Those Who Cannot Remember …
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Unless you live under a rock, you have heard that quote. Credit/blame for this item goes to George Santayana. (b. Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952.) This quote is the only reason anyone has heard of GS. As it turns out, GS also can be credited with the phrase “Only the dead are safe; only the dead have seen the end of war.” Details on these two crowd pleasers to follow.
“Those who cannot remember …” (TWCR) appears in The Life Of Reason. “During the years of 1905 and 1906, he published a five-volume work titled The Life of Reason; or, The Phases of Human Progress … Santayana investigates the birth and development of human reason, which he views as an evolutionary system within the scope of physical reality. He traces the growth of the human mind towards a state of rationality, exploring the details of existence and evaluating human life in general.” TLOR was written while GS was teaching philosophy at Harvard.
TWCR is in CHAPTER XII—FLUX AND CONSTANCY IN HUMAN NATURE of volume one. Here is the abbreviated paragraph: “Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In the first stage of life the mind is frivolous and easily distracted; it misses progress by failing in consecutiveness and persistence. This is the condition of children and barbarians … Thus old age is as forgetful as youth, and more incorrigible; it displays the same inattentiveness to conditions; its memory becomes self-repeating and degenerates into an instinctive reaction, like a bird’s chirp.”
TLOR is a heavy duty piece of work, not a glib collection of uplifting quotes. Chapter XII is about mankind’s progress in becoming a thinking being. TWCR appears to be an incidental line, not the main thrust of his thesis. The last sentence … “memory becomes self-repeating and degenerates into an instinctive reaction, like a bird’s chirp” … would seem to contradict the more famous TWCR.
How did TWCR go from being an incidental line, to being the coffee mug classic that we know today? We don’t know. Quote Investigator® traces known citations through the years. There does not seem to be any one moment when the quote became famous.
“Santayana sometimes repudiated his earlier work, in part for its having the taint of academic life. He especially spoke down at times about the Life of Reason series for its association with the progressivism of the day, and it was later edited by Santayana and his late-life personal assistant and secretary, Daniel Cory, with the intent of removing some of its more humanistic overtones.” I do not know whether TWCR is one of the “humanistic overtones.”
In contrast to TWCR, few people know about the GS connection to “Only the dead have seen the end of war.” OTDH appeared in Soliloquies in England (1922) “remarkably written amidst the uncertain, violent times of World War I.” OTDH appears in soliloquy 25, _TIPPERARY_ … “Only the dead are safe; only the dead have seen the end of war. Not that non-existence deserves to be called peace; it is only by an illusion of contrast and a pathetic fallacy that we are tempted to call it so. The church has a poetical and melancholy prayer, that the souls of the faithful departed may rest in peace.”
“Some scholars conclude that Santayana was an active homosexual based on allusions in Santayana’s early poetry (McCormick, 49–52) and Santayana’s association with known homosexual and bisexual friends. Santayana provides no clear indication of his sexual preferences, and he never married. Attraction to both women and men seems apparent in his undergraduate and graduate correspondence. The one documented comment about his homosexuality occurs when he was sixty-five. After a discussion of A. E. Housman’s poetry and homosexuality, Santayana remarked, “I think I must have been that way in my Harvard days — although I was unconscious of it at the time” (Cory, Santayana: The Later Years, 40). Because of Santayana’s well-known frankness, many scholars consider Santayana a latent homosexual based on this evidence.”
This text does not discuss the misuse of history, or of quotes. We seek to discuss the context of TWCR, and speculate about why this item is so popular. One of the lessons of history is that people will interpret history to suit their purposes, often to the detriment of mankind. It is ironic that TWCR (written in 1905) is often cited as a justification for war … and only the dead have seen the end of war. (OTDH was written in 1922, after another great war.)
Photographs today are from The Library of Congress. The featured photograph: “Two unidentified soldiers in Confederate uniforms”
Hollywood Part Two
This repost is part two of a book report on “Hollywood,” by Charles Bukowski/Hank Chinaski.
13 – Jon Pinchot needs to move out of his house, and lands with Hank and Sarah. They get to drinking and hanging out, and Jon tells a movie financing war story. This wealthy lady in Russia wanted to work with him, but only after Jon goes to church with her, and fucks her. “please understand I have nothing against the old the aged but it was like kissing a sewer hole.”
This afternoon, I took the book with me to the Kroger parking lot. The idea was to read, while waiting for my brother to finish shopping. When I went in for my groceries, i got in the checkout line behind a lady with WIC coupons. By the time I got through, and returned by shopping cart, the checkout line was cleared up, and Mac was almost ready to go. I did not get to read, and peruse the cosmic comic insights of alkies in movieland.
