Why I Should Not Multitask
The other day, I was minding my business. Solstice was approaching, and I wanted to make a meme to celebrate. I typed “Happy Solstice.” A picture was chosen … “One-man band at Davis Brothers Restaurant, Atlanta, 04-07-1952.” Other pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Meanwhile, I needed to listen to something. Youtube makes suggestions, based on what big brother decides. Today it was Lex Fridman talking to Saagar Enjeti. Both men have a few smarts, and enough inconvenient opinions to gather haters. If I only listened to people nobody complains about, I would live in a world of silence.
A problem with multitasking on youtube is the temptation to make a clip. It is fairly easy. First, I hear something I want to save. Get the code, determine the start time and end time, and fill in the blanks. Unfortunately, this means you have to shift your focus, away from the task at hand.
The first time I heard this dialogue, Saagar said something about Ghosts of the Ostfront. GOTO is a Hardcore History series about the Soviet-German part of World War II. This is seldom mentioned in the United States, but was crucial to defeating Nazi Germany. Unfortunately, the Soviet Union was forced to pay an appalling cost.
After hearing about GOTO, I found the audio file. It was over four hours long, which is typical for Hardcore History. Dan Carlin goes into great detail, and is reasonably neutral. If you want someone to tell you who the bad guy is, there are other sources. In the case of Nazi Germany vs the Soviet Union, many people say there were no good guys, only bad evil against worse evil.
The solstice meme was coming into shape, slowly. A previous copy of the image was not working, and I had to find the original. A template had to be fashioned, to fit the text into the best part of the picture. The meme model was created. I decided to fit “Happy Solstice” on the bottom of his tuxedo. I was cropping the image to facilitate this, when Saagar made his comment about the Ostfront. I had to stop work on the picture, and get the clip.
“Again shout out to Dan Carlin. … I’ve never met you before, I would love to correspond at some point. I love you so much you changed my life man. … I think his best series one of his best series he gets no credit for Ghost of the Ostfront. … This is a 2011 series … on the Eastern front of the Nazi war against Russia, fundamentally changed my view of warfare forever. At that time I was very young, and to me World War II was Saving Private Ryan. I wasn’t as well read as I am now … this entire thing happened which actually decided the second world war and I don’t know anything about this.”
One thing about a series like GOTO is comparisons to other wars. At the start of Operation Barbarossa, some Germans speculated that the Wehrmacht would need to kill thirty million people to gain Lebensraum. In 2024, we see headlines like this: “Israel Needs ‘Lebensraum’ Says Blog by Major National Newspaper.”
After making this clip, it was time to avoid distractions, and finish the meme. When this project is over, future distractions will find me. Soon, the meme was finished. The text file was saved, and used for another meme. This is based on a November 1940 photograph. “Mr. Timothy Levy Crouch, a Rogerine Quaker, living in Ledyard CT, finishing up his Thanksgiving dinner. Mr. Crouch is a stonemason by profession and lives on his farm where a little farming is done.”
United States Of Amnesia
I stumbled onto a podcast of Allan Gurganus speaking at a literary event in Key West. Mr. Gurganus, bless his heart, is a good writer. As a public speaker, the jury is “out.”
This particular literary event concerned historical fiction. Tom Robbins went on a tear once, comparing animal husbandry to history. With one, you combine blood lines to create a superior breed. With the other, you mix “facts” to create an inspiring story. With both animal husbandry and history, you are frequently up to your ankles in shit.
Mr. Gurganus trotted out a bunch of quotable lines. ”Liars like historians and politicians tend to overdocument.” ”Myth is gossip grown old.” ”the term historical fiction sounds as pitifully redundant as, say, creative writing. … It’s like having ‘oxygen breather’ stamped on your driver’s license.” ”History is agreed-upon hearsay granted tenure.”
The first time I tried to listen to the Gurganus speech, the cliche slinging got too thick, and the player triangle was turned into the parallel lines. Or maybe it was the parallel lines turned into the triangle. In any event, the speakers quit making sounds. This option is not available live.
