The Void
This content was published April 23, 2008 It is a feminist saying that Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did. Only, she did it backwards and wearing high heels. What they don’t say is that she rehearsed her routines backwards and in high heels. That was dancing to her. If she had to lead in flat shoes she would have been lost. … I saw Ginger Rogers make a personal appearance once. I was working on the mall maintenance crew at Northlake Mall. Ms. Rogers made an appearance to promote Gaymode Pantyhose. Fred Astaire was not there to lead, and she did not speak backwards. Someone asked how old she was, and the inevitable answer was “That is none of your business”.
What a great, honest answer. To me, the high point of this wretched political mudbath was when someone revealed his lack of class by asking Chelsea Clinton about her daddy’s bimbo problem. To which the former (and possibly future) first daughter replied “That is none of your business”. … There is one other saying that is appropriate for all occasions. The story goes that a Persian king asked his men what he could say that would always be so. The wise men thought, drank, fought, consulted sages and prostitutes, and gave the king this message. “These things too shall pass away.”
This content was posted April 24, 2008. … Freedom of speech and freedom of religion are two elements of the Bill of Rights. The combination of the two on roadside message boards was not foreseen by the founding fathers. … There is a little church on Fairground Street in Marietta. Their message these days is “Let Christ fill the void”. The first time I saw that, I was tired. My body chemistry was telling me to be unhappy. My first thought was that I don’t have a void, and how dare those Jesus Worshipers assume that I do. My second thought was that I would rather have a void than the pain Jesus has caused me. … So today, I was on South Cobb Drive when an old Buick drove by. With white shoe polish, the words “Have Jesus John 3:16” were on the back window. Like injecting a dead virus will inoculate you from a disease, that served to alert me to ignore the Jesus messages for a while. When I went by the “Void” church, It didn’t have any effect on me.
When I got home, I turned on the computer and looked at the sites in my “frequent” folder. Mostly Media had a story from South Carolina. Jonesville Church of God has a sign that says “Obama Osama Hmm Are they Brothers?”. … Now, Barrack Sr. got around, so this can not be dismissed. … Senator BHO has had a tough time with religion. First the pesky Muslim rumors, then those repulsive snippets from the man who introduced him to Jesus. … My father was from Eastern North Carolina, just north of South of the Border. When I was a kid we used to go to the farm. This was in the days before interstate highways and air conditioned cars. South Carolina is the biggest, hottest place on earth.
This content was published April 24, 2008. … Neal Boortz was discussing Hatem El-Hady, a man who raises funds for Barack Obama. Mr. El-Hady was involved with an organization called “Kindhearts”. Mr. El-Hady says his group provides assistance to those in need. The U.S. Government says he is a fund raiser for terrorism, and shut down the group. … Mr. El-Hady has a “dedicated page on Barack Obama’s official website”. Mr. El-Hady has raised $60 for the campaign.
A few thoughts are in order: 1 – Mr. Boortz is quick to mock the government when it involves education or the environment. However, when it suits his needs, he believes what they say without question. A regular feature on his show is the “Government Outrage of the Day.” To this reporter, the biggest outrage in recent memory is the deployment of 160k troops eight time zones away. This is destroying our economy and has rendered us more vulnerable to terrorism. 2 – Those who condemn Islamic Terrorism seldom make the distinction between Sunni and Shia. This division is real and important. Al Queda is Sunni, and considers Shia to be more of an enemy than the United States. Could it be that a Shia rival of Kindhearts ratted them out as terrorists? 3 – In the wake of 9-11, the Government went into full terror hunt mode. Is it possible that legitimate charities were swept into this dragnet? 4 – To be totally fair, it is possible that the Government is telling the truth and that Mr. El-Hady is a terrible person. In this case Mr. Obama should return the $60. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress Russell Lee took the featured photograph in February 1940. “Wife of Pomp Hall, Negro tenant farmer, threading sewing machine. She makes practically all of the clothing for her family with the exception of such things as overalls, sweaters, etc. Creek County, Oklahoma.”
