Didion & Babitz Part One
This content was published February 12, 2025. … 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. I once had 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, too 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 glamour 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.” EH “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. … Part two of D&B is available. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. “The social media picture: Unidentified soldier in Company H, Vermont uniform” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Didion & Babitz Part Two
This content was published February 21, 2025. … At 1838, February 19th 2025, I shut the cover on Didion & Babitz. Say what you will about author Lilliane O’Lick, she is one helluva storyteller. D&B was easy and fun to read. The book ends with a description of Joan Didion’s memorial, a star-studded celebrity event. Page 339 had one final bit of tackiness: “On the day Joan’s obituary appeared in the New York Times, journalist and podcaster Maris Kreizman took to Twitter. “I want to believe that Joan Didion lived an extra week out of spite so that she could officially outlive Eve Babitz.” p.339
The dedication page to Eve’s Hollywood mentions Steve Martin (the car.) The car is a 1965 VW, which Mr. Martin gave to EB. She later said “Linda Ronstadt was his girlfriend and I was his girlfriend and we were both doing him wrong.” EH was released in March 1974, about the same time I saw Mr. Martin open for Nitty Gritty Dirt Band at the Great Southeast Music Hall. Nobody in the Nitty Gritty crowd had any clue who this white suit wearing banjo player was. John McEuen kept stumbling into the microphone, saying “this guy cracks me up.” p. 215
”Huntington’s disease (HD) is named after George Huntington, who described it among residents of East Hampton, Long Island in 1872. It is a hereditary neurodegenerative disease.” HD claimed both EB, and her father, Sol Babitz. EB was aware of her fate for many years. The most famous victim of HD was Woody Guthrie. Many speculated that son Arlo would get HD, but he never did. “Woody’s most productive time artistically was in the 5 years immediately preceding the onset of overt symptoms of HD. I hypothesize that subclinical HD may have been an important driving force behind Woody Guthrie’s creativity.” p. 244
We know little about LOL. She was 32 in 2010, and went to Princeton, after doing high school somewhere else. LOL has the same last name as her Manhattan Doctor husband, but leaves no clues about her maiden name. We do have “A note my older boy, Ike, left on my pillow Valentine’s Day 2020” “DEAR MOM YOU AR WORM AND COTULY AND YOU HAD SEX WITH BREAT ESTIN ELIS BUT DONT TRY TO HIDE IT FROM ME NAW LETS GET DOWN TO BUSINESS I WANT TO GO TO THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM THIS WEEKEND AND I WANT NO ARGUING ABOUT IT”
Page 290 marks the return of Bret Easton Ellis. EB tuned in to “Less Than Zero,” which made BEE a star before he was old enough to (legally) drink. EB compared BEE to Jim Morrison, … another way that People Are Strange. BEE met EB for dinner about this time. There is no word on whether BEE was EB’s dessert. This was about the time AIDS was becoming obnoxious, and EB decided to tone down the whore-of-babylon act. The bi-leaning-gay Paul Ruscha had been a long playing EB boyfriend, which probably has nothing to do with any of this.
On May 7, 2000, JD appeared on In Depth, a PBS talk show. After a polite discussion, and a chance to promote here most recent book, the show was opened up to callers. One of the callers was EB, who introduced herself as “a friend of Joan’s from Hollywood.” JD dropped her stone face once, when EB said that JD’s house “was the first time I ever saw Spode china.” JD did not show much pizazz in that brief clip. I don’t know about the rest of the show, because I am not bored enough to watch it. JD was never known as a vibrant personality. p.306
There may be one defining difference between author and subject. EB wrote a piece about her near-fatal fire titled “I used to be charming.” Recently, LOL did an interview promoting D&B. “I always think of the last line of a Salinger short story, “Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut.” … “I was a nice girl once, wasn’t I? Wasn’t I?” I think about that all the time, because I used to be so polite. And now I’m just used to getting yelled at and told I’m a jerk or to go away. I just don’t mind at this point.”
