Winston Churchill Said What
Another ghastly meme has surfaced on facebook. It has a large fuchsia quote mark for illustration. There is a quote from a famous man. The left side has a quote mark. The right side has a question mark, but no quote mark. The margins are much larger on the top, and left side, than on the right side, and the bottom. That this visual atrocity supports funding for the arts is a cruel irony.
Perhaps instead of the arts, the government funding should go for fact checking. The quote is generally considered to be bogus. For the record, here is the quote. “When Winston Churchill was asked to cut arts funding in favour of the war effort, he simply replied, “then what are we fighting for?” The quote is not in the Churchill archive, which is either fifteen million documents, or fifteen million words. The authorities use the figures interchangeably.
The Telegraph has an article debunking the meme. It has a splendid sentence: “But that anecdote does not so easily play into the screeching rhetoric of today’s 140-character political ding-dongs.” There are also some lovely quotes from Mr. Churchill.
In 1937, Mr. Churchill spoke before the Peel Commission It was discussing “partitioning British mandated Palestine into Arab and Jewish states.” At the time, Mr. Churchill was a minor figure in British politics, disgraced by his blundering in the Great War. The quote: “I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.”.
Winston Churchill is quite the quote magnet. This is somehow fitting for a man whose most famous speech was read, on the radio, by an actor. There is a page on the internet devoted to times when he was falsely accused of saying something inspiring.
One of these stories is notable. “The only traditions of the Royal Navy are rum, sodomy and the lash… Churchill’s assistant, Anthony Montague-Browne said that although Churchill had not uttered these words, he wished he had.” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Jean D. McKinnon
The first picture in this episode is a family portrait of the Quin family in Washington Georgia. The nine surviving children of Hugh Pharr Quin are sitting for the camera. Mr. Quin had joined the Georgia State Troops of the Army of the Confederacy at the age of 16, and after the war went to Washington to live with his sister. Mr. Quin was in the church choir of the First Methodist Church when he met the organist, Betty Lou DuBose. They were married January 22, 1879.
The original name of Mrs. Quin was Louisa Toombs DuBose. She was the daughter of James Rembert DuBose. His brother in law was Robert Toombs, the Secretary of State of the Confederacy, and a man of whom many stories are told.
In this picture, Mrs. Quin is holding the hand of her second youngest daughter so she will not run away. This is Mattie Vance Quin. She is my grandmother.
After the Great War, Mattie Vance Quin was living in Memphis Tennessee, where she met Arthur Dunaway. Mr. Dunaway was a veteran of the war, and was from Paragould, Arkansas. On July 23, 1922 her first Daughter, Jean, was born. This is my mother.
Mr. Dunaway died in 1930, shortly after the birth of his son Arthur. There were hard times and upheaval after this, with the family settling in Atlanta. There her third child Helen Ann Moffat was born on December 12, 1933. This is my Aunt Helen and my mother’s best friend.
Jean lived for many years with her mother and sister at 939 Piedmont, among other locations. She joined the First Baptist Church and sang in the choir. She got a job with the C&S bank, and was working at the Tenth Street Branch when she met Luther McKinnon. He was a native of Rowland, North Carolina. They were married October 6, 1951.
They moved into the Skyland Apartments, which in those days was out in the country. Mom told a story about Dad taking her home from Choir practice, and going home on the two lane Buford Hiway. There was a man who went to the restaurants to get scraps to feed his pigs, and his truck was always in front of them. This was a serious matter in the summer without air conditioning.
Soon, they moved into a house, and Luther junior was born on May 6, 1954. This is me. Malcolm was born May 10, 1956, which did it for the children.
The fifties were spent on Wimberly Road, a street of always pregnant women just outside Brookhaven. It was a great place to be a little kid.
In 1960, we moved to Parkridge Drive, to the house where my brother and I stay today. The note payment was $88 a month. Ashford Park School is a short walk away…the lady who sold us the house said ” you slap you kid on the fanny and he is at school”.
In 1962, our family followed the choir director from First Baptist to Briarcliff Baptist, which is where my parents remained.