I did get to drive home. The Kroger parking lot is a nightmare on the best day, but I got out, and on to Clairmont going north. I am going to be turning left in a couple of blocks, and there is no point in being in the right lane. This is a problem for some drivers. People on Clairmont road drive as though they were still on I85, and are very annoyed when someone does the speed limit in front of them.
14 – Hank and Sarah see a movie about skid row degenerates. It turns out to have clean cut, well dressed actors playing broken down drunks. Inevitably one of them gets Jesus, which may have been the point of the movie all along.
These facebook fuddy-duddies were talking about Joe Rogan. I had enough of the negativity, and decided to find some of the content that makes Mr. Rogan the most entertaining man on the internet. I found this: “black people didn’t know what plastic surgery was, so the deal was you take that government butter and you rub it on your titties on your ass and they said it’ll make it grow yeah … that’s what we used to do back in the day.”
This is the person Nikole-Hannah Jones was talking about when she said, in response to a tweet from: @AllMattNYT “Joe Rogan is what he is. We in the media might want to spend more time thinking about why so many people trust him instead of us.” @nhannajones ” With respect, I don’t get this. We need to understand why millions of Americans don’t mind the open racism? It’s not a mystery. Been reporting on it for years. So what do we do with that?” IOW, giving a comedian the opportunity to tell us about using government butter, to make your titties bigger, is open racism. TBH, to say that government butter will make your titties bigger probably does qualify as misinformation.
15 – “Something went wrong. Try again in a little while.” I am trying to find the motivation to write about a boring chapter. Hank is trying to force a screenplay out of his typer, and it is not happening. There is a letter about how to play the horses. There is a trip downstairs to plead for mercy from Jon Pinchot, who responds by saying that François is coming back from France, and they are going to move out to somewhere.
The fifth letter of François is c-cedilla. Ç “is a Latin script letter, used in the Albanian, Azerbaijani, Manx, Tatar, Turkish, Turkmen, Kurdish, Zazaki, and Romance alphabets. Romance languages that use this letter include Catalan, French, Friulian, Ligurian, Occitan, and Portuguese as a variant of the letter C.” To make Ç, you hold down the alt key and type the numbers 0199. Or you just find someone else who typed it, and copy that. If you want a ç, the code is alt+0231.
16 – Jon and François have moved into a ghetto, and they think it is the coolest thing ever. Hank is not so sure, but he gets his knife, puts his money in his shoe, and drives down there. I have known lots of people who lived in “those” neighborhoods. They are usually happy to get out, even if they don’t say so out loud. You have to wonder how long it will take the romance to wear off with these two Frenchman-living-among-the-natives.
17 – Let’s see if the electronic section robo secretary is working hey it’s working too bad I’m not. So I boot the computer now the robo secretary is working. Chapter 17 is kind of boring. Hank and Sarah go to a party at John and François’s place in the ghetto. They’re having a cookout in the backyard and cooking chicken. François doesn’t know how to cook chicken. It turns out hard as a rock. Hank can’t eat it. Someone steals the wheels off of François’s vehicle, and sells them to him for $38. The robo-secretary hears “ghetto life” and gives me “get a life.”
18 – There are these two characters. Wikipedia tells me that it’s Sean Penn and Dennis Hopper. The story is that Sean Penn wants to be in Barfly, but insists that Dennis Hopper direct. Barbet Schroeder ( robo secretary: Barbie show drunk Schroeder) hates Dennis Hopper. He hates him so much, he calls Paris and talks to his lawyer. A clause is written in his will. If Mr. Schroeder dies in the production of Barfly, Dennis Hopper cannot direct this movie.
The story took place when Sean Penn was married to Madonna. The fake name in Hollywood is Ramona. “All’s fair in hate and Hollywood.”
19 – Hank and Sarah go to meet an actor who wants to play the part. Mickey Rourke eventually played the role, so it is probably him. He lives in this broken down bachelor pad. “there were springs sticking out of the sofa, and there were pillows on the floor, used magazines, paper bags. “This is a real male hangout” Sarah laughed.
They mentioned that Francine Bowers was the female they were trying to get to play some role in this drama. Francine Bowers is a great name for Faye Dunaway. There was a person at Cross Keys named Mr Bowers, aka officer dibble. He was this guy that went around in the halls, before school, making trouble for everybody. Later, I had a friend that thought he was a musician. One of his stage names was Harry Bowers. Francine Bowers is a good name for the ultimate diva actress.
20 – Hank is going to a party for some sleazy Hollywood type and he goes by the Chateau Marmont to pick up Norman Mailer. Hank asks Norman if he has anything to drink. Mormon … calling Norman Mailer Mormon…. Norman has the bottle of wine, but no Corkscrew. Hank says that he was an amateur drunk. Hank is not a purist, and drinks the wine.