The second time I tried to listen to the Gurganus speech, the line about hearsay granted tenure stuck. Mr. Google was consulted, and found a nice website for the literary event. Another speaker at said event was Gore Vidal. Finally, Mr. Gurganus wore out my patience. It was time to download the appearance by Mr. Vidal.
The emcee said, “I don’t want to steal your jokes, but you said that this is the United States of Amnesia.” Mr. Vidal said, “I don’t remember that.” This is going to be fun. Photographs for this repost are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Birthday Cake
I try to post something every day. When I am too lazy to write anything, I look in the archives. Today this took me to December 2008. Sixteen years ago was a simpler, gentler time. BHO had been elected POTUS, and many were optimistic. We were “winning” the war in Iraq. The smart phone was one year old. Sarah Palin was not going to be VPOTUS.
The idea at first was to take a post, gussy it up a bit, and repost it. The first post I saw was When Dogs Fly and You Clean Up. This was based on a list of questions that someone sent out as a joke email. “If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, what is baby oil made from? · Why do the Alphabet song and “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” have the same tune? · Why did you just try singing the two songs above?”
Air Strikes Kill Children could be written today. “The headlines are so antiseptic… “Israel air strikes demolish Hamas compounds, over 200 dead” · It seems there is a pecking order for tragedy. When it is a Caucasian English speaking American, the media goes bonkers. A dark skinned American gets a more muted response. If the deceased lives in a foreign country, the response is a bit less. If the dead children live in a territory next to Israel, they might as well not exist in the first place. · It is a familiar story. The rockets were coming out of the Gaza Strip, and landing on Israel. The Israeli government decides to take action. No one is really sure how many of the dead were Hamas, and how many were children. Children born into a hell hole, who had no control over who their neighbor is. · The response is predictable. The spokesman for the White House said “Hamas’ continued rocket attacks into Israel must cease if the violence is to stop. The United States urges Israel to avoid civilian casualties as it targets Hamas in Gaza.”
Then there is my dysfunctional relationship with Jesus, which can be challenging during the holidays. In between my hurt feelings, a blogger appears, with some information about “Historic Jesus.” “Israeli meteorologists best guess places the real date of Christ’s birth on September 29th, 5 BC. · The Catholic writer Mario Righetti admits that, “to facilitate the acceptance of the faith by the pagan masses, the Church of Rome found it convenient to institute the 25th of December as the feast of the birth of Christ to divert them from the pagan feast, celebrated on the same day in honor of the ‘Invincible Sun’ Mithras, the conqueror of darkness” (Manual of Liturgical History, 1955, Vol. 2, P. 67).”
This is starting to get depressing. Maybe we should end this with a feel good story. “The Clan Campbell is notorious in Scottish history. It seems as though there was a conflict with the MacDonalds, and a rather ugly incident in 1692. This might explain why the golden arch people do not serve soup. · The latest Campbell to make the news is Adolph Hitler Campbell. The three year old resident of Holland Township NJ is the sibling of JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell. The father, Heath Campbell, tried to get a birthday cake for young Adolph. The local Shop Rite store refused to put the name on the cake, saying it was inappropriate to send a birthday greeting to Adolph Hitler. A WalMart came to the rescue, and made a cake for young Adolph.” Let the good times roll.
Unfortunately, even the most uplifting stories can have unhappy endings. Reason Hitler Can’t Go Home: Alleged Abuse, Not Nazi Name “A New Jersey court decided that a couple should not regain custody of their three children — not because the parents named their children after prominent Nazis, but because of alleged abuse and parental incompetence, court documents state. · Heath and Deborah Campbell’s three small children were removed from their Holland Township home by the state in January 2009 after they asked a grocery store in Greenwich, N.J. to write “Adolf Hitler” on their son’s birthday cake and a media storm ensued. · While a local Wal-Mart honored the birthday cake request, Adolf Hitler Campbell and siblings JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell have been in foster care ever since. · The appeals court ruled Thursday that sufficient evidence of abuse or neglect existed. Court records state that both parents were victims of childhood abuse and both are unemployed and suffering from unspecified physical and psychological disabilities. · Neither Campbell has been adequately treated for their psychological conditions, court records said. Thirty-seven-year-old Heath can’t read and Deborah dropped out of high school before finishing the 10th grade. · But the most convincing piece of evidence may have been the note signed by Deborah and given to a neighbor, which was full of grammar and spelling mistakes: “Hes thrend to have me killed or kill me himself hes alread tried it a few times. Im afread that he might hurt my children if they are keeped in his care. He teaches my son how to kill someone at the age of 3.”