In 1964, Mom went back to work. She ran the drive in window at Lenox Square for the Trust Company of Georgia until it was time to retire. She became a talk radio fan when RING radio started, and was a friend of her customer Ludlow Porch. She gave dog biscuits to customers with dogs.
During this era of change, Mom taught me that all people were good people, be they black or white. This was rare in the south. She later became disgusted with the War in Vietnam, and liked to quote a man she heard on the radio. “How will we get out of Vietnam?”” By ship and by plane”.
Eventually, it was time to retire. Her and Dad did the requisite traveling, until Dad got sick and passed away February 7,1992. Mom stuck around for a few more years, until her time came December 18, 1998. This is a repost.
Dead Saturday 1973
It was dead saturday 1973, the day between good friday and easter. PG and his friend Gibson have traveled from Athens GA to Charlotte NC to see a rock concert. The plan was eight bands in a crowded football stadium. Jesus did not attend.
PG had never been to an outdoor concert, and had some ideas about how it would be. They were in the house early, and set up a blanket about thirty feet in front of the stage. For the first part of the day, the crowd stayed off their turf.
The first electric act was Brownsville Station. The first thing they did was encourage the audience to crowd in front of the stage, resulting in a mob scene for the rest of the day. BS played loud heavy metal, with a guitar/vocals guy painted like a clown. They were a three piece band that day, as their bass player had gotten a job selling furniture in Kansas. “Smokin in the Boys Room” was a hit for this ensemble later that year.
The concept of multiple stages had not hit North Carolina, and there was a long wait between acts. The next band was Mason Profit. “you are talking about boogie, you don’t know shit about boogie. By this time, the crowd was getting off on their downers, the sun was shining, and PG was out of water. It only got better as the day went on. The scheduled next act was Captain Beyond, but they canceled. The replacement was Marshall Tucker. They were good, but not really memorable.
The afternoon went on and on. Goose Creek Symphony came and went, followed by Wet Willie. WW had a routine where this pretty girl was walking down ___ street, which in Charlotte was Independence Boulevard. Eventually, the sun went down, and ZZ Top came on stage.
ZZ Top was the high point of the day. The beards were only about four inches long. They introduced one song, saying “this is something you might know about, song called beer drinkers and hell raisers”. They were the only band to do an encore, with “Francine”.
The next act was Mahavishnu Orchestra, which PG was convinced was the greatest band that ever lived. The stadium crowd was not conducive to their style, but they delivered a good show. John McLaughlin played a twin necked guitar, which PG found a bit disconcerting. The electric violin player, Jerry Goodman, was a stand out.
By the time MO finished, PG wanted to get away from the front of the stage. He took to wandering around the back of the stadium while the Allman Brothers played. The back of the house was full, although there was room to walk around. Before long, it was time to hit the road back to Georgia.
Pictures for this repost. are from The Library of Congress.
Anita Aretha and Elton
In the early nineties, PG had too much free time. On March 25 of one year, he looked in the fishwrapper, and found a list of famous people with birthdays.
There was an unlikely trio celebrating that day. This would be (in order of appearance) Anita Bryant (1940), Aretha Franklin (1942), and Elton John (1947). All three have been paid for singing. The three have a total of five husbands, with Miss Bryant and Mr. John currently attached (Not to each other). Miss Franklin has good taste in hats.
Several other people have arrived on planet earth on March 25. They include , in 1911, Jack Ruby, the killer of Lee Harvey Oswald (d. 1967) (They don’t say alleged when it was on live TV). 1918 produced Howard Cosell, American sports reporter (d. 1995). Flannery O’Connor (d. 1964) arrived in 1925. 1934 gave us Gloria Steinem. In 1937 Tom Monaghan, founder of Dominos pizza, arrived. (The delivery was nine months, and twenty nine minutes, after the order was placed.) To make room for all this talent, Buck Owens died March 25, 2006.
March 25 is after the spring equinox, and has been Easter. A few noteworthy events have gone down on this day. In 1894, Coxey’s Army departed Massillon, Ohio for Washington D.C. In 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire killed 146 garment workers in New York City. In 1939 Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli becomes Pope Pius XII, to the delight of Adolph Hitler. 1955 saw the United States Customs seizes copies of Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” as obscene. In 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono began their first Bed-In for Peace at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel.
