Chamblee54

Ta-Nehisi Coates Again

Posted in History, Library of Congress, Race, Religion, War by chamblee54 on October 8, 2024


The Message is a new book by Ta-Nehisi Paul Coates. The publishing game requires TPC to promote his book, which he is doing with gusto. It turns out this literary product is critical of Israel. Some things you are not allowed to say out loud.

One noteworthy appearance was on CBS Mornings. Tony Dokoupil gave TPC a rude greeting: “I have to say when I when I read the book I imagine if I took your name out of it took away the awards and the Acclaim took the cover off the book … the content of that section would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist.” Later, Mr. Dokoupil inadvertently says something many of Israel’s neighbors might agree with: “Why does any of Israel exist? What a horrific place, committing horrific acts on a daily basis.”

Part of the problem is the high profile TPC has enjoyed as an anti-racist celebrity. Over the last few years, many “woke” people have heaped praise on the man. At the same time, more than a few people were annoyed with TPC. Saagar Enjeti had some strong comments about TPC on Breaking Points recently. What the star-making machine builds up, the star-making machine tears down.

Chamblee54 has written about TPC several times. one two three In a video about the six-letter word, TPC asserts “When you’re white in this country, you’re taught that everything belongs to you. You think you have a right to everything.”

The progressive movement in America has fought against racism, inequality, injustice, etc, for a long time. If you can look past the hypocrisy and vulgar noise, you can see some value in these efforts. Unfortunately, Israel violates many of these values in it’s dealings with Palestinians. This contradiction is difficult for the left to deal with.

TPC is saying things that make progressives nervous. Israel treats Palestinians horribly. The hypocrisy of the platitude spouting left is on display. Shooting the messenger is always a popular option. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Here is part two of this story.

Final Determination

Posted in Library of Congress, Weekly Notes by chamblee54 on October 7, 2024


The display of a link on this page does not indicate approval of content.
High replicability of newly discovered social-behavioural findings is achievable
The Fantasy World of Ta-Nehisi Coates His new book, ‘The Message,’ is a masterpiece …
How to INSTANTLY Improve Leg Circulation and Blood Flow
2014 Interview with Legendary Dr. Demento – King of Funny / Comedy / Parody Music!
Opinion Jo Boaler and the Woke Math Death Spiral Dylan Rem April 16, 2024 . 4:39 PM
Bibi’s Plan for Peace through Wider War Plus: New reader chat feature, new plastics …
18 killed in Israeli strike on West Bank’s Tulkarem refugee camp: Ministry
Patsy Cline – Leaving on Your Mind [Americana] HD Color
We’re only beginning to understand the historic nature of Helene’s flooding
U.S. universities spent the summer strategizing to suppress student activism. …
Amy Wax – tenured scholar has paid a high price for expressing uncomfortable truths.
Final Determination of Complaint Against Professor Amy Wax
Chemical plume expected to enter metro Atlanta Thursday; what officials are saying
Paul Coates, father of journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates, republishing ‘The Jewish Onslaught’
Edema? Swollen Feet? The Best three exercsises to eliminate swelling!
Why does any of Israel exist? What a horrific place, committing horrific acts on a daily basis.
ZiG: Has Zimbabwe conquered the urge to print money? Farai Shawn Matiashe
What Is Golden Shovel Poetry? How to Write a Golden Shovel Poem 
eno · csny · empty bed blues · dr demento · “Gimme Hope Kamala”
twitch · discord karen · gloria swanson · william dufty · jenny pruitt
just say no · nancy reagan · jimmy · comorbidity · cut
radical faeries · gsu · gsu · jim morrison · Citizen Part Two · pete rose
humanesque highway · foghorn foggy stomping boots · forgot bio this! · Pictures are from The Library of Congress The photgrapher was Marjory Collins, in August 1942, New York NY. “O’Reilly’s bar on Third Avenue in the “Fifties”” · This is a repost from 2018. · Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation De Profundis · humanesque highway foghorn foggy stomping boots forgot bio this! · I found this item by @elilake in a post from 10-27-24 “because the Palestinians continue to think that a strategy of causing atrocities will eventually convince Jews to leave a country.” · Marjory Collins took the photographs in August 1942 “Brooklyn band of Italian-Americans, after playing at Mott Street flag raising ceremony in honor of neighborhood boys in the United States Army, retiring to a neighborhood bar out of the rain.” · “because the Palestinians continue to think that a strategy of causing atrocities will eventually convince Jews to leave a country.” I found this item by @elilake in a post from 10-27-24 · I therefore formulate and offer to the world the following Principles for Quotations, two for quoters and two for readers, which, if universally followed, would make an immense improvement to the reliability of the information available on the world wide web. … Principle 1 (for readers) Whenever you see a quotation given with an author but no source assume that it is probably bogus. Principle 2 (for readers) Whenever you see a quotation given with a full source assume that it is probably being misused, unless you find good evidence that the quoter has read it in the source. Principle 3 (for quoters) Whenever you make a quotation, give the exact source. Principle 4 (for quoters) Only quote from works that you have read. · “Believe nothing you hear, and only one-half that you see.” These are words always true. Moving lips tell lies, and wiggling fingers type nonsense. This is the case no matter which medium you work in. Mankind started with “stories” told from one person to another. Then we started to write down these tales. After a few millennia, some Germans invented a device to print “stuff.” Next, people turned these thoughts into digital dots and dashes, and spread them on a computer. Today, we are moving on to artificial intelligence, to transmit the genuine stupidity of the ages. · @Miss_Mojo Black queerness is cultural while White queerness is structural. They operate on two different frequencies. · pictures today are from The Library of Congress · selah