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The featured photograph was taken by Russell Lee in May 1942. “San Benito County CA. Japanese-Americans at picnic.”
Mithras
Mithras is a Persian deity, from the Zoroaster tradition.(That is pronounced Zor uh THRUS ta.) Not much is known about Mithras … did he really exist, or was he a legend? There was a cult of Mithras in the first century Roman empire.
There are supposed to be similarities between Mithras and Jesus. These include the virgin birth, the birth on December 25, and rising from the dead after three days. Some spoilsports say the early Christians grafted Jesus onto the legend of Mithras.
One indication that this might be true is The Catholic Encyclopedia. “Some apparent similarities exist; but … it is quite probable that Mithraism was the borrower from Christianity.” This repost has pictures from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. (more…)
Rachel Maddow On Gaza
This is a repost from 2023. Donald Trump survived nine years of hate speech from Rachel Maddow to win a decisive victory in the November election. The carnage in Gaza continues, and has spread to Lebanon and Syria. MSNBC is not doing well. … Rachel Anne Maddow is the personification of so much that is wrong about american media. Her polemic pushing is entertaining to millions of people. She does for the left what the blowdrys at Fox do for the right. It is the information equivalent of eating all your meals at Burger King.
UN calls Gaza destruction by Israel ‘tragedy of colossal proportions’ This feature will not look at the Palestinian horror from a perspective of Team Israel or Team Gaza. Instead, we will consider what Rachel Maddow, a media actor trusted by millions, says about the war in Gaza.
I am cable challenged, and do not watch MSNBC. Youtube is little help. I have decided to go to facebook, where The Rachel Maddow Show posts several times a day. I scrolled back to December 12, and did not see one comment about Gaza.
@maddow is not especially active on twitter these days. If you go back to November 4, she retweets a video of Barack Obama. To his credit, Barry uses the word listen, although not as much as talk. Most of Barry’s remarks were about the complexity of the Gaza story. This is similar to Donald Trump saying there are “very fine people, on both sides.”
RAM is also on Instagram, where she posts mostly head shots. It is tough to quickly tell what she is talking about. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress
UPDATE I stumbled onto a quote from RAM about Gaza. “you can’t say, it doesn’t matter what the truth is here” The quote is from October 17, “Rachel Maddow and Nicolle Wallace react to the latest developments out of Gaza after the bombing of a hospital which has left hundreds dead.” 50 seconds after RAM says truth, Nicolle Wallace says “we … does not include Hamas terrorists. They don’t care what the truth is. … Hamas will use Palestinian civilians as human shields. Its what they do.”
Names
Alan Burnett~Bill Gaddy~Bill Medlock~Bill Meneely~Blaze Mills~Buddy Conine
Calvin Bunn~Danny Fields~David Chewning~David Hadden~Charlie Hall~Dwight Dunaway
Freeman Waldrop~Gary Hunton~Gene Haynes~Gene Holloway~Gibson Higgins~Glenn Krause
Greg Scott~Harold King~Hawk~Jerry Pyschka~Jim Anderson~Jim Ferguson
Jim Woodward~Joe Kenney~Joe Vickery~John Kelley~John Harllee~Jon Gordon
King Thackston~Larry Jackson~Layton Gregory~Lee Mullis~Les Friessen
Mac Wilson~Manfred Ibis~Mark Keenum~Mark Rosen~Martin Isganitus
Michael Dollins~Micheal Mason~Mike Perling~Moon Moore~O’Gene Donohue
Purl Sudds~Ron Davis~Sam Mitchell~Skeeter Smith~Steve Bedworth~Stuart Davis
Ti Barfield~Tom Aderhold~Tom Selman~Tom Williams~Trion~Winston Morriss
Andy Warhol And Frank Zappa
Andy Warhol Hosts Frank Zappa on His Cable TV Show, and Later Recalls, “I Hated Him More Than Ever” After the Show.” Andy had a public access cable tv show in New York. One of his guests was Frank Zappa. FZ talked a lot, while Andy was silently uncomfortable. A friend of Andy’s, Richard Berlin, did the interview. Mr. Berlin is possibly the brother of Warhol film actress Brigid Berlin.