HT and applause to wikipedia. This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Ultimate Pie Day
Today is 3-14. It is a monday, and 314 are the first three digits of pi (affectionately known as π ). It is a math thing, the number you multiply a diameter by to get the circumference. When your grammar school math teacher told you about π, she probably used 3.14, or 3 1/7. (PG went to school when Hewlett and Packard were still in the garage.)
You might also have heard the formula for the area of a circle, the racy π r squared . This means that you multiply π by the radius ( half the diameter, a line from the border to the center point), and then multiply the whole contraption by the radius again. The formula has a funny sound to it. Pie are not square, cornbread is square, pie are round. Like Sly Stone says, all the squares go home.
According to wikipedia, π seems to have been known as early as 1900 b.c. The pyramids of Egypt have a π based feature. The Greek letter π is the first letter of the Greek word περίμετρος (perimeter) . This was determined OTP.
The pyramid- π function is fairly simple. The total length of the four sides, at the base, will be the same as the height of the pyramid, times two, times π. PG likes to make model pyramids. They are 6″ tall, and the base sides are 9 3/8″. The combination of these four sides is 37 1/2″. If you multiply 6x2x3.14, you get 37.68″ The .18″ is because of a measuring error.
A lady named Eve Astrid Andersson has a page of her website dedicated to π. The only trivia question that PG understood was the first one…1. What is the formal definition of pi? …the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter // 3.14159 // the radius of a unit circle // the surface area of a sphere of diameter 22/7 // a delicious dessert, especially if it contains cherries.
There is the football cheer from M.I.T. ” Cosine, secant, tangent, sine 3.14159 // Integral, radical, u dv, slipstick, slide rule, MIT!”
In 1998 a movie titled π was released. It caused brain damage in 3.14% of those who saw it. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that 1998 = 666 x 3.
π has been calculated to over five million digits. The second part of this feature are a few of those numbers. There are 82 characters in each line. This feature shows π extended to 10,165 digits. This is .02% of five million. The last 3 digits are 666, in bright red. The pictures today are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
This is the annual repost of the π day feature. Today is the ultimate π day. It is 03-14-15. The magic moment is at 9:26:53, when the first 11 digits of π will be in a row. Some purists say that there should be a zero in front of 9, as in 9:00 am, but some people will quibble over anything. The first five digits of this magic number will be represented, and this is what is important.
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Happy Birthday Bill Burroughs
February 5, 1914, was the birth day of William Seward Burroughs Jr. For the rest of this piece he will be known as WSB. This is both a handy abbreviation, as well as a touch of irony for Atlanta readers. WSB radio is a 50k watt clear channell am station, owned by the same media oligarchs that own the fishwrapper and channel two. The radio tv clusterfuck has long been the symbol of Peachtree Street white column respectability. Just to be clear/queer, from here on out in this feature WSB will mean a certain junkie writer, not welcome south brother.
This is a good day for birthdays. Hank Aaron in 1934. Adlai Stevenson in 1900. Peg Entwhistle in 1908. The last one lived until 1932, when she jumped off the Hollywoodland sign.
A well thought of radio institution called “This American Life” has a show this week, Burroughs101. Actually, there is a class by that name, and there will be an exam at the end of the semester. The show is narrated by Iggy Pop. It begins with a warning. “A warning. The following program contains references to homosexuality, drug use, sex with aliens, violence, and kitty cats. What did you expect?” The show was originally cobbled together by the BBC, which might explain things a bit.
Iggy Pop did a show at the 688 club. PG was in the audience. A man named Ivan Kral was in the band. When Mr. Kral came on stage, he blew his nose, and a white powder booger came out. The performance was not so much a concert as it was an endurance test.
The show has the lazy bloggers friend, the transcript. There are some lovely quotes. This show is not going to candy coat the bastard. This is a man who shot his wife while playing William Tell, and got away with it. As one non admirer says “I don’t just take the Burroughs myth with a pinch of salt. I view it as a unpleasant slug crawling across the lawn of literature. And I like to pour salt on it.”