21 – Hank goes to this party for a producer who may or may not be Harvey Weinstein. IMDb doesn’t say that Weinstein produced BF, but the character at this party was certainly acting like you would expect Harvey Weinstein to act. At the end of the night, Hank has decided that he likes Mr. Weinstein. John Pinchot says that he’s the nicest person he’s ever met, including Idi Amin.
Other parts of this series are available. one three four five Pictures are from The Library of Congress. John Vachon took the featured photograph in August 1941. “Farm boy in beer parlor on Sunday afternoon. Bruce Crossing, Michigan”
I’m A Liberal Butt
“Ron Howard has summed up what many of us believe. Including me. “I’m a liberal, but …” Just when you thought it was safe, more facebook wisdom emerges from the digital cellar. It is not the first time, nor will it be the last. Chamblee54 wrote about it in 2020, and that parts of that post will be recycled today. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the featured photograph in August 1941.“In the square, facing the main street in Saint Albans, Vermont”
My first reaction was to ask, did Ronald William Howard really write this? Of course, IALB had been published before, and a bit of googling revealed the obvious answer. The credit/blame for IALB is usually assigned to Lori Gallagher Witt, who posted these thoughts January 7, 2018, on facebook. Yes, IALB was written by a woman, but when it comes time to share her musings, the credit is given to a man. At least both LGW and RWH are white, so we will have to wait until later to fuss about THAT. Complaining about privilege is an obnoxious privilege.
RWH is a success. He acted in two hit TV shows, and directed many movies. A major motion picture involves the investment of millions of dollars, with all the strings attached. This is the infrastructure that IALB mentions in item 12. “Which means those with privilege — white, straight, male, economic, etc — need to start listening, even if you don’t like what you’re hearing, so we can start dismantling everything that’s causing people to be marginalized.” “The system” does cause some people to be marginalized, but it also allowed RWH to craft movies that millions enjoy.
“11. I believe our current administration is fascist. … because I’ve spent too many years reading and learning about the Third Reich to miss the similarities. … because things are actually mirroring authoritarian and fascist regimes of the past.” Fascism is one of those slurs that gets casually tossed around, until it means very little. Yes, there are similarities between the US Government, and Nazi Germany. There are also significant differences. The glib Hitler comparisons only serve to distract from a consideration of boring issues and tough choices.
“15. I believe in funding sustainable energy … There are too many sustainable options available for us to continue with coal and oil. Sorry, billionaires. Maybe try investing in something else.” Here again, God/the Devil is in the details. Take electric cars. How are we going to generate all that electricity, when our power grids are struggling? How are we going to get the cobalt needed to make batteries? There are horror stories about cobalt mining in Africa. It is a lot easier to take a cheap shot at “billionaires” than it is to take create clean energy.
“Sorry, billionaires. Maybe try investing in something else.” I don’t know much about LGW, and her finances. If she has a 401k, then that money is invested somewhere. This a big chunk of the “billionaires” that progressives like to bash. Yes, there is corruption and stupidity in our capitalism investment infrastructure, but the simple truth is that this is how we pay for what we do. When you call for “dismantling” the system, you forget that there needs to be something to replace it. The rhetoric of the liberal butt crowd is better at pointing out problems than solving them.
Didion & Babitz Part One
Didion & Babitz has hit the streets, as anyone who reads instagram knows. Lilianne O’Lick knows how to sell the soap, as well as a dirty story that leaves many readers wanting a bath. This is not my first time with either Eve Babitz or LOL. D&B is the story of Eve Babitz and Joan Didion. … Neither lady had a middle name. Chamblee 54 has written about EB on several occasions. 123021 032622 010523 This is not the case with JD. There was once a paperback copy of The White Album … I never got past the abandoned gas station being the authentic west.
“Finishing Didion and Babitz has become a Herculean effort on my part. Lili Anolik clearly hates Joan Didion and continually criticizes and condemns her. This book should be called Loving Eve Babitz, Wench, Whore and Failed “Artist”. Anolik seems to fashion herself as a therapist, making some drastic, others ridiculous, excuses for Babit’s tawdry behavior. … This seemed to be an exercise in “look at my big word vocabulary. I’m going to repeat what I just said using big words that no one ever uses just to impress you. “ From an Amazon one-star review, “Loving Eve Loathing Joan,” by NFox.