Quoting James Baldwin

Posted in GSU photo archive, Quotes, Race by chamblee54 on October 6, 2024


James Arthur Baldwin has become a star on facebook, thirty five years after his death. People love to quote him, and post artsy pictures of his face. Over the past year I have seen three Baldwin memes that required action. Once you start to research, there is no telling what you are going to find.

“I can’t believe what you say because I see what you do.” This item is from a 1966 article that Mr. Baldwin wrote for The Nation. “One is in the impossible position of being unable to believe a word one’s countrymen say. “I can’t believe what you say,” the song goes, “because I see what you do”—and one is also under the necessity of escaping the jungle …”

“The song goes” is what the memes leave out. Ike Turner wrote the song. The Ikettes sing “I can’t believe…”, while Tina goes “agh, agh, agh, agh, agh, agh, agh, agh, agh.” Ike knew about being a no-good man. Tina looks a lot better in a short skirt than Mr. Baldwin did.

“I’d like to leave you with one more short quote from James Baldwin, “Whoever debases others is debasing himself.” This is from a June, 2020 video about racism. This quote is from Letter from a Region in My Mind, a 1962 essay in The New Yorker. “Letter…” clocks in at 22,114 words. Mr. Baldwin could crank out the word count.

“Letter…” covers a lot of ground. The “debase” quote comes in after Mr. Baldwin describes a visit to Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam. Soon, Mr. Baldwin starts talking about race in the United States. One quote stood out: “But white Americans do not believe in death, and this is why the darkness of my skin so intimidates them.”

“By this time, I was in a high school that was predominantly Jewish. This meant that I was surrounded by people who were, by definition, beyond any hope of salvation, who laughed at the tracts and leaflets I brought to school, and who pointed out that the Gospels had been written long after the death of Christ. … My best friend in high school was a Jew. He came to our house once, and afterward my father asked, as he asked about everyone, “Is he a Christian?”—by which he meant “Is he saved?” I really do not know whether my answer came out of innocence or venom, but I said, coldly, “No. He’s Jewish.” My father slammed me across the face with his great palm, and in that moment everything flooded back—all the hatred and all the fear, and the depth of a merciless resolve to kill my father rather than allow my father to kill me—and I knew that all those sermons and tears and all that repentance and rejoicing had changed nothing.”

“The place in which I’ll fit will not exist until I make it.” This quote proved more difficult to chase down. It does not appear in any of Mr. Baldwin’s work. The earliest mention appears to be behind The New Yorker paywall. “During his wanderings, Baldwin warned a friend who had urged him to settle down that “the place in which I’ll fit will not exist until I make it.” There is no link to a source.

The New Yorker article is cited by Lithub, which is then cited by New Transcendentalist. “These Timely James Baldwin Quotes … ,” from Bustle, credits the quote to “a 1957 letter to Sol Stein.”