©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
#BadHygieneTips
This content was published March 7, 2018. … Run out of toilet paper? Use your dog
Pickles make the best tampons … Vibrators can be licked clean
If you run out of toothpaste, you can always use Elmer’s Glue … Use bug spray as deodorant
To save money use both sides of the toilet paper … There’s no need to wipe if it’s a clean cut crap
Be a gentleman, Wait until she’s done brushing her teeth before peeing in the sink
Rub pickle juice under your arm pits if you run out of deodorant
Perfume covers a multitude of sins, Dollar Store perfume does it inexpensively
Using Meth whitens and strengthens teeth … Floss is too flimsy, try a razor blade
Hairballs retrieved from shower drain can be dried and glued directly to scalp
Licking the floor at Wal-Mart prevents gum disease … Raspberry jam make great shampoo in a pinch
Get addicted to meth … Go barefoot at the casino … No new toothbrush? use a live weasel
The mud you find around most “Port A Potties” is great for opening up your pores
Go through the car wash with the windows open … Use Crisco on your face to get that youthful glow
Wiping your hands in your armpits has the same effectiveness as hand sanitizer
If your dog licks your face, your face has basically been washed and exfoliated for the day
Wear a condom with your wife so you don’t give your side-chick her diseases
Brush your teeth with bleach, it makes teeth whiter … Instead of toilet paper, use sand paper
Save money and use the breath mints that they kindly leave out in the urinals
If blinded by the light, wrap up like a douche … Toilet paper cannot do what a confident finger can
Save money on showers by rubbing yourself all over with bacon & your dog will lick you clean
Bathe in Swamp Water … In a pinch, Oreo stuff doubles as toothpaste
Bathe within the coagulated blood of the old gods, their black tainted flesh spouting forth accursed oceans of fetid fluids into the crater where you lie, let their great teeth hunt for knowledge in your mind, and attend Tapioca Fuck Fest 2018 … Text is from #BadHygieneTips on X. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the social media picture in April 1941. “Bowling alley on southside of Chicago, Illinois” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
Life And The Horror Of David F. Wallace
This content was published March 1, 2025. … I have been going for walks lately. Usually it is a half hour, up and down the path. I decided to stretch things out a bit this afternoon, and go to the library. This may have been pushing things too far. The mapmywalk app says I went 3.06 miles. My feet held up pretty well, but my right knee is none too happy. I am going to keep an ice pack on it for a while, rub some icy hot on it, and hope for the best.
The listening component has been this 160 minute talkathon about David Foster Wallace, written by Derek Swansson. DS talks about himself as much as about DFW, although with far happier results. The file was something I plucked out of archive-dot-org, and it was one of these videos with one picture for the entire visuals. The seminal video was 4.3 gigs, and it was a pain-in-the-ass to play. I had to download a media player, and follow arcane instructions, to save it as a 138mg audio file. This is now fairly easy to play, and I listened to it on the phone.
During my morning walk, I decided to go inside, take off my coat, take a piss, and continue with my walk. While this was going on, DS was talking about the decadence of Bret Easton Ellis, who was notoriously unkind about DFW. BEE was talking about totally depraved behavior in New York and California, which is not a bit surprising. DS came to the conclusion that BEE was a bigger prick than DFW… a notorious hetero sex/drug addict. Taking a piss break on a walk pales on the decadence scale next to the pre-rehab antics of Infinite Jest or …
When I write about other people, I like to use initials. Using the surname alone doesn’t sound right, and titles like mister, mrs, or, god forbid, ms, are too much work. Unfortunately, a middle name is not readily available for DS. I did ask Google what his middle name was … or his first name, or his real name … and I was referred to Chad Derek Swanson, on the Missouri State Highway Patrol Sex Offender Registry. In 2016, when CDS was 29 years old, he got in trouble with an 8 year old Female. The incident took place in Shawnee, OK.
David Foster Wallace And The Horror Of Life is the title of the show. The file was published September 18, 2017. The date is important. DFWATHOL appeared 7 years ago, and a lot has happened since then. But you knew that. It is around this time that the ME-TOO phenomenon got started, and one wonders if DFW would have been caught in that trap. The sexual proclivities of DFW had somehow escaped me until I heard this show, and I must say that it increases my opinion of him. Especially if he could perform while dosing on prescription anti-depression remedies.
DFWATHOL talks about gnosticism, and the archons. Gnostics had a different view of the world, which was highly inconvenient to conventional religions, especially after the concept of yahweh uber alles took root. … “ we arrive on Earth with two souls: an immortal soul that seeks union with our divine spirit, or True Self; and a mortal soul that identifies with the False Self and its attachments to the material world. The Gnostics further elaborated that the True God had given us our rational, immortal soul … “while the Demiurge (a.k.a Yahweh) was responsible for our sensuous, irrational, mortal soul …” · The spell check for Archon: Arson, Anchor
“there’s a hostile, jealous god known to the Gnostics as the demiurge, who created this calamitously fucked up world and now rules it, maliciously, with the help of inter-dimensional mind parasites, known as archons who stoke our pain and mental anguish so they can energetically consume it …” The transformation of “YHWH: The Kenite God of Metallurgy” into THE LORD is one of the greatest feats of marketing the world has ever known. The good ship DFWATHOL does not travel up that tributary, and if it had, it would have been a lot longer than it’s already debilitating 25k words.