(“The seventies in LA weren’t a decade under themselves but an extension of the previous decade: the Sixties the flower child, the seventies the juvenile delinquent that the flower child—a Bad Seed all along—grew into.” p. 124) The sixties were special, too beautiful to live, to profitable to die. Being a kid in Georgia was just one way to see it all. I had little notion of what was going on then in California, and by the time I started to get hip, California had Mansoned its way into a permanent Altamont. EB was playing the game, and the players.
Carrie White was a celebrity hairburner, who wrote a book Upper Cut: Highlights of My Hollywood Life. She is probably not the same Carrie White as the telekinetic teenager at the center of “Carrie” but one cannot be too certain. The CW in D&B went to Hollywood High with EB, and was in the glamor sorority that EB missed out on. CW remained close to Rosalind Frank, who was the fairest of them all in High School. Alas, life after graduation did not work out, and Miss Frank died an early, drug related death. This untimely demise got EB busy writing.
Page 168 sees the first appearance of Bret Easton Ellis, who simply had to be in this book. The first time I heard of EB was on the BEE podcast, which later had an appearance by LOL promoting her first book about EB. BEE idolized JD, and was a close friend of JD’s daughter Quintana Roo Dunne. It is rather poignant that BEE enters this narrative as part of a discussion about JG Dunn’s apparent taste for male company. John Gregory Dunne is the husband of JD, and the younger brother of Dominick John Dunne, … another bicoastal fudge packer.
I was trolling google, looking for dirt on JD … there is a small mountain of dirt on EB … and I stumbled onto a bit of clickbait, “It’s Time To Retire Joan Didion’s Most Famous Line”. The line is “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” I had probably heard it before. I process a lot of commodity wisdom these days. It goes in one eye and out the other … assuming that useless knowledge leaves the head the same way it gets in. Which brings us to page 211, where LOL ends a chapter with JDMFL.
There is a line about EB, whose inclusion in this feature is required by law: “In every young man’s life there is an Eve Babitz. It’s usually Eve Babitz.” Credit/blame for this tidbit is usually given to Earl McGrath. When “Eve’s Hollywood” came out, the line was on the blurb page, written by “anonymous.” The book “came out” in March 1974, with a glamor girl cover photo by Eve’s number one lady lover, Annie Leibovitz. D&B does not have any hint that EB and JD were cleaning carpets together. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The featured photo: “Unidentified soldier in Confederate nine-button frock coat.” · Part two of D&B is available.
Do Your Duty
Hum Invading zing · king fool Dismiss your doubt Blam · sing sarcasm troll
Wake up, do the chores you need to do, and look at the weather. While learning that it was raining this week … a lot … I see a news report on the side of the page. Thomas Eugene Robbins died. He made it to 92, which is rather remarkable for someone as chemically adventurous as TER. The best tribute I can give him is to write. This piece will go in the slot of a haiku reduction that has little to do with it. TER gave me hours of reading fun, which is the best gift a writer …
MOTHER… FUCKIN’ QUEER! · BUT Y’KNOW I UNDERSTAND · SIGH … UNIVERSE? MAN?
I have done my duty. I sat through a youtube rerun of the super bowl halftime show. It is time to talk about Robert Dennis Crumb, who is still alive, despite the ordeal of being a counterculture icon. Do you want to know what a hippie is? Someone who dresses like Tarzan, wears his hair like Jane, and smells like Cheetah. I thought I was not going to say anything more about the halftime show, but you know about good intentions. Kendrick Lamar Duckworth is 37, which is the rap equivalent of RD Crumb’s 81. Zap comics caused hip-hop …
RAT LIFE THERAPY · SING PHILOSOPY! LIKE IT? · IDIOCY! NERDS?
You have every good intention of writing your way out of your sadz on this rainy tuesday morning but first you have to fight off the distractions. There is that comic strip making subtle philosophical points, with the excellent graphics that will be easy to pervert for your purposes. Seeking the “perfection of a kind” that Auden wrote about is deceptively easy. You go through the motions, do what looks good, and is, after all, a 5-7-5 haiku, but you have to make one change. To make that change, you have to change three other things. Soon, you get …
DUPLICATE MASH NOTES!! · LITTLE SLIMY PRINCIPLES! · MY BIG SARCASM?!
It is time to start hitting the snooze button again. On facebook, you have the option of snoozing someone, meaning you will not see anything from this person for 30 days. When the advent of the 47th POTUS, I started to snooze anyone I knew who said anything negative about Donniepooh. Not that I like the orange haired adderal addict, and if this thing degenerates much further may actively despise him, but the woke/anti-trump rhetoric has got to go. It is beginning to have the opposite effect on me. I don’t want to be taken in by their distraction.
