White Supremacy Culture
This is a repost from 2023. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the featured photograph in February 1940. “Son of Pomp Hall, Negro tenant farmer, feeding his father’s mule. Creek County OK.” “Really intense accusations” against journalists continue.
@jessesingal “2/ It is genuinely bizarre. In the case of journalists, they are making these really intense accusations against other journalists and they get super pissed when you ask them for specific examples.” @chamblee54 “Asking for specific examples is white supremacy culture.”@NotaNeoLiberal1 “And most certainly a trait from someone imbued with colonizer ideology.” The @chamblee54 comment got 115 likes. @dcherring “lol.”
“White Supremacy Culture is a form of racism centered upon the belief that white people are superior to people of other racial backgrounds and that whites should politically, economically, and socially dominate non-whites. While often associated with violence perpetrated by the KKK and other white supremacist groups, it also describes a political ideology and systemic oppression that perpetuates and maintains the social, political, historical and/or industrial white domination.” This is a typical description of WSC. It does not make a lot of sense. WSC is connected to WS, which is essentially anything that you say it is.
Most WSC talk centers this list of characteristics. It is from “Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change Groups, by Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun, 2001.” There is a list of items that WSC embodies. “the belief that there is such a thing as being objective” “equating individual acts of unfairness against white people with systemic racism which daily targets people of color.”
@chamblee54 first became aware of WSC by reading about the PRX Racism Scandal. PRX is a foundation-funded organization that assists public radio endeavors. A young lady of color, Palace Shaw, quit her job at PRX, and issued a viral letter about her experience. PRX CEO Kerri Hoffman touching Palace Shaw’s hair was the first issue addressed in the viral letter. FWIW, this list of WSC characteristics does not include hair-touching.
“Everyone at PRX should know that each characteristic on the list of White Supremacy Culture Characteristics is fully expressed in the workplace … For current donors/financial supporters: How much would you be willing to increase your current pledge if PRX makes necessary changes to address its white supremacy culture?”
FWIW, Tema Okun, the author of White Supremacy Culture Resources, has second thoughts about the way her work is used. One article is hidden behind a message: “This is not a paywall.” There is no discussion on whether paywalls are a part of WSC.
Wasted
This is a repost from 2013. Over the last few years, quote debunking has become a hobby of mine. This particular item is cited by Quote Investigator®. … There is a tasteful graphic going around. It features a quote, “Time you enjoy wasting was not wasted.” John Lennon is blamed for this thought. Wikiquotes does not have this quote, at least by Mr. Ono.
An obvious comment is that being wasted is something Mr. Lennon knew. Keith Richards says this is not quite the case. On pages 261-262 of “Life”, Mr. Richards describes how Mr. Lennon would try to keep up on the drug intake, but wound up in the loo, studying the porcelain.
There was a facebook exchange about this quote. “Wikiquotes does not show this quote. I searched using wasted, wasting, and time.” ~ “Luther,the way I look at these quotes is : I like the idea they express, rather than being overly concerned with the veracity of the attribution.” … This is one of the kinder things a quote debunker will hear. People do not like to be told that Santa Claus does not exist.
If the idea is so cool, why do the quotemongers need to attribute them to a famous person? You can find some pastoral image for the background, throw the quote up, and be inspired. Is it an authoritarian impulse to find a wise man to give credit for the cleverness? Can’t it stand on it’s on?
John Lennon spoke about being more popular than Jesus, and caught some flack as a result. Would John really want to be used as justification for someone else’s clever thought? The sense here is that all he wanted to do was play rock and roll. Let someone else be the spokesman for a generation.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the featured photograph in October 1938. “Princesses at the National Rice Festival, Crowley, Louisiana. There were thirty of these chosen from different communities throughout the rice section, the Queen being chosen from them.”