I listened to the last twenty minutes or so while driving to dinner. I go to cici’s buffet in Peachtree Corners, even though it is terrible for me, and probably an outpost of corrosive Archon flavored capitalism. Whatever. I always go down Peachtree Industrial Boulevard past the shopping center, to the gas station where gas is always cheaper than in my neighborhood. Tonight, when I arrived, there was a lady talking about how straws are skinnier now than they used to be. I can’t say I ever noticed. This is the strangest pickup line I have heard in a while. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Arthur Rothstein took the featured photograph in June 1942. “Queens NY Nursery school at the Queensbridge housing project. Drinking milk”©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
Phi Zappa Krappa
This content was published September 25, 2008. … Former Dunwoody resident Aquarium Drunkard weighs in today with a nifty video. It is Frank Zappa, appearing on a TV show discussing censorship. FZ more than holds his own, and makes many good points about the nature of language and censorship. His contention is that censorship is about words, and that words in and of themselves are powerless. Wikipedia contributes this quote: “What do you make of a society that is so primitive that it clings to the belief that certain words in its language are so powerful that they could corrupt you the moment you hear them?” FZ had a way with words… “Rock journalism is people who can’t write interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read.”
I was in high school when I first heard about Frank Zappa. It was in the original Poster Hut, a ramshackle building on Cheshire Bridge Road that was vacant 38 years later. There was a poster, with the words PHI ZAPPA KRAPPA. Below the saying was a picture of Frank Zappa on a commode. To compare that image of FZ on the throne to the sight of him on a TV show surrounded by windbags…he is seated both times.
I did not get that poster of PZK, but I did get a dayglo poster of Janis Joplin. I didn’t notice the exposed nipple on the drawing. When Mom saw it, she was horrified. ” I trusted you!” In my shame, I took a magic marker and covered over the flourescent fuchsia mammary. … Back to FZ on CNN. The guitar picker made a lot of sense. One of the pundits threw the Founding Fathers at FZ, who replied that the FF were slave owners and that Ben Franklin was a wildman. FZ replied that we were heading to a fascist theocracy. Are we there yet?
One whiner mentioned that his band was called The Mothers Of Invention. FZ did not mention that the original name had been The Mothers, and a record label made them add “Of Invention”. Finally, the four man part of the show was over. The two primary whiners agreed that rock music had some gnarly words, but did we really trust the government to intervene. … Just for the record, Frank Zappa was a parent. His four children are Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet and Diva.
This content was published October 23, 2013. … The current WTF Podcast features Moon Zappa. At no time does she say grody, gag me with a spoon, or boofoos. Today, she is the divorced mother of an eight year old, and buys quality apple butter. … Moon is the daughter of the late Frank Zappa. FZ did not do drugs, smoked Winston cigarettes, and spent all his time working on music. The four children called the parents Frank and Gail. Mrs. Zappa stays busy these days selling her husbands music. … Adelaide Gail Zappa (née Sloatman) passed away October 7, 2015. Frank Vincent Zappa went to the Dental Floss Farm in the sky on December 4, 1993.
Gail and Moon were walking to the store one day, when Moon was very little. A car stopped, and tried to pick up Gail. Moon screamed “Fuck off pervert.” … Once, Moon broke a finger in school. She called Gail, and waited. Eventually, the family Rolls Royce pulled up. Gail was driving, with Frank in the passenger seat. Frank quit driving when his first drivers license expired. Before taking Moon to the ER, they stopped to get Frank a burrito. … Captain Beefheart was at the Zappa house one time. He had made a hole in the side of his nose with a pencil. When a finger was put over the other nostril, the nose became a whistle. … While listening to this show, I was editing pictures from The Library of Congress. Some of these images appear with this feature.
This content was published March 1, 2020. The first time I saw the word Zappa, it was on an item at the Poster Hut. It showed a man sitting on a commode, with the words Phi Zappa Krappa on display. The poser, Frank Zappa, later said “I’m probably more famous for sitting on the toilet than for anything else that I do.” … It was 1969, give or take a bit. FZ was already well known in some hip circles. His band, the Mothers of Invention, played at something called the Cosmic Carnival at Atlanta Stadium, where the music lovers were actually allowed onto the field.
I paid $1.98 for a copy of We’re Only in It for the Money at the Woolco on Buford Hiway. Years later, I would pay $16.00 for a CD. … The records started to come out like clockwork, with or without the Mothers. FZ started to become a star, with an appeal to druggies who fancied themselves intellectual. It should be noted that FZ was notoriously anti drug. His music made fun of the establishment and counterculture with equal glee. FZ was also a tight fisted capitalist.
FZ stayed with his second wife, Gail, until his death, and produced four children… Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet Emuukha Rodan and Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen. … The concerts came to town every year or so, and people liked them. A show at the Fox Theater in 1974 may have caught FZ at his peak. I heard the raves about this show, until buying a ticket for his next one. This was in 1975, at the Municipal Auditorium. I brought a half pint in, and don’t remember a lot, except some song about the Illinois Enema Bandit. Life goes on.
Nine years later, FZ was in legal hell with a former manager, and could only make money by touring. One night, a friend had an extra ticket to a show. I arrived after the band had started, and FZ was playing a fine guitar solo. This was going to be good. Only it wasn’t. The rest of the show was social commentary. The man had opinions on everything, and was generous with them. At one point, the band started to sing “He’s so gay”, while a double headed dildo was lowered from the ceiling. I think I heard FZ sing “one day you might be gay too”, but by then it really didn’t matter.