Or this one. “Having used heroin yourself– I think used is a bit of an understatement. I was a heroin addict on and off for pushing a quarter of a century. For myself, I find the whole Burroughs myth pretty repulsive, actually. Because I understand what happened to me. I was an addict in waiting. I got my form prize or my English prize at The Naked Lunch. And a year and a half later, I was sticking needles in my arm. … You could be lying in some pestilential piss-soaked squat in the bowels of the city listening to some moron totaled on drugs drooling on and talking about Burroughs, because Burroughs was their Leon Trotsky. He was their Archbishop of Canterbury. He was the Pope. “
One of the questions of the early eighties was whether or not WSB was shooting up. Forget the nonsense about there not being any old junkies. Supposedly Ray Charles never really quit using heroin. So, in 1981, WSB was living somewhere in Manhattan, and it was a right of passage to go to the bunker and take heroin to him. Since he was the star, he used the needle first, which was an important distinction in those days … hiv did not have a name but was running wild through the junkie veins and queer buttholes of Reaganite America. We don’t know if WSB got hiv or not. He made it until August 2, 1997, when a heart attack sent him to meet his maker. Contemporary Allen Ginsberg cashed in his chips earlier that year. In Washington, silly billy POTUS was getting knob jobs from Monica Lewinsky, who now gives TED talks by calling herself a social activist. WSB was a social activist, at a time when few would publicly admit to such a distinction.
The answer to your question is, yes, WSB was shooting dope in 1981. Somebody saw this as being an unhealthy situation, and arranged for him to move to Lawrence KS. This was his home until WSB went to live with Jesus, who was pissed because WSB didn’t bring him any smack.
So WSB was living the beat life, shooting dope, fucking boys, and just being a general mess. In his spare time he was writing books. Naked Lunch was busted for obscenity, and became his best known work. It is the first thing by WSB that PG tried to read, making it to page twenty six before declaring the endeavor a hopeless waste of brain cells.
It is not known how much of Naked Lunch Dorothy Kilgallen read. She was called as a witness during an obscenity trial for Lenny Bruce. ” …There’s another book called The Naked Lunch which I couldn’t even finish reading, but it’s published, and I think the author should be in jail and he used– Q. Unfortunately we can’t do everything at once, Miss Kilgallen. Are you judging the non-obscene quality and the artistic quality of Bruce by the fact that The Naked Lunch is a book which, as of this date, is sold in the community? A. No, I’m not. I just mentioned it because you asked me for some books. Q. And The Naked Lunch is a book you found impossible to read, is that correct? A. Yes, I found it revolting. Q. What was revolting about it? A. Just the way it was written.”
Another expert witness to testify … to a BBC reporter, not a New York courtroom … is Marcus Ewert. A Dunwoody native, Mr. Ewert took literary groupiedom to ridiculous lengths with Allen Ginsberg and WSB. “We’re getting into bed, and I’m sticking my legs down under the covers. There’s this bump that my legs feel. And I’m like, “Oh, what’s this hard thing my legs are bumping against, William?” And he said, “Oh, that’s the gun.” I said, “Is it a loaded gun?” He said, “Of course it’s loaded.” You’d sleep with a lover with a loaded gun in your bed. That’s kind of a metaphor waiting to happen.”
Mr. Marcus is now a children’s book author. An Amazon reader says this about 10,000 Dresses. “I returned mine today and was appalled as I read the story to my son before reading it to myself. Kids need to feel safe at home, especially when dealing with gender non-conformity. I wish the author would have reconcilled the reactions of the family members. It is great to have stories out there addressing gender non-conformity in kids, but we have a huge responsibility to make sure they are sending the right message.”
The death of Joan Vollmer is discussed. This is the lady who was playing William Tell one night, with fatal consequences. Some say accident, some say intentional. The word uxoricide is used, meaning the act of killing one’s wife.
The cut up technique is discussed. The show goes on to talk about how much WSB liked cats. He died, and people said nice things about him. Pictures tonight are from The Library of Congress.
January 19
January 19 is the third monday in January this year, and is the time for MLK day. The nineteenth day of the new year has a lively history. In 1861, Georgia seceded from the Union. In 1977, on his last day in office, President Gerald Ford pardoned Iva Toguri D’Aquino (a.k.a. “Tokyo Rose”). Nature celebrated by having snow fall in Miami.
