not be the first time. Here is a story from 2012 about the role federal agents played in the arrest of four elderly men in North Georgia.
A recent episode of Radiolab, Grumpy Old Terrorists, spotlights Georgia. It is about four elderly men, arrested in North Georgia for terrorist activity. The episode features Tom Junod, who wrote an article for Esquire Magazine, Counter-Terrorism Is Getting Complicated. The article has much more information than a twenty minute radio show.
The story focuses on Fred Thomas. A retired Navy man, he worked for Lockheed in Virginia, and moved to Georgia when he retired. He began to hang out on the internet, focusing on a militia forum. After BHO was inaugurated, Mr. Thomas felt that America was going downhill. He met some men online who agreed. The men started to meet. One of the players was a government agent.
The informer was named Joe Sims. (PG does not know if this is his birth name.) According to Esquire, Mr. Sims is a slimy character. He got in trouble, and then got out of jail to work as a snitch.
It is interesting to note that two of wives, of the accused, did not like Mr. Sims. Charlotte Thomas, the wife of Fred, only met him once. Mrs. Thomas was a Frank Sinatra fanatic. When Mr. Sims was in their home, he saw the Sinatra shrine. Joe said, “The trouble with Frank Sinatra is that he can’t sing”.
As the story went down, the old men, and Joe the snitch, had many meetings where they said that something violent needed to be done. Joe the snitch encouraged them, and set up a meeting with an “arms dealer”. Joe handed over his money, and the old man handed over some money. The federal swat team moved in, threw flash grenades, and arrested the old men. The conspirators were so scared they wet their pants. At the same time, the Frank Sinatra shrine was raided. The carpets have burn marks from the flash grenades.
A question was raised on radiolab, do you feel safer now? The feds encouraged the scheme, and helped drive it forward. One person speculated that the sheriff should have had a talk with the old men. Let them know that the law was wise to their game, and the activity would have stopped. Is it a good role for the government to encourage people to commit crimes? In at least one case, government agents recruited and paid people to take part in the “terrorism”. Is this a good use of taxpayer money, and, indeed, does it make us safer?
UPDATE There was a similar incident recently in Forsyth Counth. This is a repost. There are some crucial details left out of this post. Readers are encouraged to read the Esquire magazine article, Counter-Terrorism Is Getting Complicated. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Never Doubt
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” This chestnut appeared in an email, promoting an event. PG heard a podcast last year, about another Margaret Mead story. Readers of this blog know where this is going.
@anthroreviewed “Did Margaret Mead really say that thing about broken femurs and civilization that is (once again) making the rounds online? Also, are healed femurs a marker of civilization? No. And no. As explore in the second half of this episode… “ A blog post, That Margaret Mead quote, goes into more detail about both stories.
“It’s interesting the quotes that are attributed to Margaret Mead – another is “Never doubt that a small group of people can change the world – indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” … Both are things she could have said, given her personality, but neither is fully attributed – the first instance of the story above is in Dr. Ira Byock’s 2012 book on palliative care, and the above quote only attributed to her, four years after her death, by the author of a fairly hippie-ish book on paths to world peace.”
“This quote (about the femur) has been going around Facebook since mid-March, probably encouraged by this Twitter thread, this FB post, and this article in Forbes, none of which are by archaeologists/anthropologists.”
When the bs detector started dinging, results are just a few clicks away. Highlight the suspicious quote. Right click, choose “Search Google for …,” and wait 0.51 seconds. When one of the results is a story at Quote Investigator®, you have a winner.
When people get caught peddling bogus quotes, they often say that even if the attribution is false, the words are true. What about the featured quote today? It sounds good, and is great for promoting attendance at an event. But is it the truth?
Look at the 9/11 attacks. They did change the world. While it is true that nineteen men pulled off the caper, they had a lot of help. Somebody financed the operation. Other people built the airliners, and the airports where they took off. Somebody dug an oil well, pumped the crude oil, shipped the crude oil to a refinery, and produced the explosive jet fuel that propelled the attacks. In fact, it was the profits from pumping that oil that financed the attacks. “A small group of thoughtful, committed citizens” flew a plane, that someone else built, into the World Trade Center. They were not “the only thing that ever has.” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
July 3, 1981
July 3, 1981, was another day before a holiday. The new President, Ronald Reagan, was recovering from gunshot wounds. There was talk of an era of conservatism, with possibly severe repression.
There was an article in the New York Times. RARE CANCER SEEN IN 41 HOMOSEXUALS. “Doctors in New York and California have diagnosed among homosexual men 41 cases of a rare and often rapidly fatal form of cancer. Eight of the victims died less than 24 months after the diagnosis…”
This was the media debut of AIDS. It would not have that name for a while. Almost nobody thought, on that summer day, just how bad AIDS would be. In five years it was obvious how serious AIDS was.
PG was on another trip to the west coast. It was becoming obvious that this would be a vacation, rather than a relocation. He was riding a bicycle, with a milk carton overloaded with camping gear. Some kids told him to get saddle bags, and carry the weight lower. If you have the weight on top, you would lose control coming down a big hill. PG did not listen to the kids.
