Did Socrates Read And Write?
This content was posted November 21, 2024. … This story starts with a facebook meme. A fbf posted a picture of a thoughtful statue. The text read ‘When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.’ Socrates. I thought that Socrates never wrote anything that survived. All of what we attribute to Socrates was written by Plato. People reading this blog should know what happened next.
Did Socrates Say Slander Is ‘The Tool of the Losers”? is one of several results. They all said the same thing … the quote is bogus. A tweet from Eric Trump is not evidence of authenticity.
I began to think, which is never a good sign. Was Socrates able to read and write? was on the screen a few minutes later. The speculation is mixed. Some say that that Socrates was stone illiterate.
Thomas Musselman “Socrates served in the government on juries. Historians now know that legal proceedings were common over business matters of great sophistication and that the juries were well-educated concerning such matters. General literacy existed by the late 400s BC for the general public in primary school. Upper class males even in Socrates’ day would have been literate and there was an active book-seller market. To function in the world that Socrates functioned in required literacy.”
Google turned up a curious document. It is a passage written by Plato, “Phaedrus.” Pp. 551-552 in Compete Works. An Egyptian God is talking to a King, about an invention … writing.
“In fact, it (writing) will introduce forgetfulness into the soul of those who learn it: they will not practice using their memory because they will put their trust in writing, which is external and depends on signs that belong to others, instead of trying to remember from the inside, completely on their own. You have not discovered a potion for remembering, but for reminding; you provide your students with the appearance of wisdom, not with its reality. Your invention will enable them to hear many things without being properly taught, and they will imagine that they have come to know much while for the most part they will know nothing. And they will be difficult to get along with, since they will merely appear to be wise instead of really being so.”
SOCRATES: “But, my friend, the priests of the temple of Zeus at Dodona say that the first prophecies were the words of an oak. Everyone who lived at that time, not being as wise as you young ones are today, found it rewarding enough in their simplicity to listen to an oak or even a stone, so long as it was telling the truth, while it seems to make a difference to you, Phaedrus, who is speaking and where he comes from. Why, though, don’t you just consider whether what he says is right or wrong?” … Pictures for our Chautauqua are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the social media picture in April 1941. “ “Storefront” Baptist church during services on Easter morning. Chicago, Illinois” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Joni Mitchell Smoking
Yesterday I posted a birthday tribute to Joni Mitchell. In the late stages of the vetting process, the thought occurred to me: What brand of cigarette did she smoke? The AI overview mentions American Spirit, and Camels. American Spirit came on the market in 1982. Joni started her habit in 1952, so she was a Camel girl for 30 years.
In 1991, Joni had a new album to promote. The Telegraph helped out with a “puff piece”, THE FLOWERING OF JONI MITCHELL. “Even the cigarettes she smokes are particular. They are called American Spirit, and come in a sky blue pack, and they say a lot about Joni Mitchell. For these are truly designer cigarettes, free of artificial additives, expensive. Mitchell volunteers the long and detailed explanation of the true smoking aficionado: ordinary cigarettes contain saltpetre which makes them burn down quicker; these cigarettes last longer, but you still have all that addiction-quenching nicotine.” (American Spirit might not be that healthy after all.)
“… Even as the last plume of blue smoke from one cigarette is melting in the air, she is relighting another. One sees in this a small, but telling gesture of defiance. In California, smoking is regarded with the puritanical disdain of a social disease; Joni Mitchell — for many, the very personification of a certain Californian way of life (although she is actually Canadian) — doesn’t care.”
The Telegraph published Joni Mitchell: still smoking on October 4, 2007. “’I’ll try not to kill you with secondary smoke,” says Joni Mitchell, as she lights up at the table. The great Canadian singer-songwriter likes her cigarettes, and, at 63, nothing is likely to persuade her to stop smoking now. … “It’s one of life’s great pleasures,” she says, mischievously revelling in political incorrectness as she exhales a small cloud through wide nostrils. …
Mitchell’s speaking voice is a little husky, and her singing voice has noticeably altered over the years, losing the high end and modulating into a sensuous alto, but she blames age rather than tobacco. “I have smoked since I was nine, so obviously it didn’t affect my early work that much.” … And then she diverts into a rambling reminiscence of childhood in the remote farming community of Saskatoon. “I would grab my tobacco and get on my bike, looking for a beautiful place, a grove of trees or a field, and go amongst the bushes and smoke and that always gave me a sense of well being.”
On June 21, 2012, My cigarettes, my self, by Joanne Laucius, appeared in the Ottawa Citizen. “Songstress Joni Mitchell has often been photographed with a cigarette in her hand. Women artists and writers have used cigarettes to define themselves. “It is not by chance that Joni Mitchell adopted cigarettes as integral to her artistic integrity,” says historian Sharon Anne Cook in Sex, Lies, and Cigarettes, a new book about women and smoking. …
Mitchell appeared on the cover of her 1976 album Hejira with a cigarette. She has often been photographed with a cigarette in hand and interviewers often mention Mitchell chain-smoking. In a 1995 Vogue article, the writer noted there were two packages of cigarettes on the table “that (Mitchell) makes her way through with Bette Davis speed.” A reporter at The Independent noted in 1994 that when Mitchell’s left hand stubbed out one cigarette, her right hand was lighting the next one.”
“Concern for Mitchell’s health unfortunately seems warranted. She’s a life-long smoker (although apparently she now smokes e-cigarettes instead) who contracted polio as a child, struggles with a weird skin condition called Morgellons Disease, and in 2015 survived a brain aneurysm from which she’s never fully recovered, making it difficult for her to walk.” … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. John Vachon took the social media picture in March 1941. “Men eating at Salvation Army. Newport News, Virginia.” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Joey Ramone
This content was published October 13, 2024. … I Slept with Joey Ramone is the story of a six foot five geek, who was only good for singing gabba gabba hey. Jeffrey Ross Hyman had issues. Aside from his goofy appearance, Jeff had severe OCD. He would injure his foot bad enough to require several hospitalizations. Somehow, Jeff got to play in some bands, going glitter as Jeff Starship. Eventually, Jeff Hyman, John Cummins, Douglas Colvin, and Tommy Erdelyi became Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, and Tommy Ramone. Music was never the same.