VISIBILITY? · NO DANGER YOU? PROBABLY · AT LEAST BUY PIZZA
I just muted my first person on bluesky. I don’t kn0w how that cartoon got in my feed. It shows two stick figures, one red and one blue. One of them is a NAZI, and one of them is not. We are supposed to hate the non-NAZI, because she is still friends with the NAZI, so she is a NAZI sympathizer. If you follow this logic very far, then you won’t be able to associate with anyone, because everybody is either a POOPYHEAD, or a POOPYHEAD sympathizer. The lady I blocked works with animals, and might not have human friends.
twee culture fitful · multifarious language · drive by what they do
John Hamilton McWhorter used to be someone that I enjoyed listening to. I do admire his skill at marketing his word product … not enough to read any of it, or, God forbid, buy one of his books. There are several causes of this impending pundit-listener disengagement. First, John does not seem to realize that racism is BORING. I think deep down he does, but the gravy train keeps demanding fresh meat. The second, and more serious problem, is John’s support of the Israeli effort to rid Gaza of Palestineans. Those beachfront resorts are going to be so fabulous …
THINKING CULT HUMAN · WHAT-HAVE-YOU … HELPLESS VICTIM · INTERESTING HUH??
This is today’s featured picture. Usually, this is a historic photograph, but today is a deconstruction by Dennis Crumb … Dennis fits his personality so much better, and he really is a menace. The modern celebrity is in a position of people taking everything he says seriously, and allowing whatever drug addled bilge seeps out of his head as great thought. We should not be careless with our gendered pronouns here, because this is a problem for lady celebrities as well, although there was never any doubt that Dennis is a cis-male. Which reminds me of that Super Bowl Halftime.
Lawyers, Lepers, Crooks
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What you can do, right now, for your trans and nonbinary friends, family, students …
Jon Stewart Examines Trump “Fascism” Cries & Kosta on RFK Jr. & D.C. Plane Crash
6 men with ties to Michael Brown protests have died since 2014
They’re trying to deport vigils for murdered Palestinian kids Here is a hideous example …
Fitting Cohorts of Dylan’s Thin Man: Lawyers, Lepers and Crooks
The ‘15-15-15’ Workout Is Great Cardio for the Easily Bored
Just After My Mumbled Lord’s Prayer But before the trance that is childhood …
Both USAID And The CIA Were Behind The Impeachment Of Trump in 2019
A Conversation With My Mom About Her East Village Apartment of 27 Years
Gun sale gone wrong leads to death of man found in car, Douglas Co. Sheriff’s Office says
It’s Time To Retire Joan Didion’s Most Famous Line You see it on T-shirts, hoodies, …
Maybe the F.B.I. thought I would be intimidated by the raid, and opt to remain silent…
What Trump gets wrong about US power Plus: Brain spoons, super horses, climate …
estuarine · pipeline · Super Bowl XLVII · gene rayburn · Simon Sebag Montefiore
ron howard · lori gallagher witt · hypergamy · lili anolik · 826 Peachtree St.
repost · 826 Peachtree St. · malachi mitchell · 2009 · multifarious
repost · richard brautigan · richard brautigan · m004 · ryan powers
ryan powers · o camerado · nyt · baldwin · flamingo rampant
here’s what I did online last week. The featured picture: “Unidentified soldier in Confederate uniform and Craig’s Rifles, or 28th Virginia Infantry Regiment” · I googled little bird poems, and did not see any of the violent LBP I heard tonight. This one is typical: “Once I saw a little bird, Coming hop, hop, hop. So I cried out, “Little bird, Will you stop, stop, stop?” I was going to the window To say, “How are you?” But he shook his little tail, And away he flew.” … “TO THE TEACHER Read the poem aloud. Make the children repeat it along with you.” · @Goy_Mike_ jews suck baby pen*s. it’s true, look it up. white people are dumb for worshiping them. · Russell Lee took the featured photgraph in June 1940. “Group at the literary society. Pie Town, New Mexico” · If you google LBP … “Little bird, Will you stop, stop, stop?” I was going to the window To say, “How are you?” But he shook his little tail, And away he flew.” … “TO THE TEACHER Read the poem aloud. Make the children repeat it along with you.” · I was at a concert where tickets were $26 to get in and people were talking THE WHOLE SHOW near the video and audio equipment which picked up everything. The guy next to me started shushing everyone which I found distracting as well even though I agreed with him. It’s at the core of bullying, believing that your own rights prevail over others paid right to hear. · @chamblee54.bsky.social · is anything more boring than hypocrisy? It is obvious that it exists. The old story about the church, with room for one more hypocrite, is no doubt true. But so what? Just because you have strong opinions, and share them promiscuously … · Russell Lee took the featured picture in June 1940.