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this is what I did last week. This post has 928 words, and 6 pictures. The picture/word value count is -5,072. The featured picture is from 1942. “Brooklyn NY Red Hook housing project. Boys playing chess at the community center.” · This report says that the death toll in Syria is over 7k. Many of the deceased are Greek Orthodox Christians. This report says that the militias are backed by Türkiye. This could get interesting · “Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock.” Ben Hecht – A Child of the Century · ” But there is plenty of anger from the left as well. For example, any post supportive of Israel is immediately attacked by nasty pro-Hamas accounts.” Israel is a monkey wrench into the entire left-or-right paradigm · Arthur Rothstein took the featured picture in June 1942. “Brooklyn NY Red Hook housing project. Boys playing chess at the community center.” · @marcorubio We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported · Steps to pair a Bluetooth device, Press the Home button on your Roku remote, Select Settings, Select Remotes & devices, Select Pair Bluetooth device, On your Bluetooth device, turn on Bluetooth and put it in pairing mode, Wait for your Roku device to scan for Bluetooth devices, Select your Bluetooth device from the list of available devices · Jack Delano took the featured photograph in June 1941.“Mr. John Gentry, an old resident of Greene County, Georgia.” · “THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC Politics & Culture from a Catholic Perspective.” · I was repeating a post about CS Lewis, who I still may get around to reading some day. It was about a screed Ayn Rand … who I am much less likely to read … wrote in the margins of a CSL book. The original post was lost to digital antiquity, so I googled the phrase “Ayn Rand Really, Really Hated C.S. Lewis.” One result was from “THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC Politics & Culture from a Catholic Perspective.” On top of the page was a youtube intermission, “C.S. Lewis vs The New Atheists” by Peter S. Williams (Book Promo 1)” Cartoon images of CSL and Richard Dawkins have a jolly good debate about the existence of God. · Ayn Rand Rants Against CS Lewis · C. S. Lewis died November 22, 1963, the same day as President Kennedy and Aldous Huxley. Mr. Lewis probably never imagined there would a cartoon video of CSL debating the existence of God with Richard Dawkins. · Right now on twitter, “boycotting” is a trending topic. People are expressing their displeasure with Elon Musk by boycotting Tesla. Now, I wonder how many of these boycotters were actually going to buy an expensive electric vehicle. You don’t know, bro simp. Is simp short for simpson, and what does Bart have to do with any of this? Will those kids ever grow up, or are they frozen in time like all cartoon characters? Maybe Lisa Simpson is a tit fluctuating dyke by now, along with Bari Weiss and Rachel Madcow. A new spokesperson for some big government agency … · using haiku reductions as writing prompts seemed like a good idea. · “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.” Letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell, June 11, 1807 · To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted, so as to be most useful, I should answer, “by restraining it to true facts & sound principles only.” Yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more compleatly deprive the nation of it’s benefits, than is done by it’s abandoned prostitution to falsehood. Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief, that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time; whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. General facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his will, &c., &c.; but no details can be relied on. I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false. · Russell Lee took the featured photograph in February 1940. “Pomp Hall, Negro tenant farmer. Creek County, Oklahoma.” · In 2019 Fordham University hosted a symposium on Flannery O’Connor, supported by a grant from The Flannery O’Connor Trust. FU looked at her work, using “techniques from whiteness studies and critical race theory.” · Designed in 1996 by Matthew Carter. Georgia is the serif companion to the first Microsoft sans serif screen font, Verdana. It was designed specifically to address the challenges of on-screen display and hand-instructed by leading hinting expert, Monotype’s Tom Rickner. Georgia was jokingly named after a tabloid headline ‘Alien heads found in Georgia.’ · It has been a great day so far. I have had this thing with my feet, and I learned the best thing for it is to go walking. This has evolved into a half hour every morning, usually on a path across from the house. Recently this has been going well, with no problems on most days, including today. I first noticed this issue on March 13 of last year, so today is a milestone. · On the left, the old Village Voice culture has faded. But the so-called anti-woke side can’t be said to be much better. Israel, again, is the instructive example. If critics of Israel are guilty of rhetorical excess, Israel’s supporters are prepared to match or even exceed them. In fact, it’s those who are most supportive of Israel who have adopted many of the same pathologies as the woke, treating debate and ideas themselves as mortal threats and defaulting, whenever possible, to their identity concerns. Standpoint epistemology dominates everywhere. · I knew 2 things on October 7. Israel would exponentially over-retaliate. I also knew there was going to be an incredibly toxic debate. This has been true beyond my worst nightmare. · alex_Cole855 is located in Washington – Spokane County – Cheney. · I can’t wait to find a nice, secluded walking path somewhere nearby. I hate walking on pavement/sidewalks. Prefer woods. · yes i am very very fortunate, in that there is a school a block away, and a cut through path between two streets is across the street from the house … There is a nature preserve .44 miles away also … the idea of driving somewhere to walk is sort of silly, although it is the only option for a lot of people … in my case, my feet prefer uneven dirt or gravel walkways over concrete or asphalt … there is also the danger and inconvenience of sharing the road with automobiles · i used to walk up peachtree to LA fitness, and I almost get hit several times by crossing side streets in front of stopped drivers making right turns · one side of peachtree is a wall beside the marta line, and I cleared out a path behind some trees planted there, which was cool … it cut down hostile road crossings 5 times to only one · Jack Kerouac was staying with Neal Cassady. Neal thought that Jack was smoking too much marijuana. The featured picture today: “Band in an Irish-American restaurant O’Reilly’s at Third Avenue and Fifty-Fourth Street.” · The featured photograph was taken August 3, 1954. “Fred Hand family” · gsu · @RichardHanania @tracewoodgrains Instead of arguing about who the “real racists” are, we should consider whether the concept of “being a racist” is real. · I have one about the roof but its over your head. There’s nothing like a good joke… and that was nothing like a good joke. A rabbi, nun, lawyer, mime, and horse all walk into a bar. The bartender says, “What is this, some kind of joke?” · @existentialcomics.com What Hegel failed to grasp is that the world ideological spirit of the age would eventually be controlled by a YouTube algorithm designed to sell ads.The feature photograph was taken May 27, 1958. “Proud Rebel premiere” · Several movies had their World Premiere in Atlanta. Some are not seen kindly today, while others are not seen at all. The featured photograph was taken May 27, 1958. · Pictures today are from The Library of Congress Arthur Rothstein took the featured photograph in June 1942. “Queens NY Nursery school at the Queensbridge housing project. Drinking tomato juice” · selah
Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac
This is a repost from 2008, inspired by Jack Kerouac: An Appreciation. JKAA appeared in KIKO’S HOUSE, a blog I read in 2008. Kiko’s was the retirement project of Shaun Mullen, an journalist who was “born to blog.” People said things like that when W was president. Kikos published its last post 12/11/2019, the day before Shaun Mullen died. Chamblee54 is still going, which makes writing about Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac much easier.
Over the years, I keep lists of posts. While writing this feature, I learned that I never compiled one for JLLK. I knew there was an extended book report covering “On The Road,” and vaguely remembered doing one for “The Dharma Bums.” The next step was to use Google Advanced Search, which does not work for “Dharma site: chamblee54.wordpress.com.” If you substitute bums for dharma, you are referred to something about Charles Bukowski. I did a GAS search for Kerouac, and found a series about “Satori in Paris” which I had totally forgotten. I also found a story about starting work on “The Dharma Bums” and used it to track down the posts.
From “The Dharma Bums Part Four” … This chapter by chapter thing is not working. The idea is to use this as a springboard for improvisation, to say whatever comes up. This does not seem to be happening. Tdb is a worthwhile read, the first time. Reading it twice, while taking notes, is not a good idea. … While in Corte Madera, there are a lot of wild parties. It is the sort of boho thing the rest of America tittered about…. Dwight Eisenhower got reelected. He is not mentioned in tdb, but his buddy Richard Nixon is. We know how that story turned out.
