Dick Nixon TV Critic
The text below is a conversation between Mr. Nixon, John D. Ehrlichman, and H. R. Haldeman. The tape was made May 13, 1971. This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
NIXON: … CBS … glorifying homosexuality.
EHRLICHMAN: A panel show?
H. R. HALDEMAN: No, it’s a regular show. It’s on every week. It’s usually just done in the guy’s home. It’s usually just that guy, who’s a hard hat.
NIXON: That’s right; he’s a hard hat.
EHRLICHMAN: He always looks like a slob.
NIXON: Looks like Jackie Gleason.
HALDEMAN: He has this hippie son-in-law, and usually the general trend is to downgrade him and upgrade the son-in-law–make the square hard hat out to be bad. But a few weeks ago, they had one in which the guy, the son-in-law, wrote a letter to you, President Nixon, to raise hell about something. And the guy said, “You will not write that letter from my home!” Then said, “I’m going to write President Nixon,” took off all those sloppy clothes, shaved, and went to his desk and got ready to write his letter to President Nixon. And apparently it was a good episode.
EHRLICHMAN: What’s it called?
NIXON: “Archie’s Guys.” Archie is sitting here with his hippie son-in-law, married to the screwball daughter. The son-in-law apparently goes both ways. This guy. He’s obviously queer–wears an ascot–but not offensively so. Very clever. Uses nice language. Shows pictures of his parents. And so Arch goes down to the bar. Sees his best friend, who used to play professional football. Virile, strong, this and that. Then the fairy comes into the bar. I don’t mind the homosexuality. I understand it. Nevertheless, goddamn, I don’t think you glorify it on public television, homosexuality, even more than you glorify whores. We all know we have weaknesses. But, goddammit, what do you think that does to kids? You know what happened to the Greeks! Homosexuality destroyed them. Sure, Aristotle was a homo. We all know that. So was Socrates.
EHRLICHMAN: But he never had the influence television had.
NIXON: You know what happened to the Romans? The last six Roman emperors were fags. Neither in a public way. You know what happened to the popes? They were layin’ the nuns; that’s been goin’ on for years, centuries. But the Catholic Church went to hell three or four centuries ago. It was homosexual, and it had to be cleaned out. That’s what’s happened to Britain. It happened earlier to France. Let’s look at the strong societies. The Russians. Goddamn, they root ’em out. They don’t let ’em around at all. I don’t know what they do with them. Look at this country. You think the Russians allow dope? Homosexuality, dope, immorality, are the enemies of strong societies. That’s why the Communists and left-wingers are clinging to one another. They’re trying to destroy us. I know Moynihan will disagree with this, and Mitchell will. But, goddamn, we have to stand up to this.
EHRLICHMAN: It’s fatal liberality.
NIXON: Huh?
EHRLICHMAN: It’s fatal liberality. And with its use on television, it has such leverage.
NIXON: You know what’s happened [in northern California]?
EHRLICHMAN: San Francisco has just gone clear over.
NIXON: But it’s not just the ratty part of town. The upper class in San Francisco is that way. The Bohemian Grove, which I attend from time to time–it is the most faggy goddamned thing you could ever imagine, with that San Francisco crowd. I can’t shake hands with anybody from San Francisco. … Decorators. They got to do something. But we don’t have to glorify it. You know one of the reasons fashions have made women look so terrible is because the designers hate women. Designers taking it out on the women. Now they’re trying to get some more sexy things coming on again.
EHRLICHMAN: Hot pants.
NIXON: Jesus Christ.
Mr. Korda And Mr. Reagan
PG was listening to an internet show, while editing the last of some pictures from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. Typically, he works on a rotation. For a few weeks, it is GSU. Then, for a few weeks, it is The Library of Congress. The third part of the cycle is color pictures taken by himself. When the end of a batch is in sight, it is a time of happiness. As much fun as the pictures are, after a while PG gets tired of what he is working on, and is ready for a change. The pictures that go with this feature are the last ones of this GSU cycle.