“Building a new house for Mr. Craig, first citizen. Pie Town, New Mexico.” · Timothy Leary is sometimes given credit/blame for the phrase “question authority.” Dr. Leary was an authority who would require enhanced interrogation. The featured picture: “Building a new house for Mr. Craig, first citizen. Pie Town, New Mexico.” · @JonathanLKrohn Essayist. Film programmer. Filmmaker. Jewish Benjamaniac. Bisexual baseball faggot. The Place Formerly Known as DF. · this is a media story from 2017. Some people should not be allowed to post in English. Eight years later, it serves mainly as text to go between some historic pictures. @krohn.bsky.social · there was a meme on facebook, that credited a tacky quote to Henry Ford. The picture shown here is from the GSU library, showing 826 Peachtree Street. The building in that photograph is still standing. · so, Black Captain America will be in theaters on Friday, the love day. We are about to be so drowned in hate and racism. Watching the trailer all I could think was, “A Black President shook the shyt out of mediocre white men for eight years. They’ve become dumber and this is going to flip their shyt.” · Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the featured photograph in May 1938. “Southeast Missouri Farms. Dinner in new home of resettled sharecropper. La Forge project, Missouri” · selah
The Henry Ford Meme
There is a meme going around. It has a quote, “Any man who thinks he can be happy and prosperous by letting the government take care of him, better take a closer look at the American Indian.” The credit/blame for the quote is given to Henry Ford. There are so many things to say.
You might ask if the quote is genuine. A bit of research leads to a foundation that studies the life of Henry Ford. They have a spreadsheet of his quotes. A search for the words happy, Indian, and prosperous do not show this quote.
The second comment is about what might be termed political correctness. The term American Indian is now considered offensive. If you consider the historic relationship between Native Americans, and the European conquerers, you see a history of land theft, treaty violation, and genocide. That this could be considered “letting the government take care of him” is a sick joke.
Ad hominem comments are just too easy to make. Henry Ford had a reputation for extreme anti-semitism. Mr. Ford was no fan of labor unions, and fought them fiercely. There are many other stories about what a horrible man Henry Ford was.
This is a repost from 2016. Pictures today are from “Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library.” This featured picture shows 826 Peachtree St.
Junk To Smithereens
This is a repost from 2017. @JonathanLKrohn “This is quite possibly the worst thing I’ve ever read. The person who wrote this should be barred from ever writing again. If you could burn emails, I would recommend burning this one with a blow-torch, and scattering the ashes deep in the heart of the Atlantic Ocean.” This pastel performance got my attention on a boring Saturday. It actually was value added comment to a re-tweet.
“The PR email for Meghan Trainor’s new album is absolutely insane” was the seminal offering. @WizzKhaleesi had a screen shot of the special text. “”hot newlywed sex Meghan and Daryl Sa-BAE-ra are having (did you see what we did there?). Which is why you’ll love the banging’ single “All The Ways.” Billboard was wet for “All The Ways,” calling it “another fun, danceable track to fall in love with.” And would Billboard lie to you, girl?
But perhaps the piece de resistance (that’s French for “Wig Snatch”) is “Marry Me,” a romantic acoustic guitar and ukulele-tinged Awww Fest which delivers all the feels (and then more feels). Meghan wrote the song thirty days after meeting Daryl, and it was so good that she walked down the aisle to it. We know, it’s a little bit #Vomworthy, but also, am I chopping onions right now or are those tears rolling down my face?”
I saw this purple prose, and felt the need to make a statement. The result was a blackout poem. “But Wig Snatch all the feels We know chopping onions.” As a wise man once said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
Who is Meghan Trainor? Why Is This Meghan Trainor Press Release So Horny? has the text of the PR sensation. The first sentence will live forever. “Valentine’s Day is around the corner, and whether you’re planning on smashing bae’s junk to smithereens or making out with a pint of Phish Food, you need some fresh Valentine’s Day bops to get you in the mood for L♡VE.”
Help, This Meghan Trainor Press Release Is Haunting My Nightmares piles on with glee. “This happened with Thinx underwear’s deranged series of press releases, which used phrases like “Hey squirrelfran” and “astronaughty booty” in an effort to sell period underwear.”