JLLK published BELIEF & TECHNIQUE FOR MODERN PROSE in the Summer 1958 edition of Evergreen Review. … 6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind 7. Blow as deep as you want to blow 8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind 9. The unspeakable visions of the individual 10. No time for poetry but exactly what is 11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest 12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you 13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition 14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time 15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
From Kerouac … I read OTR, and found it entertaining but not life changing. I get the sense that Kerouac and Cassidy could be real jerks. … OTR was published in 1957, when I was three years old and living on a street of always pregnant stay at home moms. … I suspect that if Jack Kerouac had not written his books that someone else would have, and maybe survived fame in better shape. … At one time, Kerouac was staying with Neal Cassidy (his uncredited co author) and his family. Mr. Cassidy thought that Mr. Keruac was smoking too much marijuana.
I saw Allan Gurganus (no middle name) at the Dickhater Book Festival in 2014. I knew AG was from Rocky Mount NC, and that JLLK once spent a winter there. This was described in “The Dharma Bums.” AG would have been about seven years old. I wanted to ask AG about it in the Q&A, but I did not get called on. After the talk was over, I managed to talk to AG in a hallway. “Yes, it really did happen. The place where he used to go meditate was my grandfather’s property.”
The pictures today are from The Library of Congress Marjory Collins took the featured photograph in February 1943. “New York, New York. Band in an Irish-American restaurant O’Reilly’s at Third Avenue and Fifty-Fourth Street, on Saturday night.” Chamblee54 has published expanded book reports about “Satori in Paris” 031211 032211 032911 040711 · “The Dharma Bums” 111713 113013 122213 011314 · “On The Road” 060119 061119 062519 062719 071019 071419 073019 · selah
Was Flannery O’Connor Racist?
How Racist Was Flannery O’Connor? appeared in The New Yorker on June 22, 2020. (Note the date) I had long been a fan of Mary Flannery O’Connor, and knew I could not un-read those stories. While researching a book report about a story collection, Everything That Rises Must Converge, I took another look at the cancellation.
The article begins by telling the Flannery story. Soon, a description of a movie, Flannery, yields a false note: “Erik Langkjær, a publishing sales rep O’Connor fell in love with, describes their drives in the country.” According to Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor by Brad Gooch, Mr. Langkjær was far from a boyfriend. It is another piece of the puzzle.
“I was not really in love; I simply enjoyed the company of women during my lonely travels in the South. Although Flannery was both conventional and religious, we eventually became so close that she, while the car was parked, allowed me to kiss her. At that moment, her disease revealed itself in a new way: there was no strength in her lips. I hit her teeth with my kiss, and since then I’ve thought of it as a kiss of death. … When I later read one of Flannery’s short stories, ‘Good Country People,’ I noticed that the main character was a travelling Bible salesman. I didn’t sell bibles, but I used to call my binder with the records of the publishing firm ‘my bible.’ Also, the salesman in the story is named Manley Pointer, which has an obvious erotic connotation.”
Right after this paragraph, there is a break. “FEATURED VIDEO Protests of George Floyd’s Killing Transform Into a Global Movement” The article soon gets down with cancellation.
“Everything That Rises Must Converge was published in “Best American Short Stories” … O’Connor declared that it was all she had to say on “That Issue.” It wasn’t. In May, 1964, she wrote to her friend Maryat Lee, a playwright who … was ardent for civil rights.”
“About the Negroes, the kind I don’t like is the philosophizing prophesying pontificating kind, the James Baldwin kind. Very ignorant but never silent. Baldwin can tell us what it feels like to be a Negro in Harlem but he tries to tell us everything else too. M. L. King I dont think is the ages great saint but he’s at least doing what he can do & has to do. Don’t know anything about Ossie Davis except that you like him but you probably like them all. My question is usually would this person be endurable if white. If Baldwin were white nobody would stand him a minute. I prefer Cassius Clay. “If a tiger move into the room with you,” says Cassius, “and you leave, that dont mean you hate the tiger. Just means you know you and him can’t make out. Too much talk about hate.” Cassius is too good for the Moslems.” (James Baldwin probably agreed with MFO about “the Moslems.”)