On July 4, PG left Patrick’s Point state park, about 300 miles north of San Francisco. Coming down the first hill on highway 101, the bike shook, shook harder, and flipped on its side. PG was thrown off. The front wheel was bent beyond repair. PG gathered his gear, left the bike behind, and got a ride into the nearest town.
PG got a bus ticket to Seattle. That city was in an economic downturn, with less than half a page of help wanted ads. PG found a auto delivery service, and got a VW bug going to Oak Ridge, TN. In a few days he was in Atlanta. A few days later, a temp agency came up with a job as a driver for a blueprint company. PG worked for that company, in one form or another, for the next 24 years.
As for the gay men with Kaposi’s Sarcoma … in all probability, the patients mentioned in that article were all dead within a year. AIDS has become a dominating story in our time. At its worst, it was claiming 50,000 lives a year. With the advent of wonder drugs, the death toll has been greatly reduced. The impact of AIDS on American life cannot be adequately described. This is a repost.
Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. Lawrence K. Altman, M.D. is still writing articles for the New York Times.
Life Is Not A Journey
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I repeat myself under stress, I repeat myself under stress, I repeat myself under stress
Life Is Not a Journey To the Grave With the Intention of Arriving Safely
Linkage to Identify Deaths Among Persons with AIDS — District of Columbia, 2000–2005
overdose deaths soar to record numbers— over 100,000 in each of the past two years …
What Happens After the End of Affirmative Action? scotus is expected to rule …
A Baker Refused to Make Your Wedding Cake? Dan Savage
mutiny ~ elivis ~ control ~ ray harrell ~ enshittification
repost ~ Biblical Critical Theory. ~ Biblical Critical Theory. ~ twiiter ~ officer don
officer don ~ scotus ~ blog ~ 22 words ~ phyllis browne
shenpa ~ Upādāna ~ baba ram dass ~ scotus ~ candler park
gsu pics 062923 ~ madonna ~ blond office ~ Peggy Caserta ~ john martyn
solid air ~ nick drake ~ paul verhoevan ~ elizabeth morton ~ elton
hstS ~ christopher bostwick ~ george heery ~ pre-morbid intelligence ~ lesbians
sea raven press ~ baba ram dass ~ putin ~ haring ~ birdsong ~ careful
i get this past due invoice in the us mail … i call the people, and they tell me i signed up for electronic billing … surprise number one … and that they sent the original invoice by email … i asked them to send me a copy … i did not see it, so i checked the spam folder … there was a past due notice in the spam folder from a few days ago … what do companies treat people like this? ~ “I was stark naked, stoned out of my mind on heroin, and between my legs giving me head was Janis Joplin.” This is the gold standard of opening sentences. ~ When you are revisiting a post from 2011, it can be fun to click on the links. Many of these domains are now for sale. This link has an especially amusing afterlife: “ChristWire is reloading. In the year 2016, the unthinkable happened: the reign of Barack Obama I and the potential reign of Hillary Clinton came to a complete halt Through what could only be described as a miracle from the heavens (if you look East when praying), a man first mocked by everyone ascended to lead the country into what was supposed to be a Golden Age of Morality. But alas, things are not going as expected. The world is again in peril. Americans fight over every possible thing, at the behest of divisive radicals who have invested and invaded every nook and cranny of culture. Logic is defied for saving the face of politics. Churches full of decent people think and post memes of reprehenisble nature. Political leaders invoke the very populism and divisive rhetoric that lead humanity to global wars. Science is ridiculed. Decent moral people are mocked. Wild-eyed outliers believe every word that they have been told to disagree with, no matter how logical, is a reason to grab a weapon and protest the advice to wear a mask. In times of such calamity and chaos, helpers must arise. That is where the community of ChristWire has again heard the call to arise.” ~ this is a 2011 post, about an event called “Howl-A-Than. The facebook links to the pictures work today. Theresa Davis Rupert Fike Karen Garrab ~ I have a question. I recently wrote about an event at the E-church in Candler Park. As you may know, Candler Park was a black neighborhood when that church was built. At some point, the Candler family bought/stole the land, and built the neighborhood was see today. The church building on Candler Park drive is very similar to the chapel at Oglethorpe Presbyterian. Do you know anything about when the OPC chapel was built? Also, considering the fact that Lynwood Park is nearby, is it possible that the OPC chapel was originally a black church? ~ Formicophilia, a form of zoophilia, is the sexual interest in being crawled upon or nibbled by insects, such as ants, or other small creatures. This paraphilia often involves the application of insects to the genitals, but other areas of the body may also be the focus. The desired effect may be a tickling, stinging, or in the case of slugs, slimy sensation, or the infliction of psychological distress on another person. ~ It has been a lovely friday. I took Mac to the grocery store, and went inside myself. I was checking out, and the lady said she had been waiting on us for years, but never knew we were brothers. We got to talking about the Winn Dixie across buford hiway, and how we did not like the international food store that is there now. The lady told me something she heard. These international stores would take a piece of meat that was spoiled, spray disinfectant on it, re-wrap