Sol Stein “attended DeWitt Clinton High School, where he served on the Magpie literary magazine with Richard Avedon and James Baldwin.” We don’t know if Mr. Stein was the one who made David Baldwin slap his step-son. A paywalled article, about the correspondence between Mr. Stein and “Jimmy,” does not mention the “place in which I’ll fit” quote.

The WaPo article did have a mind-blowing quote. “In the introduction to the book, Baldwin would ponder his influences: “When one begins looking for influences, one finds them by the score. … the King James Bible, the rhetoric of the store-front church, something ironic and violent and perpetually understated in Negro speech…” I saw this quote in 1976, in a college textbook. At the time, I thought this was an amazing quote. It stayed in my mind until the next life changing detail came along, not to be thought of again for forty six years.

Chamblee54 has written about Mr. Baldwin before. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library.” UPDATE: @QuoteResearch Replying to @chamblee54 @HilalIsler @lithub “It appeared in a 1957 letter from James Baldwin and Sol Stein reprinted in “Native Sons” (2004) edited by Sol Stein. I am planning to create a QI article on this topic” @QuoteResearch “Please get over the notion, Sol, that there’s some place I’ll fit when I’ve made some ‘real peace’ with myself : the place in which I’ll fit will not exist until I make it. You know and I know that the ‘peace’ of most people is nothing but torpor.” … James Baldwin to Sol Stein UPDATE: I was writing a story about Flannery O’Connor. I wanted to quote this post, but could not find the link. Neither google nor duckduckgo would show me this post. I had to go to the chamblee54 archive, and scroll through October 2022 until I found the post. This is a repost from 2022.

Believe Nothing You Hear

Posted in Library of Congress, Quotes, Undogegorized by chamblee54 on October 5, 2024


“Believe nothing you hear, and only one-half that you see.” These are words always true. Moving lips tell lies, and wiggling fingers type nonsense. This is the case no matter which medium you work in.

Mankind started with “stories” told from one person to another. Then we started to write down these tales. After a few millennia, some Germans invented a device to print “stuff.” Next, people turned these thoughts into digital scratches, and spread them on a computer. Today, we are moving on to artificial intelligence, to transmit the genuine stupidity of the ages.

@itsgivingkyle “A cautionary tale about trusting AI: I recently heard a quote from a Tiktok “Believe nothing you hear, and half of what you see” and wanted to investigate its origin. · From a Google search, I found that the quote is commonly referenced from Edgar Allen Poe’s short story “The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether” · I asked @AnthropicAI’s Claude model to give me a synopsis. The story is about an unnamed narrator visiting a mental asylum after hearing about a new rehabilitation process called “the soothing cure” · Eventually the narrator would find out that the guests at the dinner were actually the patients, who had locked up the staff. I asked Claude “where in the story does the quote come up?” · It said, “The quote “Believe nothing you hear and only half of what you see” is not actually used in Poe’s story … · Confused, I copy and pasted the passage used from @QuoteResearch and said “Is this not in the story”? · “Claude swiftly replies: “I deeply apologize for my significant error in my previous responses. You are absolutely correct, and I was mistaken. The quote is indeed in the story … by Edgar Allan Poe. · Ironically, the same “proverb” I was looking up applies directly to this story. It’s common to think that computers don’t make mistakes – but AI is not exactly a computer, and makes mistakes from time to time. · So I leave you with this message: do not believe anything you hear, and only half of what you read.”

I have not read the full text of TSODTAPF. A rule of quotations is that you should only comment on texts that you have read. However, with the questionable help of wikipedia, I can offer a summary. A young man is traveling in France. There are rumors of a new way to treat the mentally ill. …

“I had heard, at Paris, that the institution of Monsieur Maillard was managed upon what is vulgarly termed the “system of soothing” — that all punishments were avoided — that even confinement was seldom resorted to — that the patients, while secretly watched, were left much apparent liberty, and that most of them were permitted to roam about the house and grounds in the ordinary apparel of persons in right mind.” Soon, the young man meets M. Maillard. He does not like what he hears.

“And you have now changed all this—and you think for the better?” · “Decidedly. The system had its disadvantages, and even its dangers. It is now, happily, exploded throughout all the Maisons de Santé of France.” · “I am very much surprised,” I said, “at what you tell me; for I made sure that, at this moment, no other method of treatment for mania existed in any portion of the country.”

