The Second Term
The Wall Street Journal has a feature today, Unlucky (Lame) Ducks? It is about the tendency of re-elected Presidents to have horrible problems in the second term. The POTUS known by PG, from LBJ to GWB, certainly testify to this. BTW, LBJ is Lyndon Baines Johnson, not LeBron James.
The WSJ sets out to show that the second term curse is a myth. They do not quite succeed. Rhe fourth paragraph contains a gem. Put your coffee down before you read this. “Two presidents, Abraham Lincoln and William McKinley, were assassinated in the first year of their second term. But both were arguably successful in the short time they served.”
There have been thirteen Presidents to serve two full terms in office. This includes Grover Cleveland, who served a term, was defeated, and won a second term four years later. Five of the first seven Presidents were eight year men. Three of the four Presidents before BHO served two full terms. By coincidence, we are now in the second longest period of not having a President die in office. If the cigarettes don’t kill BHO, this record will be broken in 2015.
On Tuesday, November 13, 1787, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to William S. Smith. He wrote “God forbid we should ever be 20. years without such a rebellion.” Twenty years later was the middle of Mr. Jefferson’s second term as President. There was no rebellion.
Looking back on the last hundred years, the second term is not pretty. It makes you wonder why anyone would want to seek reelection. Let’s break it down.
Woodrow Wilson got America in World War I. He campaigned for reelection in 1916 by saying he kept us out of this conflict. He suffered a stroke in 1919, and was incapacitated the last year of his administration. The Republicans won the next election easily.
Calvin Coolidge became POTUS when Warren G. Harding died, and won a full term in 1924. He was very popular, and could have won a another term in 1928. This would have put him in office at the start of the Depression, which his policies helped to create. Scandal wise, did not get caught.
Franklin D. Roosevelt had battles over trying to enlarge the Supreme Court. Many of the New Deal programs were ruled unconstitutional. Europe and Asia were a mess.
Harry S Truman became POTUS when Franklin D. Rooseveltdied. He won a full term in 1948. The Korean War turned ugly, there were scandals, and Joe McCarthy had a good time.
Dwight D. Eisenhower had numerous scandals in his second term. His golf game suffered.
Lyndon B. Johnson became POTUS when John F. Kennedy died. He won a full term in 1964. He is the last VPOTUS to have the boss die in office. The War in Vietnam got ugly in his full term.
Richard M. Nixon won a landslide over hopeless Democratic opposition. Ethical issues caused him to resign in 1974. He spoke in a monotone.
Ronald W. Reagan had the Iran-Contra-Cocaine affair in his second term. The problems caused by the government financing terrorist armies, by importing cocaine, are still with us.
William J. Clinton could not keep his pants on. This was before, during, and after his second term.
George W. Bush saw his wars go sour in the second term. Tax cuts were used to pay for these wars, causing economic problems.
The Narco State Rag
This feature was written July 13, 2010. The situation in Afghanistan is little better. If we leave, the country falls into chaos. If we stay, we spend money we don’t have. It is a bitch.
Some people euphemize bitch by saying that something is a bear. Across the frontier from Afghanistan, the Russian bear is dealing with a heroin epidemic. Some say the United States suckered the Soviet Union into invading Afghanistan in 1979. The disastrous war that followed led to the fall of the Soviet Union. We are still dealing with the karma.
Tom Dispatch has an audio feature about Afghanistan, and the many unanswered questions about our war there. We invaded Afghanistan to get revenge for 911, and looked for a reason later.
At the 3:06 mark on the tape, when Tom makes a comment Afghanistan being a narco state. PG had a flash of understanding about the reason behind this war. This may even have been powerful enough for the powers that be to ignore the reports about a terror strike in September 2001, and let 911 happen.
The rumors of CIA involvement in drug trafficking are wide spread and long term. When planes went to Central America in the eighties to bring arms to the contras, they came back to the United States loaded with cocaine. There are stories of collusion with the government in Cuba. There are many, many more stories about connections between the US government and the drug trade.
When the Taliban took over Afghanistan, they cracked down on the poppy farmers. Much of the raw opium for heroin/morphine/opium is grown in Afghanistan. This was not a pleasing for the CIA.
Could it be that the real reason for our involvement in Afghanistan is to ensure the flow of narcotics into the hungry world? This would be a big cash cow for the CIA, although not enough to justify the amounts of money being spent on the conflict.
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
Inaugurations
The happy historians at backstory have a timely feature, Four More Years: Presidential Inaugurations in America. There are a few stories.
George Washington was afraid of acting like a king. No one knew just how the office of President would turn out. Honest George stood on a New York balcony, took the oath, and gave a tasteful speech.