ISWJR was written by Mitchel Lee Hyman, Jeff’s younger brother. His stage name was Mickey Leigh. Mickey was the first roadie for the Ramones, and will always be in his brother’s shadow. The two had an intense relationship. Jeff and Mitch went from being best friends to mortal enemies. This sibling rivalry is a key part of the story. The book, despite the commercial title, is about Mickey as much as Joey. The subtitle is “A punk rock family memoir.”
Mickey Leigh is still alive. The co-author is Legs McNeil, who assembled Please Kill Me. ISWJR is told through Mickey’s eyes. It is uncertain what role Mr. McNeil played. Some say that Mickey Leigh could not type a page of text if his life depended on it.
PKM was an “oral history of punk rock,” meaning they taped a bunch of people talking. Mickey was one of the talkers, and Joey was not happy with what Mickey said. Another voice tells about Dee Dee Ramone falling on the sidewalk outside CBGB. Dee Dee said it was not a good idea to get hit in the head when you were drinking… it might cause brain damage. That is not an exact quote. Dee Dee Ramone did not “just say no.”
The Ramones made their fifteen minutes last for twenty years. They went down to the Bowery, and found this bar called CBGB’s. The owner kept his dog inside, and dog shit was everywhere. The Ramones got a following, a record contract, did tours, recorded albums, became sort of famous, started a movement (other than the bar dog’s bowels,) but never had a hit record. This lack of commercial success was highly annoying.
The first taste of big money was Budweiser using “Blitzkrieg Bop” in a commercial. Mickey played an uncredited part in the song. When the Budweiser money started to roll in, Mickey was struggling to pay the rent. Mickey tried to get some money out of the band, which refused. This caused many years of Joey and Mickey not speaking.
For a while the boys in the band (pun intended, at least for Dee Dee) were pals. Then Joey had a girlfriend, Linda. Johnny stole Linda from Joey. Johnny and Joey hated each other from then on. Johnny was always a bit of an asshole, as was Joey. At some point, Tommy had enough, and was replaced by Marky. He drank his way out of the job, and was replaced by Richie.
In 1983, The Ramones played at the Agora Ballroom in Atlanta. I was in the audience. By this time, the Ramones had been going on for nine years. They were not the next big thing anymore. Somebody played a tape of cheesy Coney Island music, and the band came on stage. Joey hunched over the microphone, tapped himself on the head with a baseball bat, and the band did “Beat on the brat.” The band went through the motions, playing another show, probably identical to every other Ramones show ever played. Punk rock just was not trendy anymore.
It was an all ages show. If you wanted to drink, you had to go up to the balcony. You were on your own going down the stairs. Downstairs was full of young people, many in costumes, having a hot time. The balcony was the same rock and roll drunks that were at every show ever produced.
ISWJR does not have a happy ending. Joey had health problems throughout his life. Being a drunken-coke-freak rock star did not help. He came down with Lymphoma, and was starting to do ok. Then, Joey fell and broke his hip, and they had to adjust his medication. Soon, the cancer was back with a vengeance. Joey and Mickey called a truce to their squabbling before Joey died April 15, 2001. Dee Dee and Johnny quickly followed. The Ramones would have been a great oldies band, if only.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Marion Post Wolcott took the social media picture in June 1939. “Two of Pauline Clyburn’s children, rehabilitation borrowers, Manning, Clarendon County, South Carolina” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Oscar Wilde
October 16 is Oscar Fingal O’Fflahertie Wills Wilde’s birthday. On that day in 1854, he appeared in Dublin, Ireland. Oscar is one of the most widely quoted people in the english language. Some of those quotes are real. Since Oscar was a published author, it should be easy to verify what he really said.
One night in 1974, I was talking to someone, and did not know who Oscar Wilde was. The man was horrified. I quickly got educated, and learned about a misunderstanding with the Marquess of Queensberry. Soon the “Avenge Oscar Wilde” signs made sense.
Mr. Wilde once made a speaking tour in the United States. One afternoon the playwright met Walt Whitman. Thee and thou reportedly did the “Wilde Thing.”
The tour then went to Georgia. A young black man had been hired as a valet for Mr. Wilde on this tour. On the train ride from Atlanta to Columbus, some people told Mr. Wilde that he could not ride in the same car as the valet. This was very confusing.
After his various legal difficulties, Oscar Wilde moved to Paris. He took ill, while staying in a tacky hotel. Oscar looked up, and said “There is a duel to the death between me and my wallpaper. One of us must die. It will be him or me.” (« — Voyez-vous, ma chère enfant, me disait-il, il y a un duel à mort entre moi et mon papier de tenture. L’un de nous deux doit y rester. Ce sera lui ou ce sera moi. ») Soon, Oscar Wilde passed away.
This birthday celebration is a repost, with pictures from The Library of Congress. Marion Post Wolcott took the social media picture in September 1938. Coal miner (Polish). Capels, West Virginia.” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Tasteful Stories
This content was posted October 30, 2012. … The Memory Palace is a source of entertainment. The stories are based on history, and are likely to be true. Maybe they are plugged into The Akashic Record, the eternal archive of everything ever said and done. According to Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor of radio, everything ever said still exists.
In 1915, after the Titanic, laws were passed requiring sufficient lifeboats. A boat on Lake Michigan was retrofitted with these life saving facilities. The only problem was, the boat was not designed to have the extra weight on the top deck. It capsized, and over eight hundred people drowned.