Page 332 has EB in her final years. In 1997 EB was badly burned, and never fully recovered. That story is available elsewhere. By the time Donald J. Trump was President, EB had become a talk radio consuming conservative, to go with HD. LOL went to California frequently to have lunch with EB, and talked to her on the phone. In one of these conversations, EB asked “Where can I find a blouse the same shade of blue as Melania Trump’s eyes?” When I asked AI that. I found a description of the Ralph Lauren dress FLOTUS wore to her first inauguration. ““She looked simply flawless.” … This is the final installment of D&B. Part one is available. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. Arthur Rothstein took the featured photograph in June 1940. “Brooklyn NY. Red Hook housing development. Jimmy Caputo, seven years old, and Annette, three years old, at their nightly prayers.”
©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Such A Society
This content was published February 24, 2022. … The writing workshop announcement appeared before the event. I went to the signup, and was checked in at 7:27. Tonight’s prompt is to write a “golden shovel.” The gs poem is going to be 25 lines long. Every word in the original piece will appear at the end of a line. The seminal poem is by Dr. Doris Derby. … Pale green husks, Of corn grow, Tall and proud, As the young kernels, Of each one, Emerge from darkness, With bright faces, Bathed in Sunlight. … I finish the first draft at 7:55. I will now edit, until the workshop says to stop.
Seeking the beauty beyond the Pale, blue shimmering waves of green, another shucker looking for husks, recovering from the harvest Of, telepathic aromatic corn, after the earth is done with grow, yesterday’s yellow Tall, and wide and fragrant and, retro rainbow standing proud, wearing polyester of the nines As, whimsical overtures of the, quasi legal sticky ripe young, wallowing in the southern kernels, escaping from the yankee sludge Of, teach one reach one each, five four three two one, fighting and kicking to Emerge, out of the twilight from, the placebo darkness, driving out the donald With, fibonaccian synchronistic bright, well scrubbed faces, dark golden moonlight Bathed, over toes and behind ears in, radiant convulsive Sunlight, just, a suggestion she tells me now.
The day started with breakfast, and medications. I looked on Twitter and I saw this: @robstiles1 “All tyrannies rule through fraud and force. Once the fraud is exposed they must then rely solely on force.” – George Orwell” There are a lot of flaky Orwell quotes. The Orwell wikiquote does have a similar quote, and a source. I did a search of the TLDR document, and found the quote that uses “fraud.”
“Totalitarianism, however, does not so much promise an age of faith as an age of schizophrenia. A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial: that is, when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud. Such a society, no matter how long it persists, can never afford to become either tolerant or intellectually stable. … The mere prevalence of certain ideas can spread a kind of poison that makes one subject after another impossible for literary purposes. Wherever there is an enforced orthodoxy … good writing stops. …”
The second quotable is more relevant today. “The mere prevalence of certain ideas can spread a kind of poison that makes one subject after another impossible for literary purposes. Wherever there is an enforced orthodoxy … good writing stops.” The free flow of information, and entertainment, is currently under fire from many sources. The government, working in tandem with big data, has one agenda. Social Justice Jihad has a powerful ideology, upon which one trespasses at one’s own peril. With all these regulators of information, it is a miracle we hear anything other than football scores.
A poem was well on its way to completion. The soundtrack was a new episode of the Bret Easton Ellis podcast. The poem is a series of nine images, with text added at the bottom. When you finish a picture, the first reaction is to go look at facebook and twitter.
Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, and find line 4. The book is the Holy Bible, with Jean D. Mckinnon in gold letters. Page 18/line 4: Genesis 18:15 “Then Sarah denied, saying, I laughed not; for she was afraid. And he said, Nay; but thou didst laugh.” Line 4 is underlined.
18:15 is just another verse from Genesis, and did not do much for me. What made me cry was the presentation page. “Presented to Jean, by Luke, 7-23-56” This was in my father’s challenging handwriting, on my mother’s birthday. 7-23-56 was a few weeks after my brother was born.
The guest on the BEE podcast was another writer, Jarett Kobek. The desperate state of modern publishing was lamented. The chat picked up when Mr. Kobek asked BEE if he heard about the amateur American Psycho porn. The video features two women having fun, while reading, out loud, a murder scene from American Psycho. It is moments like this, when you want to see the BEE reaction, that podcasting shows a weakness. Bret recovered fast enough, and said “I hope they were hot.” Soon another image was finished, and it was back to twitter. … 2026 update: The show is currently behind the impenetrable BEE paywall.