Probably the most exciting inaugural was in 1876. The country had endured eight years of Ulysses Grant, and was ready to elect a Democrat. The Republicans were good at dirty tricks, and got Rutherford Hayes elected, despite losing the popular vote. The Democrat, Samuel Tilden, had a power base in New York, and was rumored to have an army. The possibility of an armed fight over the election was real. Cooler heads prevailed. Mr. Hayes was allowed to take his ZZ Top beard into the oval office.
In 1865, the country had endured four brutal years of internal war. Abraham Lincoln wanted to start the recovery process. His speech is regarded as the best inaugural speech ever.
Backstory makes a point that few have thought about. They said that Mr. Lincoln was a lousy public speaker. The reason his inaugural speech is famous today is because copies of the text were printed in newspapers. This makes sense, as less than an hundred people probably heard his unamplified, or recorded, address. This would also account for the popularity of the Gettysburg Address.
Today, it is the medium, rather than the message. We are inundated with clever words, designed to uplift, improve, educate, and motivate. With everyone screaming, no one is heard. It is tough to imagine an inaugural today having the impact of the ones in history.
This feature was written like H. P. Lovecraft. The pictures are from The Library of Congress. The images are Union soldiers, from the War Between the States.
April Glaspie Meets Saddam Hussein
Juan Cole at Informed Comment posts today about a document release from Wikileaks. The document is a cable sent by April Glaspie, the ambassador to Iraq, about a meeting with Saddam Hussein on July 25, 1990. This was shortly before his invasion of Kuwait.
In 1990, Iraq was recovering from a horrendous war with Iran. That war started Sept. 22, 1980, when Iraq invaded Iran, possibly with encouragement from the United States. (At the time of this invasion, Iran was holding Americans hostage in the American embassy. The United States was not pleased with Iran.) Iraq failed to get a quick victory, and the war became a bloody quagmire, with hundreds of thousands of casualties.
In 1990, Iraq was rebuilding, and Kuwait was flourishing. Oil was being over produced, driving down the price. Kuwait was accused of “slant drilling”, i.e. drilling under the border, and stealing oil from Iraq. At one point, a meeting was held between officials of Iraq and Kuwait . “Saddam…sent his foreign minister to Kuwait to meet with the Emir Al Sabah, the former leader of Kuwait, to try to resolve some of the… issues” between Kuwait and Iraq, Piro will recall. “And the Emir told the foreign minister of Iraq that he would not stop doing what he was doing until he turned every Iraqi woman into a $10 prostitute. And that really sealed it for him, to invade Kuwait.”
On July 25, 1990, Saddam Hussein summoned to American Ambassador, April Glaspie , to a meeting. The cable is Ms. Glaspie’s account of the meeting. PG cannot see a green light for invasion in this account of the meeting. Many say Ms. Glaspie could have made much more explicit the dire consequences of invading Kuwait.
The transcript of the meeting has been declassified for some time. It is available on the website of the Margaret Thatcher Foundation. It is worth noting that this transcript is not sworn testimony, and could contains lies and mistakes. It is also the POV of Ms. Glaspie, and Mr. Hussein may have gotten a different idea of what was said. Perhaps, to Mr. Hussein, it was a green light for an invasion.
The invasion of Kuwait, eight days after the meeting, on August 2, 1990, set in motion events that affect us to this day. A coalition was formed to drive Iraq out of Kuwait. There was talk of going to Baghdad and deposing Mr. Hussein at the time. The military action stopped after driving Iraq out of Kuwait, reportedly at the request of Saudi Arabia. Twelve years later, the United States attacked Iraq, and drove out the Hussein government. We are still there.
Historycommons.org has a timeline with a wealth of information about the progression of Saddam Hussein, from ally to next Hitler. The comments section for the post by Juan Cole at Informed Comment is the source of several links in this story, and has a lively commentary about this matter. This is a repost. The wikileaks links have been deactivated.
War Between The States
It is a truism that history is written by the winner of the war. This seems to apply to the naming of the conflict. There was a horrific armed struggle in North America between 1861 and 1865. The usual name is Civil War. To many in the South, it is the War Between The States. In PG’s humble opinion, WBTS is a better name.
In fifth grade, PG had to write an essay about the Battle of Atlanta. The essay was a device for teaching grammar, utilized by the english teacher, Miss MacKenzie. The contest was sponsored by the Daughters of the Confederacy . The expression “Civil War” was not permitted. The proper name for this conflict was War Between the States.
In many ways, this conflict started as soon as the United States became independent from Great Britain. The South was an agrarian society, with slaves to work the fields. The north was becoming an industrial society, with a need for an independent work force. The north wanted high tariffs to protect her industries, while the south wanted to sell it’s cotton to Europe. There were plenty of ways for this conflict to manifest.