Jenny Lind was the vocal superstar of her era. Today, she is lost to history. None of her performances were recorded, because records had not been invented. Another forgotten star is Sarah Bernhardt. Tom Waits tells a story about her. Late in her career, she had a leg amputated. P.T. Barnum got the leg, put it in formaldehyde, and displayed it. The leg made more money than Sarah Bernhardt did.
Perhaps the most tasteful of the stories is about Lewis Keseberg. By all accounts, he was a drunk with a nasty temper. This does not mean that he was a cannibal.
Mr. Keseberg was going to California in 1847. The wagon train got stuck in the mountains. When Mr. Keseberg was rescued, the story spread that he had killed, and then eaten, Tamsen Donner. This reputation made the rest of his life difficult.
While I was listening to these stories, a remarkable collection was coming to life. The pictures were from the Farm Security Administration collection, at The Library of Congress. The photographs were taken in October, 1941, by John Collier. A typical caption is French-Canadian stevedores. Oswego, New York. These men unloaded cargo at a port on Lake Ontario.
The term stevedore is seldom heard today. I read it in Mad magazine as a kid, and have not seen it since. Container ships have made the job all but obsolete. The always tasteful Urban Dictionary adds:
“Literally “one who stuffs”. Originally referred to longshoremen or cargo workers in the maritime industry since before the industrial revolution. Nowadays in common usage it describes someone who swears profusely or who garners a lot of poon tang.”
October 7, 2025
Today is the two year anniversary. I learned about the tragedy from a @JDVance1 tweet: “Praying for our friends in Israel this morning. Just an awful situation.”
As the scope of the tragedy became apparent, I knew two things. One, Israel would exponentially over-retaliate, killing thousands of Palestinians for every Israeli that died. (In my wildest conspiratorial imagination, I would not have thought that Israel would kill hundreds of its own citizens.) Two, there was going to be a tsunami of toxic rhetoric. Israel has known how to play to American public opinion for a long time. This second aspect of this calamity is what today’s post will focus on. Specifically, “Dave Smith vs. Coleman Hughes Debate: Israel and U.S. Foreign Policy.”
Coleman Cruz Hughes supports Israel. Dave No-Middle-Name Smith supports the Palestinians. CCH has been critiqued at chamblee54 before. 010224 030324 In case you have any doubts, I should state upfront that I am on team Dave here. There will be no attempt at being fair. If you want to see pro CCH commentary, look to any x discussion of this event.
The concept of these discussions being a smackdown sport is “part of the problem.” Gotcha mongering takes the place of thoughtful discussion. People make points that appeal to their buddies, and do not address the concerns of those on the “other side.” The rhetoric from CCH displays many of the bad faith tactics that Hasbara is known for. This post will focus on two examples.
I did not listen to very much of the CCH-DS smackdown. My phone was acting up, and switching to other shows without warning. When I returned to CCH-DS, I would skip over large parts of the show. Finally, after the second incident, I grew weary of the entire affair.
The first incident took place early in the show. CCH was discussing the reasons for the 9/11 attack, specifically the fact that Arabs were offended at American troops in the Islamic holy land of Saudi Arabia. CCH mentioned that South Korea was not offended at the presence of US troops in their country … an apples to oranges comparison. This is a tactic of bad faith argument: to make any possible argument you can, never mind that it usually is not relevant to the discussion.
Somehow, this led to a discussion of terrorism. ”DS – There were Irish terrorists. There were Jewish terrorists. Uh, of course, as you know, in the leadup to the creation of the state of Israel. … CCH – Those were local ethnic disputes between the Irish and the British, between the Jewish and the Palestinians. What justifies going abroad, flying planes into buildings thousands of miles away … “
There was Zionist terrorism after the end of World War II, and the creation of the State of Israel. The British governed Palestine at the time. The Zionist terrorism was directed at the British authorities governing Palestine, as well as the Arab population. This was the same time as the Nakba, which was a “local ethnic dispute”. Maybe that is what CCH meant.
This is a bad faith tactic. Flood the playing field with dozens of details. Some of them are going to be either misleading, or outright lies. It is impossible to respond to all the details being raised.
The other incident concerned the role of “the Israel lobby” in the decision to invade Iraq in 2003. CCH brought up a book by John J. Mearsheimer. CCH claims to have read the book, and was not persuaded. We have to take CCH’s word on having read the book.
CCH went into a monolog about how much money TIL had actually spent. “During the entire George W. Bush administration, the Israel lobby spent $17 million lobbying Congress. Now, that might sound like a lot to me or you. It is absolute chump change on the scale of uh domestic lobbying. To put it in perspective, the tobacco lobby spent $200 million, so more than 10 times that amount over the same time period. And they couldn’t even stop Congress from passing a federal tax hike on cigarettes in 2009. Now during the Obama era, the Israel lobby spent 30 million and they were outspent by the dentists. The dentist lobby spent 32 million. This is all according to OpenSecrets.org which is usually the standard source people go to for such figures.”
My gut sense is that this is a distraction. There may be other ways to measure the influence of TIL than the amount of money they spend on lobbying congress. Or maybe not. If you google “How much did the Israel lobby spend lobbying congress in 2003?”, you are directed to a chart from OpenSecrets. “$1,500,000 Total Spent on Pro-Israel, 2003” Is this the total, or there is more that we don’t know? I honestly don’t know, but don’t trust the way CCH is throwing this out.
When I heard CCH say that Dentists spent more on lobbyists than Israel, I decided I had heard enough. Technically, on some level CCH may be correct on some of his points. However, I just don’t trust him. I wonder how many minds are going to be changed by this discussion. The initial reaction on x was that CCH “won”. However, in the last day or so I am seeing more people who agree with DS. It will probably boil down to people agreeing with who they agreed with going into the debate.