Frank Zappa was many things to many people. He had lots of opinions, which were dutifully recorded by the press. Here are a few . If this is not enough, @DoomKid assembled FZ opinions into one 9:44:04 video. … Rock journalism is people who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk, in order to provide articles for people who can’t read. · I think that if a person doesn’t feel cynical then they’re out of phase with the 20th century. Being cynical is the only way to deal with modern civilization, you can’t just swallow it whole. · When God created Republicans, he gave up on everything else. · Let’s not be too rough on our own ignorance; it’s what makes America great!
The U.S. is a mere pup tent of a civilization. We’ve got two hundred years of stupidity behind us. We think we’re right up there with everyone else who’s been doing it for thousands of years. · Beauty is a pair of shoes that makes you wanna die. · He wrote this book here, and in the book it says he made us all to be just like him! So if we’re dumb, then God is dumb — and maybe even a little ugly on the side. · Remember there’s a big difference between kneeling down and bending over.
Do you think you are protecting somebody by taking away seven words? · For the record, folks; I never took a shit on stage and the closest I ever came to eating shit anywhere was at a Holiday Inn buffet in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in 1973. · There is no hell. There is only France. · The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced. … This is a repost. One, two, three, four posts are used. Your archive is your friend. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The social media picture is “Untitled”. The picture is in a collection taken by Dorothea Lange in February 1936. ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Obama Kill Switch
This content was originally published June 17, 2010. … There is a scary headline, “New Bill Gives Obama ‘Kill Switch’ To Shut Down The Internet. When you get to the text of the story, you see a link to the source article. When you click on this link, you see that Prison Planet is facilitated by Alex Jones. Further down in the Aimlow text, he says that the internet is not shut downable, even by the evil Kenyan. It turns out that the bill to allow this internet regulation was sponsored by Joe Lieberman, which brings us to the gist of this story. …
… I have had doubts about the good intentions of Mr. Lieberman for a while. A few months ago, he spoke at a press conference in Israel, where he said, in effect, don’t listen to the President, the congress is never going to do anything Israel does not like. I suspect that Israel needs a bit of “tough love” these days, and Mr. Lieberman is not likely to help. The scary thing is, Joe Lieberman ran for Vice President in 2000, and received a majority of the popular vote. Because of a technicality, Mr. Lieberman was not allowed to serve. …
… While it is generally agreed that the Presidency of George W. Bush was a disaster, the concept of Joe Lieberman as Vice President is possibly worse. VPOTUS is “one heartbeat away” from the big show. In addition to this, the Vice office is a stepping stone to oval office election. If Mr. Lieberman had served as VPOTUS, he would have had four/eight years in the spotlight. It is assumed that he would run for POTUS after Mr. Gore stepped down. The party nomination would be a given. Given the klutzoid nature of the Republican party …
This content was originally published June 16, 2010. … It started with a facebook comment. Someone said she would rather light a candle than curse the darkness. Some incorrigible replied, what if you curse the darkness at both ends? Burning the candle at both ends can cause spectacular light, but it is inefficient. You have to devise a way to hold it, and have something underneath it to catch the river of melted wax that will follow. A candle held perpendicular to earth will have a pool of melted wax below the wick. This wax will vaporize, and burn, and produce light.
… This pool of wax will last a long time, and not spill to the side. This is why a tea candle lasts so long … it is an efficient wax burning device. It has a metal cup at the bottom, which inhibits lighting at both ends. Which brings us to cursing the darkness, a condition caused by the lack of light. Darkness does not have top, bottom, nor sides. The room that is dark might, but the darkness itself is without boundaries. To curse the darkness at both ends would require you to know what those ends are. …
This content was originally published June 15, 2022. … 01- Fair is when a baseball is hit between first and third base. Sometimes it is a tough call. 02- Sunday morning is too sweet to waste on religion. 03- Only argue when it is worthwhile. Don’t argue just to have fun. Better yet, don’t argue. 04- Cry because you are happy. 05- Getting angry with God is like getting angry with standard time. 06- You don’t have to spend all your money at once. Save a bit now and then, and think of a reason later. 07- The sugar and chemicals in commercial chocolate covers up most of the taste. …
… 08- Make pizza with your pasta so it won’t screw up your salad. 09- If you turn your back on God, she will still be looking you in the eyes. 10- Politicians, like diapers, should be changed frequently. 11- Some sayings should be retired. They have been used too much, and no longer mean anything. 12- Does your neighbor’s pain make your pleasure worthwhile? 13- If you have to ask permission, you probably don’t need to. 14- If you charge your happiness, pay the bill at the end of the month. 15- Your reaction to a disaster cannot wait. Act now, using the best judgment you have. …
… 16- The more people talk about forgiveness, the less they practice it. 17- If you don’t want someone to hear what you say, keep your voice down. 18- Time wounds all heels. This is especially true in North Carolina. 19- The middle three letters of the word believe is lie. 20- God is a neutral. She loves and hates in equal measure. 21- Show up, Stay awake, and don’t kill anybody. 22- Youth is wasted on the young. Maturity is wasted on the mature. 23- When you make a list like this, don’t worry about contradicting yourself, or being a hypocrite. …
… 24- Never wrestle with an pig. You will get dirty, and the pig will enjoy it. 25- Be careful when you ask for something, you might get it. 26- The pest is yet to come. He will go away later. 27- Smile, and people will wonder what you are up to. 28- Use spell check, and correct grammar. You will sound smarter than you are. Some of those are worthwhile thoughts. Some are just plain stupid. The commodity wisdom racket is tougher than ever. When this list was published in 2018, there were 45 rules. This production was inspired by a chain e-mail, featuring Regina Brett. … Pictures today are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library. The social media picture was taken March 23, 1962. “Krystal Restaurant 3385 Memorial Drive.”