“You are young yet, my friend,” replied my host, “but the time will arrive when you will learn to judge for yourself of what is going on in the world, without trusting to the gossip of others. Believe nothing you hear, and only one-half that you see. Now about our Maisons de Santé, it is clear that some ignoramus has misled you. After dinner, however, when you have sufficiently recovered from the fatigue of your ride, I will be happy to take you over the house, and introduce to you a system which, in my opinion, and in that of every one who has witnessed its operation, is incomparably the most effectual as yet devised.”

It is possible that the “system of soothing” was working well, and M. Malliard was a bad actor who elbowed his way into a position of authority. Or maybe TSODTAPF is just a story from the overcooked imagination of Eddie Poe. M. Malliard is another talking bird saying nevermore.

Google … another institution with fading integrity … has some curious replies. A video that purports to show Barry Obama talking has this text superimposed: “Believe nothing you hear and only one half that you see” With the massive influx of AI and Deep Fakes, the above quote by Edgar Allan Poe is no longer valid. Crazy, isn’t it? The above video was created using argil.ai. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. We can be reasonably sure that these pictures are genuine.

I Brought My Own Pears

Posted in GSU photo archive, Undogegorized by chamblee54 on October 4, 2024

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How many South Americans does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A Brazillian.
My grandpa has the heart of a lion, and a lifetime ban from the zoo.
What do you get when you cross the Atlantic with the Titanic? About half way
So a squirrel living in a pine tree one day feels a shaking, looks down, and sees an elephant climbing the tree. The squirrel asks: “What are you doing climbing my tree?”
”Well, I’m coming up here to eat some pears” “This is a pine tree, there are no pears.”
“Well I brought my own pears.”

Why can’t Ray Charles see his friends? Cause he’s married.
If you ever get cold, just stand in a corner for a bit. They’re usually around 90 degrees.
When my Grandad was 65 he started running a mile a day to keep fit.
He’s 70 now and we have no idea where he is.
Why do you never see elephants hiding in trees? …….because they’re really good at it.
I think I want a job cleaning mirrors. it’s just something I could really see myself doing.
There are two monkeys in a bath tub. One says to another: oohoohahah!
The other says: Maybe add a little more cold water.

Did you hear about the two guys that stole a calendar? They each got six months.
Whats the difference between a dirty bus stop, and a lobster with breast implants? Ones a crusty bus station the other is a busty crustacean
So this guy walks into his bedroom with a chicken under his arm. His wife is laying in bed. The guy says, “This is the pig I fuck when you are not in the mood.”
”You fucking idiot. That’s not a pig!” “I was talking to the chicken.”

Two fish are in a tank. One is driving and the other one is operating the gun.
Two soldiers are in a tank. They both drown.
A priest, a rabbi, and a whale walk into a bar. The priest says, “Well I believe Jesus Christ is the only begotten son of God and my lord and savior, so I’ll have some wine.”
The rabbi says, “Well I don’t believe the messiah has yet walked the earth, so I’ll have Manischewitz wine.” The whale says “EEOONNHH”

What do you call a chicken coop with 4 doors? a chicken sedan.
Why aren’t there any knock knock jokes about freedom? Because freedom rings
What’s a hillbilly’s favorite thing to do on Halloween? pumpkin
What happened to the cow that jumped over the barbed wire fence? Udder destruction.
Where do animals go when their tails fall off? The retail store
What time does Sean Connery get to Wimbledon? Tennish.

What did the doctor say to the midget waiting in the lobby?
You’re just going to have to be a little patient.
A magician was driving down the road when he turned into a driveway.
What do you call a fish with no eyes? Fsh!
“I went to a zoo. It was completely empty, except for a single dog. It was a Shih Tzu.”
“Dad, I’m hungry.” “Hi, Hungry. I’m Dad.”

“I’m thirsty.” “Hi, Thursday, I’m Friday, let’s go out on a Saturday and have a Sunday.”
The only joke my dad ever told me was that he’d quit beating me. I was in stitches.
A man with carrots in his ears walks onto a bus, the bus driver says “Sir, why do you have carrots in your ears?” “WHAT? I CAN’T HEAR YOU, I HAVE CARROTS IN MY EARS!”
Did you hear about the Mexican train killer? They say he had locomotives.

Nobody knows who to blame for these alleged jokes. Chamblee54 does not claim authorship, and would deny it if he did. This material was previously published. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.