The Andy Warhol Diaries has a few comments about the show. “… I hated Zappa even more than when it started. I remember when he was so mean to us when the Mothers of Invention played with the Velvet Underground—I think both at the trip, in L.A., and at the Fillmore in San Francisco. I hated him then and I still don’t like him.”
Jimmy Carl Black (The “Indian of the group” for the Mothers of Invention): “I don’t remember Zappa actually putting them down on stage, but he might have. He really disliked the band. For what reasons I really don’t know, except that they were junkies and Frank just couldn’t tolerate any kind of drugs. I know that I didn’t feel that way and neither did the rest of the Mothers. I thought that they were very good, especially Nico (whom I secretly fell in love with or was it lust?). I especially thought that Moe was a very good drummer, because in those days I don’t recall there being any other female drummers on the scene. The thinking of the audiences was completely different than those from New York City. They were lukewarmly received.”
“In 1965 The Trip opened at 8572 Sunset Boulevard right next to the towering Playboy Club building. The Trip was located in the former popular 60s jazz club called the Crescendo. There was a comedy club upstairs called the Interlude. … The Velvet Underground and Nico are the musical guests at a series of shows at The Trip nightclub on Sunset Strip in 1966, but it is their manager, Andy Warhol, who is the headliner with his outrageous, multi-media Exploding Plastic Inevitable Show.” …
“On May 3, 1966 I was serving drinks in the celebrity section at The Trip. Jane Fonda is seated and she orders a drink and I asked her for ID. She removes her sunglasses and says, Do you know who I am? … Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention are the opening act the first night. At the end of the set they receive a standing ovation and cheers from the audience.”
“The Exploding Plastic Inevitable Show started after The Velvet Underground played a couple of songs. … When your eyes adjusted to the manipulation of the light what you saw was an interaction between Nico and two men, one who carried a whip, the other chains. It was an illusion, I think, of sadism, not at all acceptable to peace loving hippies. … The EPI featured a mixed media orgy that included film loops, music by the Velvets, sadomasochistic dancing and an epileptic lightshow.”
“Before the first set was over people stared to walk out of the club. Cher said “It depressed me. It will replace nothing – except maybe suicide.” People were standing up at their tables, booing as they waited their turn to leave the club. The line for the second show circled the block but the customers leaving started warning people not to go in. They said the show was vulgar and violent. The line got smaller and smaller until only a handful of people remained.”
“The Buffalo Springfield is playing the Whisky A Go Go as the opening act and is free to leave at 12:45 am. They walk to The Trip in time to see the feature act. … The musicians are equally offended by the appearance of sexual violence and what they assumed was part of the Velvet Underground’s act. It was later that we realized that Andy is the creator of the act of violence. … There is more then one story about why on the third day of the New Yorker’s show, L.A. Sheriff’s officers closed The Trip.”
“The show was cancelled before the advertised end date of its run. According to Callie Angell “On May 12, the club was temporarily closed when Virgina Greenhouse, wife of one of the operators, sued to collect a $21,000 over-due promissory note, and a representative of the sheriff’s office delivered a writ of attachment to the club. Warhol and the Velvet Underground filed a claim for their fee with the local musicians’ union, and were forced to wait in Los Angeles for payment to arrive.” According to Bockris, the club was “closed down by the Sheriff’s office on their third day. The troupe stay in LA, hoping the club would re-open, and the musicians’ union said if they stayed in town for the (union rules) duration of their engagement they would have to be paid the complete fee. They used the time to continue recording the first album.”