PG’s mother was a talk radio fan. Her station was WRNG, long since defunct. A psychic was on the air one day, and said that when Jimmy Carter became President, it would snow in Miami.
Where January 19 shines is celebrity birthdays.
1807 – Robert E. Lee, American general (d. 1870)
1809 – Edgar Allan Poe, American author and poet (d. 1849)
1839 – Paul Cézanne, French painter (d. 1906)
1923 – Jean Stapleton, American actress and singer (d. 2013)
1939 – Phil Everly, (The Everly Brothers) (d. 2014)
1943 – Janis Joplin, American singer-songwriter (d. 1970)
1946 – Dolly Parton, American singer-songwriter and actress
1947 – Paula Deen, American chef and author
1953 – Desi Arnaz, Jr., American actor
1958 – Thomas Kinkade, American painter (d. 2012)
Deaths
1983 – Ham the Chimp, Cameroonian-American chimpanzee (b. 1956)
1990 – Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, Indian mystic and guru (b. 1931)
1997 – James Dickey, American poet and author (b. 1923)
2000 – Hedy Lamarr, Austrian-American actress and mathematician (b. 1913)
2006 – Wilson Pickett, American singer-songwriter (The Falcons) (b. 1941)
2007 – Bam Bam Bigelow, American wrestler (b. 1961)
2007 – Hrant Dink, Turkish-Armenian journalist (b. 1954)
2008 – Suzanne Pleshette, American actress (b. 1937)
Information by Wikipedia. Pictures by The Library of Congress.
David Bowie
David Bowie is 68 today. Elvis is ageless, and Sarah Palin is obsolete. This Bowie tribute is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
A webpage called CaptainsDead had a download of a David Bowie concert, that can only be called a Christmas present. Most Bowie live recordings are pretty dull. While the Thin White Duke is renowned for his concerts, they tend to be live events, that depend on staging and costumes as much as music. This show, from 1974, is different. Focusing on material from “Diamond Dogs”, the sound he produces comes close to matching the studio sound, and in a few cases surpasses it.
The next move for Bowie in 1974 was the “white soul” sound of “Young Americans”. He is moving in that direction in this show, even while he lingers in the glitter apocalypse. This tour included a stop at the Fox Theater, the first Atlanta show for Mr.Bowie. On the way to Florida for the next show, the truck with the sets and costumes crashed into a swamp full of rattlesnakes. The show in Tampa was performed in street clothes.
Maybe it is time for a Chamblee54 tribute to David Bowie. It is six am, and PG has stumbled into a job. The time and energy required to write new material is not always available.
The first album by David Bowie that PG heard about was “Hunky Dory”. At the time, Mr. Bowie had generated some buzz by admitting that he fancies blokes, or some uber british expression for being queer. In time, this would be seen as more publicity stunt than brave confession. The RCA debut got some good reviews, but not much else.
The next year produced “Ziggy Stardust”, a concept album. At about this time he did a tour of the United States, with costumes and onstage antics that generated even more publicity. More and more people started listening, some in spite of his outrageous image, and quite a few more because of it. He broke up his band, the spiders from mars, and announced his retirement. The band learned about this while standing on stage behind him. Mr. Bowie, for all his genius, is not always a nice man.
In 1974 there was an album, “Diamond Dogs”, about the decadent urban life in the scifi future. A stage show based on this album…the source of the download mentioned above…marked a return to the concert stage. The next year gave us “Young Americans”, and the year after that “Station to Station”. Every year was a different sound and vision.
Meanwhile, the artist was not doing so good as a human being. According to all reports, he was doing mountains of cocaine. (There is a story of going to meet the parents of Ava Cherry, one of his girlfriends. He shows up at 3am, and does coke on the dining room table.) There was an interview in Playboy (or maybe it was Rolling Stone ) where the first thing he says is, don’t believe anything I say. He went on to say that he admired Adolf Hitler. Have we mentioned the physical appearance of David Bowie in 1975? He looked like he was dead, and nobody bothered to tell him. (By contrast, in recent photo collections of rock stars, Mr. Bowie looks pretty good for a man who is 68 yo.)