Kyle Rittenhouse Reveals He Intends On Suing LeBron James. Announcing intention to sue online might not be a good legal strategy. Of course, we are talking deep pockets, and a deep throat. After the televised testimony of Mr. Rittenhouse, this tweet appeared: @KingJames What tears????? I didn’t see one. Man knock it off! That boy ate some lemon heads before walking into court. 🤣🤣
Mr. James likes to express his opinions. “James also made waves back in April for suggesting … that an officer was racially motivated for fatally shooting 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant, who was, at the time, attempting to stab another girl. … I am so desperate for more ACCOUNTABILITY.” You should be careful what you wish for. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Sheldon Dick took the social media picture in 1938. “Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. Some men having beer at Filipek’s bar” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Influencer Encouraging
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psalm 141:3 Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips.
Believers See Jesus’s Face in the Shroud of Turin. A Study Now Says It’s Something Else
Michelle Phillips “It Was Very Unfair That I Was Fired From The Mamas & The Papas”
Everything You Need to Know About Clavicular, 20-Year-Old Influencer Encouraging …
Court rules that large Confederate flag be taken down along interstate highway
Andrew Wilson vs Dave Smith: Is Libertarianism better than Christian Populism?
Ram Dass – Scotland Interview @FindhornFoundation 90s | [Black Screen / No Music …
Dave Smith Interview Tucker Carlson | Russia, Israel, and the Joe Rogan Controversy
Atlanta’s first famous baseball park was also home to a giant magnolia tree in center field
maurice hilliard · dillahunty wilson · top 20 talk · superbowl · eric pline
0208i · 0208ii · take me thriftin · take the biscuit · oddities museum
breathe · om mani padme hum · ram dass · dekalb schools · atheist slogans · chinese doom scroll
trent horn · shambhala · IDF · shermer · jesse · “perpetual glitter”
I was in a zoom poetry event during the Kid Rock-Bad Bunny smackdown. My webcam finally functioned, after a few tense moments. I didn’t know whether to thank Yahweh or Satan. Those two are tough to tell apart · These smiles make the perpetual glitter mess that will plague my studio until the end of time worth it · “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Credit/blame for this item goes to George Santayana, who can also be blamed for “Only the dead are safe; only the dead have seen the end of war.” · This is the story of what happens when a non participant makes a joke about a beloved Christian cliche · @simeonthefool.bsky.social ….what happens is he stays mad about it for SEVEN YEARS and then puts it in his own newspaper that he got mad? 😭 · @simeonthefool.bsky.social Man. It was Twitter in 2019. You can just accept you once got dragged for saying the Council of Nicaea wrote the Bible and get on with your life. At least you kindly linked to the original posts so those of us who forgot about it can see what I said. It was a fun conversation! (screenshots attached) · @simeonthefool.bsky.social Sadly the ex-site has broken the link that was the punchline of my original tweet But it’s even funnier when you realize that my dude was going off about all this in response to…. a gif from Jesus Christ Superstar · @simeonthefool.bsky.social ME: “Remember that story when Jesus flipped tables? And… possibly invented clothes hangers? While singing a rock opera?” HIM: “I am going to stay mad at you for SEVEN YEARS because you don’t take me seriously when I reply that the Council of Nicea made up everything the Bible about Jesus!!!” · @chamblee54.bsky.social actually, I forgot about this, and only remembered when I found the link in my archive. I had a bit of trouble finding your x account, since I am not an approved follower. the pictures are better than the text · @simeonthefool.bsky.social There was absolutely nothing stopping you from just leaving it in the archives, my dude Feel free to use the pictures if you like them, I moved on from X long long ago · @RonanFarrow (1/10 🧵) If you live in NY, you may see a new warning: “THIS PRICE WAS SET BY AN ALGORITHM USING YOUR PERSONAL DATA.” This mandatory disclosure went into effect late last year, and it’s the first attempt by a US state to grapple with a new generation of surveillance pricing · Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio · The text is about Hollywood talent arguing with a trans activist in a New York bookstore. The pictures are about Texas people in 1939 · The people celebrating the conversion of Joe Rogan might want to calm down. “I’ve been reading the Bible a lot. And one of the problems that I find is it’s clearly got the hand of man on it.” · Jesus is my … @grok is this real?@grok The video appears to be an edited compilation of old televangelist footage (likely from Jim Bakker’s shows in the 1980s), with added cartoon effects, speech bubbles, and humorous animations for comedic effect. The base clips are real, but the final product is satirical, not unedited reality. · Pictures today are from The Library of Congress Russell Lee took the social media picture in February 1939. “Mexican men and children who live in corral. Robstown, Texas” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Rose McGowan Again
This content was published February 6, 2018. … Brave is the book that Rose Arianna McGowan is promoting. Whenever there is a fresh controversy, there is usually product to sell. Chamblee54 has written about RAM 3 times: Rose McGowan Misogygate, A Rose By Any Other Blame, and The Rose And Bret Show. Someday, I will see one of her movies.