The Trip, engagement was supposed to be May 3 -18, 1966, at least for EPI. The Mothers (not yet of Invention) headed north after the show. … “May 6-26, 1966 Frenchy’s House of BBQ, Hayward, CA (on the 21st they backed Neil Diamond who played a one night stand) … May 27-29, 1966 Fillmore Auditorium , San Francisco, CA (The Exploding Plastic Inevitable, Supporting Velvet Underground & Nico) … June 3-4, 1966 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, CA (supporting Quicksilver Messenger Service & The Grateful Dead) … June 24-25, 1966 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, CA (supporting Lenny Bruce).” Lenny Bruce died August 3, 1966.
“The Exploding Plastic Inevitable arrived in San Francisco to play for two nights at BILL GRAHAM’s Fillmore Ball Room with the MOTHERS OF INVENTION and the early JEFFERSON AIRPLANE. The Warhol crowd hated the hippie culture of San Francisco. Bill Graham pulled the plug on the Velvets the second night when the band left the stage after leaning their instruments against the amplifiers creating a “barrage of sonic feedback”.
“John Cale: “In San Francisco, we played the Fillmore and no one liked us much. We put the guitars against the amps, turned up, played percussion and then split. Bill Graham came into the dressing room and said, “You owe me 20 more minutes.” I’d dropped a cymbal on Lou’s head and he was bleeding. “Is he hurt?” Graham said. “We’re not insured.””
“After the second night in San Francisco Gerard Malanga was arrested in an all night cafeteria in North Beach for carrying an offensive weapon (his whip) and spent the night in jail. … While In San Francisco, Lou Reed shot up some bad speed causing his joints to seize up and he was incorrectly diagnosed as having a terminal case of lupus. Upon their return to New York, Lou Reed checked into Beth Israel hospital with a serious case of hepatitis and had a six week course of treatment. Nico left for Ibiza while the rest of the Velvets started rehearsing for an upcoming June booking in Chicago – a one week stint at Poor Richard’s. ANGUS MACLISE returned as drummer and MAUREEN TUCKER switched to playing bass.”
The VU and The Mothers of Invention both recorded on the MGM/Verve label. According to some, this caused problems. “The band believed that Zappa used his clout to hold back their release in favor of his own album with the Mothers of Invention, Freak Out. “The problem [was] Frank Zappa and his manager, Herb Cohen,” said (Sterling) Morrison. “They sabotaged us in a number of ways, because they wanted to be the first with a freak release. And we were totally naive. We didn’t have a manager who would go to the record company every day and just drag the whole thing through production.” (John) Cale claimed that the band’s wealthy patron affected the label’s judgment. “Verve’s promotional department [took] the attitude, ‘Zero bucks for VU, because they’ve got Andy Warhol; let’s give all the bucks to Zappa.’”
“On October 23, 1967, in New York, singer Nico sang with The Velvet Underground. (This list of VU performances does not mention a show on that date) … Nico’s delivery of her material was very flat, deadpan, and expressionless, and she played as though all of her songs were dirges. She seemed as though she was trying to resurrect the ennui and decadence of Weimar, pre-Hitler Germany. Her icy, Nordic image also added to the detachment of her delivery. … In between sets, Frank Zappa got up from his seat and walked up on the stage and sat behind the keyboard of Nico’s B-3 organ. He proceeded to place his hands indiscriminately on the keyboard in a total, atonal fashion and screamed at the top of his lungs, doing a caricature of Nico’s set, the one he had just seen. The words to his impromptu song were the names of vegetables like broccolli, cabbage, asparagus… This “song” kept going for about a minute or so and then suddenly stopped. He walked off the stage and the show moved on. It was one of the greatest pieces of rock ‘n roll theater that I have ever seen.”
The Library of Congress furnished the pictures for this feature. This is a repost.
Sixty One Years
Sixty one years ago, John Kennedy went to the oval office in the sky. The bullets hit Mr. Kennedy at 12:30 pm, CST. He arrived at the hospital at 12:37. He had a faint heartbeat on arrival, but quickly succumbed to his wounds.