This was the era of Rocky Horror show. At one point, Riff Raff sings (Tim O’Brien wrote the show, and gave himself some darn good lines) Frank n furter, it’s all over, your mission is a failure, your lifestyle’s too extreme.I’m your new commander you now are my prisoner we return to transylvania prepare the transit beam While this may not have been directed at David Bowie, he took the hint.
We interrupt this David Bowie tribute with an emergency announcement. A person, reputed to be an entertainer, was seen using the n word on facebook. The screen shots have disappeared, and all we have is the word of the accuser. More details will be available as soon as anyone is interested.
David Bowie saw himself at a dead end, and possibly a dead life. He moved into a little apartment in West Berlin, on top of a garage. Brian Eno offered his assistance, and a series of electronic albums was the result. The next few years saw rock and roll, dance music, and finally, crap. PG bought a Bowie album in 1984, the first time he saw it on sale, and was immensely disappointed. The last David Bowie album that PG got was a free cd that was given to people buying a magazine.
Around 1981, MTV was born, and radio was suddenly obsolete. A visual artiste like David Bowie was a natural for video. Unfortunately, many of these videos are not available for embedding in blogs. Ashes to Ashes was a staple of early MTV. Boys Keep Swinging , off the “Lodger” album, is a return to the gender bender Bowie of younger days.
David Bowie continued to do tours, and PG got to see two of the shows. In 1987, something called the “Glass Spider Tour” came to the Omni. (In a later interview, it turns out Mr. Bowie was extremely unhappy during this tour, and close to suicide at some points.) The Glass Spider was this mass of lighting effects that hovered over the stage, and was used to best advantage during “Scary Monsters”. The show featured Peter Frampton on guitar, and had a pack of dancers. (One apparent female took her drag off during the finale.) A good time was had by all.
In 1990, another retirement tour came to the Omni. This one had movies projected on a screen behind the stage, and featured guitar hero Adrian Bellew. The night had the feel of a contractual obligation. David Bowie is too professional to give a bad show, but this one did not have the fire of “Glass Spider”. PG had a new set of contact lenses, and his eyes were painfully dry most of the night.
Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. Tag some others who might enjoy this. You can’t use the band I used. Try not to repeat a song title. It’s a lot harder than you think! Re-post as “my life according to (band name)”Pick your Artist: David Bowie
Are you a male or female: The Bewley Brothers
Describe yourself: Quicksand
How do you feel:Always crashing in the same car
Describe where you currently live: Life on Mars
If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Width of a circle
Your favorite form of transportation: Queen Bitch
Your best friend is: Young Americans
You and your best friends are: Kooks
What’s the weather like: Changes
Favorite time of day: Eight Line Poem
If your life was a TV show, what would it be called: Scary Monsters
What is life to you: Panic in Detroit
Your relationship: Fame
Your fear: Sound and Vision
What is the best advice you have to give:Somebody up there likes me
Thought for the Day: Hang onto yourself
How I would like to die: Ashes to Ashes
My soul’s present condition: Moonage Daydream
My motto: Andy Warhol
Matthew Is Too Republican
The following story is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. Today is the first sunday of the new year. Yesterday saw the sacrilege of NFL playoffs on pay tv. Today, the wild card game is on the idiot box where it belongs. The Falcons had a losing season, and are not in the post season. The story was borrowed from a blog that is no longer published.
PG found a story about the Christmas season at another blog a few minutes ago. It is a feel good tale, even if you don’t completely agree with it. The story is about the “true meaning” of Christmas. Large Tony says that Christmas is about being good. Is good something you believe, or something that you do? Maybe living in a good world means to believe, and to practice.
Some atheists put up a sign, encouraging people to “be good for goodness sake”. While this is a *good idea*, it is also a line from a Christmas carol. It rhymes with “he knows when you’re awake”. Maybe we should just leave it as a silly rhyme in a song, and not make a rule for living out of it.
As we said, PG does not totally agree with this story. Or maybe he wants to argue about the words, but agrees with the spirit behind the words. Sometime the spirit is what is important.
PG is a practice kind of guy. Belief is all well and good, but what is do is what is important. A gram of practice is worth a pound of belief. Part of practice is to shut up, and let someone else tell his story.