Slavery was an important factor. The south wanted to keep “the peculiar institution” intact, while many in the north were horrified. There were numerous compromises over the years, as Congress struggled to keep the Union intact. This ties in with a central dilemma of the american experience … how much power to give to the states, and how much power to give to the federal government.
The phrase civil war is defined as “A war fought between factions of the inhabitants of a single country, or the citizens of a single republic”. By the time the shooting started, the southern states had left the union. They formed a confederacy of independent states, rather than one monolithic union. It was, indeed, a war between the states.
Pictures, of Union soldiers, are from The Library of Congress. This repost is written like H. P. Lovecraft.
Hollywood Babylon
PG recently read Hollywood Babylon: The Legendary Underground Classic of Hollywood’s Darkest and Best Kept Secrets. It was the second time read the book. A yard sale last summer had a deluxe edition on sale. The man asked PG how much he thought it should cost. “If you are going by the amount of truth in it, the price should be a nickel.” In a fit of synchronicity, PG was on his way to a party, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”.
HB is highly entertaining, despite those troubling concerns about the facts. The cover has an NSFW picture of Jayne Mansfield, where the top of her dress serves as a display case for her boobies. HB goes all TMI about the death of Miss Mansfield, but it is a model of good taste compared to Find a death. The bottom line is that Jayne Mansfield was not decapitated in that auto accident.
While asking Mr. Google whose jugs adorned the cover of HB, this article came up: Satan and Mummified Psychics: A Kenneth Anger Marathon at Sweat Records Tonight. Someone with too much free time was promoting an evening of the short films of Kenneth Anger. Mr. Anger, born Kenneth Wilbur Anglemyer, has the copyright credit for HB. PG suspects that other scribes helped out. In some parts, the prose is purpler than in others. Of course, when writing about Hollywood, it is fitting that a committee produced a book filled with lies.
The Miami story disputes the notion that Kenneth Anger was a child star. “Almost exactly 83 years, 7 months, and 21 days ago, a little boy named Anger was born in Santa Monica, California. (Actually, the kid’s birth name was Kenneth Wilbur Anglemyer.) He attended a school for child stars, did dance steps with Shirley Temple, and minced about as the changeling prince in the 1935 Warner Bros. movie version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. But all that might be bullshit. There’s not much documentation of Anger’s alleged child star days. The one legit source that seems to corroborate the claim is Mickey Rooney. He played Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and he says Anger’s mommy dressed him up as the girl named “Sheila Brown” who officially played the Changeling Prince. Makes sense, right?”
A website called Vice.com managed to snag an interview with Kenneth Anger. The introduction has this story. ” He went on to recount the time Kenneth showed up at fellow director and mutual friend Curtis Harrington’s funeral at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery wearing a black raincoat, eyeliner, and fingernail polish. His shirt was opened to his navel, revealing the giant lucifer tattoo emblazoned across his chest, and he was accompanied by a boyish photographer who took pictures as Kenneth kissed Curtis’s corpse before its cremation. Before he was ejected from the premises, Kenneth handed John a small plastic vampire figurine that contained mint candies inside, clarifying its original use by saying, “It’s actually a dispenser for tickle-ribbed rubbers.”
The interview had a few high moments. VICE But it did attract the attention of sexologist Alfred Kinsey, whom you befriended. Did he encourage your work?
KA Yes. Kinsey was doing interviews for his book Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, and I don’t know… What if you are not human? The title is kind of awkward, but that was what he called his research book. He was basically a biologist, an expert on wasps, of all things. When he came to LA to do interviews, I met him. He came to see Fireworks at the Coronet Theatre at a midnight showing, and he wanted to buy a print for his collection at Indiana University. I agreed, and that was the first copy I ever sold. But I remained good friends with him until the end of his life.
VICE Do you have a favorite star from this era? Someone whom you continue to research exhaustively?
KA I love the career of Rudolph Valentino, who died at 31 and had an amazing trajectory in that short time. His life continues to fascinate me.
VICE Do you continue to find new information?
KA I have plenty of information on him. There are facts, and then there is gossip. I go for the facts, but I will listen to the gossip. [smiles]
VICE Your willingness to sift through the gossip was a point of contention with some people when Hollywood Babylon was published, especially after its second printing. Some have accused you of muckraking, and others have even gone further and claim that it contains factual inaccuracies.
KA Well, I’ve never been sued…
VICE In other words, your detractors can’t prove it.
KA No one ever came up to me and said, “Well, you made the whole thing up.” Because I didn’t.
HB is a fun book, with great pictures. The stories are mostly lies, but this is Hollywood we are talking about. With its continued popularity, there will be plenty of copies at yard sales and used book stores.