Caroline Goldfarb claims to have written the Trainor train wreck. (Don’t let your mouse hover over the background of that page.) @hairoline A lot of people absolutely HATE the press release I wrote for Meghan Trainor and claim it seems like “a horny 12 year old with no writing experience” must have written it. Jokes on them because I’m actually a horny 28 year old with *some* writing experience @hairoline Trivia: The original draft had a line about Meghan buying sex toys with the ginger from Spy Kids but they took it out @hairoline I just had to block someone who said I deserved the electric chair for writing the horny Meghan Trainor press release, but jokes on them, cause I’m the one who got paid to say “smash bae’s junk to smithereens”
Jonathan L. Krohn had fifteen minutes of fame before he was fifteen years old. In 2025: “@JonathanLKrohn Essayist. Film programmer. Filmmaker. Jewish Benjamaniac. Bisexual baseball faggot. The Place Formerly Known as DF.” Pictures for this post are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the pictures in April, 1941. “Singing “Trying to Make a Hundred, Ninety-Nine and a Half Won’t Do” during the collection at Negro church in Heard County, Georgia”
Question Authority Part Two
This is a repost from 2023. … The facebook thread that produced the meme discussed yesterday had a tasteful photo comment. “Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.” Albert Einstein The sans serif text was illustrated with a photograph of an thoughtful Dr. Einstein. Since I was already on a debunking rampage, google was the logical next stop.
The short version is that young Albert said something similar in a letter, which was possibly mistranslated in the meme. “It comes from a letter he wrote to Jost Winteler, with whom he had boarded while at school in Aarau, Switzerland. In the letter, written on July 8th, 1901 (when he was aged 22), Einstein complained about German physicist Paul Drude, editor of Annelen der Physik, who had dismissed EInstein’s criticism of his electron theory of metals (now known as the Drude Model).”
“Was Sie über die deutschen Professoren gesagt haben, ist gar nicht über-trieben. Ich habe wieder ein trauriges Subjekt dieser Art kennen gelernt – einen derersten Physiker Deutschlands. Auf zwei sachliche Einwände, welche ich ihm gegen eine seiner Theorien anführte, und die einen direkten Defekt seiner Schlüsse darthun, antwortet er mir mit dem Hinweis, daß ein anderer (unfehlbarer) Kollege von ihm der selben Meinung sei. Ich werde dem Mann demnächst mit einer tüchtigen Veröffentlichung ein heizen. Autoritätsdusel ist der größte Feind der Wahrheit.”
“What you have said about German professors is not exaggerated. I have got to know another sad specimen of this kind – one of the foremost physicists of Germany. To two pertinent objections which I raised against one of his theories and which demonstrate a direct defect in his conclusions, he responds by pointing out that another (infallible) colleague of his shares his opinion. I’ll soon make it hot for the man with a masterly publication. Autoritätsdusel is the greatest enemy of truth.”
“I’ve left the word “autoritätsdusel” untranslated, since this is the key to the quote. Princeton translates it as “authority gone to one’s head”, and in a paper published in Science and Engineering Ethics, it is translated as “the stupor of authority” (“dusel” meaning “stupor or daze”).”
The Science and Engineering Ethics document promises more cheap thrills. Suppression of Scientific Research:Bahramdipity and Nulltiple Scientific Discoveries “Just as Horace Walpole coined serendipity, so can the term bahramdipity be … defined as the cruel suppression of a serendipitous discovery. Suppressed, unpublished discoveries are designated nulltiples. Several examples are presented to make the case that bahramdipity is an existent aspect of scientific discovery.” A recent example might be the suppression of ivermectin, in favor of more profitable vaccines.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the featured picture in June 1940. “Building a new house for Mr. Craig, first citizen. Pie Town, New Mexico.”
A Lazy Option
It is not everyday that a meme quote turns out to be legitimate. Today is that day. @angrywaterman.bsky.social posted a drawing of Benjamin Franklin, along with “Make yourself sheep and the wolves will eat you.” When you type the phrase … you cannot copy text off an image … and feed this to google, you learn that Mr. Franklin wrote a letter to his sister Jane Mecom, on November 1, 1773. BF was in London on some business or another, and making people angry with his words. The revolution was coming, and BF was encouraging resistance to the empire.
“Maidencane” by Chad B. Anderson · A person … we never learn if they are male or female … has a troubling childhood memory. The incident was right before mother left, taking the older brother. The storyteller is left with his father, for the rest of a troubled childhood. One day, they get a phone call from brother, who remembers the seminal incident in a totally different way. Maybe they are just a fucked up person, who nonebody ever liked. This is the first story of a collection, which is going on the shelf until I finish the popular book I requested, that just came in.
Recycling blog posts is supposed to be a lazy option. I find a boring post with good pics … Confederate soldiers from the recent unpleasantness. Later, there was a book report about Janis Joplin. Most of the youtube links don’t work. One that does work is Janis telling Dick Cavett “I can tell you’re a swinger by those shoes” I click on a click to Peggy Caserta, and learn she has died. She also claims that “Going down with Janis” was ghost written trash. The only reason she went along was to fuel her heroin habit. I was disillusioned, again.