I just said goodnight to Granny and turned off the lights in her room. After getting her settled in, I sat next to her on top of the covers. We propped ourselves against the headboard and watched TV.
She got tired but wanted to hear the story of the nativity before she fell asleep. As you all know, I’m not the most religious person in the world, but I’d have to be a downright heathen to refuse to do that. So, I grabbed Granny’s Bible off the night table and read from the second chapter of the Luke. No room at the inn. Shepherds and their flocks and all. But no Wise Men. No kings.
At first I thought maybe I was reading from one of those contemporary editions. But when I looked at spine, it said “King James.” I asked Granny,and she told me, “That’s Matthew.”
Then she told me she prefers Luke, which is why I guess that’s what she asked me to read. I asked her why she preferred Luke since it was essentially the same story. “Luke is more for regular folk. Matthew is too…too…” She searched for the right word, then finally finished her thought with, “too Republican.” We both chuckled about that and I made a mental note to tell the Attorney, who has been known to have Republican tendencies.
Apparently there are differences in the facts of the Christmas story, depending on who told it. Luke talks about the manger and shepherds. Matthew talks about the kings. The shepherds heard from an angel. The Wise Men followed a star. Isn’t it ironic that the Gospels are not necessarily the gospel?
So, I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that even now, 2000 or so years later, that Christmas is a different thing to different people. But whether your Christmas includes shepherds…or not. Kings…or not…Jesus, Santa, Angels, Rudolph, presents, trees, or stars…or not, we’re all celebrating the same thing. The easy answer is “the birth of Christ.” But the bigger answer is “goodness.”
You may not believe a baby was born in a manger to a virgin. Or, if you do, you may not believe that babe is the Messiah. But, if you celebrate Christmas at all, surely you can believe in the goodness that the story represents. And, if you don’t celebrate, surely you can believe in goodness nonetheless.
It’s all mankind truly has to give. Happy Holidays, dear friends and readers.
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 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 for three years. 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. 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. Dr. Hunt has quit sending PG emails. His radio show is no longer being broadcast.
Lindsay 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”.
The War On Christmas
Merry Christmas used to be a greeting of good will. It meant, I am happy that you survived the year, have a nice holiday. It was not an in your face gesture, designed to express a religious opinion.
Christmas used to be a time of peace on earth and good will towards men. There were parties, gift giving, and holiday time from school and work. The religious part has always been there, but if you wanted to ignore it you could.
Now, the Jesus Worshipers want it all. The fact that our culture is dominated by Jesus worship is not good enough, they want it all. And they don’t care if it offends you. Peace on earth, and good will towards men, is an obsolete concept.
We don’t know when Jesus was born. Some scholars say he was born in the spring, but it was a long, long time ago. When the early Christians were trying to convert the Romans, they decided to have a birthday celebration for Jesus at the time of a pagan holiday. It is the winter solstice, the time of renewal at the end of the year. It is an ideal time for a religious feast.
Many people, PG included, have been hurt by Jesus. Christianism is an aggressive religion, and if you don’t agree, you can expect to be insulted and humiliated. As society becomes more and more secular, the Jesus worshipers get more aggressive. Many people have come to see the birth of Jesus as something to be mourned, rather than celebrated.
PG used to enjoy saying Merry Christmas. To him, it was a greeting of good will. Now, it is taking sides in a nasty fight. Maybe the proper thing to say is have a nice day.
And now for something completely different. PG found this recently, and it is not original to him. If you really need a link to the original, we will look harder.
When I was young and impressionable, I heard the Co-Adjutor Archbishop of Bombay preach on the subject of Christmas. He made the point that the adjective “merry” actually means “to be showing the influence of alcohol”, that is to be at least partially drunk. So to wish someone a Merry Christmas is really to wish them a Drunken Christmas.
And he went on to point out that as drunkenness is a sin, and moreover it is illegal to ply an infant with alcohol, a “merry Christmas” not only treats the birth of Christ as an occasion for sin, it also excludes the guest of honour Himself from the celebration.
That is a perversion of the meaning of Christmas — yet how often do we hear “true Christians” insist on saying “merry Christmas”? Why don’t they just wish the world happiness and joy?
This holiday feature is a repost. The pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Chamblee54 
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