There was a controversial discussion of the “clean break” strategy, which I missed entirely. DS has released an episode of his own show, Part Of The Problem, that deals with this. I have not listened to this episode of POTP.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. John Vachon took the social media picture in January 1941. “Steelworker at grievance committee meeting. Steelworkers organizing committee office. Aliquippa, Pennsylvania” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
West Bank Horror
This content was published September 29, 2010. … There is much hand wringing about Israel, Palestine, and the Peace Process. (That is a sentence you can use at any time. These things too shall pass away.) … A lot of this chatter misses the point. They talk about a threat to Israel, if this or that happens. There are several things wrong here. To begin with, Israel has the unquestioning support of the United States. The PR battle in the USA is the most important fight Israel has.
A “freeze” in building settlements ended recently. The word settlement is so antiseptic and painless. Settlements are not built on empty land. The people living on the land were evicted, and their homes destroyed. As Juan Cole tells the story: “The poor Palestinians of East Jerusalem have few assured human or civil rights. Anyone may do anything to them at any time, and they have little recourse. They can be thrown out of property they legally purchased after 1948, and made to live in tents in front of their former residences; and then the tents can be demolished by Israeli police. Aggressive, larcenous Jewish squatters continually attempt to effect a slow-motion ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, using fraud and sometimes force.
The 55,000 Palestinians of the Silwan area (formerly a village but now annexed to Jerusalem) are mad as hell and not going to take it any more. Three hundred militant settlers have been inserted in their midst on the basis of some fable that a legendary King David dwelled there in the 10th century BC (Archeology has found Jerusalem largely uninhabited in that period and has never found firm evidence of a Jewish kingdom during that era or even that a David or Solomon existed; they are not mentioned in contemporary Assyrian sources).
It is as though hundreds of armed men showed up in front of your house and demanded you take your family and leave and give it to them because their ancestor was a king and he is buried deep under its foundations. But you have the same ancestors that they do! (Jerusalem was founded some 5000 years ago by the common ancestors of most Jews and Palestinians).”
Apparently, this has gone on since 1948. An article about Israeli Author Gideon Levy tells the story of his father, who left Germany in 1939, and wound up in British Mandate Palestine. His father was traumatized by the experience of being a refugee. “Levy’s father never saw any parallels between the fact he was turned into a refugee, and the 800,000 Palestinians who were turned into refugees by the creation of the state of Israel. “Never! People didn’t think like that. We never discussed it, ever.”
Yet in the territories, Levy began to see flickers of his father everywhere – in the broken men and women never able to settle, dreaming forever of going home. Then, slowly, Levy began to realize their tragedy seeped deeper still into his own life – into the ground beneath his feet and the very bricks of the Israeli town where he lives, Sheikh Munis. It is built on the wreckage of “one of the 416 Palestinian villages Israel wiped off the face of the earth in 1948,” he says. “The swimming pool where I swim every morning was the irrigation grove they used to water the village’s groves. My house stands on one of the groves. The land was ‘redeemed’ by force, its 2,230 inhabitants were surrounded and threatened. They fled, never to return. Somewhere, perhaps in a refugee camp in terrible poverty, lives the family of the farmer who plowed the land where my house now stands.”
Many of those 800,000 wound up in the Gaza Strip. Their ancestors make up a large part of the population of Gaza. Mr. Levy tells another story. … “During Operation Cast Lead, the Israel bombing of blockaded Gaza in 2008-9, “a dog – an Israeli dog – was killed by a Qassam rocket and it on the front page of the most popular newspaper in Israel. On the very same day, there were tens of Palestinians killed, they were on page 16, in two lines.” … Sixteen years later, Gideon Levy is still at it. @gideonle “Israel has no place at Eurovision while committing atrocities in Gaza.”
But, morality aside, is this cruelty hurting Israel? Not on some esoteric level of the soul of the country, but on a practical level of survival. A blog called Unqualified Offerings makes a case that Israel has a long term plan to control the territories west of the Jordan River, and that they are winning. Israel is in a military position of strength, and might makes right. “Viewed institutionally and leaving moral questions aside, it counts as a triumph of grand strategy. Israel bought off Egypt with Egypt’s own territory. It convinced Jordan to bow out, and plain beat Syria like a rodeo clown. Lebanon could be broken any time and was, and the Lebanese were always falling all over themselves to help.
At this point, Israel has also destroyed the ability of the Palestinians to mount any consequential resistance of their own. Just as Hezbollah couldn’t occupy a single Israeli exurb in a trial of a thousand years, no Palestinian organization can stop Israel from planting its flag on any particular spot of the West Bank for so much as a week … Any large, political-military enterprise is going to have its ebb and flow. The Israeli conquest and consolidation of what we still quaintly call “the Occupied Territories” has involved tactical setbacks, occasional overreach and strategic withdrawals. The trick is not to get caught up in that. The long view is, Israel wanted control of all the territory west of the Jordan, Israel got control of all the territory west of the Jordan, Israel continues to cement its control over all the territory west of the Jordan. Everything else is details.
Turkey is not going to war for the Freedom Flotilla. It took all of a day for the United States to conclude a deal whereby Israel gets to investigate itself. The Iranians are either not trying to get nukes, or if they do get nukes will be very careful with them. The Iranians will fuck you up, but never at any substantial cost to themselves. Israel can levy a substantial cost on Iran any time it wants. The Palestinians can’t do more than annoy and neither can Hezbollah. On the other side, frequently foreigners make sad faces. I am thinking that Israel counts this among the acceptable costs.” … Pictures today are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library. The social media picture was taken September 15, 1943. “Celebrations around the awarding of a 1943 Army Navy E Award to the Avondale Mills, Sylacauga, Alabama. This photograph is of a group of very young African-American children.” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Famous Last Words
This content was published August 16, 2024. … The elephant in the room is a popular internet cliche. In this picture, the elephant looks like the ghastly wallpaper, both of which are best ignored. I wanted to make a comment. The only appropriate thing to do, in a situation involving wallpaper and an elephant, is to quote Oscar Wilde, on his deathbed. “This wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. Either it goes or I do.”