The background entertainment was Booknotes, a C-Span show that ran a few years ago. It is hosted by Brian Lamb, the founder and CEO of C-Span. Mr. Lamb does not appear to have much of a personality. This means the show keeps the focus on the authors. Booknotes presents a transcript for the talks. Lazy bloggers enjoy this feature.
The author talking tonight is Michael Korda. When the show aired July 9, 1999, Mr. Korda was the Editor in Chief at Simon & Schuster. The house scored the Presidential memoirs of Ronald Reagan. Mr. Korda worked on the book. There were some good stories.
Mr. KORDA: … I then took on editing Ronald Reagan, which was sort of strange, because the president, of course, did not write his books. There was a ghostwriter, Bob Lindsey, whom we picked, and rather famously, at the end of the whole procedure, we had a press conference at which Ronald Reagan and I were photographed ostensibly editing his book. We were each–sat in front of the television cameras and given two sheafs of perfectly blank white paper, and a–and a ballpoint pen, and we sat there, the two of us together at this table, busily pretending to scribble editorial notes and things, and hand them back–on totally blank pieces of paper. I mean, not for nothing did the president come from the movies–and he was wonderful at it. Anybody watching this would–you know, the concentration, the firmness of his handwriting, his total immersion in what he was doing. But I mean, it was–it was the movies.
Anyway, I after this had taken place and this scene had been recorded for all the television shows, the president stood up, and he walked to the door and turned around–the cameras were still on him, of course, and still on–and turned around and waved, and he said, `I’m sure the book is great. I’m looking forward to reading it when I have the time.’ And it’s true. He had only the most tangential connection to this book. …
But he was always, when I–whenever I worked with him–the kindest and the nicest. He always brought his little bag of home-baked cookies to have with coffee in a paper bag in the morning, and he would put them on a plate and pass them around. … He said, `These are homemade chocolate chip cookies, made by Esmerelda, our maid, and I brought them in for us to have with our coffee.’ And we’d put them on a–but these weird look–because they looked like she was–I think she was Ecuadorian or In–Inc–South or Latin American–and they looked like, in fact, like chocolate chip cookies that had been made by somebody who’s never seen a chocolate chip cookie. You know, they were kind of too thick and too burned at the edges. Anyway–but he loved them, so we put them on the plate, and as we were having our coff–we’d pass them around the table. There were about six or seven of us around the table, all of us working on these proofs except for Ronald Reagan, who was kind of looking out the window, and wishing he were doing something else. And everybody has one of these chocolate chip cookies, and when the plate gets ’round to the end of the table, it’s put back in front of the president, and there’s one cookie left on the plate.
And about 15 or 20 minutes I realized that the president is paying no attention whatsoever to what we are saying, and that his mind is fixed on something else. And what it’s fixed on is this one remaining chocolate chip cookie, and it’s perfectly clear to me that he wants that second chocolate chocolate chip cookie with his coffee, but having been brought up in Dixon, Illinois, properly, he has been taught, as a maxim that cannot possibly be broken, that you do not take the last cookie on plate, particularly when you’re the host, so he can’t take it. So to break the spell, I said, `Mr. President, those chocolate chip cookies were delicious.’ And he holds up the plate and he said, `Oh, yes. Yeah, they–they’re good, weren’t they? They’re homemade,’ and he goes through the whole thing. He said, `Would anybody like the cookie?’ And he then passes the plate around the table, and it goes ’round everybody, gets to me, and I pass it on to Bob Lindsey, who’s sitting next to me and between me and the president, and you could see the relief on the president’s face, as this plate comes around with this one–and nobody’s touched this cookie. And just as it reaches Bob Lindsey, without even looking at it, Lindsey takes the cookie up and swallows it. And I looked, and Ronald Reagan’s face was such a picture of sadness that I–my heart went out to him, even though I don’t agree with him politically–I just felt for him. He could–you know, he almost had it, you know, he had that cookie in his hand. He was counting on it, and he didn’t get it.
Two More Years
The United States is currently in the second longest streak of Presidents living to finish their term in office. The last POTUS to die in office was John F. Kennedy, who met his maker on November 22, 1963. In a few weeks, that will be 50 years ago.