Fun With Commodes
01. The film “Psycho” was the first movie to show a toilet flushing – the scene caused an inpouring of complaints about indecency.
02. Pomegranates studded with cloves were used as the first attempt at making toilet air-freshner.
03. In a 1992 survey, British public toilets were voted the worst in the world. Following quickly behind were Thailand, Greece, and France.
04. Hermann Goering refused to use regulation toilet paper – instead he bought soft white handkerchiefs in bulk and used them.
05. Over $100,000 US dollars was spent on a study to determine whether most people put their toilet paper on the holder with the flap in front or behind. 3 out of 4 people have the flap in the front.
06. King George II of Great Britain died falling off a toilet on the 25th of October 1760.
07. The average person spends three whole years of their life sitting on the toilet.
08. The first toilet cubicle in a row is the least used. (and consequently cleanest)
09. An estimated 2.6 billion people worldwide do not have access to proper toilet facilities, particularly in rural areas of China and India.
10. The Roman army didn’t have toilet paper. They used a water soaked sponge on the end of a stick.
11. The toilet is flushed more times during the super bowl halftime than at any time during the year.
12. 90% of pharmaceuticals taken by people are eliminated through urination. Therefore our sewer systems contain heavy doses of drugs. A recent study by the EPA has found fish containing trace amounts of estrogen, cholesterol-lowering drugs, pain relievers, antibiotics, caffeine and even anti-depressants. Modern urine is expensive.
13. Lack of suitable toilets and sanitation kills approximately 1.8 million people a year.
14. The toilet handle in a public restroom can have up to 40,000 germs per square inch.
15. While he didn’t invent the toilet, Thomas Crapper perfected the siphon flush system we use today. He was born in the village of Thorne – which is an anagram of throne.
Add.1-An amusing feature of the water closet is the tendency of people to die there. Elvis comes to mind immediately. There is some debate about this, as some say he was stricken on the throne, fell off, and perished on the floor. Judy Garland is also known to have met her maker while doing number two. Add.2- It seems that this is a real problem with older people that have constipation issues. When you are in delivery mode, and you push too hard, you can cause something called Valsalva’s maneuver. To make a long story short, all that squeezing can pinch the arteries going into the heart. This is not good for you. According to a commenter here, it is .06% of all deaths.
This is a repost from 2009, based on a Listserve article, 15 Fascinating Facts About Toilets. LS continues to produce fresh content in 2025. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The social media picture was taken January 7, 1911. “Bris (Briscoe Robotham) Lord, outfielder for the Philadelphia Athletics”. … Selah
A Rainbow Colored Prayer
This is a repost from 2009. It was inspired by the National Day of Prayer. In a bit of blessed synchronicity, NDP was May First this year. Pictures today are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library. The social media picture is not dated. “Southerland, Tuttle, and Brenan; Loading Zone Peachtree at Houston”.
Good Morning God. Please give me the slack I need to make it through this busy life. I had a birthday recently. I am getting older. Thank you for letting me get this far. Please give me less pain, both above and below the neck. Thank you for the gift of sobriety, and the memory of inebrience. The gift of moderation would have been helpful. Help me to overcome the chemistry that tells me to be unhappy.
Please tell Christians to make less noise, joyful or otherwise. Help me to forgive them. Give Christians a bit more humility. Help “some” Christians to get over their projection issues, and quit hating gay people. Let people know that you do not write books. Let men know that A REAL MAN KEEPS CONTROL OF HIS TEMPER. Please tell the people praying that it is better to listen, than to talk.
Please find a happy medium for Atlanta water. Let us have neither drought nor flood. It would help if the developers would move to North Carolina, and the politicians would grow a conscience. This may be too much for you God … see if Satan can help.