When discussing Oscar Wilde, elephants, and wallpaper, it is important to get the correct quote. Mr. Google has a great deal to say, on the subject of last words. Peggy Lee sang about it. Unfortunately, the chanteuse was in very bad health at the end of her life. Peggy Lee probably did not say “Is that all there is?” on her deathbed.
On October 14, 1977, Bing Crosby “… finished 18 holes of golf carding an 85 … After his final putt Bing … remarked “It was a great game.” As he was walking to the clubhouse … he collapsed from a massive heart attack. … “We thought he had just slipped,” said one of his golfing companions.”
Adelaide Eugenia Bankhead “… first child, daughter Ada Eugenia, was born on January 24, 1901. The following year, Tallulah was born on their anniversary. Ada died tragically of blood poisoning just three weeks following Tallulah’s birth. On her deathbed, she told her sister-in-law to “take care of Eugenia, Tallulah will always be able to take care of herself”. This, like many other legendary last words, may too good to be true.
The Atlantic had a tasteful feature, “What Are the Best Last Words Ever?” Here are a few.
John Adams July 4, 1826 “Thomas Jefferson survives.”
Unbeknownst to Mr. Adams, Mr. Jefferson had died about five hours earlier.
Richard Feynman “I’d hate to die twice—it’s so boring”
O. Henry appeared to have stopped breathing, but was he really dead? Touch his feet, suggested one of the mourners clustered around his bed: Nobody ever died with warm feet. Whereupon, the short-story writer raised his head from the pillow, mumbled “Joan of Arc did,” and fell back dead.
Dylan Thomas “I’ve had 18 straight whiskeys. I think that’s the record.”
Union Major General John Sedgwick “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance.” Said while reprimanding his men for ducking for cover, just before he was killed at the Battle of Spotsylvania.
Ludwig Von Beethoven “I shall hear in heaven.”
An unverified tumblr contributes a few more zingers.
Edgar Allan Poe “Lord help my poor soul.”
Thomas Hobbes “I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap into the dark.”
Alfred Jarry “I am dying…please, bring me a toothpick.”
Washington Irving “I have to set my pillows one more night, when will this end already?”
Leo Tolstoy “But the peasants…how do the peasants die?”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe “More light.”
Karl Marx “Go on, get out! Last words are for fools who haven’t said enough!”
Voltaire “Now, now, my good man, this is no time for making enemies.”
François-Marie Arouet was asked by a priest to renounce Satan.
James Joyce “Does nobody understand?”
A certain popup crazy website has a few more last words. Some of these were really said.
James Dean “That guy’s gotta stop… He’ll see us.”
Henry James “So here it is at last, the expected thing.”
Marie Antoinette “Pardon me, sir, I did not do it on purpose.”
George Appel “Well, gentlemen, you are about to see a baked Appel.” Mr. Appel was executed by electric chair in 1928; these were his last words. Here’s two more: “Gents, this is an educational project. You are about to witness the damaging effect electricity has on Wood.” Said by Fredrick Charles Wood before he was electrocuted in 1951. “Hey, fellas! How about this for a headline for tomorrow’s paper? ‘French Fries!’” James French, 1966.
The pictures today are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library. The social media picture was taken December 5, 1949. Highland Avenue; #1033 Moe’s & Joe’s restaurant and bar; Siegel’s Kosher Delicatessen; Virginia – Highland Pharmacy; Reynolds Plumbing and Heating Company ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Coat Of Many Colors
I saw a story, and thought about the song, “Coat of many colors.” The b side was by Porter Wagoner, “Coat of many sequins”. COMC is about a woman who is too poor to buy her little girl a coat at the store, so she makes a quilt. The other kids make fun of her, but little Dolly knows that the coat is really made of love. The song talks about a story in the Bible. I had heard about the story, but didn’t remember the details. I must have been daydreaming in Sunday School when that story was taught. With the help of google, Genesis 37 appears, as if by magic. Pass the popcorn.
2 These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren; and the lad was with the sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives: and Joseph brought unto his father their evil report.
3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age:
and he made him a coat of many colours.
4 And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him.
Ok, hold on for a minute. Israel had at least two wives. The Biblical definition of marriage must be between a man and two women.
The story gets a bit weird here. Joseph has this dream, where he becomes the boss hog brother. The other brothers decide something needs to be done, that Joseph needs to die. Reuben tries to help Joseph, and has a plan to save him. Joseph is stripped of the coat of many colors, and placed in a pit, with no water. Before Reuben can sneak Joseph out of the pit, a camel caravan comes by. Twenty pieces of silver change hands, and Joseph is sold into slavery. The brothers decide to pull a cover up, and make it look like Joseph was dead. Reuben made another sandwich.
31 And they took Joseph’s coat, and killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the coat in the blood;
32 And they sent the coat of many colours, and they brought it to their father; and said,
This have we found: know now whether it be thy son’s coat or no.
33 And he knew it, and said, It is my son’s coat; an evil beast hath devoured him;
Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces.
34 And Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days.
35 And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted;
and he said, For I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning. Thus his father wept for him.
