Tetragrammaton
The content was published May 6, 2010. … I foolishly answered the question “If you’re not proclaiming the Gospel, why not?”. My reasoning involved non agreement and good taste, and soon found myself in a fun filled dialog. After the third entry, someone named “Otternam” made this observation: “Zach, I was anon earlier, but I can talk now… chamblee is a troll, so don’t play too rough, ok? I can’t tell if he is Jewish or simply superstitious with the whole G-d wordplay… Id just cut to the chase and use the tetragrammaton” … This is a family blog, and the x rated evidence I could supply (re: am I Jewish?) is not conclusive in the modern USA. Readers will just have to take my word that I am a recovering baptist. In addition, I had never heard of the tetragrammaton. (Zach, the blog owner, used the phrase “decalogue of Exodus 20” to refer to the Ten Commandments.)
Tetragrammaton is four letters which represent the God of Israel. The four letters are YHWH. This is not a song by the Village People. The pronunciation is disputed, and some say it should not be spoken aloud anyway. Many say it is Yahwah, which sounds really cool with a southern accent. Yahwah come back now, heah. … At some point, YHWH degenerated into Jehovah, God, and Allah. The third commandment prohibits the improper use of sacred names, but that doesn’t stop very many people. The internet is not inhibited either, and a website for Tetragrammaton is in operation. … In 2026, another Tetragrammaton is a very fine podcast starring Rick Rubin.
This content was published May 11, 2010. … I left the job interview, and headed to the dmv. The man said to get a mvr, which is something you want to hear at the end of a job interview.The Department of Motor Vehicles is a place where you wait. It is not possible to get through in less than an hour. For emergencies like this, I keep a book in my vehicle. Today the book is Tales From Margaritaville, by Jimmy Buffet. I was at a yard sale once, in the hottest part of the summer. TOM was on sale for one dollar, and I was going to pass. When I got back to my bike, the creeping heat told me to go back up the driveway and buy that book.
The lady in front of me has a birth certificate from Miami, Florida. Why are Miami birth certificates so pretty, when the Fulton county thing I have is a negative image copy, ugly as sin? … There are two old ladies in line before the lady from Miami. They both have hair dyed some hideous shade of faux blonde. Whatever happened to letting your hair go white, and being proud of living that long? … So I got my number, and found a plastic chair that seemed clean. For the next forty five minutes, every time a number was announced, I would look up at the lightboxes above the booths. This did not make the number come up any faster. I soon realized that every time I had been in a government waiting room, my number got called, if only I waited long enough.
Back to the book, which was a series of short stories, told in easy to read sentences. The first story was about a bartender in Key West, who tried to drown himself in waist deep water off the shore. He heard the phone ring in his house, and he decided to go back and answer. It was the phone company, calling to say it was cutting off his service for not paying his bill. When that was over, he was so angry, he decided he wanted to live. … The next tale was about a young man who meets his rock and roll star hero, and winds up hanging out with him. The hero tells the young man there are rules for becoming a star. They were (in paraphrased, copyright dodging form) the bar owner is your enemy, some folks are elbows, and will always be like that, and stay out of police custody. The rockstar is telling stories that get wilder and wilder, like the time he was playing in Montana, the audience was breaking the Guinness record for drinking cheap beer, and his bass player and keyboard man are fighting on stage. Before this story was over, the number was called, and I got my mvr. How the story turned out will have to wait until the next waiting room.
This content was published May 16, 2010. … Sarah Palin recently spoke at the NRA convention in Charlotte NC. She told redneck jokes. · “Some of these animal activists are just … crazy. They think we’re killing Bambi’s mother. I love animals, but in Alaska, Bambi’s mother is dinner.” · “You’re a redneck if you’ve ever had dinner on a ping pong table.” · “You’re a redneck if you’ve ever had a custody fight over a hunting dog. Well, Todd and I haven’t, but we’ve got friends who have!” · “You’re a redneck if your honeymoon was a hunting trip. That was us!”
“You’re a redneck if you’ve ever used a fishing license as ID.” · “You’re a redneck if you’ve ever slept in the back of a pickup rather than pay for a hotel. · “You’re a redneck if you’ve ever said to your husband, ‘Honey, move the transmission so I can take a bath.’ · “And you’re a redneck if you think the last words of ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ are ‘PLAY BALL!” · “You’re a redneck if your daughter’s babydaddy calls himself a f*****g redneck on facebook.” · Thank you Matt Taibbi and the NY Daily News. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the social media picture in March 1941. “Young girl lives in this shack with her husband who works at Fort Bragg. In a settlement near Manchester, North Carolina” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
Wired
This content was published May 24, 2019. … Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi was at the Chamblee library, and I took it home. The book begins in 1979, when John was making The Blues Brothers. People were already worried about the amount of cocaine John was doing. The white powder drama gets deeper and deeper, for 405 pages, until John dies March 5, 1982.