Pictures are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
This feature presentation was written like Kurt Vonnegut.
Putting G-d Back In Church
It could have been predicted. Before the bodies are buried, attention happy entertainers are telling us why the shootings in Connecticut happened. Mike Huckabee, has shared his thoughts. “We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we’ve systematically removed G-d from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage because we’ve made it a place where we don’t want to talk about eternity, life, what responsibility means, accountability?”
Maybe the problem is not that we have removed G-d from our schools. Maybe the problem is that we have removed G-d from the church.
The dominant religion in our culture is Christianity, or Jesus worship. The first commandment says to worship no G-d except G-d. There is no exception made for the reputed son of G-d. There are other items given G-d like status in the Jesus Worship Church. The first commandment is a good rule, and when you violate it there is going to be trouble.
Arguably, Christianity is not a religion, but a scheme for life after death. Instead of worshiping G-d, the faithful show that they do not trust G-d to take care of them when they die. Instead, they think that belief in Jesus will get them into heaven, instead of hell. The louder this is said, the more truth it is thought to have.
Another problem with the salvation focused church is violence. Christianity is a violent affair. The verbal abuse fromt he pulpit. The verbal abuse of those who disagree with the scheme for life after death. The central event of Christianity is the gruesome murder of Jesus. The blood gushing pictures of this event decorate the tee shirts of the believers. The cross where the murder took place is celebrated as the symbol of Christianity. Gross.
A Rumor Of War
PG was in a break room in Smyrna GA, reading A Rumor of War. On page 196, a sentence made him put the book down. “There were three corpses, but only five boots”.
There was a newspaper insert for J.C. Penney on the table. PG picked it up, began to study the picture on the front page. A woman was pushing a man back, with her finger over her mouth saying shhh. The man pushed back, with five boxes wrapped in red paper. The woman wore a man’s watch, which page had displayed for sale. Every element of every picture was gauged to sell merchandise.
Before long, PG was back to AROW. Lieutenant Caputo was working in an office. One of his jobs was the write reports on the casualties, American and Vietnamese. If there were more of their guys than our guys, we were winning.
Lieutenant Philip Caputo lived, and later wrote, A Rumor of War. He signed up to join the Marines when he was in college, when Vietnam was a trivia question. On March 8, 1965, he arrived in South Vietnam, near DaNang. Originally, his unit was supposed to guard the air base from a rumored Viet Cong attack. After a while, he was sent into action.
The second part of his Vietnam experience was when he was sent to work in a base office, away from the fighting. This ceased to be enjoyable when he knew one of the dead soldiers he wrote a report for. He requested a transfer back into the fighting, and got it. There were scenes of fighting the enemy, the jungle, and the weather. Caputo broke under pressure, and ordered a raid into a village. When some people in the village were killed, there was trouble, and Caputo was facing murder charges. That was cleared up, and Caputo was sent home.
War looks different to the men who are fighting. Vietnam was controversial while it was going on, and only slightly less so today. It is likely that all wars are as full of misunderstanding as this one.
Musings on Iraq has a quote about war. “Saddam Hussein looked down upon the United States’ military might, seeing it as a paper tiger. He saw the American defeat in Vietnam as a sign of its weakness. Saddam pointed out that the U.S. lost 58,000 soldiers in that war, and then gave up, while Iraq lost 51,000 in just one battle for the Fao Peninsula in the Iran-Iraq War.” This is from a country with 27 million people, fighting a land war with a next door neighbor.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
She Is Nursing The Baby Jesus
The story below was found at the website of James Petras . HT to palestinianpundit. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
The settlements were still being built, financed mostly by Jewish money from America, contributions from Wall Street speculators and owners of gambling dens.
“Good thing”, Joseph thought, “we have a few sheep and olive trees and Mary keeps some chickens. But Joseph worried, “cheese and olives are not enough to feed a growing boy. Mary is due to deliver our son any day”. His dreams foretold of a sturdy son working alongside of him…multiplying loaves and fish.
The settlers looked down on Joseph. He rarely attended shul, and on the high holidays, he would show up late to avoid the tithe. Their simple cottage was located in a nearby ravine with water from a stream, which flowed year round. It was choice real estate for any settlement expansion. So when Joseph fell behind on his property tax, the settlers took over their home, forcibly evicted Joseph and Mary and offered them a one-way bus ticket to Jerusalem.
Joseph, born and raised in the arid hills, fought back and bloodied not a few settlers with his labor-hardened fists. But in the end he sat, battered on their bridal bed under the olive tree, in black despair. Mary, much the younger, felt the baby’s movements. Her time was near.
“We have to find shelter, Joseph, we have to move on …this is no time for revenge”, she pleaded.