This feature was originally published August 22, 2012. The pictures are from The Library of Congress. Walker Evans took the social media picture in March 1936. Vicksburg, Mississippi. Negroes
Home Runs
This content was published July 29, 2021. … Barry Bonds was about to break the lifetime record for home runs. Folks said the record was tainted because of steroid use, and because Mr. Bonds was not a nice man. There were calls for an asterisk in the record book. This was odd to me. I was in Georgia when Hank Aaron broke the home run record in 1974. Back then, the line was that Babe Ruth had fewer at bats than Mr. Aaron. …
… A lot of hateful things were said about Mr. Aaron before home run 714. I decided to take a look at the metrics. This post is the result. As a bonus to the reader(s), Joe Torre and Hank Aaron gets a summer rerun. JTAHA is based on a column by Furman Bisher. …
This post was published June 30, 2007… There is a certain controversy these days about the eminent breaking of the lifetime home run record. Currently held by Hank Aaron, the record is threatened by Barry Bonds. Before Mr. Aaron held the title, Babe Ruth was the owner. Controversy about the lifetime home run record is nothing new. In 1974, when Hank Aaron was about to break the record, the admirers of Babe Ruth said that Mr. Ruth had fewer at bats than Mr. Aaron did. Many attributed these comments to racism, with a black man beating a white man’s record. …
… The current controversy is two fold. There are allegations that Mr. Bonds took steroids to make him stronger, and that he “cheated”. There are also concerns about the personality of Mr. Bonds. … I do not think steroid use is a big deal. Ballplayers are abusing their bodies to perform, and if they take the risk of using steroids, that is their business. Many people disagree. A better question might be, would Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron have used steroids if they had the chance? Mr. Ruth was a wildman, who drank during prohibition, and was known for undisciplined behavior. …
… Mr. Aaron played in an era where steroid use was not as common as it is today. The answer to the first question is (Mr. Ruth) probably, and (Mr. Aaron) who knows. … While you are keeping hypocrisy statistics, Mr. Aaron and Mr. Bonds played on television, where beer commercials were constant. While alcohol is *now* legal, it is a very damaging drug. Any ballplayer who plays on television promotes its use. This is both steroid users, and non users. As for personalities, there is the widely circulated story about the college team that Mr. Bonds played on voting 22-3 to kick him off the team. At the very least, he does not charm sportswriters. …
… In 1917, Babe Ruth was suspended for hitting an umpire. He was known for his outlandish behavior throughout his career. It should also be noted that he played in an era when the press did not scrutinize the behavior of players. How would today’s media treat Babe Ruth? … I once heard a radio show caller say that Hank Aaron was a mean racist, who would just as soon cut your throat as look at you. I had never heard this said out loud, but had heard hints about Mr. Aaron’s personality over the years. People who achieve great things are not always friendly. …
… Mr. Aaron is the only one of the three that I met, however briefly. In July of 1965, the Milwaukee Braves came to Atlanta to play an exhibition game in Atlanta Stadium. After the game, I was allowed to wait outside the clubhouse, to get autographs from the players as they left. Joe Torre saw the crowd, hid behind a truck, and made a quick getaway. Hank Aaron came out, patiently signing every autograph, while smoking a cigarette. … The fact is, all three men played in different eras. Babe Ruth never played at night, never flew to California, and only played against white players … many of the most talented players of his era were in the Negro Leagues. …
… Hank Aaron played before free agency, interleague play, the DH, and widespread use of steroids. The only way to determine who is the home run champion is to count how many homers are hit, and award the prize to the man who hits the most. … Which of the three made the most money? Barry Bonds, by a wide margin. He played in the free agent era. Babe Ruth had the best line about his salary. In 1930 Ruth was asked by a reporter what he thought of his yearly salary of $80,000 being more than President Hoover’s $75,000. He replied “yea, but I had a better year than he did.” …
… Who played on the most teams to win a World Series? Babe Ruth 7, Hank Aaron 1, Barry Bonds 0. … The career of Babe Ruth was a long time ago. He made a greater impact on America than the other two combined. He was one of the first sports superstars, as America emerged from the carnage of World War One. Mr. Ruth broke the single season home run record, he hit 29 homers. The next year, he hit 54. There is a possibility of a livelier baseball. …
… Babe Ruth captured the imagination of America like few personalities ever have. Playing in New York (which dominated the press) did not hurt. He was a man of his times…it is unlikely than anyone could have that kind of impact on today’s superstar saturated America. While his record has been broken, his place in the history of baseball is the same. UPDATE: As of August 23, 2025, the <a href=”” target=”_blank”>lifetime home run leaders were: Barry Bonds – 762, Hank Aaron – 755, Babe Ruth – 714, Albert Pujols – 703, Alex Rodriguez – 696. …
This post was published August 15, 2009. … Furman Bisher has a piece at the fishwrapper site about Joe Torre. The punch line is that Mr. Torre “grew up” when the Braves traded him to St. Louis. I was a kid when this was going on, and did not hear a lot of what went on. … In 1965, the Braves played a lame duck year in Milwaukee before moving to Atlanta. One night, there was an exhibition game at Atlanta Stadium, the Braves against the Yankees. I got his oh so patient dad to take me to the clubhouse after the game, to get autographs. …
… In 1965, you could go into the bowels of the stadium and wait outside the clubhouse. Hank Aaron signed many autographs while smoking a cigarette. Joe Torre came out, hid behind a truck, and took off running. … Mr. Torre was a raccoon eyed catcher for the Braves. In the first regular season game in 1966, he hit two home runs, in a thirteen inning loss. Soon, the novelty of big league baseball in a toilet shaped stadium wore off. Mr. Torre got at least one DUI, and a reputation as a barroom brawler. He was traded to St. Louis in 1968. Mr. Torre hit .373, and won the national league MVP in 1971. …
… The comments were interesting. Cecil 34 “The reason that Torre was traded is because on the team’s charter flight back to Atlanta back in 68, a drunken Torre got into a fistfight with Aaron. Aaron popped off to Torre, and thus the fight was on, broken up by the other players. Since Aaron was the face of the franchise at the time, Torre was traded. There had been bad blood between them for years before this incident anyway. Reasons vary. But the final nail in the coffin was this fistfight. I was told Torre could pack a punch and Aaron came out on the worse end of it.” …