Wired has the feel of an endurance contest. The drugs, and the bad behavior, pile up and up. It is similar to Ladies and gentlemen – Lenny Bruce!! The first chapter of LAGLB is a 60 page look at a day in the life of a junkie. The geezing gets tiresome, and the climactic OD comes as a relief.
Bob Woodward is the copyright holder of Wired. He is better known for political writing, most notably about Watergate. Mr. Woodward is frequently criticized. The one comment that keeps coming up is by Joan Didion. In a New York Review of Books essay, Ms. Didion says that “measurable cerebral activity is virtually absent” from Woodward’s books.
Wired is reasonably easy to read, in spite of Mr. Woodward. He feels obligated to explain things. The Police were “an English new wave music group.” The book feels like it is written for people who think drug use is simultaneously terrible, and fascinating.
This attitude is seen in a Washington Post story about the book. “The strongest criticism of the book by those who knew Belushi–who played the chief fraternity prankster in “Animal House” and who was often featured as a huge, overstuffed bee on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live”–was that Woodward concentrated on the dark side of Belushi’s life, providing exacting details of the drugs, alcohol and tantrums that characterized his final days in Hollywood.”
One of the strongest critics of the book was Judy Jacklin Belushi, John’s widow. WaPo had an amazing quote. “The 33-year-old Belushi, who said she cooperated with Woodward for the book … because he was not part of the world of drugs and booze that Belushi thrived on, said that she now believes she made a mistake by allowing someone outside the drug culture to write the book. “He doesn’t tell the story that drugs can be fun … John and I both were drug users, and for a while it was fun.” … Judith Victoria Belushi-Pisano died from endometrial cancer July 5, 2024.
It is interesting to read Wired in 2019. After Mr. Belushi died, the federal government drug policy evolved. On the one hand, anti drug propaganda ramped up, along with drug testing and increased enforcement efforts. On the other hand, the Reagan government was using drug runners to take weapons to terrorists/freedom fighters in Central America. The planes were not empty when they came back to America. The story of drugs in America is bizarre.
Books are a way to pass the time, while you are waiting for other things to happen. You might say the same thing about drugs. Or you could just put both aside, and do something else. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the social media picture in March 1941. “In the second story of tobacco barn used as living quarters by family of workers from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, near Fayetteville, North Carolina” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
Why The War Between The States Was Fought
This content was originally published May 7, 2017. … Recently, Mr. Trump said something stupid about the War Between the States. After his comments began to filter into the marketplace of ideas, people began to react. There was a good bit of self righteous talk about how bad the Confederacy was. Maybe it is time for another point of view. This feature will have minimal research. Mistakes will be made. The reader is encouraged to do their own research.
When the colonies declared independence in 1776, nobody knew how things would turn out. First, Great Britain needed to be defeated. After that, the Articles of Confederation went into effect. “Under these articles, the states remained sovereign and independent, with Congress serving as the last resort on appeal of disputes. Congress was also given the authority to make treaties and alliances, maintain armed forces and coin money. However, the central government lacked the ability to levy taxes and regulate commerce…”
This arrangement was not working, and the Constitutional Convention was called. Originally, the CC was going to revise the Articles of Confederation, but wound up throwing the whole thing out, and creating the Constitution. This document called for greater federal authority. The issue of what powers to give to the states, and what powers to give to the central government, was contentious. It remains controversial to this day.
Had any group of autonomous states formed a federal union before? Usually, such a union is the result of a conquest, with one of the states ruling the others. It is unclear whether such a union had been attempted before, or how successful it was. When the “founding fathers” created the constitution, they probably did not foresee how it would play out. The current system, with a massive central government cat-herding the 50 states, would have been laughed off as a dangerous fantasy.
So the states start to have disagreements. One of the things they disagreed over was slavery. Yes, slavery was an important factor in the unpleasantness to come. Slavery also influenced a lot of the economic conflicts. The North wanted high tariffs to protect industry. The South wanted low tariffs, so they could sell cotton to Europe. There were many other ways for the states to not get along.
Finally, in 1861, the disagreements became too big to ignore. The south seceded, and the War Between The States began. The Confederate States of America was a looser union than the United States. The thought was that the states were more important than the federal union. Mr. Lincoln disagreed. (One popular name for the conflict was Mr. Lincoln’s war.) Many people say that Mr. Lincoln was not especially concerned about the slaves, but wanted to keep the union together. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Dorothea Lange took the social media picture in February 1939. “Listening to speeches at mass meeting of Works Progress Administration (WPA) workers protesting congressional cut of relief appropriations. San Francisco, California”
©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
Marilyn Truther
This content was originally published May 31, 2018. … Marilyn Monroe was photographed reading Ulysses, the famously difficult book by James Joyce. 63 years later, a man posted the picture on twitter, while promoting a study course on Ulysses. If Marilyn read it, then you can too! I said something uncooperative, and a brief twitter fight broke out. Since the study course promoter, and his tweeting buddy, did not give permission, they will not be quoted here. One exception, the titular “Marilyn Truther,” was coined by the promoter.