The first President to not finish his term, for mortal reasons, was William Henry Harrison. He perished April 4, 1841. This was 52 years, and 24 days, after George Washington was sworn in, on April 30, 1789. If BHO can get through two more years without the cigarettes killing him, then America will have a new record. The target date is December 16, 2015.
On the other side of the Atlantic, a similar countdown is in progress. Victoria served as Queen of England from June 20, 1837 to January 22, 1901 In calenderese, this is 63 years and 216 days. The current monarch, Elizabeth II, began her reign February 6, 1952. In another two years, unless her purse explodes and kills her, Elizabeth will be the longest serving ruler of England. She recently passed George III, who served 59 years. Elizabeth did not have a revolution in the colonies to concern her. The target date is September 10, 2015. This is a repost. Pictures by The Library of Congress.
Slavery And The Star Spangled Banner
There is a terrific Backstory episode about the War of 1812. This is a conflict that is not much thought about, even during its bicentennial. It was not a good war for people of color. Native tribes fought with the British in Michigan, and were soundly defeated. After this war, the attitude of the white man towards the natives got worse.
Perhaps the most famous product of the War of 1812 is The Star Spangled Banner, a.k.a. the national anthem. There are a few legends about writing this song that skeptical bloggers like to shoot down. At the 43 minute mark of the backstory episode, another aspect of TSSB is discussed.
It seems as though slaves were escaping their owners, and fighting with the British. Washington lawyer Francis Scott Key was a slave owner, and thought that the slaves would be better off with their owners. This is the sentiment behind the third verse of TSSB.
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
The image of F.S. Key has been cleaned up over the years. This biography omits the third verse of TSSB, and does not mention his slaves. Wikipedia tells a different story.
In 1836, Key prosecuted New York doctor Reuben Crandall, brother of controversial Connecticut school teacher Prudence Crandall, for “seditious libel” for possessing a trunk full of anti-slavery publications in his Georgetown residence. In a trial that attracted nationwide attention, Key charged that Crandall’s actions had the effect of instigating enslaved people to rebel. Crandall’s attorneys acknowledged he opposed slavery but denied any intent or actions to encourage rebellion. In his final address to the jury, Key said “Are you willing gentleman to abandon your country, to permit it to be taken from you, and occupied by the abolitionist, according to whose taste it is to associate and amalgamate with the negro? Or gentleman, on the other hand, are there laws in this community to defend you from the immediate abolitionist, who would open upon you the floodgates of such extensive wickedness and mischief?” Crandall was acquitted.”
The Huffington Post has a story about F.S. Key, ‘Land of the Free?’ Francis Scott Key, Composer of National Anthem, Was Defender of Slavery.
Buying and selling humans remained a respectable business in Washington City. The slave holding elite of the south had a majority in the Congress and a partner in President Andrew Jackson…
To reassert the rule of law, Key set out to crack down on the anti-slavery men and their “incendiary publications.” Informants had reported to the grand jury about an abolitionist doctor from New York who was living in Georgetown. Key charged Rueben Crandall with bringing a trunk full of anti-slavery publications into the city.
In the spring of 1836, Key’s prosecution of Rueben Crandall was a national news story. In response, the American Antislavery Society circulated a broadsheet denouncing Washington as “The Slave Market of America.” The abolitionists needled Key for the hypocrisy of using his patriotic fame to defend tyranny in the capital: “Land of the Free… Home of the Oppressed.”
Key shrugged off his liberal critics. In front of courtroom crowded with Congressmen and correspondents Key waxed eloquent and indignant at the message of the abolitionists. “They declare that every law which sanctions slavery is null and void… ” Key told the jury. “That we have no more rights over our slaves than they have over us. Does not this bring the constitution and the laws under which we live into contempt? Is it not a plain invitation to resist them?”
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
Who Does The Killing?
PG used to work with someone, who we will call Fred. This person contracted some sort of cancer, and died nine days after nine eleven. Fred, the son of Holocaust Survivors, was probably the most Jewish person that PG has known. Fred was generous with his opinions. While no claim is made to having access to secret information, these opinions gave an insight into a certain pattern of thought. Some of these attitudes continue to this day, with other situations.