Joseph, who believed with the Old Testament prophets in an “eye for an eye”, reluctantly agreed.
So it was that Joseph sold their sheep, chickens and other belongings to an Arab neighbor and bought a donkey and cart. He loaded up the mattress, some clothes, cheese, olives and eggs and they set out for the Holy City.
The donkey path was rocky and full of potholes. Mary winced at every bump; she worried that it would harm the baby. Worse, this was the road for the Palestinians with military checkpoints everywhere. No one ever told Joseph that, as a Jew, he could have taken a smooth paved road – forbidden to the Arabs.
At the first roadblock Joseph saw a long line of Arabs waiting. Pointing to his very pregnant wife, Joseph asked the Palestinians, half in Arabic, half in Hebrew, if they could go ahead. A path was opened and the couple went forward.
A young soldier raised his rifle and told Mary and Joseph to get down from the cart. Joseph descended and nodded to his wife’s stomach. The soldier smirked and turned to his comrades, “The old Arab knocks up the girl he bought for a dozen sheep and now he wants a free pass”.
Joseph, red with anger, shouted in rough Hebrew, “I am a Jew. But unlike you … I respect pregnant women”.
The soldier poked Joseph with his rifle and ordered him to step back: “You are worse than an Arab – you’re an old Jew who screws Arab girls”.
Mary frightened by the exchange turned to her husband and cried, “Stop Joseph or he will shoot you and our baby will be born an orphan”.
With great difficulty Mary got down from the wagon. An officer came out of the guard station, summoning a female soldier, “Hey Judi, go feel under her dress, she might be carrying bombs”.
“What’s the matter? Don’t you like to feel them yourself anymore? ” Judith barked back in Brooklyn-accented Hebrew. While the soldiers argued, Mary leaned on Joseph for support. Finally, the soldiers came to an agreement.
“Pull-up your dress and slip”, Judith ordered. Mary blanched in shame. Joseph faced the gun in disgrace. The soldiers laughed and pointed at Mary’s swollen breasts, joking about an unborn terrorist with Arab hands and a Jewish brain.
Joseph and Mary continued on the way to the Holy City. They were frequently detained at the checkpoints along the way. Each time they suffered another delay, another indignity and more gratuitous insults spouted by Sephardim and Ashkenazi, male and female, secular and religious – all soldiers of the Chosen people.
It was dusk when Mary and Joseph finally reached the Wall. The gates had closed for the night. Mary cried out in pain, “Joseph, I can feel the baby coming soon. Please do something quickly”.
Joseph panicked. He saw the lights of a small village nearby and, leaving Mary on the cart, Joseph ran to the nearest house and pounded on the door. A Palestinian woman opened the door slightly and peered into the dark, agitated face of Joseph. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“I am Joseph, a carpenter from the hills of Hebron. My wife is about to give birth and I need shelter to protect Mary and the baby”. Pointing to Mary on the donkey cart, Joseph pleaded in his strange mixture of Hebrew and Arabic.
“Well, you speak like a Jew but you look like an Arab,” the Palestinian woman said laughing as she walked back with him to the cart.
Mary’s face was contorted with pain and fear: her contractions were more frequent and intense.
The woman ordered Joseph to bring the cart around to a stable where the sheep and chickens were kept. As soon as they entered, Mary cried out in pain and the Palestinian woman, who had now been joined by a neighbor midwife, swiftly helped the young mother down onto a bed of straw.
And thus the child was born, as Joseph watched in awe.
It came to pass that shepherds, returning from their fields, heard the mingled cries of birth and joy and hurried to the stable carrying both their rifles and fresh goat milk, not knowing whether it was friend or foe, Jew or Arab. When they entered the stable and beheld the mother and infant, they put aside their weapons and offered the milk to Mary who thanked them in both Hebrew and Arabic.
And the shepherds were amazed and wondered: Who were these strange people, a poor Jewish couple, who came in peace on a donkey cart inscribed with Arabic letters?
The news quickly spread about the strange birth of a Jewish child just outside the Wall in a Palestinian’s stable. Many neighbors entered and beheld Mary, the infant and Joseph.
Meanwhile, Israeli soldiers, equipped with night vision goggles, reported from their watchtowers overlooking the Palestinian neighborhood, “The Arabs are meeting just outside the Wall, in a stable, by candle light”.
The gates under the watchtowers flew open and armored carriers with bright lights followed by heavily armed solders drove out and surrounded the stable, the assembled villagers and the Palestinian woman’s house. A loud speaker blared, “Come out with your hands up or we’ll shoot.” They all came out from the stable together with Joseph, who stepped forward with his hands stretched out to the sky and spoke, “My wife, Mary cannot comply with your order. She is nursing the baby Jesus”
12/12/12
1- Twelve is a dozen. Twelve times twelve is a gross. Twelve times twelve times twelve is a gross dozen.