@chamblee54 “It was a joke, at one time, to give models a book to pose with. It was considered funny to give them a difficult book like “Ulysses”” · “Who needs to show a citation? I may be wrong. I asked Google, and found this. According to the photographer, Marilyn did not read it from start to finish. A more accurate answer is that Marilyn read parts of it. The story by Eve Arnold should not be taken as unchallenged truth, but it is all we have. I should have researched this before i spoke. Did you?” · “I had read that about other models. I also read numerous quotes, attributed to Marilyn, that proved to be phony. Photography is a medium open to manipulation, and creation of fantasy. Just because you see a picture, that does not mean it happened.” · “Eve Arnold … a woman … took that picture. How do we know Marilyn told the truth? Maybe Marilyn was just trying to make a good impression on the lady. Would Marilyn have said the same thing if the photographer was a man?”
I disputed that Marilyn Monroe had read Ulysses, and will never know for sure either way. I am not the first person to wonder about this. “Richard Brown, a Professor of Modern Literature at the University of Leeds with a special interest in James Joyce, was intrigued by Eve Arnold’s photos of Marilyn. Curious to know if Marilyn was indeed reading Joyce’s novel or if she was merely posing for the photo, Brown wrote Arnold a letter, which she replied on 20 July 1993. Unfortunately, I don’t have Arnold’s complete letter to show you … In any case, the excerpt from Arnold’s letter is interesting as she was telling Brown exactly what he wanted to know”:
“We worked on a beach on Long Island. She was visiting Norman Rosten the poet. … I asked her what she was reading when I went to pick her up (I was trying to get an idea of how she spent her time). She said she kept Ulysses in her car and had been reading it for a long time. She said she loved the sound of it and would read it aloud to herself to try to make sense of it — but she found it hard going. She couldn’t read it consecutively. When we stopped at a local playground to photograph she got out the book and started to read while I loaded the film. So, of course, I photographed her. It was always a collaborative effort of photographer and subject where she was concerned — but almost more her input. … I suggest to them that perhaps if Marilyn, with her busy schedule, could manage to read Ulysses, then there’s no excuse for them not to read and enjoy it, too.”
Marilyn is reading the 1934 Random House edition, with the dust jacket removed. This is the edition that was famously set from a pirate version containing numerous errors. This defect notwithstanding, the dust-jacket artwork and typographic design by Ernst Reichl constitute one of the great works in the history of book design.”
What does this say about a screen icon who died in 1962? Maybe she was smarter than your typical dumb blonde. Maybe not. Marilyn had an instinct for the camera, and looking good on the screen brought joy to millions of fans. Is this post mortem resurrection, as an intellectual philosopher, merely another fantasy concocted by well meaning fans? Pictures never lie, and there is a picture of Marilyn, reading Ulysses, with a serious look on her pretty face. Of course it is real! A fantasy involving Norma Jean Baker Marilyn Monroe? How absurd! As long as the merchandise is paid for, and the instagrammers inspired, should we even care?
The cult of Marilyn has shown up on chamblee54 before. “Someone told me that Marilyn Monroe once remarked that she enjoyed reading poetry “because it saves time.” I like this quotation so much that I’ve never dared to confirm it; I’d feel disenchanted to learn it was bogus.”
This search for authenticity led to a forum called Data Lounge … “get your fix of gay gossip, news and pointless bitchery.” The “Marilyn: Smart or Stupid” debate rages through 200 comments, reaching a peak at comment 196. “Yes MM said every one of those quotes by herself! … But I’m worried for her, cause She’s my main spirit guide and Saviour and she recently commanded me to share this message! … Comment 42 is also tasty. “MM on the set of GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES in conversation with Jane Russell on embryological parallelism. “Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.” … Jane’s reply: “I was about to say the same thing.”
In 2014, a facebook notice appeared. It was promoting a blog post by known idiot Matt Walsh. “If you can’t accept me at my worst, then you don’t deserve me at my best.”… “the original quote is from Marilyn Monroe. It’s even more vapid and nauseating when taken in its full context: “I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.” Out of all the profundities ever uttered, what does it say about our society that THIS is the quote we’ve decided to take to heart?” The quote is disputed.