Recently, during a promotional event, push came to shove. RAM fought back, against the trans activist who verbally assaulted her from the audience. While RAM, and her opinions, can be highly annoying, it was fun to see someone push back at a troll. RAM said a few things about labelism.
“Don’t label me, sister.” Don’t put your labels on me. Don’t you f—ing do that. Do not put your labels on me. I don’t come from your planet. Leave me alone. I do not subscribe to your rules. I do not subscribe to your language. You will not put labels on me or anybody. Step the f— back. What I do for the f—ing world and you should be f—ing grateful. Shut the f— up. Get off my back. What have you done? I know what I’ve done, God dammit.”
Andi Dier is the trans activist who made a scene. There are unconfirmed rumors of bad behavior on their part. @PopCrave “Andi Dier the woman who heckled Rose McGowan at her book signing is now being accused of sexual assault by multiple women.”
Some reports on the B&N episode note trans-problematic comments made on RuPaul’s “What’s the Tee?” podcast. In the last part of the show, RAM makes comments about trans women not having periods as teenagers. Is that transphobic? As a certified cis-male, I am the wrong person to ask.
The rest of the show was fun to listen to. RuPaul made sage observations about the illusionary nature of show business. RAM made one comment, at 51:11, that is easily refuted. “60% of gun violence deaths in this country are women.” The FBI issues a report every year. The homicide numbers for 2016: Total 15,070 male 11,821 female 3,208. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the social media picture in February 1939. “Mexican boy drinking out of water faucet. There were five of these faucets to supply water for about fifty Mexican families averaging five members each. They live in five units. Robstown, Texas” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Cluster Bombs
This content was published February 26, 2008. … This item was in kikoshouse today: “Barack Obama wants to ban the use of cluster bombs while Hillary Clinton and John McCain don’t. What makes the use of these submunitions, which are miniature bombs nested inside a mother bomb, so insidious is that they drop beneath tissue parachutes and are magnets for unsuspecting Iraqi children. Some 82 countries have signed the Wellington Declaration to ban cluster bombs, but don’t expect the U.S. to join them anytime soon.”
Cluster bombs are air-dropped or ground-launched munitions that eject a number of smaller submunitions (“bomblets”).When they are dropped on enemy territory, many of the bomblets fail to explode, and form a land mine like hazard. They are often dropped with tissue like parachutes.
They have been called “Lethal Pinatas.” They are often a bright yellow. This is similar to food packages, and can confuse someone who does not speak english.
They remain on the ground, waiting to explode, when civilian populations return home after the war. According to Handicap International: “Ninety-eight percent of cluster submunitions casualties are civilians killed and injured while returning home in the aftermath of conflict or while going about their daily tasks to survive.”
ADDENDUM – A 2008 article takes a familiar rhetorical turn. “But isn’t the campaign against cluster bombs just a cover for those opposed to Israel? While we’re at it, why does Israel always get singled out for using them against Lebanon? … Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, a minister in Angela Merkel’s German government, was one who felt the sting of being labeled an anti-Semite. After referring to the cluster bomb as “a sort of lethal piñata,” she asked the United Nations to investigate its use by Israel in civilian areas of Lebanon.”
“On June 7, 2023, the US Department of Defense announced that President Joe Biden had signed a “determination” that the transfer of cluster munitions to Ukraine was necessary for the national security interests of the United States. He authorized the transfer of an unspecified number of cluster munitions that have a greater than 1% unexploded ordnance rate to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.”