2- The Dirty Dozen is supposed to be a good movie. The trailer is politically incorrect.
3- Twelve divided by twelve is one. One divided by twelve is .083333. The Three on the right never stops.
4- Many doomsdayers believe 12/12/12 will be the end of the world, thanks to an interpretation of the Mayan calendar. Others say December 21.
5- Palindrome lovers will enjoy 1:21:02. At that time, a date-time combination which will be read the same both backwards and forwards. 2012-12-12 1:21:02 = 201212-1-212102.
6- Three is generally considered a heavenly number and often represents the soul or godhead. Four is the number of earth and mankind – for example, there are four elements (earth, air, fire, and water) and four cardinal directions (north, south, east, and west). Because of this, the product of the two numbers, 12, has been said to encompass both the secular and the sacred.
7- December 12, 2012 is exactly 6 years, 6 months, 6 days from June 6, 2006, or 06/06/06.
8- From culinary cuisine to calendars, 12 has been a significant number since its creation. Just think about it – 12 months in the year, 12 hours of night and day, 12 astrological signs, 12 Olympic gods and goddesses, 12 days of Christmas, and Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Oh, and let’s not forget about eggs – which are cheaper by the dozen!
9- People born on December 12: 1863 – Edvard Munch, 1915 – Frank Sinatra, 1943 – Dickey Betts. Deaths on December 12: 1968 – Tallulah Bankhead, 1999 – Joseph Heller, 2012 – Ravi Shankar.
On December 12, 2000, The United States Supreme Court releases its decision in Bush v. Gore.
10- Kiam Moriya, from Birmingham Alabama, was born on December 12, 2000 12 minutes after midday, in Bronxville, New York.
11- Some are calling 12/12/12 “National Soundcheck Day.” That is: “one, two. One, two. One, two.”
12- Thirteen shopping days are left until Christmas.
13- The pictures are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
Some entries were borrowed from 12/12/12: Twelve must-know facts about last once-in-a-lifetime date this century. Thank you Wikipedia.
Someday Soon
When a blogger can’t get a song out of his head, he should write about it. Find a youtube video of the song, both lipsynced in 1969, and repeated on later tv shows. When you have more media than message, you recycle the past. The singer probably has a book , which means interviews to sell the book. The song is Someday Soon, and the artist is Judy Collins.
PG first heard “Someday Soon” on WPLO-FM. There was a little black radio, which had AM, FM, and a few short wave bands. It ran on D size batteries, and was the first FM radio that PG owned. WPLO-FM was the hippie station, the first FM station to play rock music in Atlanta. “Someday Soon” was a shocker, with it’s lyric “damned old rodeo”. 1969 was a more innocent time.
Judith Marjorie Collins was the gf of Stephen Stills around that time. He wrote Suite Judy Blue Eyes about her. Mr. Stills was helping Ms. Collins with and album, and they heard “Someday Soon” on the radio. The song was written by Ian Tyson. The song was included on the album, and was somewhat of a hit. (Here are TV performances with Ian Tyson, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash.)
The Daily Beast article, written to promote the book, is Judy Collins’s New Book: Suicide, Alcoholism, Nude Photos, and More. Judy Collins has had an interesting life, sometimes in the sense of the Chinese curse. The eldest daughter of an abusive alcoholic, she became a severe drunk herself. Somehow, she came out of everything ok.
Along with alcoholism, suicide has been a problem. The son of Judy Collins, Chuck Taylor, took his life in 1992. He had struggled with depression and substance abuse. Judy attempted suicide when she was 14. This is roughly the same age as PG, when he heard that song where the lady says damned. Ms. Collins has worked to help others avoid taking their life.
One Judy Collins hit is “Chelsea Morning”, written by Joni Mitchell. Bill Clinton was inspired to name his daughter Chelsea. Unfortunately, Judy Collins and Joni Mitchell are not friends. Both women are known to have attitudes, so there is no telling what the problem is.
As for another famous sixties singer, with a J name, the DB article has this postscript. Editor’s Note: This interview incorrectly stated that Judy Collins had a “love affair” with singer Joan Baez. Today Judy Collins wrote the following in an email to correct the record: “Joan and I both agree that we wouldn’t mind it if people thought so—she has been very open about her sexuality too, and that’s where the lines might have crossed—but I wanted to get the facts straight anyway.”
German Pastry Christmas
PG got an email today from Allen Hunt a radio announcer. The letter had a Christmas message. PG read the story, and heard the ding ding ding of his BS detector. Here is the story.