“That passage, published in “The Habit of Being,” echoed a remark in a 1959 letter, also to Maryat Lee, who had suggested that Baldwin … could pay O’Connor a visit while on a subsequent reporting trip. O’Connor demurred: “No I can’t see James Baldwin in Georgia. It would cause the greatest trouble and disturbance and disunion. In New York it would be nice to meet him; here it would not. I observe the traditions of the society I feed on—it’s only fair. Might as well expect a mule to fly as me to see James Baldwin in Georgia. I have read one of his stories and it was a good one.” …
“After revising “Revelation” in early 1964, O’Connor wrote several letters to Maryat Lee. Many scholars maintain that their letters (often signed with nicknames) are a comic performance, with Lee playing the over-the-top liberal and O’Connor the dug-in gradualist, but O’Connor’s most significant remarks on race in her letters to Lee are plainly sincere. … May 3, 1964: “You know, I’m an integrationist by principle & a segregationist by taste anyway. I don’t like negroes. They all give me a pain and the more of them I see, the less and less I like them. Particularly the new kind.” Two weeks after that, she told Lee of her aversion to the “philosophizing prophesying pontificating kind.” Ravaged by lupus, she wrote Lee a note to say that she was checking in to the hospital, signing it “Mrs. Turpin.” She died at home ten weeks later.”
“Fordham University hosted a symposium on O’Connor and race, supported with a grant from the author’s estate.” (The panel discussion included Karin Coonrod.) “The organizer, Angela Alaimo O’Donnell” … (who wrote) “Radical Ambivalence: Race in Flannery O’Connor.” … takes up Flannery and That Issue. Proposing that O’Connor’s work is “race-haunted,” she applies techniques from whiteness studies and critical race theory …” In other words, The Flannery O’Connor Trust gave money to Fordham University, so they could examine MFO, using “techniques from whiteness studies and critical race theory.” There is something deeply rotten about this.
Perhaps this cancellation business is what MFO foresaw in a 1963 letter to Betty Hester. MFO mentions her disdain for Eudora Welty’s “Where is the Voice Coming From?” … “What I hate most is its being in the New Yorker and all of the stupid Yankee liberals smacking their lips over typical life in the dear old dirty Southland.”
Eudora Welty is not the only author MFO did not like. MFO wrote to Maryat Lee on 31 May 60. “I hope you don’t have friends who recommend Ayn Rand to you. The fiction of Ayn Rand is as low as you can get re fiction. I hope you picked it up off the floor of the subway and threw it in the nearest garbage pail. She makes Mickey Spillane look like Dostoyevsky.”
“On July 28, 1964, Flannery wrote her last letter. This note to Maryat Lee, written in a “shaky, nearly illegible hand” … is in response to an anonymous crank call Lee received and reveals O’Connor’s deep concern for her friend’s well being: “Cowards can be just as vicious as those who declare themselves – more so. Dont take any romantic attitude toward that call. Be properly scared and go on doing what you have to do, but take the necessary precautions. And call the police. That might be a lead for them. Dont know when I’ll send those stories. I’ve felt too bad to type them. Cheers, Tarfunk” MFO died August 3, 1964 at Baldwin County Hospital.
We don’t know what MFO read by James Baldwin. It might include a 1962 piece in The New Yorker, Letter from a Region in My Mind. Included in those 22,147 words is this gem: “But white Americans do not believe in death, and this is why the darkness of my skin so intimidates them.” This might be a good time to remember the words of Alice Walker: “Take what you can use and let the rest rot.”