God, Please try to get along better with Allah. This is important. Maybe if you and her got along better, then all those religious crazies would hate each other less. Help white people and black people get along better. Please be good to the people who have already lived, and are now deceased. Please understand that I am not in a hurry to join them. … I have learned that “God”, “Allah”, and “Yahweh” are all names for YHWH. Whatever.
Help Mr. Trump with the mess this country is in. Help Israel get along with her neighbors, and live within her borders. Help the world solve the carbon dioxide problem.
Thank you for the birds that sing. I will listen to them, and not an electronic device. Thank you for dogs, and dog owners who clean up. Thank you for earth, air, fire, and water. Thank you for incomplete lists. Namaste, amen, all my relations, Good Bye.
My Head Rent Free
Get the facebook link. This is the first rule of writing about/deconstructing a meme. If you don’t get the link now, you will never find it later. Today’s toxic meme is “15 Sentences That Live In My Head Rent Free” by @jayyanginspires.
15S is a copied page, with the title and numbers draped in yellow magic marker. The text on the other side of the page bleeds inscrutably through. 15S is what you might call commodity wisdom. These are thoughts that sound good, until you think about them. A few might hold water, and none are out and out nonsense. Mostly, they are just thoughts … none of which will make your cold go away.
These helpful suggestions are courtesy of @Jayyanginspires “writing words, lifting weights, & building an internet business. | prev head of content to @noahkagan.” At least he doesn’t list his pronouns. Jay does provide a link to a website, “The Spark A quick dose of inspiration in your inbox, every Sunday.” When Lover of Books posted the meme, they included a link to Audible. The daisy chain of product promotion never stops.
“14. You can’t have a new reality with an old mentality.” This sentence is a good one to ponder. Authoritarian sophistry IS the old mentality. The rhetoric-based argument culture that gave us Donald J. Trump, the Gaza Genocide, and so much more. Manipulative use of language for competitive motivation. The challenge today is to know the difference between true wisdom, and clever sounding bullshit.
Pointing out hypocrisy is so boring. One response is to create art of this text, aka make lemonade out of lemons. I chose to create a haiku reduction. Highlight the parts that I want to keep, and turn the rest into digital rubble. As Alice Walker might say, “Take what you can use and let the rest rot.”
The phrase “God is in the details” applies here, much to chagrin of Yahweh worshipers. There are several steps to the process. If you make a mistake in one you will regret it later. Sometimes, you need to enlarge the image 1600%, and take out one pixel at a time. Just remember sentence nine.
9. “You can do anything, but not everything—focus.” The em-dash is so tacky. The secret is to not be distracted by —, or the uberclever phrasing. Just focus on the message. Focus is essential to getting anything done. This can be tough on a computer, with the digital circus a click away.
Getting back to the reduction, I need seventeen beats out of fifteen sentences. One way is to take one out of all fifteen, and find two more. Or I can just leave some of the sentences blank. There is a message in there if you look for it.
expensive advice · anxiety ill focus · understand mental Is advice expensive for the giver, or the taker? The motivation monger would say that advice is only expensive if you do not take it. Or if it causes anxiety, an ill focus of your precious life. Especially when you are careful to understand mental, while ignoring the danger of oversitting physical.
Pictures today are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library The images were taken July 30, 1966. The featured photograph: “Jimmy Carter with family members in their Plains, Georgia home during Carter’s first campaign for governor.” The kids probably belong to Billy Carter. Billy returned to Plains after serving in the Marine Corps as a private from 1955 to 1959. He married Sybil Spires, also of Plains, in 1955 and became the father of six children: Kim, Jana Kae, William “Buddy,” Marle, Mandy, and Earl.
M.K. Gandhi And Truth
I identify as human @pixfiber “Truth never damages a cause that is just.” · Mohandas K. Gandhi. This item appeared in my twitter feed on January 6. Being an unreconstructed pedant, I went to the Gandhi Wikiquote. “Truth” had too many search results, so I went to “just.” I found a doozy: “I have always held that social justice, even to the least and lowliest, is impossible of attainment by force.” Harijan (20 April 1940) p. 97 This is a repost.
Harijan was another word for the untouchable caste in India. “… Gandhi conducted an intensive crusade against untouchability …” “Harijan was also a newspaper that started on 11 February 1933, brought out by Gandhi from Yerwada Jail during the British rule in India. Gandhi popularized the term Harijan across the states of India but he was not the first person to use it.”
Archive.org has much of Harijan available online, including the quote above. The quote is in a tsunami of text. Gandhiji was trained as a lawyer, and could crank out a word count. His positions are well thought out and complicated. This material is more complicated than the motivational Mahatma we are familiar with.
If don’t mind wading through a pile of results, a search for “truth” on the Gandhi Wikiquotes will yield some good thoughts. Bear in mind that these quotes are without context. If you are willing to do the work, and google the source, you might find that the meaning of these thoughts is different from what you might think. The first three quotes in this list are from An Autobiography Or The Story of My Experiments With Truth By: M. K. Gandhi.