A link I cited above has a footnote: “1. Quoted in Richard Brown, “Marilyn Monroe Reading Ulysses: Goddess or Postcultural Cyborg?”, in R. B. Kershner (Ed), Joyce and Popular Culture, University Press of Florida, Gainesville, 1996, p. 174.” MMRUGOPC is available from a suspicious app. I did find an interview with Richard Brown. “I suggest to them that perhaps if Marilyn, with her busy schedule, could manage to read Ulysses, then there’s no excuse for them not to read and enjoy it, too.” … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Dorothea Lange took the social media picture in February 1939. “Listening to speeches at mass meeting of Works Progress Administration (WPA) workers protesting congressional cut of relief appropriations. San Francisco, California”
©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
Patriots Burn The American Flag
This content was published May 12, 2009. … A few years ago, some lawyers took a case about flag-burning to the Supreme Court. The Justices decided that flag burning was not against the Constitution. The decision caused a lot of people to get upset. The case was Texas v. Johnson, the decision was issued June 21, 1989.
Many people like to display the flag. They leave it out in all kinds of weather, in direct sunlight, until the once proud flag is worn and tattered. At least when the flag is burned the damage is done quickly. As it is, the Red White and Blue becomes the Pink Gray and Lavender.
I was walking to WalMart today, and decided to record some examples of this slow moving desecration. It did not take long to find enough examples to illustrate this post. One site was the grave of a revolutionary war veteran.
The United States code has guidelines about respect for the flag. Many of these are routinely ignored, often by people who consider themselves patriots. … 174 (c) Inclement weather – The flag should not be displayed on days when the weather is inclement, except when an all weather flag is displayed. … 176 (i) The flag should never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever. … 176 (k) The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning.
There was once a bumper sticker. It had the stars and stripes, and the words “Try Burning This One”. The vehicle was left in direct sun during the day. The sunlight wasted those colors.
There is a pledge of allegiance for the flag. The phrase “under God” is famously included. Is this a violation of the third commandment, regarding the proper use of sacred names? Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The social media picture: “Unidentified soldier of the 34th Indiana Infantry Regiment in zouave uniform” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
Truth Is Ugly
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Interpretation of Nietzsche’s “We have art in order not to die of the truth.”
How Israel’s war on Gaza has made Hajj an unreachable dream Sara Awad
Israel Evacuates 50,000 from Haifa — Missile Threat Too Great to Ignore
The Most Famous WALK-OFF In Talk Show History: Lester Maddox vs. Dick Cavett
dan gasaway · passed out · alcoholic · jeremy princetta · sin
ryan grim · radio chestnut · stefan paulus · darth buddha · stefan paulus · samheim
Today’s entertainment includes three stories from April 2008. In those days, I was required to clock out for a sixty minute lunch. I would often knock out a quickie post, and email it home for later posting · This is your monday morning reader for a glorious may monday. There is nothing new under the sun, and yet people always find things to say, and think that it is new · After hearing the gongs this weekend, I wanted to hear more. I went to the Internet Archive, and found this: stefan paulus stefan paulus samheim · This is the script for a guided meditation that was presented May 16. Any resemblance between this event, and a serious contemplative practice, is coincidental · “Why does grindr crash whenever the Republican National Convention come to town?” The spell check suggestion for grindr is grin. · We have art so that we shall not die of reality Friedrich Nietzsche · In section 822 of the Will to Power (ed. Kauffman), Nietzsche’s note from 1888 reads thus: “For a philosopher to say, ‘The good and the beautiful are one,’ is infamy; if he goes on to add, ‘also the true,’ one ought to thrash him. Truth is ugly. We possess art lest we perish from truth.” (Will to Power; Section 822) · Amazon ☆ review: “I bought this book as a gift. I was willing to pay the $50 because it was advertised as a first edition. When I opened the shipping box, all i found was a regular used book that I could have purchased for $3! · Profanity makes up only 0.3% to 0.5% of the average person’s daily verbal output, amounting to about 80 to 90 curse words a day. … a study ranked Maryland and Texas among the most profane states, while Arizona stood out as one of the most wholesome · so I saw this man on here. I hooked up with him a few years ago, but fell out of touch. He is eagar to come over, my roommate is out, so i invited him over. he sent texts saying he was on his way. 45 minutes later, i sent him a text asking where he was. there was an uncomfortable text exchange, then he invited me to his place. I declined. · Today is @WorldGothDay. To celebrate, chamblee54 is running pictures from the GSU library. The social media picture was taken March 25, 1961. “Order of the Eastern Star, Grant Park Chapter #178” · George H.W. Bush: “People say I’m indecisive, but I don’t know about that.” Richard Nixon: “Let me make one thing perfectly clear. I wouldn’t want to wake up next to a lady pipefitter.” Herbert Hoover: “Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt.” · PLAYBOY: “Did you ever have the standard boyhood dream of growing up to be President?” DYLAN: “No. When I was a boy, Harry Truman was President; who’d want to be Harry Truman?” · Pictures today are from The Library of Congress John Collier Jr. took the social media picture in October 1941. “French-Canadian stevedores. Oswego, New York” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah · I disputed that Marilyn Monroe had read Ulysses, and will never know for sure either way. I am not the first person to wonder about this. “Richard Brown, a Professor of Modern Literature at the University of Leeds with a special interest in James Joyce, was intrigued by Eve Arnold’s photos of Marilyn.