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#WhyIWrite

Posted in Georgia History, Library of Congress by chamblee54 on October 3, 2024


#WhyIWrite is trending on twitter today, the #NationalDayOfWriting. A lot of the tweets are the sanctimonious, pseudo-inspirational crap that you might expect. A few others are posting inspirational thoughts by famous authors, usually with a picture in the background. Posting memes about writing is not the same as writing. Especially when the famous author never said it.

@girlsreallyrule “In honor of this National Day on Writing, I submit this quote from Dorothy Parker, who sums it up perfectly. #WhyIWrite” This tweet gets the party started. The *quote* was a bit of photoshop nonsense that I have written about before. There is no source for the quote, “I hate writing. I love having written.” (If someone knows a source, please leave a comment.) I left a comment. @chamblee54 “Dotty never said that. An old school manual typewriter only produces one size of text. I have learned when someone says _____ _____ perfectly, then the object in question is full of errors.” When writing this report, I clicked on the link to the original tweet. “You are blocked from following @girlsreallyrule and viewing @girlsreallyrule’s Tweets.”

The next meme is blamed on Ben Franklin. “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” Quote Investigator has a report on this Benjaminism. It turns out that the real quote is better than the meme. “If you wou’d not be forgotten, As soon as you are dead and rotten, Either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.”

@Gaming_agent99 “You can make empires rise from ashes. You can make heroes fall and villains rise. You can bring all your thoughts and ideas to life, what’s more fun than that. #WhyIWrite” This thought was illustrated by a C.S. Lewis meme. “You can make anything by writing.” Once again, the manual typewriter produces perfectly centered text, in two sizes. @chamblee54 I searched the C.S. Lewis wikiquotes. I used make, anything, and writing as search words. This quote did not appear. @chamblee54 #WhyIWrite I found this in my search “The trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed.” The Magician’s Nephew (1955), Ch. 10: The First Joke and Other Matters.

@simpsonlibrary posted a tasteful graphic featuring this quote: “I think all writing is a disease. You can’t stop it.” William Carlos Williams. I had never heard of Dr. Williams, and thought the quote was real. Usually, the less famous the name, the greater the chance that the quote is legitimate. A bit of research turned up page 498 of The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams: 1939-1962. Dr. Williams had translated Fragment 31 of Poems in Folio, by Sappho. “I’m 73 years old. I’ve gone on living as I could as a doctor, and writing poetry on the side. I practised to get money to live as I please, and what pleases me is to write poetry.”

“I don’t speak English, but the American Idiom. I don’t know how to write anything else, and I refuse to learn. … All my life I’ve never stopped thinking. I think all writing is a disease. You can’t stop it.” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.

October 2023

Posted in Georgia History, Library of Congress by chamblee54 on October 2, 2024


I was looking for something to post, and I noticed something. The 2023 October posts have not been logged in. This is going to be my first chore for today.

Last week was a doozy. I took my desktop to the computer shop to have Windows 11 put in, and Zefir sold me a new tower. It seems that the hardware requirements for W11 are an obstacle, and a new toy was needed. A new system is always brain damage, but Zefir was able to transfer most of the old regime to the new kingdom. It was as seamless as transition as I have ever seen. … Doraville’s Delta Computers is highly recommended.

That was monday/tuesday. On Wednesday, the anticipation began for Helene. Thursday night, I thought this might be our last day in this house. Friday morning came with no electricity, but an intact house. Many others fared much worse.

There is much gratitude, to go with the horror at what happened elsewhere. This is along with the new phase of Israel’s race to world demolition. Yesterday brought an Iranian attack on Israel. Nobody is sure where all this is going to go.

The monthly blog inventory is a fairly brainless operation. The pages are loaded 10 to a page. (This is going to get confusing. It is ok to skip a few paragraphs.) You open every one in a separate tab. Then, you go back to the end, and start. Hit the page. Click F6 to highlight the url. Ctrl+C to copy url. Alt+tab to go to the list page. Ctrl+V to paste the url. Make a note of where the pictures came from: gsu, loc, poem, c54. Alt+tab to go to the pages page. Ctrl+Page Up to go to the next page. Repeat steps one through eight.