The employment related association took place between 1985 and 1989. This was during the Iran Iraq war. It was felt by many that those were two evil countries, that should be allowed to fight each other as long as possible. When they were fighting each other, they were not a threat to Israel. Fred enthusiastically endorsed this idea. “Yes they should. It is for your benefit. It will prevent terrorism”.
Hundreds of thousands of young men died in that war. Iraq got worn out by the fighting, and resorted to the use of chemical weapons. Iraq also ran up a large debt to Kuwait. In an effort to cancel that debt, Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. That set in motion a cycle of violence and revenge that still plagues the United States.
Today, there is much fighting in Syria. There are some who say that with Hezbollah fighting Al Queda, they are both bad actors. Let them kill each other as much as they want. Again, when they fight each other, they will leave Israel alone.
The carnage in Syria, with the government killing thousands of it’s citizens, brings to mind another Fred story. In 1989, China brutally repressed demonstrators asking for more rights. On the monday after the massacre, Fred commented that the Soviet Union was sorry. They wanted to do this killing themselves. Could this be how Israel feels about the killing in Syria? Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
This Green Thing
There is an amusing monolog on the innertubes these days. It is a grumpy old person talking about the old days. It starts out like this:
Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment. The woman apologized and explained, “We didn’t have this green thing back in my earlier days.” The young clerk responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations.”
Plastic bags ARE bad for the earth. There is a spot in the Pacific Ocean where non degradable junk collects. This saltwater trashpile is the size of the Atlantic Coast Conference, and, like the ACC, gets bigger all the time. It dribbles and shoots year round.
In a perfect world, people might bring their own bags, and those bags would be made of environmentally friendly materials. However, a lot of us are not that organized. A lot of those tote bags are made of materials that degrade the environment. And then there is the paper versus plastic dilemma. Yes, paper is a renewable resource, and is buddies with that part of the environment that is not downwind from a paper mill. The problem is that paper bags weigh a lot more than plastic bags. When you ship these bags from the factory to the store, you use more fuel to ship the paper bags.
Getting back to the battle of the generations, PG finds himself caught in the middle. He remembers black and white television, jim crow, and cigarettes smoked everywhere. There are a few things things the oldtimers seem to forget. It wasn’t that long ago that PG was a kid, and hearing people say they feel sorry for your generation. Now, PG is the old fogie, and can see the points made by both sides.
The first earth day was in 1970. The concern over the ecology was something that hippies did when the war in Vietnam started to wind down. A lot of these people … i.e. the ones who cared about the earth … are the old generation that the young clerk is fussing about.
“Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house — not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn’t have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.”
In the fifties, gas powered lawn mowers were everywhere. Electric mixers were in a lot of kitchens. Just how old is this lady?
Black and white TV was not all that great. There were frequent breaks in the transmission due to technical problems. The sets had something called fine tuning. If that knob went a cat’s hair too far to the right, the picture tube would have a bunch of bars, followed by the picture, followed by a bunch of bars, followed by the picture. This kinetic parade would roll down the viewing area, until someone walked over to the tv and moved the fine tuning a cat’s hair to the left.
Meanwhile, someone in the living room was either lighting, smoking, or putting out a cigarette. Back in those days, people smoked whenever and whereever they wanted to. The idea of second hand smoke had not been invented. Even if it had, few would have cared. There were reports about lung cancer, but they were laughed off.
The lady in the photograph is white. This probably helps her memories of how good the old days were. In the pre civil rights era, people that were not white did not have it so good.
Here again, PG finds himself in the middle. In the early sixties, PG was horrified by the anti-black racism in Georgia. If you said that maybe negroes are not all that bad, you would hear about it for the next hour. These days, if PG does not vigorously condemn the racial attitudes of certain people, he is considered racist. Sometimes you just can’t win. Bullies will be bullies.
It is easy to make fun of political correctness. Sometimes people get carried away, and forget to look in the mirror. The thing is, all people are G-d’s children. Sometimes, what you thoughtlessly say can hurt someone. Which generation gets the credit, and the debit, for caring about their neighbors?