Bob Dylan Is 85
Content below was previously posted May 24, 2024. … Hibbing MN is a cold place. At least it’s the birthplace of Robert Allen Zimmerman. That’s Allen, with an e, and double L, just like hell. He legally changed that to Bob Dylan, with no known middle name. The initials are BD. On May 24, 1941, the curly haired wonder boi arrived. Europe was in flames, and eyeing America as fresh cannon fodder. This was twelve years, eleven months, and eighteen days before I graced the planet. A twelve year old in Hibbing MN would have no reason to think of me.
Content below was previously posted May 24, 2024. … a decision was made to go to Nashville. Al Kooper played organ, and served as a music director. A bass player named Joseph Souter, Jr. would become famous a few years later as Joe South. Kris Kristofferson was the janitor. The second session started at 6pm and lasted until 530 the next morning. Mr. Dylan was working on the lyrics to “Sad eyed lady of the lowlands,” and the recording could not start until he was ready. The musicians played ping pong and waited. At 4am, the song was ready. …
Content below was previously posted May 24, 2024. … I met a lady once, who worked in an insurance office. One of the customers was Joe South. His driving record file was an inch thick. … Al Kooper had a life. The former Alan Peter Kuperschmidt produced the first three Lynyrd Skynyrd albums, sold that contract for a nice piece of change, and lived happily ever after. Mr. Kooper was playing a show. I sat in front of the stage. During a break between songs, I asked his friend “what time is it?”. Mr. Kooper heard me, and said it was 11:30.
Content below was originally posted May 28, 2010. … The first BD record that I got was “Blind Boy Grunt”. BBG was a bootleg, recorded in a New York hotel around 1961. … I saw BD with The Band at the omni in 1974, and was not impressed. I won tickets to see BD at the house of blues during the 1996 olympics, and could barely hear what he said, the sound was so bad. … Zimmerman is the birth surname of Ethel Merman. May 24 gave us Queen Victoria and Patti Labelle. On May 24, 1844, Samuel Morse sent the message ”What hath God wrought”
Content below was previously posted July 30, 2024. … “I think everybody’s mind should be bent once in a while. Not by LSD, though. LSD is medicine – a different kind of medicine. It makes you aware of the universe, so to speak; you realize how foolish objects are. But LSD is not for groovy people; it’s for mad, hateful orange haired people who want banana revenge. It’s for people who usually have heart attacks. They ought to use it at the Geneva Convention.” PLAYBOY: “Did you ever have the standard boyhood dream of growing up to be President?” DYLAN: “No. When I was a boy, Harry Truman was President; who’d want to be Harry Truman?”
Content below was previously posted July 30, 2024. … “The only thing I can tell you about Joan Baez is that she’s not Belle Starr.” … PLAYBOY: “Writing about “beard-wearing draft-card burners and pacifist income-tax evaders,” one columnist called such protesters “no less outside society than the junkie, the homosexual or the mass murderer.” What’s your reaction?” DYLAN: “I don’t believe in those terms. They’re too hysterical. They don’t describe anything. Most people think that homosexual, gay, queer, queen, faggot are all the same words. Everybody thinks that a junkie is a dope freak. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t consider myself outside of anything. I just consider myself not around.” …
Content below was previously posted July 30, 2024. … “I go down to Dallas. I get a job as a “before” in a Charles Atlas “before and after” ad. I move in with a delivery boy who can cook fantastic chili and hot dogs. Then this 13-year-old girl from Phoenix comes and burns the house down. The delivery boy – he ain’t so mild. The next thing I know I’m in Omaha. It’s so cold there, by this time I’m robbing my own bicycles and frying my own fish. I stumble onto some luck and get a job as a carburetor out at the hot-rod races every Thursday night.” … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The social media picture: “Unidentified soldier in Confederate uniform with bouquet of flowers”
Potus Jokes
This content was originally published May 1, 2016. … After the ADHD WHCD, the Washington Post published The single best joke told by every president, from Obama to Washington. It was easier than finding anything coherent said by Kamala Harris.
The pickins are surprisingly slim, especially for the modern era. When everything you do is recorded, something has to be funny. Three recent Republicans show a liberal capacity for humor.
George H.W. Bush, 1989 Gridiron Club: “People say I’m indecisive, but I don’t know about that.”
Richard Nixon, in Ms. magazine, 1971: “Let me make one thing perfectly clear. I wouldn’t want to wake up next to a lady pipefitter.”
Herbert Hoover “Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt.”