it, and put it back on the shelf. ~ baba ram dass was on a call-in radio show in 1973. At about 30 minutes in, he discusses what kind of music he likes. “I can’t listen to entertainers anymore because they’re playing to the world. I can only listen to musicians who are playing inward.” Three minutes later, he plays a record that he likes. ~ he wishes the dog across the street would quit parking, he saw the trash cart at the street, and was happy that he emptied his bedroom can this morning, he typed most of the story, and remembered to switch the speakers on the laptop to the tacky little speakers in the foldup box. he was afraid that he had missed the end of the prompt, but was relieved to hear that he had three minutes more, he got his reaading glasses, and went on the porch, he took the laptop on the porch, and put it on the table, and remembered he left his glasses inside, he took his water bottle on the porch, and went back to get his laptop, he put his laptop, mouse, and water bottle on the marbletop table by the door, but left his glasses on the table this will complicate the conclusion of the story, he decided that the lighting was better on the porch, and the reading would be more fun out there, he finjished his korean rice bowl. this was the first time going to the kbop shop over by the walmart. he does not know if there will be a second time, he listened to a segment of killer mike on the joe rogan show. km is from atlanta, and his last name is Render. he wonders if km is kin to a mr render that he used to work with, saturday morning he saw a deer nibbling on the flower in his neighbors front yard. this is an everyday thing in some neighborhoods, but a novelty in brookhaven ~ pictures today are from The Library of Congress ~ selah
Smash Cut
Smash Cut by Brad Gooch, turned up at the Chamblee library. The subtitle is “A Memoir of Howard & Art & the ’70s & the ’80s.” The cover has a picture of Brad Gooch and Howard Eric Brookner. The 1979 picture shows BG (google does not know his middle name) and HEB is a small, well used kitchen. Someone wrote, and then scratched out, “at the Chelsea Hotel.” In the notes, we see that BG and HEB were boyfriends in 70s and 80s Manhattan. At some point, HEB got AIDS.
April 27, 1989, was HEB’s last day on the planet. I was 16 weeks into not drinking. HEB was seven days older than me. There are many other parallels between my life, and the concurrent Brad/Howard story. Their story has a lot more famous people involved.
HEB was a filmmaker, with wealthy Jewish parents. He met BG at a bar in Lower Manhattan in 1978. They go back to Howard’s place, drink vodka, and crash. They quickly become boyfriends, and have a terrific time together when they aren’t quarreling about who is fucking who. Howard is working on a movie about William S. Burroughs. When you hang out with Mr. Burroughs, it is considered good manners to take heroin. This becomes a problem for HEB.
Meanwhile, BG was in grad school at Columbia, finishing a PhD in English. He wound up as an English professor at some college. You kind of wonder how BG had time to write a PhD dissertation, while diving into the full tilt sex and drugs of pre-aids Manhattan. Nor do we ever find out how they paid for all this high octane living.
BG becomes a model, hanging out in Europe for a while. HEB decides he doesn’t want to be BG’s boyfriend anymore. That continues off and on for a few years, until that day in 1987 when HEB finds out he is HIV positive.The first year it doesn’t really cause that many problems, but then it does. The last 40 pages of this book are incredibly tough to read. HEB goes into the hospital, it seems like he’s never going to come home. BG gets a job as a professor, and publishes a novel, in addition to being there for HEB. Eventually, HEB got another o.i., and moved on.
Smash Cut is the third book by BG I have started. The Flannery O’Connor book is excellent. The Rumi book has too many unpronounceable names. SC is an fun read, full of gossipy stories about people like Andy Warhol, Madonna, and Keith Haring. The publicity machine is already cranking up for book that BG wrote about Mr. Haring. If the last 40 pages of SC are too difficult, you can skip over it. You already know how it is going to turn out. Pictures today are by The Library of Congress
How Southern Are You?
There is yet another internet quiz, How Southern Are You? When you get your score, you are invited to post the results on facebook. Do you add, or subtract, points for that? This is a repost.
There are ten multiple choice questions. The first one is “1. Which refreshing drink would you reach for on a hot summer day? Coca-Cola Sprite Sweet Tea Beer” If you are a retired drunk, who likes unsweet tea, it is ok to lie here. You have to keep up appearances. The same goes for question 2. The fact that the nearest Piggly Wiggly is one hundred miles away is of no concern.
Questions 5 and 8 are about language. Yes, the phrase “Bless your heart” means “I think you are ignorant,” but only if you are very polite. Number 8 is about Y’all, the word. The quiz only asks if you use it. It does not ask if you only use Y’all as a plural.
The first time around, PG got “You are 100% Southern.” Then he wanted to see if number 5 said “Bless your heart” or “Bless her heart.” You are probably more southern if you say the latter.
On this round, PG tried to be as unsouthern as possible. He knows better than to think a pig pickin’ is where you check out fat girls. Still, you have to do your research. On this round, the result was 3% Southern. “Well bless your heart! You don’t know the first thing about what it means to be Southern!”
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Chamblee54 
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