… There has been whispering for years about Hank Aaron and his attitude. Furman Bisher made hints once or twice, but there was never anything of substance. It seems that Mr. Aaron does not lack for self confidence. Mr. Aaron was the subject of much racially based abuse while chasing the home run record in 1973, and some anger is justified. … Mr. Aaron was known to not get along with Rico Carty. Mr. Carty is a dark skinned man from the Dominican Republic, who was popular with fans. Mr. Carty was eventually traded. Rico Carty had a barbecue restaurant on Peachtree Road in Chamblee, next door to the Park and Shop. …
… Joe Torre was the manager of the Braves in the early eighties. The team won a divisional title in 1982, but lost the NLCS. This was after Ted Turner bought the team. Mr. Turner fired Mr. Torre in 1984. Getting back to the comment thread, Misterwax contributes “Turner cut Joe Torre loose because Ted was in love with Henry Aaron and Aaron thought Joe Torre was a white supremacist….A hangover from the clubhouse days when they were teammates…still does today. And THAT is the only reason he was cut…because Hank Aaron said so.” …
Hank Aaron passed away January 22, 2021. Joe Torre retired as manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2010. He won four World Series as manager of the New York Yankees. Furman Bisher outlived Bear Bryant by 26 years, passing away March 18, 2012. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The social media picture was taken April 15, 1915. “Hans Lobert of the New York Giants (left) and Joe Schultz, Sr. of the Brooklyn Dodgers. ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
The Funeral Of Elvis
This content was published August 1, 2024. The text was originally published September 2, 2011. … There is a saying, “if a story seems too bad to be true, it probably isn’t”. I tried to google that phrase, and got confused. Then I seemed to remember reading it in a column by Mary Tyler “Molly” Ivins. Another google adventure, and this video turned up.
Miss Ivins, who met her maker January 31, 2007, was promoting a book. On April 26, 1998, she sat down with Brian Lamb, on CSPAN’s Booknotes. I could only listen to 24:30 of this video before being seized with the urge to write a story. There is a transcript, which makes “borrowing” so much easier. This film has 34 minutes to go, which just might yield another story.
Molly Ivins was a Texas woman. These days there is a lot of talk about Texas, with Governor Big Hair aiming to be the next POTUS under indictment. Mr. Perry claims that his record as Texas Governor qualifies him to have his finger on the nuclear trigger. Miss Ivins repeats something that I had heard before… “in our state we have the weak governor system, so that really not a great deal is required of the governor, not necessarily to know much or do much. And we’ve had a lot of governors who did neither. “ It makes you wonder how much of that “economic miracle” is because of hair spray.
Texas politics makes about as much sense as Georgia politics. For a lady, with a way with words, it is a gold mine. “the need you have for descriptive terms for stupid when you write about Texas politics is practically infinite. Now I’m not claiming that our state Legislature is dumber than the average state Legislature, but it tends to be dumb in such an outstanding way. It’s, again, that Texas quality of exaggeration and being slightly larger than life. And there are a fair number of people in the Texas Legislature of whom it could fairly be said, `If dumb was dirt, they would cover about an acre.’ And I’m not necessarily opposed to that. I’m–agree with an old state senator who always said that, `If you took all the fools out of the Legislature, it would not be a representative body anymore.’”
We could go through this conversation for a long time, but you probably want to skip ahead and look at pictures. There is one story in this transcript that is too good not to borrow. For some reason, Molly Ivins went to work for The New York Times, aka the gray lady. In August of 1977, she was in the right place at the right time.
LAMB: And how long did you spend with The New York Times as a reporter? IVINS: Six years with The New York Times. Some of it in New York as a political reporter at City Hall in Albany and then later as bureau chief out in the Rocky Mountains. LAMB: Would you take a little time and tell us about reporting on the funeral of Elvis Presley? IVINS: Oh, now there is something that when I’ve been standing in the checkout line at the grocery store and if I really need to impress people, I just let fall that I covered Elvis’ funeral. And, boy, people just practically draw back with awe. It may yet turn out to be my greatest claim to fame. …
… I was sitting in The New York City Times one day when I noticed a whole knot of editors up around the desk having a–a great scrum of concern, you could tell. It looked sort of like an anthill that had just been stepped on. And it turns out–The New York Times has a large obituary desk, and they prepare obituaries for anybody of prominence who might croak. But it turns out–you may recall that Elvis Presley died untimely and they were completely unprepared. …
… Now this is an enormous news organization. They have rock music critics and classical music critics and opera critics, but they didn’t have anybody who knew about Elvis Presley’s kind of music. So they’re lookin’ across a whole acre of reporters, and you could see them decide, `Ah-ha, Ivins. She talks funny. She’ll know about Mr. Presley.’ … So I wound up writing Elvis’ obituary for The New York Times. I had to refer to him throughout as Mr. Presley. It was agonizing. That’s the style at The New York Times–Mr. Presley. Give me a break. …
… And the next day they sold more newspapers than they did after John Kennedy was assassinated, so that even the editors of The New York Times, who had not quite, you know, been culturally aton–tuned to Elvis, decided that we should send someone to report on the funeral. And I drew that assignment. What a scene it was. LAMB: You–you say in the book that you got in the cab and you said, `Take me to Graceland.’ The cabbie peels out of the airport doing 80 and then turns full around to the backseat and drawls, `Ain’t it a shame Elvis had to die while the Shriners are in town?’ …
… That’s your Shriners in convention, always something very edifying and enjoyable to watch. But they–every–every hotel room in Memphis was occupied with celebrating Shriners, and then Elvis dies and all these tens of thousands of grieving, hysterical Elvis Presley fans descend on the town. So you got a whole bunch of sobbing, hysterical Elvis fans, you got a whole bunch of cavorting Shriners. And on top of that they were holding a cheerleading camp. And the cheerleading camp–I don’t know if your memory–with the ethos of the cheerleading camp, but the deal is that every school sends its team–team of cheerleaders to cheerleading camp. …