I was nine years old. I was in Miss Mckenzie’s fourth grade class. There was going to be an assembly soon, and the class was going to perform. There was a rehearsal in the cafetorium, and some of the kids were acting up. They went back to the class, and I thought they were going to be chewed out about the misbehavior in the cafetorium. Instead, Miss Mckenzie came into the room, and told the kids that President Kennedy had been shot during a parade in Dallas Texas. She did not say anything about his condition. One kid cheered the news.
School let out at the regular time, and I walked home. My mother and brother were crying. I was told that the president had died. The cub scouts meeting that afternoon was canceled.
Later that night, a plane arrived in Washington. The tv cameras showed a gruesome looking man walk up to a microphone. He was introduced as President Lyndon Johnson. This may have been the worst moment of that day. Photographs for this repost today are from “Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Did Socrates Read And Write?
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. This is a repost.
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 the the juries were well-educated concerning such matters. General literacy existed by the late 400s BC for the general pubic 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 G-d 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 today are from The Library of Congress.
Eight Score And One Year Ago
A vicious battle had been fought near Gettysburg, PA. It is widely considered the turning point of “Mr. Lincoln”s War,” the moment when the Union took the upper hand. It came at a horrible price, and a cemetery was built to hold this price. This is a repost.
The ceremony to dedicate the cemetery was held November 19, 1863. The headline speaker was Senator Edward Everett. The President was an afterthought. After it was over, Mr. Everett reportedly told the President that he said more in two minutes than he did in two hours.
The speech by Mr. Lincoln is an American classic. Schoolchildren are forced to memorize it. There are a few legends, many of which are not true. According to The Lincoln Museum, the speech was written on White House stationary, not the back of an envelope. The train ride would have been too bumpy to write. There is also confusion about what happened to the original text.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Did The KKK Endorse Donald Trump?
This is a repost from 2016. That year, The Washington Post ran the story described below. Many people saw corporate media as having an obligation to promote the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. This year, WAPO chose not to endorse any candidate. This angered many people. Compared to how WAPO conducted itself in 2016, not endorsing a candidate might be the best alternative.
In the last days of the 2016 election, people began to say that Donald John Trump was endorsed by the KKK. @DefiantLionUK Don’t forget President-elect Donald #Trump is a hate-filled, #KKK endorsed, #racist & that simply can’t be tolerated #TrumpProtest. @Eti_Verde Vote! American democracy in action! Stop Trump & his white nationalist KKKlan!
The consensus was that DJT was endorsed by the KKK, and that DJT is a racist. Therefore, if you support DJT, you support the KKK, and you are a racist. There is a name for this type of logical fallacy. The net result was the election of DJT.
It is tough to say how much impact this KKK talk had on the election. By November 8, America had been hit over the head with political talk for two years. The various factions tend to live in echo chambers, where they only hear information that reinforces what they already think. People say what sounds good to them. If someone does not agree, then they are a racist. People seem to assume that their neighbor will agree with them, if only you insult them enough.
Google “kkk endorses donald trump.” The top result is in the Washington Post, KKK’s official newspaper supports Donald Trump for president. “It is called the Crusader — and it is one of the most prominent newspapers of the Ku Klux Klan. Under the banner “Make America Great Again,” the entire front page of the paper’s current issue is devoted to a lengthy defense of Trump’s message — an embrace some have labeled a de facto endorsement.”
There is no link to the endorsement. If you google the Crusader, you find this. The Crusader is a tacky little newspaper, headquartered in Harrison, Arkansas. It is “The official Newspaper of The Knights Party.” You get “4 Big Quarterly Issues” for $20. “The Charge on your Credit Card Statement will show up as Christian Books and Things.” … If you google Knights Party, you will see a lot of links to ADL, SPLC, and FBI. If you are willing to scroll a bit on duckduckgo, you can see information about the Knights Party. It is not known if this is the same group that published “The Crusader,” or if this newspaper is published in 2024.
The truth is that the Ku Klux Klan is an obsolete movement. There are a few dozen chapters, who often do not get along. The hand wringing by “liberals” empowers the Klan. If people would ignore the Klan, they would go away. The Chinese bed sheet manufacturers will miss them.