“A man of truth must also be a man of care.” Part I, Chapter 5, At the High School
“But all my life though, the very insistence on truth has taught me to appreciate the beauty of compromise. I saw in later life that this spirit was an essential part of Satyagraha. It has often meant endangering my life and incurring the displeasure of friends. But truth is hard as adamant and tender as a blossom.” Part II, Chapter 18, Colour Bar
“My uniform experience has convinced me that there is no other God than Truth.” p. 453
“An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.” Young India 1924-1926 (1927), p. 1285 (context below)
“A seeker after Truth cannot afford to indulge in generalisation.”
“Generalisation”, Harijan (6 July 1940).
“If you want to give a message again to the West, it must be a message of ‘Love’, it must be a message of ‘Truth’. There must be a conquest — [audience claps] — please, please, please. That will interfere with my speech, and that will interfere with your understanding also. I want to capture your hearts and don’t want to receive your claps. Let your hearts clap in unison with what I’m saying, and I think, I shall have finished my work.”
Speech in New Delhi to the Inter-Asian Relations Conference (2 April 1947)
“Impure means result in an impure end… One cannot reach truth by untruthfulness. Truthful conduct alone can reach Truth.” Harijan (13 July 1947) p. 232
“[Government] control gives rise to fraud, suppression of truth, intensification of the black market and artificial scarcity. Above all, it unmans the people and deprives them of initiative, it undoes the teaching of self-help…It makes them spoon-fed.” Delhi Diary (3 November 1947 entry)
“It is no use trying to fight these forces [of materialism] without giving up the idea of conversion, which I assure you is the deadliest poison which ever sapped the fountain of truth.”
Mahatma Gandhi The Collected Works Vol 46, p. 203
Wikiquotes has a lively section devoted to quotes that are Disputed and Misattributed. One Disputed entry is especially festive: “Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.” “The earliest attribution of this to Gandhi … is in a T-shirt advertisement in Mother Jones, Vol. 8, No. 5 (June 1983), p. 46”
Several much loved Gandhisms have a shaky history. “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” “An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.” “God has no religion.” “We need to be the change we wish to see in the world.”
Young India supplied one of the quotes above. Here is page 1285. “Some Posers: — ‘A well wisher’ sends these lines for my meditation: ‘The Bible can be read in 566 languages. In how many can the Upanishads and the Gita? How many leper asylums and institutions for the depressed and the distressed have the missionaries? How many have you?’ It is usual for me to receive such posers. ‘A well wisher’ deserves an answer, I have great regard for the missionaries for their zeal and self-sacrifice. But I have not hesitated to point out to them that both are often misplaced. What though the Bible were translated in every tongue in the world? Is a patent medicine better than the Upanishads for being advertised in more languages than the Upanishads? An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody will see it. The Bible was a greater power when the early fathers preached it than it is today. ‘A well wisher’ has little conception of the way truth works, if he thinks that the translation of the Bible in more languages than the Upanishads is any test of its superiority. Truth has to be lived if it is to fructify. But if it is any satisfaction to ‘A well wisher’ to have my answer I may gladly tell him that the Upanishads and the Gita have been translated into far fewer languages than the Bible. I have never been curious enough to know in how many languages they are translated.”
“As for the second question, too, I must own that the missionaries have founded many leper asylums and the like. I have founded none. But I stand unmoved. I am not competing with the missionaries or any body else in such matters. I am trying humbly to serve humanity as God leads me. The founding of leper asylums etc. is only one of the ways, and perhaps not the best, of serving humanity. But even such noble service loses much of its nobility when conversion is the motive behind it. That service is the noblest which is rendered for its own sake. But let me not be misunderstood. The missionaries that selflessly work away in such asylums command my respect. I am ashamed to have to confess that Hindus have become so callous as to care little for the waifs and strays of India, let alone the world.”
Chamblee54 has written about M.K. Gandhi. one two three Pictures are from Library of Congress.
Thou Art That
It started out as a joke comment. Thank God for secular humanism. · You’re welcome. I got to thinking, and wondered what the punch line was. Is there a difference between God and man?
Zen and the art of motorcycle repair says that the division of God and man, subject and object, is the dirty work of Aristotle. I am not philosophically grounded enough to know, but suspect that unity is better than division. Is the earth a unified whole, “thou art that”?
Now, the truth just might be that God is separate from man. While unity may sound appealing, it might not be the way things operate. Just because a belief makes you happy does not mean that it is true. Let no man bring together what God has rent asunder.
If there is a division between God and man, then where does the boundary lie? Pictures are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library. The featured image:The Krystal, Lee Street, SW, 1958. This is a repost. Is it art?
The Four Agreements
The Four Agreements memed into life on Facebook. TFA is a familiar text. A pinch of truth, to offset inevitable performative hypocrisy. The graphic had a pink background, and a serif-enabled font. I saw a haiku reduction yearning to be free.