Merry Christmas! As the wars about the public celebration of Christmas become filled with pettiness and hostility on all sides, be not dismayed. Your celebration of Christmas depends solely on you and nobody else. I heard the story of Oswald Goulter years ago and it reminds me of that simple fact. I am responsible for how I embrace the gift of Christmas.
Oswald Goulter served as an agri-missionary to China. On his way back to the USA for furlough during World War II. His sponsor mission agency gave him a ticket to get home by boat. When Oswald arrived in the port of India, New Delhi, he found boats filled with Jews, housed there to protect their lives from Nazi Germany. The Jewish boats couldn’t land anywhere. They were not accepted or welcome anywhere at the time
Oswald went to see them and said, “Merry Christmas!”
“We’re Jewish,” they responded.
“I know, I know. But what would you like for Christmas. Merry Christmas!”
“Don’t you understand? We are JEWISH.”
“Merry Christmas. What do you want?”
To get rid of this nuisance, they said, “How about some German pastry? That sure would be grand.”
Oswald scoured the city until he found a bakery that made German pastry. Oswald sold his ticket for home to get money to purchase some pastry. He went back to the boat and shared it with them.
As he spoke about this experience later in one of his supporting churches, a very prim member of the congregation stood and asked, “Why did you do that? They were Jewish. They don’t even believe in Jesus.””I know,” Oswald replied, “but I do.”
PG sent a reply to the original email. This post is being written an hour later, so it is not unreasonable that Mr. Hunt has not replied.
Allen do you have any proof that Oswald Goulter existed? This story seems a bit far fetched. I googled Oswald Goulter, and all I see is the same story told over and over.
Why did he go to India? This is over the Himalayan mountains, or around Vietnam. Couldn’t he do just as well in North Asia, or even Russia?
When did this incident happen? There are mixed indications in the versions I read, and no exact dates. If this was after WW2, then maybe the restrictions about admitting Jews would start to loosen up.
Why German pastries? After all that the German people had done to them, this seems a bit strange.
There are hundreds of real, verifiable Christmas stories out there. This one seems a bit fishy.
After sending the email, PG hunkered down in the google.(Snopes never heard of Oswald Goulter) It seems that Oswald John Goulter was born June 22, 1890 in Oklahoma. He died in March 1985, in Santa Clara California. He was interviewed in 1971 as part of a project involving missionaries to China. “This interview supplements the account of Goulter’s life in Wilfred Powell’s Scattered Seed. Mr. Goulter portrays the disruption in Chinese life in the area of Lu-chou (Hofei) in Anhwei province during the years 1922 to 1951. He tells how the Communists were able to take advantage of the disorder caused by warlords and bandits and the Japanese invasion to drive the nationalists from power. He also discusses his conception of practical Christianity and its applicability in China.”
There is another story about Mr. Goulter. After the communist takeover, Mr. Goulter and his wife, Irene, were taken into custody. Mr. Goulter was beaten repeatedly, but refused to renounce his faith. Finally he was released (or, in some versions, escaped). This imprisonment is generally agreed to be three years long, and if he left in 1951, that would be consistent with the time line of the communist takeover.
In the Hunt version of the story, Oswald Goulter left during World War 2.
This does not answer the question of why Mr. Goulter would go to India, before America. It also does not account for the appearance of the Jews in India, six years after the end of World War 2. It should also be noted that India was in chaos, with the advent of Independence and the partition. Would they have Jews hiding in the city?
There is a book, Scattered Seed: The Story of the Oswald Goulters, Missionaries in China 1922-51. PG does not know if it discusses German pastries.
This is a repost from three years ago. The original had several comments about Mr. Goulter, which we will share. Allen Hunt sent a reply, which was lost in a hard drive crash. It was rather snide. Mr. Hunt has quit sending PG emails. His radio show is on WSB am Sunday evening. The show is a partially sponsored by ChikFilA.
indsay goulter said, on February 26, 2010 at 3:26 am Hi oswald goulter was my great uncle.Born in Auss. If you would like to know more about him please reply to my e/mail. lindsay g
Teena Anderson said, on October 30, 2010 at 10:02 pm
Oswald Goulter is my grandfather. He was a missionary to China for 30 years. His story is told in the book Scattered Seed by Wilfred Powell. Oswald and Irene had 3 daughters, Lovena, Doris ( who is still living!) and Jean. Doris and Jean were born in China. Jean was my mother-she spoke excellent chinese with a Hefei accent. I am the eldest grandchild. They lost a baby boy born in China and buried him in the mountains of Kuling, where the missionaries would go for the summer.