“The KKK is split into many smaller subdivisions, explained (KKK Imperial Wizard Frank) Ancona, and often times, banished members of a larger branch will attempt to start their own. Ancona believes this is the case with Murray, who is not even known to the Traditionalist American Knights. “He basically made up his own name,” Ancona said, explaining that Murray may not even be on his birth certificate…. Half of them don’t have the rituals for our ceremonies.” Frank Ancona died in 2017.
Despite it’s fierce reputation as a “racist terrorist” organization, the KKK is in bad shape. It has less credibility than the Westboro Baptist Church. The custom of wearing bedsheets makes them the easy target for jokes. The ADL and SPLC say the membership of the KKK is dwindling.
A good argument could be made that anonymous publicity is helping the KKK. It makes bed sheets look dangerous. While the three digital stooges of twitter/facebook/tiktok are focused on bed sheets, more dangerous white (and other color) hate groups are operating in darkness. With people fascinated with who is under the bed sheets, people that can do damage are buying ammunition, buying elections, and committing genocide in West Asia.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. These men were Union soldiers, in the War Between the States. They did not post on facebook.
The Burning Of Atlanta
Around this time 160 years ago, Atlanta was on fire. General Sherman was preparing for his March to the sea, and wanted to destroy anything of value in the city. The fire is reported as being between 11-15 of November 1864, depending on what source you use.
The November fire was the second great fire in Atlanta that year. On September 2, the city was conquered by the Union Army. The fleeing Confederates blew up a munitions depot, and set a large part of the city on fire. This is the fire Scarlet O’Hara flees, in “Gone With The Wind”.
After a series of bloody battles, the city was shelled by Yankee forces for forty days. There were many civilian casualties. General Sherman was tired of the war, angry at Atlanta, and ready for action. This is despite the fact that many in Atlanta were opposed to secession.
Click here to hear a lecture by Marc Wortman at the Atlanta History Center. Mr Wortman is the author of “The Bonfire: The Siege and Burning of Atlanta”. The hour of talk is fascinating. This is a repost. The pictures are from The Library of Congress
About this time every year, there is a post about the burning of Atlanta. One of the sources is a lecture by Marc Wortman. If you have an hour to spare, this talk is worth your time. One of the stories told is the tale of Mr. Luckie.
“According to folklore, two stories abound as to how Luckie Street was named. The first is that its moniker came from one of Atlanta’s oldest families. The other, probably closer to the truth, regales the life of Solomon “Sam” Luckie. Luckie, as it turns out, wasn’t so lucky after all. When General William Tecumseh Sherman first came marching through Atlanta in 1864, Luckie, a free Black man who made his living as a barber, was leaning against a gas lamp post in downtown talking to a group of businessmen. A burst from a cannon shell wounded him; he survived, but later died from his injuries. Folklore suggests that he may have been one of the first casualties of the assault on Atlanta. Luckie Street, an extension of Auburn Avenue, was later named in his memory.”
Marc Wortman wrote a book, The Bonfire: The Siege and Burning of Atlanta. The one star review, and comments to that review, are unusually detailed. Here is a selection.
“…People forget – or were never taught in school – that most Confederate soldiers descended from Revolutionary War patriots or were up-country poor sons of farmers. Many Confederate soldiers were relatively recent new arrivals to the U.S., semi-literate dirt poor immigrants from Ireland and Scotland who’d never had the chance to own even an acre of their own land in Europe. In the mix were well-educated, elite merchant business owning French Huguenot refugees of the Catholic Bourbon genocide of Protestants. These immigrants had nowhere else to go, 9 times out of 10 never owned a slave, and fought for the CSA to keep what little they’d hardscrabble carved out over a decade of arrival into the U.S.”
The War Between The States continues to be a source of controversy. There are ritual denunciations of slavery, assumed to be the sole cause of the conflict. There seems to be more quarreling about the war now, than just a few years ago.
The notion of autonomous states in a federal union was novel when the United States Constitution was written. The debate over federalism versus states rights continues to this day. Many in the CSA saw the Union as being a conquering army, and fought to defend their homes. While slavery was certainly a factor in the creation of the CSA, it was not the only Casus belli. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Chamblee54 
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