Ms. Walker is included in Flannery. “Alice Walker tells of living “across the way” from the farmhouse during her teens, not knowing that a writer lived there: “It was one of my brothers who took milk from her place to the creamery in town. When we drove into Milledgeville, the cows that we saw on the hillside going into town would have been the cows of the O’Connors.” Ms. Walker, who was well aware of MFO’s racial attitudes, adds “She also cast spells and worked magic with the written word. The magic, the wit, and the mystery of Flannery O’Connor I know I will always love.”
A lot of what is said here is taking MFO seriously, in spite of her racial attitudes. This is where I differ with The New Yorker. I am a cracker who likes to enjoy stories, not take them seriously. As a Georgia native, I am well aware of the many “shades of gray” produced by a black and white society. Racism is not a yes/no binary. MFO wrote great stories, in spite of, or maybe because of, her racial attitudes. To paraphrase Alice Walker, take what you need, and let whiteness studies and critical race theory rot.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the featured photograph in February 1940. “Pomp Hall, Negro tenant farmer. Creek County, Oklahoma.”
C.S. Lewis
There was a facebook link to a feature, Ayn Rand Rants Against CS Lewis. It turns out to be verbatim droppings from Ayn Rand’s Marginalia : Her Critical Comments on the Writings of over Twenty Authors. If you are interested in details, there are the links. 55% of the comments were one-star.
Miss Rand has read more C.S. Lewis than I. There was a copy of a CSL work at a yard sale once, which I invested a quarter in. I read as far as the appearance of a pig named trufflehunter. Maybe it was a bad day for books, but I put CSL down, never to make another attempt.
There was a sixth grade english teacher at Ashford Park named Mrs. Ruff. Lots of people talked about how sweet she was, but I was not impressed. One day, between handing out mimeographed copies of poems to be memorized, Mrs. Ruff started to talk about Narnia. It was a fantastic and amazing story. With a hint of primness, she told the class that Narnia was really about Jesus.
This is a repost, with pictures from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the featured photograph in June 1941.“Mr. John Gentry, an old resident of Greene County, Georgia.”
Don’t Waste Banana Peels
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Field Negro · joel baxley · attack of the clones · 112 · john oliver fb · carl dean · blankonblank
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Russell Lee took the featured photograph in June 1940. “Sunday school in the Farm Bureau building. Pie Town, New Mexico” · This week’s monday morning reader has a palindrome title, and samples from the worst poem ever written. The featured photograph: “Sunday school in the Farm Bureau building. Pie Town New Mexico” · @jessesingal @kittypurrzog the story about 500 million plastic straws a year sounds like a straw man argument · The first monday night of the month is Little 5 PoetryBash, which means leaving the McMansion City comfort zone, and stepping into the brave new world of L5P … except that neither one of us is brave, nor new. · Palindrome of the day: DOGE GOD · New York 1943_000_086 New York 1943 lucinda sans unicode no antialiasing Lucinda Bright Semi Bold loc · “I had nothing to do with killing Jews. I’ve never killed a Jew. And I’ve never ordered anyone to kill a Jew.” · @martyrmade “Massacre” is the word we use when people without an air force engage in mass killing. · Russell Lee took the featured photograph in October 1941. “FSA rehabilitation borrower who is a dairy farmer with one of his cows, Tillamook County, Oregon” · The Oreo was invented in 1912, and has become a cherished snack. The featured picture: “FSA rehabilitation borrower who is a dairy farmer with one of his cows, Tillamook County, Oregon · In 1977, Christopher Isherwood gave a 42 minute interview. It is included in The Friends Radio tape collection at Rainbow History. This is the first time I have ever heard Mr. Isherwood’s voice. What I heard was not surprising. · Jack Delano took the featured photograph in April 1941. “Singing “Trying To Make a Hundred, Ninety Nine and a Half Won’t Do” during the collection at a Negro church service in Heard County, Georgia.” · Pointing out hypocrisy is always the easiest argument to make. The fact that “irony” often exists does not make hypocrisy harping any less annoying. · Russell Lee took the featured photograph in May 1938. “Making a purchase at cooperative store. La Forge project, Missouri” · This is a few snapshots from my life in 2022. The featured picture was taken in May 1938. “Making a purchase at cooperative store. La Forge project, Missouri” · OTOH, Israel is destroying her neighbors, with American support. The crimes against Palestinian/Lebanese/Syrian humanity are staggering. @Quillette et al defend this. Liberal shmiberal · This is a repost from 2019. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the featured photograph in April 1941. “Scene at bar. Southside of Chicago IL.” · Can we quit saying “Karen” “Karen” is misogynistic. “Karen” is understood to mean white women, aka racist. · @wildethingy [the pearly gates] St Peter: How many social media followers do you have? Karen: Why? Saint Peter: it’s how we judge people worthy now. Karen: oh no. I don’t have any! Saint Peter: perfect. Welcome to heaven. · The current discourse is simply too horrible to spend time discussing. It is time for some recreational debauchery, and David Bowie is the ideal vehicle. The featured picture was taken on the Southside of Chicago in 1941 · Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Arthur Rothstein took the featured picture in June 1942. “Brooklyn NY Red Hook housing project. Boys playing chess at the community center.” · selah
A David Bowie Book
David Bowie: A Life was sitting on the biography shelf at the Chamblee library. It is an “oral biography.” Dylan Jones gets the blame, and the copyright. He took a bunch of interviews, and curated salient passages into a narrative. It is a fun book to read, full of sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
The Amazon one star reviews beg to differ. Guitar Gregg “I thought this would be biography not assorted comments. Very few comments from David Bowie. Who cares what Debora Harry or hundreds of “Joe blows” have to say? No pictures? 500 pages? Too much too little. Buy his cd’s instead.” worst read ever “Belongs in the fire … worst read ever!”
I enjoyed DBAL. At some point, the lurid tales of depravity got too quotable. I started keeping a list. In this book report, we will use this list, until the list, or the reader’s attention span, is exhausted. There may be another installment. Part one was published last week.
“There’s one instance — probably included just so it would be cited — about someone calling Bowie’s room in New York with an offer of a still-warm corpse. “The town had never seen anything like David before,” says onetime groupie Josette Caruso. “And he obviously looked like such a freak that some sick people thought he might be into necrophilia.” (He wasn’t.) (Page 142)
Page 146 “He (Lou Reed) had an auteur complex, and Bowie didn’t fit into that. Lou was also a prime member of the awkward squad. He could lose a charm competition with Van Morrison.” In 1972 David had gone through years of struggle, and was starting to make it. After the Ziggy Stardust tour, he was hot. At this time, David wound up helping two struggling artists, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop
The Elton John/Rolling Stone article was published during one Iggy phase. “May 1975 — It’s four in the morning, Hollywood time, and David Bowie is twitching with energy. … Bowie clutches his heart and beams like a proud father watching his kid in the school play. His whisper is full of wonder. “They just don’t appreciate Iggy.” he is saying. “He’s Lenny fucking Bruce and James Dean. When that adlib flow starts, there’s nobody like him. It’s verbal jazz, man!” … Bowie and Iggy never did make it back into the studio. Pop slept past the booked time, called up drunk several nights later and when Bowie told him to “go away” — meaning “hang up” — Iggy did just that. Now he’s disappeared. “I hope he’s not dead,” says Bowie, “he’s not a good act.” Iggy will show up later in this story.
Page 151 has stories from the Ziggy tour. In Seattle, the entourage went to a gay bar, and someone invited David to a party. When the next day came, and the tour needed to go to the next city, David was nowhere to be found. When he finally called the hotel, all he knew was that he was in a house, with a lot of trees around it. A hotel employee talked to David on the phone, and they managed to figure out where he was.