If you do it right … big if … the mouse is not touched. It is important to stay focused, and not look at any of the pages, no matter how cool. Just stay focused and machine like, and make as few mistakes as possible. And mark the monday pages. The monday post text is never repeated, and is a handy source of pictures for future use.

The operation went smoothly, with a minimum of brain damage. Strategy Of Causing Atrocities is the post that stands out. SOCA was published October 27, 20 days after another escalation in the Gaza – Israel conflict. I thought, and still do, that this might be our last day on planet earth. …

“Around 1987, I was working with Steve. He was the son of holocaust survivors, and an ardent supporter of Israel. We were discussing the war between Iran and Iraq. The I-I was a long bloody affair. The United States supported Iraq, led by Saddam Hussein. The United States, with help from Israel, was also selling weapons to Iran. It was a confusing time.”

“I mentioned to Steve the notion that the US wanted to keep the I-I war going, because it would keep those two countries from fighting Israel. Steve started to get angry. “Yes, and it’s for your benefit. We have to fight terrorism.”

“The I-I war continued for a while. In 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait, partially in a dispute over war debt from the I-I war. Saddam Hussein went from being an American ally to the next Hitler.”

“Today is October 27, 2023, 35 years after my conversation with Steve. The world is a different place. The last 35 years have been full of wars, and rumors of war. The Internet is a routine part of life. Unfortunately, Steve is not with us. Cancer claimed him in 2001, 9 days after 9-11.

A few days ago, Bob Wright had a conversation with Eli Lake. Mr. Lake is an ardent supporter of Israel. After 69 minutes, Mr. Lake said this: “because the Palestinians continue to think that a strategy of causing atrocities will eventually convince Jews to leave a country.”

Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Marjory Collins took the photographs in August 1942 “Brooklyn band of Italian-Americans, after playing at Mott Street flag raising ceremony in honor of neighborhood boys in the United States Army, retiring to a neighborhood bar out of the rain.”

Citizen: An American Lyric Part Two

Posted in Undogegorized by chamblee54 on October 1, 2024


This is a repost from 2018. … This is the part two in the chamblee54 look at Citizen: An American Lyric. There was little reaction to part one. With racial matters, that is often the best outcome.

I question the wisdom of tackling this project. We are talking about this author: Claudia Rankine: why I’m spending $625,000 to study whiteness. In a BBC radio show Dr. Rankine asks people if they think about whiteness when they become a blonde. This is not a blonde joke.

Whiteness is a mysterious concept to me. The subject seems to keep coming up. In 2018, I questioned the validity of a screenshot used to trash a bar owner. The result was Examine Your Whiteness EYW Part Two EYW Part Three In the last part of the EYW trilogy, I googled the phrase *examine your whiteness.* It seems to come down to hair. You have the horror movie frizz of Rachel Dolezal, or the soup bowl cut of Dylann Roof. … the two names that came up in a 2018  search for whiteness.

Citizen: An American Lyric is supposed to be the focus of this piece. Today we will focus on chapters IV and V. In IV, Dr. Rankine seems to be having a headache. She pulls the blinds down, and tries to escape from the world. A tennis match is on TV, with the sound cut off. For me, that would be a football game. There is a mirror behind the computer monitor, which points to a TV on the other side of the room. The black lady is watching tennis, while the white man watches football. People just enjoy what they enjoy.

Part V continues down the same path as IV. “You hold everything black. You give yourself back until nothing’s left but the dissolving blues of metaphor.” I notice metaphor more and more. Am I missing something? Metaphor is a literary gimmick for making comparisons. Except for definition 3 at The urban dictionary: “Metaphor – The word that Christians use to describe contradictions and mistakes in the bible.” Chad went out with a girl named simile. He doesn’t know what he metaphor.

After a few pages, V recalls an episode of recreational microaggression. A man cuts in front of someone in a line. A man shows someone a picture of his wife. “She is, he says, beautiful and black, like you.” Soon, the voice is at home. “You lean against the sink, a glass of red wine in your hand and then another, thinking in the morning you will go to the gym…”

I drank my last beer December 31, 1988. There is privilege in being able to make that move, and to stick with it. Some people want you to die, so they can laugh at your dead face. When you are in a fight, being fair is a luxury you cannot afford.

Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Marion Post Wolcott, photographer “Watching a game at Fourth of July celebration, St. Helena Island, South Carolina” July 1939. Part one and part three of this series are now available for your viewing pleasure.