In a sense, the fifties were the test tube generation. Nuclear bombs were tested in the desert, with little regard for the radiation. Powerful drugs were coming on the market, and doctors were eager to prescribe them. The side effects became known later, after the damage was done. The gas guzzling cars spewed poison into the air, and no one cared. Maybe it was because the drivers were bombed. Drunk driving was not seen as a problem.
To be fair, many of the old ladies points are valid. The same is true of the young clerk. One day, if she is lucky, the young clerk will be the old lady. This is a repost.
The Elder Brother
Yesterday, this facility published the text of Luke 15, also known as The Prodigal Son. The titular phrase does not appear in the King Jimmy text. The story is a parable, that is, a made up story to teach a lesson. Those who say every word of the Bible is true somehow miss this.
The Prodigal Son is a popular story. It is well known, and speaks of forgiveness. Some unkind people say that Jesus worshipers like to be forgiven, and do not like to forgive. There is plenty of evidence for this observation. Lets just say that lots of people don’t want to take responsibility for their actions. If you can get your pie in the sky hero to forgive you, then you can have a slightly cleaner conscience.
PG was at a memorial service once. The guest of honor was a leather wearing pagan. The minister, who had met the deceased one time, told the story of the Prodigal Son. It made PG feel better.
The forgotten character in this story is the older brother. He was faithful to his father, stayed at home and helped out, only to see his wayward brother welcomed back with joy. The father never killed a fatted calf for the elder brother. Maybe the elder brother deserved it more. Sometimes, life is not fair. Some say this is more than a parable. Maybe it is three units of bull.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. These men were Union soldiers during the War Between the States. After the guns stopped firing, it was a long time before the two sides forgave one another.
The Golden Calf
When PG was a kid in sunday school, he heard about the the golden calf. It turns out that, splendid allegory aside, he didn’t really know much about the story. With the help of google and Bible Gateway, the text of Exodus 32 showed up. G-d bless public domain, and copy paste. The Bible is the main source for this tale. It doesn’t really matter if it is the inerrant word of G-d, it is a pretty good story. And much of the message rings true today.
1 And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him. 2 And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me. 3 And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. 4 And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
This is a modern story. The church is begging the people for gold. The sons are wearing golden earrings. The church takes these ill gotten gains, and forge a make believe G-d. This time, it looks like a cow. Billy Graham will come much later.
7 And the Lord said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves: 8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. 9 And the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people:
Moving down a few verses, the story gets good. 19 And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses’ anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount. 20 And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it. 21 And Moses said unto Aaron, What did this people unto thee, that thou hast brought so great a sin upon them? 22 And Aaron said, Let not the anger of my lord wax hot: thou knowest the people, that they are set on mischief. 23 For they said unto me, Make us gods, which shall go before us: for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him. 24 And I said unto them, Whosoever hath any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it me: then I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf. 25 And when Moses saw that the people were naked; (for Aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their enemies) : 26 Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, Who is on the Lord’s side? let him come unto me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him. 27 And he said unto them, Thus saith the Lord G-d of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour. 28 And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: there fell that day about three thousand men.
Lets get this story right. Moses comes back from somewhere, and sees a naked party by the golden calf. He has a hissy fit, threw the golden calf into the fire, and tells people to start killing each other. Over three thousand men are killed. Presumably, the women and children are spared. This is serious stuff. Pictures tonight are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
Nine Eleven Story
This is my 911 story. I repeat it every year at this time. If you saw it last year, it has not changed. Feel free to skip the text and look at the pictures.
I was at work, and someone called out that someone had run a plane into the World Trade Center. I didn’t think much of it, until I heard that the second tower had been hit, then the Pentagon, then the towers collapsed, then a plane crashed in Pennsylvania.
I focused on my job most of the day. There was always a lot of melodrama at that facility, and concentrating on my production duties helped to keep me saner. This was roughly the halfway point of my seven year tenure at this place.
One of the other workers was a bully for Jesus. He was a hateful loudmouth. After the extent of the damage became known, he shouted “They are doing this for Allah,” and prayed at his desk. The spectacle of the BFJ praying made me want to puke.