Warren Harding was a dog. … “referring to his penis, which he named Jerry, in a 1915 love letter to his mistress Carrie Fulton Phillips: “Jerry — you recall Jerry, whose cards I once sent you to Europe — came in while I was pondering your notes in glad reflection, and we talked about it.”
You have to go back over a hundred fifty years to get a serious laugh.
Andrew Johnson “Washington, D.C., is twelve square miles bordered by reality.”
Abraham Lincoln “If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?”
Franklin Pierce about duties after leaving office: “There’s nothing left. . . but to get drunk.”
Zachary Taylor when suggested that he run: “Stop your nonsense and drink your whiskey!”
John Tyler on his death bed: “Doctor, I am going. Perhaps it is best.”
James Madison on his death bed: “I always talk better lying down.”
I found a quote once about Alexander Hamilton, by John Adams. “His ambition, his restlessness and all his grandiose schemes come, I’m convinced, from a superabundance of secretions, which he couldn’t find enough whores to absorb!” A google search for verification led to a reddit page, Fake Founder Quotes, starring John Adams. Apparently, Mr. Adams said something similar to that in a letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, sent January 25, 1806. According to this source, the letter was a satire of Jonathan Swift’s Tale of a Tub
George Washington in a 1788 letter congratulating the Marquis de Chastellux on his recent marriage: “Now you are well served for coming to fight in favour of the American Rebels, all the way across the Atlantic Ocean, by catching that terrible Contagion — domestic felicity — which like the small pox or the plague, a man can have only once in his life: because it commonly lasts him (at least with us in America — I don’t know how you manage these matters in France) for his whole life time.” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The social media picture was taken in summer 1938. “Tobacco workers. Florence County, South Carolina.” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
World Goth Day
This content was published May 22, 2012. … In case you did not know, I am an old fogey. I have not been hip since before Nancy Reagan said no. It is rather amazing that I would hear about World Goth Day, much less know what it meant. … What exactly was Goth? When was it popular? Who were popular Goths? Where did they buy their lipstick? Why are you reading this?
According to the WGD web facility, “Best 80’s goth band: The Sisters Of Mercy”. In 1991, I hosted a tacky party in my back yard. A person, who arguably had Goth sympathies, went to a Sisters of Mercy concert at the Fox Theater that night.That would date the advent of Goth a bit. In other words, the original Goths are telling their teenage children to behave now.
Getting back to twitter, the Gothoids are tweeting up a storm. Lets take a look. · @crocpunch I’m too depressed to celebrate World Goth Day. · @TonyCowards It’s World Goth Day and the sun is shining brightly, who says God doesn’t do irony? · @JDawgMadden World Goth Day? Do we have to dress up in black and write depressing, Edgar Allan Poe-wannabe poetry? · @prattprattpratt Out of curiosity, what makes today “World Goth Day?” Did the Goths lobby to have a day? Write their congressman? Who decides? Really. · @NotGaryBusey It’s World Goth Day and somewhere Glenn Danzig is cleaning out kitty litter. · @LauraMcCabe “World Goth Day” Pity no goths will see this trending as their too busy away slitting their wrists · @LauraMcCabe_ Just to let Eurovision fans know there is a tranny singing for Croatia on Thursday. Pretty “woman” with long hair, dress&a nice fluffy beard · @noelfielding11 I personally find world Goth day a bit gloomy. Might spend it on my own in the cemetery · @Eve_Barlow If I knew it was WORLD GOTH DAY I would’ve stayed at home and played House Of The Dead in my Beetlejuice leggings with Marmite on my lips.
The WGD facility has a forum, which asks the question Are you a true Goth? There is one comment in the thread. Somebody is trying to generate traffic for his site, www.Vampirewebsite.net. “Keep in mind most vampires have no idea what they are, and most of them will never find out. When looking for a vampire locally probably the worst place to look is in vampire groups, they are generally over crowded with wannabes and posers. It’s best to just use this page and go basically any where, just as an example we all go to the grocery store eventually.”
Bad Goth, Bad! elevates the conversation a bit. “Goths are everywhere these days. The mall, the beach, and some have even been spotted at sports games. Listen guys, THERE ARE RULES FOR BEING GOTH. If you’re going to represent the Underworld and live in the shadows, you can’t just go around being all normy-norms and drinking Cinnamon lattes next to the Christmas Tree. I’m not going to lie- everyone loves goth style and music on some level (HELLO ALEXANDER McQUEEN and THE CURE), but if you are going to own goth, then you must abide by the goth rules, which means you are ultimately an intellectual, emo vampire (which is really actually very cool). So please act like one. Here are some goths who aren’t following protocol and so I present, BAD GOTH, BAD!”