My husband, Hugh Anderson (Presbyterian minister) and I have taught in China with the Amity Foundation. Our first summer of teaching we traveled to Hefei and met Rev. Zhu who helped Oswald after he had been confined in the internment camps. They were great friends. Rev. Zhu’s son is now a Disciple of Christ minister here in the United States. Teena Anderson, Medford, Oregon.
chamblee54 said, on October 30, 2010 at 10:09 pm
Thanks for stopping by. Do you know if the story about the German Pastries was true? It is an inspiring story, but as I noted in my post, there are a few issues with it.
Miaohua Jiang said, on January 19, 2011 at 11:06 pm
The book by Wilfred E. Powell titled Scattered Seed came in mail yesterday. I searched in the book for any evidence that this story might actually happened. Unfortunately, the story as it is stated never happened. At least it did not happen in India.
The sabbatical year was between 1936 and 1937. The family did take the western route going through Europe to return to US. They arrived in US in September 1936. Christmas of 1936 was their first Christmas in US in many many years. They were not able to return to China because of Japenese invasion until late 1937. Mr. Goulter did help refugees in Shanghai around Christmas time 1937. The book did mention that Shanghai also had ships with Jewish refugees. So, the story could have happened in Shanghai, China, instead of India. It did not involve boat tickets. Mr. Goulter had clothings shipped from Los Angeles to Shanghai. Also Mr. Goulter was interned by Japenese for many years, not communists.
chamblee54 said, on January 20, 2011 at 12:02 am
Thank you for following through. That is an inspiring story, too bad it can’t be proven to be true.
Miaohua Jiang said, on January 1, 2011 at 10:13 pm
Doris is visting us this new year’s day of 2011!
Miaohua Jiang said, on January 4, 2011 at 2:23 pm
This is what I got from my conversation with Doris, O.J.’s second daughter. According to Doris, Mr. Goulter did not like his first name. Chinese people would simply call him Gou Shee-Sang (Mr. Gou). Doris was born in Hefei in 1924. Her mother homeschooled the girls. By the time she was 10, they felt it was time for girls to have a more formal education in Shanghai. Before they left for Shanghai, they travelled for a year to Europe, going through possibly the Hongkong – India route. So, it was around 1934 – a time Jews were forced to escape Germany. So, the story is credible. The girls stayed in Shanghai until 3 month before Pearl Harbor was attacked when American government ordered evacuation of women and children. Mr. Goulter stayed behind and was imprisoned by invading Japenese because of his British citizenship. I am ordering this book and hopefully when Doris visits again next time I will have a chance to verify a few more details with her. Amazingly, after leaving Hefei for more than 75 years, she can still speak the local dialect and sing local children songs forgotten even by the local people.
Teena Anderson said, on October 30, 2010 at 10:09 pm
Oswald Goulter was my grandfather. He was born in Australia. He heard about the Boxer rebellion and felt called to go to China. He came to the U. S. to get more education. He married Irene Goucher (my grandmother) in Oklahoma and they spent 30 years together in China. They had 3 daughters, 2 of whom were born in China. My mother was born in Tsingtao but spent 10 years in Hefei (Lu Chow Fu). She had a great Hefei accent. They also had a baby boy that died and was buried in the Kuling mountains. (Lu Shan)Oswald Goulters life was written by Wildfred Powell in the book Scattered Seed. Our family still have ties to Chinese that were ministered by my grandfather. There are many more accounts of what my grandfather accomplished in China. He loved the Chinese and they loved him. Teena Anderson of Medford, Or.
Lauri Penry said, on March 25, 2012 at 8:27 am
My grandparents (Dr. and Mrs. Paul R. Slater) served as medical missionaries in China with the Goulters. I have heard the story many times of how my grandfather met up with Mr. Goulter, and he wasn’t wearing shoes. So my grandfather gave him his. The next time they crossed each other’s paths, Mr. Goulter was again without shoes. He told my grandfather that he found someone who needed them more than he did.
I was just going through some pictures at my parents’ house this weekend, and found one with Mr. Goulter in it. I am in the process of reading Scattered Seed now. My parents were attending Phillips University when Mr. Goulter was a member of the faculty. From what I have always heard about this man, he was exceptional, and a true servant!
John McBride said, on May 10, 2012 at 10:10 am
Oswald Goulter is my grand uncle and he was born in Australia. I had the pleasure of meeting him and Irene in in either 1973/4 when they visited Australia and later in San Jose in 1981. He was quite some bloke who’s achievements were quite incrediable. My grand father was a potato farmer at a place called Irrewillipe, about 100 miles west of Melbourne. One year my brother and I spent our Easter weekend (4 days in Australia) helping dig up the crop. At night, my grandfather read Oswald’s letters to us by kerosene lamp beside the wood stove in the kitchen. As a ten year old, those letters were more exciting to listen to than reading my Superman comics.
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
Chamblee54 
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