I became alienated from Jesus during these years. Once, I had once been tolerant of Christians and Jesus, as one would be with an eccentric relative. I began to loath the entire affair. I hear of others who found comfort in religion during this difficult time. That option simply was not available for me.
090913
Henry Kissinger told a joke to Richard Nixon. It became known as Mr. Nixon’s favorite joke. A man asked Richard Wagner, Do you spell your name with a W. He replied, Nien, W.
)()()( oops, the shift key just loves to make trouble. Lets try this again. Be sure to leave the 9mm alone. Or use the canine squad. If you see Kay, give her love potion number nine.
090909 was a really neat day. And not just two days later was 911, and we know goes on then. 090909 was the last day of its type until 01/01/2101. A day expressed by three zeros and three single digits.
Nine is the largest of the single digit numbers. It is a baseball team, without the DH. A baseball game lasts nine innings, just like a pregnancy lasts nine months. A pregnancy is not considered a complete game if it is rained out after the fifth inning.
Nine is pronounced the same as No in German. Was 090909 known in Berlin as oh no, oh no? Did Yoko Ono make an appearance to celebrate? Did the mask work better for her than it did for John?
Nine is an odd number. Nine is three squared. If you multiply a number by nine, and then add the digits of the sum together, you will get nine. An example is 2×9=18, and 1+8=9.
Nine is six upside down. A pristine pastime popularized 69. Jimi Hendrix wondered if six turned out to be nine, he don’t mind. The Beatles did a song called Revolution number nine, which said “turn me on dead man” if played backwards. Number Nine, Number Nine, Number Nine.
This was originally posted 090909. It was adapted on 090913 for use in the Trifecta writing challenge. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Seven Brilliant Quotes
There is a little graphic floating around, Seven Brilliant Quotes. Some find these sayings to be inspirational. PG smells a rat. Here are the seven quotes:
William Shakespeare – Never play with the feelings of others because you may win the game but the risk is that you will surely lose the person for a life time.
Napoleon Bonaparte – The world suffers a lot. Not because of the violence of bad people, but because of the silence of good people.
Albert Einstein – I am thankful to all those who said NO to me. Its because of them I did it myself.
Abraham Lincoln – If friendship is your weakest point then you are the strongest person in the world.
Martin Luther King Jr. – We must learn to live together as brothers or we will perish together as fools.
Mahatma Gandhi – The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
Abdul Kalaam – It is very easy to defeat someone, but it is very hard to win someone.
If nothing else, research into the veracity of these quotes should provide some amusing text to go between the pictures. When you go looking in the land of google, there is no telling what you will find. During this expedition, the first page rule will be in effect. Only results on the first google page will be considered. The NB quote has 1.7 million results, which is too much work.
Lets begin with Willie the shake. Did he really say “Never play with the feelings of others because you may win the game but the risk is that you will surely lose the person for a life time.”? Or, as they say in the Yahoo village, Does anyone know where this Shakespeare quote comes from?
hugeshantz Does anyone know where this Shakespeare quote comes from? I’ve seen this quote all over the internet, always attributed to Shakespeare, but I can’t find a legitimate source of where it comes from (i.e. a specific sonnet, play, speech, etc.): “Never play….” Can anyone help me out here?
Dude the Obscure This is 20th/21st century psychobabble. Shakespeare never wrote anything remotely resembling that. Please never trust any of these idiotic “internet quote sites.” They are all, all, all crap. I can’t believe that any intelligent person could think for a minute that this was written by Shakespeare. Really. Get some critical-thinking skills, child.
The next quote is by Napoleon Bonaparte, not Napoleon Dynamite. “The world suffers a lot. Not because of the violence of bad people, but because of the silence of good people.”
Before we consider the veracity of this quote, lets consider two things. NB did not speak english, so there is likely to be translation confusion. Second, the wars NB started caused widepread suffering. Little of this suffering was caused by the silence of good people.
The sources on page one do little except show the quote, usually with the credit going to NB. No one shows when or where he said it, or in what context. Brainyquotes doea not show it on the NB pages.
Number three is from Albert Einstein.” I am thankful to all those who said NO to me. Its because of them I did it myself.” According to Shelly Winters, Marilyn Monroe did not say no to Dr. Einstein. Google has a doozy of a forum, Misquoting Einstein?.