I was talking to someone hard of hearing. I said tariff. He thought I said terrorist. That may be a bit of cosmic confusion there. Tariffs are economic terrorism. Donnie’s slapdash tariff tossing on Canada and Mexico may have severe economic repercussions, which the orange haired wonder does not fully comprehend. Tarifs were a major cause of the War Between the States. The North wanted high tariffs to protect industry. The South wanted low tariffs to facilitate the sale of cotton to Europe. Of course, if you say that now you are condemned as defending slavery, but history does not …
One of the images I put up with my weekly notes had a silver dollar sized black spot on his forehead. Since this was a Confederate soldier from the recent unpleasantness, this black spot led to speculation. The identifier was googled on the appropriate Library of Congress page, and a raw copy of the photograph emerged. It was a formal portrait, seen here in a cardboard frame that was popular for such keepsakes. The soldier was no doubt alive when the portrait was made. Similar spots are seen elsewhere in the photograph, no doubt due to the ravages of age.
Is anything more boring than hypocrisy? It is obvious that it exists. The old story about the church, with room for one more hypocrite, is no doubt true. But so what? Just because you have strong opinions, and share them promiscuously with anyone within earshot, does not mean you have to actually do what you say you believe. You just have to say it with conviction, and people will congratulate you because you really believe it. Yes, the middle three letters of believe are lie. So much of our media meandering is pointing out examples of hypocrisy that prove nothing.
“It’s at the core of bullying, believing that your own rights prevail over others paid right to hear.” There is a conflict in the concept of free speech. Yes, you have a right to speak, but does that mean I have an obligation to listen? With canned entertainment available everywhere, many people feel it is their right to play their chosen sounds, regardless of other people. This extends to discussions of touchy subjects, like politics, religion, or God forbid, racism. Some people wield their opinions like a blunt object weapon, and if you do not submit to their authority …
Little Bird Poems
What follows is a telephone dictation of notes from the February little 5 poetry bash. … Down at the Java Lord’s emporium, waiting at 7:20 on the 9th of the first Monday of this February. I’m here for the Java bash. This is going to be a hell of an editing job once I get started with it.
Well it’s a little bit closer to closing time, or opening time. People are sitting around talking, and there’s all sorts of conversation going on, and a couple people that I know, but everybody seems to be busy talking to everybody else, and that’s fine. They’ve got this pole here, it’s a column, it’s about about five inches square and it’s covered with stickers. Someone was standing behind it, acting like he was going to be gesturing with it. I thought of using that as a dancer’s pole. That’s not not going to happen. None of these people need to be pole dancing. I would probably break something if I tried.
I’m one of the least dressed up people here. I’m wearing my boots, and some clunky old jeans and a white dockers shirt. I’m wearing a t-shirt but I can’t remember what it says I’ll have to look at it but Rosser’s setting up the show. I’m supposed to be opening this thing. I can’t imagine what I owe this honor to. This guy, Dennis, who’s a very entertaining person, he’s going to be the feature.
Rosser’s wearing a fleece vest, a day glow green long sleeve shirt, some flowered pants and some silver Lame’ sneakers. He’s the MC tonight, and he’s going around he’s negotiating with people about who’s going to be performing when and I’m just I’m just here, just here taking up space, not really knowing what I’m doing, but that’s how that’s how you know little 5 poetry bash works.
There’s this Aroma that I always seem to notice when I come to L5P. I was walking past this one of the theaters … they are having a concert, and there’s all these hipster type looking people competing with the security for attention. And there is this L5P odor … a combination of cigarettes and old barroom smell and Old Hippie smell and something else but I can’t really describe it that well I probably wouldn’t want to. You wouldn’t want to wear it as a cologne but this is peculiar to L5P and I smell that it smell every time I come down here.
The show was great. Dennis brought a couple of his pals, and they were all good. Of course it was live, so even bad poets are fun to listen to in person. Something called little bird poems kept coming up, which may necessitate further inquiry. … I googled little bird poems, and did not see any of the groovy violence I heard tonight. This one is typical: “Once I saw a little bird, Coming hop, hop, hop. So I cried out, “Little bird, Will you stop, stop, stop?” I was going to the window To say, “How are you?” But he shook his little tail, And away he flew.” … “TO THE TEACHER Read the poem aloud. Make the children repeat it along with you.”
Finally came the ride home, and the search for junk food. Since the taco bell on buford hiway is closed, the one on North Druid Hills will have to do. Unfortunately, this means an interminable wait at the drive through, and food that is cold when I finally arrives. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the featured photgraph in June 1940. “Group at the literary society. Pie Town, New Mexico”
Chamblee54 
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