… And your effort there at the camp is to win the spirit stick, which looks, to the uninitiated eye, a whole lot like a broom handle painted red, white and blue. But it is the spirit stick. And should your team win it for three days running, you get to keep it. But that has never happened. And the way you earn the spirit stick is you show most spirit. You cheer for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You cheer when the pizza man brings the pizza. …
… I tell you, those young people will throw–show an amount of spirit that would just astonish you in an effort to win that stick. … So here I was for an entire week, dealing with these three groups of people: the young cheerleaders trying to win the spirit stick, the cavorting Shriners and the grieving, hysterical Elvis fans. And I want to assure you that The New York Times is not the kind of newspaper that will let you write about that kind of rich human comedy. LAMB: Why? IVINS: Because The New York Times, at least in my day, was a very stuffy, pompous newspaper. …
… LAMB: What about today? IVINS: A little bit better, little bit better than it was. … Has–has–it has a tendency, recidivist tendencies, though. You–you will notice if you read The Times, it–it collapses into pomposity and stuffiness with some regularity. LAMB: Why did you leave it? IVINS: Well, I–I actually got into trouble at The New York City Times for describing a community chu–chicken killing out West as a gang pluck. Abe Rosenthal was then the editor of the Times and he was not amused. LAMB: Did–but did they let it go? Did they let it …
… IVINS: Oh, no. It never made it in the paper. Good heavens, no. Such a thing would never get in The Times in my day. … POSTSCRIPT I found some pictures, marked up the text, and was ready to post the story. I decided to listen to a bit more of the discussion between Molly Ivins and the bald headed man. When I got to this point, it became apparent that I could listen to Molly Ivins talk, or I could post the story, but I could not do both at the same time. …
… IVINS: Oh, well, of course, I’m gonna make fun of it. I mean, Berkeley, California, if you are from Texas, is just hilarious. LAMB: Why? IVINS: Well, of course, it is just the absolute center of liberalism and political correctness. And it is a veritable hotbed of people, of–bless their hearts, who all think alike, in a liberal way. And, of course, I’m sometimes called a liberal myself, and you would think I would have felt right at home there. But I just am so used to–I’m so used to Texas that I found the culture at Berkeley hysterical. … Pictures today are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library. The social media picture was taken April 10, 1963, at the “Krystal restaurant“, 428 Ponce De Leon Avenue NE.
Julian Carr And Silent Sam
This is a repost from 2018. … A Confederate monument was torn down last night in Chapel Hill NC. The statue, known as “Silent Sam,” was intended as a monument to students who left school to fight in the War Between the States. “In 1913, the Daughters of Confederacy, after four years of fundraising, paid sculptor John Wilson, a Canadian, $7500 for the statue. Wilson used a Boston-man, Harold Langlois, as the model. It’s unclear, however, if those attending Silent Sam’s dedication knew they were celebrating a Yankee’s profile. Silent Sam was among many “Silent Sentinels,” – statues of soldiers without cartridge box, soldiers who could no longer fire a shot – that were manufactured and bronzed in the North and then sent down south for public display. Many of these statues look remarkably similar. Like Silent Sam, they also face north, toward the Union.”
Many of the comments today quote a speech made at the 1913 unveiling. The speech was by Julian Carr, a prominent businessman and philanthropist. Mr. Carr is considered, with some justification, to have been a white supremacist. A Confederate veteran, Mr. Carr appears to have been a complex man, who did both good and harm.
This tweet is typical of today’s discourse. @jjones9 “From white supremacist Julian Carr’s speech at the dedication of Silent Sam in 1913.” The tweet features a screen shot, of a quote from the 1913 speech. “I trust I may be pardoned for one allusion, howbeit it is rather personal. One hundred yards from where we stand, less than ninety days perhaps after my return from Appomattox, I horse-whipped a negro wench until her skirts hung in shreds, because upon the streets of this quiet village she had publicly insulted and maligned a Southern lady, and then rushed for protection to these University buildings where was stationed a garrison of 100 Federal soldiers. I performed the pleasing duty in the immediate presence of the entire garrison, and for thirty nights afterwards slept with a double-barrel shot gun under my head.”
What was the rest of the speech? A bit of research turned up a transcript, “Julian S. Carr, “Unveiling of Confederate Monument at University. June 2, 1913.” The rest of the speech has little in common with the “one allusion.” The speech sounded like the memorials to fallen soldiers in many other wars. “They served, they suffered, they endured, they fought, [and died – crossed out] for their childhood homes, their firesides, the honor of their ancestors, their loved ones, their own native land.”
Mr. Carr’s theme is defense of a the homeland. When the War broke out, the concept of a United States, ruled by a strong federal government, was less accepted than it is today. Many people in the South saw it as a failed experiment. Slavery was an important issue in the decision to secede, along with economic matters that do not get twenty first century people worked up. Slavery is not mentioned in the 1913 speech.
The speech went on and on, and sounded much like any other memorial. The speech ended with these words: “In the knowledge of subsequent developments, the progress, peace and prosperity of our united, common country, victor and vanquished now alike believe that in the Providence of God it was right and well that the issue was determined as it was. And the people of all sections of our great Republic, moved by the impulse of sincere and zealous loyalty, of fervent and exalted patriotism may say: “All is well that ends well.”
“Again, dear Daughters of the Confederacy, I thank you in the name of the eighteen hundred brave, loyal, patriotic, home-loving young student soldiers who went out from this grand old University to battle for our Southern rights and Southern liberties, five hundred of whom never came back. God bless every one of you, and every Daughter of the Confederacy in our dear Southland.”
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
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