Jimmy Snyder says the quote has been attributed to Dorothy Parker, Yogi Berra, William Shakespeare, The Bible, Benjamin Franklin, and Groucho Marx. This is a clue that the quote is bogus.
zoobyshoe’s I just found this an another wiki page discussing the quote page: “I am thankful …” This is being attributed to Einstein on the Internet, but it appears to come from Wayne W. Dyer’s book You’ll See It When You Believe It, page 54, according to Google Books. Dyer does not attribute it to Einstein, but mentions Einstein in the same paragraph. “In my office I have two framed posters. One is a picture of Albert Einstein, beneath which are the words “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.” The other poster is made up solely of words: “I am grateful to all those people who said no. It is because of them I did it myself.” Great thoughts!”
Ryan_m_b’s “Never believe quotes you read on the internet” – Winston Churchill zoobyshoe’s His actual words were: “The internet has nothing to offer, but blood, tears, toil, and misquotes.”
It should not be surprising that Winston Churchill finds his way into this discussion. He has a taste for the spotlight, even 47 years after his demise. He is an example of how truthiness is sometimes all you need. His most famous speech was a radio address during a bad part of World War Two. The speech was read by an actor. England was inspired, and went on to win the war. Why should anyone worry if an actor gave his speech for him?
This is enough fun for one day. There will be a part two soon, and it will probably be full of number two. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Welcome to part two of the Chamblee54 due diligence report on the Seven Brilliant Quotes. In part one, we checked out the first three. At no time was a source for the quote found. All three are suspect, with “misunderstanding” indicated in the Albert Einstein quote. It is amazing how quickly accepted these sayings are by the inspiration hungry public.
Getting back to business, did Abraham Lincoln say “If friendship is your weakest point then you are the strongest person in the world.” There are lots of links to this quote, in a variety of fonts and colors. Some have spectacular photography in the background. However, none of these links has a source for this quote, or any indication of the context.
Wikiquotes has 43,444 words about Abraham Lincoln. PG copied these words, and did a search for the word “friendship”. The quote from the poster was not found. The meme is missing. This wikiquotes test has been very useful for checking out quotes. It is not authoritative, but is a good place to start.
This type of research can be frustrating. Being inspired by beautiful words can give you strength and purpose. It can also make you feel foolish, when the lovely words are revealed to be lies. Being a cynic gets lonely. Children of all ages don’t like to be told that there is no Santa Claus.
The good news is that number five is for real. Martin Luther King gave a speech at Western Michigan University in 1963. There is a probably his standard speech, given many times. The second section of the speech is “Call for action.”
“The world in which we live is geographically one. Now we are challenged to make it one in terms of brotherhood. Now through our ethical and moral commitment, we must make of it a brotherhood. We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will perish together as fools. This is the great challenge of the hour. This is true of individuals. It is true of nations. No individual can live alone. No nation can live alone.”
“I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality. [W]e’re challenged after working in the realm of ideas, to move out into the arena of social action and to work passionately and unrelentingly to make racial justice a reality.”
“[W]e must never substitute a doctrine of Black supremacy for white supremacy. For the doctrine of Black supremacy is as dangerous as white supremacy. God is not interested merely in the freedom of black men and brown men and yellow men but God is interested in the freedom of the whole human race, the creation of a society where all men will live together as brothers.”
PG has written about the problem of quoting Mohandas Gandhi before. Supposedly he said “I love your Christ, but I dislike your Christianity.” PG thinks this is a fabrication.
The quote on the poster is “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” Wikiquotes has a link to Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi Online. The next stop is page 302 of this section. Mr. Gandhi gave an “Interview to the press” in Karachi, on March 26, 1931. A freedom fighter named Bhagat Singh had been executed by the British three days earlier.
Do you not think it impolitic to forgive a government which has been guilty of a thousand murders?
I do not know a single instance where forgiveness has been found so wanting as to be impolitic.
But no country has ever shown such forgiveness as India is showing to Britain?