“The Ukrainian conflict has recorded the highest confirmed death and injury toll from cluster munitions for the third year running, UN-backed researchers said on Monday. According to the latest Cluster Munitions Monitor, more than 1,200 people are known to have been killed or maimed in Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. The true figure is likely much higher, but it could be years before an accurate number is known, said Loren Persi, team lead for the Cluster Munition Monitor report.” … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the social media picture in November 1940. “ Having a beer in “Art’s Sportsman’s Tavern” on a rainy day in Colchester, Connecticut” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Funeral Murder From The Air
This content was published February 6, 2012. … BHO set a new standard for public statements from the oval office. He was talking about economic recovery. “So I want to send a clear message to Congress: Do not slow down the recovery that we’re on. . Keep it moving in the right direction.” Thank you Democracy Now for that transcript, and for the rest of the quotes in this story.
Kansas/Kenya lips were moving on another subject recently. During a “virtual interview” with youtubers last week, BHO was talking about drone strikes in Pakistan. “I want to make sure that people understand, actually, drones have not caused a huge number of civilian casualties. For the most part, they have been very precise precision strikes against al-Qaeda and their affiliates. ” A report from The Bureau of Investigative Journalism paints a different picture .
“We’ve been looking at this since August of last year. When we were putting together our massive database on CIA drone strikes in Pakistan, we noted that there were repeated reports at the time, contemporaneous reports in publications like New York Times, news agencies like Reuters, by CNN, that there were these strikes on rescuers, that there were reports that there had been an initial strike and then, some minutes later, as people had come forward to help and pull out the dead and injured, that drones had returned to the scene and had attacked rescuers. Now, we didn’t take that at face value when we began a major investigation, that’s been ongoing for many months now, that we just published in conjunction with the London Sunday Times, where we looked at those 18 original reports, and we’ve been able to confirm, through our researchers on the ground in Waziristan, that a dozen of those attacks on rescuers, and also two attacks on funerals, have taken place in Waziristan. And we’ve been able to name just over 50 civilians that we understand have been killed in those attacks. In total, we think that more than 75 civilians have been killed, specifically in these attacks on rescuers and on mourners, on funeral-goers.”
The US government had a witty response. “A senior American counterterrorism official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, questioned the report’s findings, saying ‘targeting decisions are the product of intensive intelligence collection and observation.’ The official added: ‘One must wonder why an effort that has so carefully gone after terrorists who plot to kill civilians has been subjected to so much misinformation. Let’s be under no illusions—there are a number of elements who would like nothing more than to malign these efforts and help Al Qaeda succeed.”
A few years ago, in Sandy Springs, an abortion clinic was bombed. About fifteen minutes later, a second bomb went off at the site, designed to hit those who had come to aid the victims of the initial blast. Apparently, our armed forces were impressed by this tactic, and have used it in Pakistan. It is not known whether abortion clinic bombers set off bombs at victim funerals.
There were indications that the situation may be improving. “And just to be clear, the attacks on rescuers and mourners that we note, they’ve all occurred under the Obama administration between 2009 and July 2011. I think that date is quite interesting, because that’s also when Leon Panetta stepped down as head of CIA. You have an interim CIA leader, and then David Petraeus comes in. We haven’t had any reports from Pakistan since July of last year of attacks on rescuers. So there’s an indication of a policy change, and there’s also an indication of a targeting change on the ground. So, things may be changing at the moment.”
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The social media picture was taken in 1898. “Boys of the 71st N.Y. at Montauk Point, after returning from Cuba” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
What Would Jesus Sue?
This content was originally posted February 23, 2019. … This is the story of a Biblical twitterspat. If you are not interested, you can skip over the text, and look at the pictures.
@wartwatch The only thing that matters veto these churches is $$$$$. They must be sued and they must pay a penalty in order to make an impact.
chamblee54 What would Jesus Sue?
@SimeonTheFool If only there was some way to know for sure whether Jesus would approve of causing financial damage on religious leaders who made money by exploiting others. Like, if He’d ever famously done it Himself or something….
chamblee54 “only there was some way to know for sure”
Everything that Jesus did, or did not do, is legend. Everything.
The only things we know about Jeeziepoo are what the council of nicea chose to tell us.
@SimeonTheFool Tua eruditione praestantem es minus habens. Cede studere historia. (Your scholarship is not good enough. Please go to study history.)
chamblee54 Your arrogance is not good enough. Please go to study humility.