1 – integrity peak/ Be Impeccable With Your Word
2 – projection/ Don’t Take Anything Personally
3 – sadness drama/ Don’t Make Assumptions
4 – rent healthy regret/ Always Do Your Best
#4 comes closest to truth, with #2 close behind. #1 is truth telling as performance-art. As for #3, I prefer “when you assume, you make an ass of you and me.”
The Playboy Interview Bob Dylan
The Notorious 1966 Playboy Interview -Bob Dylan turned up in the youtubeque the other day. The speaker bought a copy of the magazine online … “I’m one of the few people who can say I bought it for the article and be honest.” A quick google search turned up PLAYBOY INTERVIEW: BOB DYLAN February 1966. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
The winter of 1966 was a different time. Mr. Dylan released Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited in 1965, with Blonde on Blonde to follow in 1966. He shot a screen test for Andy Warhol, and met Edie Sedgwick. Winter of 1966 saw America one year into the escalation of the War in Vietnam. The times they were a changin’.
The interview is not a linear Q&A. The entertainer takes a question from Nat Hentoff, and then says whatever feels right to say. This video, Bob Dylan San Francisco Press Conference 1965, is more of the same. Maybe the best way to approach this is with a few quotes.
PLAYBOY: In recent years, according to some critics, jazz has lost much of its appeal to the younger generation. Do you agree? DYLAN: I don’t think jazz has ever appealed to the younger generation. Anyway, I don’t really know who this younger generation is. I don’t think they could get into a jazz club anyway. But jazz is hard to follow; I mean you actually have to like jazz to follow it: and my motto is, never follow anything. I don’t know what the motto of the younger generation is, but I would think they’d have to follow their parents. I mean, what would some parent say to his kid if the kid came home with a glass eye, a Charlie Mingus record and a pocketful of feathers? He’d say, “Who are you following?” And the poor kid would have to stand there with water in his shoes, a bow tie on his ear and soot pouring out of his belly button and say, “Jazz, Father, I’ve been following jazz.” And his father would probably say, “Get a broom and clean up all that soot before you go to sleep.” Then the kid’s mother would tell her friends, “Oh yes, our little Donald, he’s part of the younger generation, you know.” … As far as folk and folk-rock are concerned, it doesn’t matter what kind of nasty names people invent for the music. It could be called arsenic music, or perhaps Phaedra music. I don’t think that such a word as folk-rock has anything to do with it. And folk music is a word I can’t use. Folk music is a bunch of fat people. I have to think of all this as traditional music. Traditional music is based on hexagrams. It comes about from legends, Bibles, plagues, and it revolves around vegetables and death. There’s nobody that’s going to kill traditional music. All these songs about roses growing out of people’s brains and lovers who are really geese and swans that turn into angels – they’re not going to die. It’s all those paranoid people who think that someone’s going to come and take away their toilet paper – they’re going to die. …
PLAYBOY: Mistake or not, what made you decide to go the rock-‘n’-roll route? DYLAN: Carelessness. I lost my one true love. I started drinking. The first thing I know, I’m in a card game. Then I’m in a crap game. I wake up in a pool hall. Then this big Mexican lady drags me off the table, takes me to Philadelphia. She leaves me alone in her house, and it burns down. I wind up in Phoenix. I get a job as a Chinaman. I start working in a dime store, and move in with a 13-year-old girl. Then this big Mexican lady from Philadelphia comes in and burns the house down. 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: He gives her the knife, and 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. I move in with a high school teacher who also does a little plumbing on the side, who ain’t much to look at, but who’s built a special kind of refrigerator that can turn newspaper into lettuce. Everything’s going good until that delivery boy shows up … he burned the house down, and I hit the road. The first guy that picked me up asked me if I wanted to be a star. What could I say? PLAYBOY: And that’s how you became a rock-‘n’-roll singer? DYLAN: No, that’s how I got tuberculosis. …
PLAYBOY: How do you feel about those who have risked imprisonment by burning their draft cards to signify their opposition to U. S. involvement in Vietnam, and by refusing – as your friend Joan Baez has done – to pay their income taxes as a protest against the Covernment’s expenditures on war and weaponry? Do you think they’re wasting their time? DYLAN: Burning draft cards isn’t going to end any war. It’s not even going to save any lives. If someone can &el more honest with himself by burning his draft card, then that’s great; but if he’s just going to feel more important because he does it, then that’s a drag. I really don’t know too much about Joan Baez and her income-tax problems. 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. …
PLAYBOY: Paranoia is said to be one of the mental states sometimes induced by such hallucinogenic drugs as peyote and LSD. Considering the risks involved, do you think that experimentation with such drugs should be part of the growing up experience for a young person? DYLAN: I wouldn’t advise anybody to use drugs – certainly not the hard drugs; drugs are medicine. But opium and hash and pot – now, those things aren’t drugs; they just bend your mind a little. 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 people who want 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?
Chamblee54 
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