That does not affect my reply. What is true of individuals is true of nations. One cannot forgive too much. The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
The bottom line is from Dr. Abdul Kalam. (The name is misspelled on the poster.) The phrase is “It is very easy to defeat someone, but it is very hard to win someone.” Many viewers have no idea who this person is. Once again, Wikiquotes comes to the rescue. “Dr. Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam (born 15 October 1931) Indian scientist and engineer; 11th President of India; generally referred to as Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.” The quotes are from Wings of Fire: An Autobiography of APJ Abdul Kalam.
A search for the word “defeat” did not show results. A search for “win” shows a few, but not the poster child. The phrase on the poster is also credited to John Keats. There is also the story of the student who argues with an atheist professor, and ultimately wins. The student is sometimes said to be Albert Einstein. In this version, Argumnent : What, Who is GOD?, the coda is “This seems to be a true story, and the student was none other than APJ Abdul Kalam, the former President of India “.
The research for part one consisted of entering the quote into a search engine. It was not until the Lincoln investigation that the method of copying wikiquote, and searching for a key word, was discovered. Out of a sense of fairness, the first three quotes will be investigated using this method.
For William Shakespeare, the search word was risk. There were no results. For Napoleon Bonaparte, the search word was violence. There was one result. “There is no such thing as an absolute despotism; it is only relative. A man cannot wholly free himself from obligation to his fellows, and not the one on the poster. For Albert Einstein, the search word was thankful. There were no results.
So, there are seven quotes in the motivational poster. Only two of the seven have a apparent source. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The 2013 edition is a repost. This version is edited, out of concern for the attention span of the audience.
The Funeral Of Elvis
PG was going to write about some depressing subject. People that are not kind to each other. People in Israel and people in Gaza just don’t seem to get along. Somebody driving a “faded red F-150 pickup truck” in Livonia MI was mean to a little girl. (HT to Neo Prodigy.) This is a repost.
There is a saying, “if a story seems too bad to be true, it probably isn’t”. PG tried to google that phrase, and got confused. Then he seemed to remember reading it in a column by Molly Ivins. Another google adventure, and there was this film. Miss Ivins, who met her maker January 31, 2007, was promoting a book. She sat down with a bald headed man to talk about it. PG 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 or two.
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. Mr. Perry claims that his record as Texas Governor qualifies him to have his finger on the nuclear trigger. Miss Ivins repeats something that PG has 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. ( Which are from The Library of Congress ) 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.
Mr. LAMB: And how long did you spend with The New York Times as a reporter?
Ms. 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.
Mr. LAMB: Would you take a little time and tell us about reporting on the funeral of Elvis Presley?
Ms. 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 no–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.
Mr. 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?’
Ms. IVINS: That’s exactly what he said. `Shame Elvis had to die while the Shriners are in town.’ And I kind of raised by eyebrows. And sure enough, I realized what he–what he meant after I had been there for awhile because, you know, Shriners in convention–I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a whole lot of Shriners in convention, but they were having a huge national convention that very week in Memphis. And they tend to wear their little red fezzes, and sometimes they drink too much and they march around the hotel hallways tooting on New Year’s Eve horns and riding those funny little tricycles and generally cutting up and having a good time. 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. You do handsprings end over end down the hallway to the bathroom. 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.
Mr. LAMB: Why?
Ms. IVINS: Because The New York Times, at least in my day, was a very stuffy, pompous newspaper.
Mr. LAMB: What about today?
Ms. IVINS: A little bit better, little bit better than it was.
Mr. LAMB: And…
Ms. IVINS: 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.
Mr. LAMB: Why did you leave it?
Ms. 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.
Mr. LAMB: Did–but did they let it go? Did they let it…
Ms. 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 PG found some pictures, marked up the text, and was ready to post the story. He decided to listen to a bit more of the discussion between Molly Ivins and the bald headed man. When he got to this point, it became apparent that he could listen to Molly Ivins talk, or he could post his story, but he could not do both at the same time.
Ms. IVINS: Oh, well, of course, I’m gonna make fun of it. I mean, Berkeley, California, if you are from Texas, is just hilarious.
Mr. LAMB: Why?
Ms. 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.
Chamblee54 
1 comment