@SkipsMcskippy So it’s world goth day, I really can’t be bothered celebrating though @baileyhonsinger I’m totally participating in world goth day. Its my favorite day of the year!! · @ErinDavis88 “@zachbraff: Happy “World Goth Day”, also known as “Where Did My Parents Go Wrong Day.”” · @whitewe9 It’s world goth day. I was going to get depressed about it, but then I remembered that would count as celebrating. · @jczreid @vairi the irony that I got sunburnt in world goth day has not been lost on me, even though I was wearing an impressive amount of black · @SmashinBeauty I just found out that today is World Goth day! Happy Goth Day to goths .. if I had known I would have prepared something .. makeup wise · @azroth World Goth day? But everyday is Halloween. · @paulday15 Are goths happy about world goth day? If they are, are they still goths? · @ohmyblainers World Goth Day? Heeeeyyyyy Tina. Pictures today are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library. The social media picture was taken March 25, 1961. “Order of the Eastern Star, Grant Park Chapter # 178” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
Cuss Words
This content was published May 29, 2012. … There is a lively feature today, A brief history of four letter words. It deals with the evolution of profanity. HT to Andrew Sullivan. Examples will be used in this feature. If such language offends you, please skip the text, and enjoy the pictures.
“Golly! Zounds! Gadzooks! These are the kind of things Captain Marvel would say. Almost any other superhero would be too mature for such, childish silly words. And yet, during Shakespeare’s time, they made him one of the more edgy writers out there. They’re not just random sounds, but contractions, meant to make absolutely shocking sentiments less outright obscene. Golly, zounds, and gadzooks were, in order, God’s body, God’s wounds, and God’s hocks.”
The body of God, or Jesus, is a big deal to some varieties of Christians. When Shakespeare was in business, it was even more so. Religious profanity is less and less explosive, as bumper sticker’s about God’s last name might indicate. When Europe was fighting wars about the best way to worship, this talk about Godfrey Daniels was explosive.
The third commandment refers to the proper use of sacred names. It’s application is in the ear of the beholder. I think that a “Pledge of Allegiance” to a flag is not the proper use of a holy name. And I am notoriously non Christian.
The Whisper of the River is about a “raised right” young man who goes to college. A yankee neighbor says “good God a mighty”. The raised right young man calls him out about “using the name of the Lord in vain”. I used to work with an obnoxious “Pastor” who was fond of shouting GGAM.
Some people think they are being righteous by not using certain words. The truth is that profanity is a social standard. God has better things to worry about than what words people use to describe procreation. All of the Carlin seven appear in the Bible, in one of the many languages used.
Bitch and ass are two words that used to refer to animals. “Ass is actually two words blended together to become an obscenity. Ass, the swear word, started out as irs, which meant the back end of anything, not just animals. It became arse, and eventually rounded out and emerged as an ass. … Bitch started out as a female dog in breeding condition. From there its meaning expanded to anything female in breeding condition, and eventually it expanded to become promiscuous, angry women … or anything “especially disagreeable.” Sliding between the slightly sexual, the slightly referring to sexuality, and the literal meaning of the word got bitch into general conversation, and most television shows. It also helps that being “especially disagreeable,” rather than meek and accommodating has become a point of pride for both women and male homosexuals, and so even at its most insulting, the word has lost the power to shock as society has moved on.”
Both bitch and ass have become more acceptable. Ass is frequently attached to hole, which describes a (hopefully) functioning body part. This word is a serious insult. Names for genitalia also function, with remarkable versatility, as cuss words.
At the start of the Carlin seven is piss and shit. These were created using onomatopoeia … a word that sounds like what it describes. They refer to excretion, both as noun and verb. Excrete is seldom used as profanity, even though it means the same thing. As time goes down the toilet, both piss and shit have acquired multiple meanings.
Which brings us to the F bomb. It is similar to the German Ficken or the Dutch Fokken. It almost certainly is NOT an acronym. Technically it is not one of the Carlin seven. If it is, then mother is a super cussword. With a profitable holiday in May, mother will always be said on television.
There is a popular naughty word with six letters. It *triggers* people. If Mr. Carlin had used this word in his monolog, his career would have ended. This word was used by Mark Twain. It is used today by millions of people. Many people who use this word are described by it. Our culture might be better off without this word, but America is stuck with it.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The social media picture was taken “between 1896 and 1901”.“U.S.S. Brooklyn, “Hogan’s Alley”” These men swore like sailors.
©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
Another Roadside Attraction Part Two
This content was published May 9, 2016. … This is the second, and final, part of a chamblee54 book report on Another Roadside Attraction, by Thomas Eugene Robbins. The book is due back at the Chamblee library today. There are two possible reasons to hurry up, and finish reading the book. A overdue fine from the local library is less of a burden than a failing grade. The effect can be the same … not stopping to smell the verbal roses, but shovelling the animal product that facilitates growth. FWIW, part one is available for your perusal.