@SimeonTheFool Το Συμβούλιο της Νικαίας δεν συζήτησε τον κανόνα της Βίβλου. Αυτή είναι η ταπεινοφροσύνη επειδή είναι αλήθεια. Η αλαζονεία λέει “Ιησούπου”. Σε ευχαριστώ για την προσπάθεια σου. (The Council of Nicaea did not discuss the Bible rule. This is humility because it is true. Arrogance says “Jesus”. Thank you for your effort.)
chamblee54 you have been educated beyond your ability to use knowledge in a meaningful way
אַל־ תַּ֣עַן כְּ֭סִיל כְּאִוַּלְתֹּ֑ו פֶּֽן־ תִּשְׁוֶה־ לֹּ֥ו גַם־ את׃ (This is apparently backwards.)
chamblee54 Do not give it to the people, but to the people of the land. I am throwing in the translator You win You will collect your winnings when the cardboard cookies are finished baking
@SimeonTheFool “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, lest you become like him.”
chamblee54 this religious argument has now moved into the personal insult phase I must be dealing with christians
@wartwatch I used to read over at ExChristians They do a pretty good job with insults as well. 😇
chamblee54 This will teach me not to make a joke about a beloved xtian cliche
At this point I made a mistake. I went for a walk, and thought about this conversation.
@chamblee54 one point has not been challenged … whether it was the council of nicea, or the 7 ecumenical councils, there was a human gatekeeper Some humans chose the texts to include in the bible This is the primary source of stories about jesus christian insults cannot change that
@SimeonTheFool Sorry, but you’re misinformed. Basic history facts: 1. The Council of Nicea was one of the 7 Ecumenical Councils (the first), not “or.” 2. The canon of Scripture was not discussed at any of them. 3. Paul’s epistles as well as the four gospels predate all of them by centuries.
chamblee54 ok who decided what texts go in the bible? was it man or g-d? there were many texts, other than the letters of paul, that were not included. Who made this decision?
chamblee54 you did not answer my question there were dozens of texts which were not included in the canon who chose these texts?
@SimeonTheFool Oh, but I did answer your question. The answer is, “Go do your own homework.”
This debate raged on, long past the point of being either educational or entertaining. St. Simeon the Holy Fool claims to have a PhD from a “large secular state university.” If you are interested, you can use one of the links in this feature to join in the fun.
One other celebrant chimed in. This is a recent convert to twitterism. They have a handful of followers, and have not made any original tweets.
@MRWiggins2 So if this is the case, if everything’s just pure legend, nonsense, myth, why do you even care to speculate as to who He would sue? I dare say, sir, you are a bit confused.
chamblee54 that was a parody of “what would jesus do”
@MRWiggins2 When a fool gets rolling, just get out of their way. Luther’s one of these people not clever enough to realize he’s not clever. Dangerous thing, when you are essentially a combo platter of arrogance and ignorance.
@MRWiggins2 You can’t even communicate at a mediocre level. Mea culpas if you’re a 13 year old boy in the nascent stage of his rebellion phase. Otherwise, please learn to write & reason. Don’t just be a confirmation of the stereotype of the atheist not smart enough to see they’re not smart.
chamblee54 as opposed to xtians whose conversation turns into puerile insults instinctively
chamblee54 you talk pretty good for a person who has not tweeted yet
@MRWiggins2 I didn’t know that was a requirement. I’m not a big social media guy.
@MRWiggins2 Au contraire. I don’t claim to understand the workings of the universe,
I just know Jesus saved me–a small, ignorant thing who doesn’t even understand his teenagers.
OTOH, those who claim there is no God must be supernaturally knowledgeable to make such an extraordinary claim. (At no time in this discussion did I discuss the reputed existence of God.)
@SimeonTheFool is now available to approved followers only. @simeonthefool.bsky.social is open on Bluesky. @MRWiggins2 is nowhere to be seen. @wartwatch continues to do outstanding work.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the social media picture in November 1940. “Having a beer in “Art’s Sportsman’s Tavern” on a rainy day in Colchester, Connecticut” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Those Who Cannot Remember …
This content was published February 15, 2025. … “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” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Echoes Of The Pasta
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