The first note is page 177. John Paul Ziller, and his wife Amanda, decline to get drunk. They consider alcohol to be an imperfect drug. This is a line that I remember from the 1978 reading of ARA. What was forgotten was Marx Marvelous, the narrator of the tale. He proceeds to get sloshed, and quotes Bertrand Russell: there is little difference between a man who eats too little and sees heaven, and a man who drinks too much and sees snakes.
Amanda replies that one of the men sees snakes. She says a lot of things in ARA. It is probably quite charming in person, especially when one is warm for her form. In the text, forty five years later, it can be rather annoying. On page 336, Marx Marvelous learns two things about Amanda: she loves him deeply, and is totally indifferent as to whether, or not, she sees him again. The concept of sexist condescension, germinating when ARA was written, has come to politically correct fruition in the age of Obama. If one is of the mind to do so, they could judge ARA harshly for this.
There is an order of renegade monks down the road from the Zillers. An associate, Plucky Purcell (more formally known as L. Westminster Purcell III) is a visitor at this facility. This residency is a marvel of totally unbelievable fiction, and is essential to the plot of ARA. The monks are a Vatican hit squad, and Purcell fits right in. In a stroke of impossible to forsee synchronicity, two *good* nuns stop by for a visit. They are Sister Elizabeth and Sister Hillary. They make two appearances… on page 183 and page 283. Amanda decides it is nun of her business.
The Zillers have a roadside zoo, and hot dog stand. It does not sell coffee, which is disappointing to many road warriors. “They stop for coffee, and feel cheated when they learn the meaning of meaning.” I first heard the phrase “meaning of meaning” in an eleventh grade history class. It was presided over by a basketball coach, who was not interested in the dribbles and shoots of wars and civilizations. For the first test, “Dudley Doo Right” asked the class to write three pages on the meaning of meaning.
As second time readers know, the essential character in ARA is the body of Jesus. It was in the Vatican, until Plucky Purcell found it, and brought it to the Ziller’s hot dog stand. In this edition of ARA, the mummified savior appears on page 222. This is one third of the anti christ. There is something cosmic about a dead Jesus having a numeric value equal to one third of beelzebub. Or maybe it is merely comic, and the author added the extra s by mistake.
One of the joys of google era reading is easy access to fact checking. (The proposed french word for google was a palindrome, googelegoog). On page 280, TER reports that Carmen Miranda wore size one shoes. The page wikiFeet for Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha has pictures, which appear to be larger than size one. The Celebrity Shoe Size List has Carmen Electra (size 7) and Carmen Kass (size 8.5,) but no Carmen Miranda. I suspect this diva detail to be an apparition of overactive imagination.
As ARA rambles on to the uplifting conclusion, a council of war is convened in the hot dog stand. The Zillers, Plucky Purcell, Marx Marvelous, and Mon Cul (John Paul Ziller’s pet baboon) try to decide what to do with the holy remains, known by now as “the corpse.” On page 290, there is a typo, unless “insited” is a scrabble approved word. On page 288, someone is called “utopianist.” This may reefer refer to utopia. A more whimsical vision sees a keyboard musician working for the United Thank Offering. Those Episcopals think of everything.
There are several sides in this debate. Amanda takes the historic approach, and washes her pretty hands of the corpse. Pontius Pilate hands her a bar of soap. Plucky Purcell wants to publicly display the corpse, with the idea of destroying the Catholic church. Marx Marvelous says that lots of Catholics are good people, and telling them that Jesus is dead would hurt their fee fees. Sister Elizabeth, and Sister Hillary, are used as examples.
In truth, the fictional debate has been rendered moot in the post Nixon, but not post racial, world. The Catholic church soldiers on. The revelation that *some* priests like to forcibly sodomize pre adolescent boys has barely mattered to the masses. The church has taken a (catho) licking, and kept on ticking. Co-dependent Protestantism does even better.
Page 290 was where I had to throw down the book in disgust. Plucky Purcell, backing down from his plan to destroy the church, admits that *Jesus* was a pretty good guy after all. Never mind that the story he quotes is from the Bible… written by hundreds of anonymous authors, hand copied by anonymous scribes, compiled and edited by the Romanized church, translated by a queer English king. How can you trust a book like that? And yet, the PR of Jesus persists. Even the most vicious critics of the modern Jesus worship church have a soft spot for the old boy.
One *page 69,* John Paul Ziller warns against anthromorphizing, or assigning human emotions to non-human animals. And yet, 222 pages later, the text anthromorphizes the cult of Jesus. It must work, because the conclusion of ARA leaves the Roman Pedophile Church intact. … Tom Robbins went to the hotdog stand in the sky February 9, 2025. Pictures today are from Georgia State University Library. The social media picture: Ford Motor Company mechanics, Lawrenceville”
©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
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