Page 155 Lori Mattox was a fifteen year old rock fan in 1972. “We got to the Beverly Hilton, and all went up to Bowie’s enormous suite. … We were getting stoned when, all of a sudden, the bedroom door opens and there is Bowie in this beautiful red and orange and yellow kimono … “Lori, darling, can you come with me? … Of course I did. Then he escorted me into the bedroom, gently took off my clothes, and de-virginized me.”
There is a lot of text about David’s sex life. The boy got around, in spite of, or because of, his open marriage with Angela. Apparently, nature was generous with David. While performatively gay during this era, David made plenty of exceptions with ladies. DBAL is an entertaining book.
Page 176 Ava Cherry was a girlfriend who stuck around. “… and yes, we did have some fun together. We were staying at the Sherry-Netherland one night in New York, where David had given a party for Rudolph Nureyev. At the end of the party, everyone was gone apart from me and David and Mick, (Jagger) so it just ended up with the three of us sleeping together.”
Page 263 87 pages later, David has burned out on American rock stardom, and is living on top of an auto parts store in Berlin. This is the phase which produced Low and Heroes, two creative, though non commercial, efforts. Iggy Pop is back in the picture. Longtime assistant Coco Schwab never left. Iggy Pop : “There’s sevent days in a week: two for bingeing, two for recovery, and three more for any other activity.” Coco Schwab “I remember one elevated subway ride where you ride into East Berlin with no checkpoints and then back out with Absinthe into the west. Trust Jim (Iggy) to find that one.”
Page 277 David meets Adrian Bellew, who is in Frank Zappa’s band. David is talking to Adrian about doing a tour with David. At some point, the two go to a restaurant, where they run into Frank Zappa. “…David tried to strike up a conversation with Frank, saying “This is quite a guitar player you have here” And Frank said, “Fuck you, Captain Tom.” David persisted, and said “Oh come on now, Frank, surely we can be gentleman about this?” And Frank said, “Fuck you, Captain Tom.” … so David said, “So you really have nothing to say?” To which Frank said, “Fuck you, Captain Tom.”
This is a repost from 2019. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the featured photograph in April 1941. “Scene at bar. Southside of Chicago IL.”
Common Sense Quote
This is a repost from 2022. … 0312 – We’re going to conduct a facebook experiment. I posted a video from Dr. John Campbell. He discussed some reputed side effects of the Pfizer vaccine. Soon, Facebook sent me an admonition. “… The post includes information that independent fact-checkers said was partly false. …” The suspicion here is that Facebook has a problem with Dr. Campbell.
On to today’s experiment. I’m listening to another video from Dr. Campbell. He admits that he made some errors in his interpretation of the Pfizer data. He goes on to say “you can’t put solid footsteps into fresh air you need solid ground.” This is just a common sense quote. My plan for today is to make a video segment of the CSQ, and post it on Facebook. Lets see if the fact-checkers have a problem with it. As of March 19, Facebook has been silent.
0314 – I was through with Blocked and Reported, and making great progress on my picture. It was time to go out. I had two destinations. One was the gym. The other was the library. I had a book, The Santa Suit, to return. Think — inside the work — outside the work.
TSS is not a great book. Perhaps that was what was needed. With the book I am starting, quotables lie on every page. The desire to go in depth may prove irresistible. However, I read to have fun. Sometimes a trifle like TSS is what I need. Just read a story, without provoking great thought. The fact that TSS is easy to read indicates that the author worked like hell. Easy writing makes tough reading.
0318 – I’ve stumbled onto this podcast series about the shooting of Martin Luther King, The MLK Tapes. The shooting was quickly blamed on James Earl Ray. He was supposed to be a racist/white supremacist, and most people believed he was guilty. It turns out that there were serious problems with the government’s case. The podcast series is downright fascinating. It’s not something I’ve really thought about a whole lot. I just accepted the conventional wisdom, and went on with my life.
In episode 3, the case was going to trial. Mr. Ray’s lawyers were confident of an acquital. The government was not going to have that. For some reason, Mr. Ray fired his first lawyer. A gentleman named Percy Foreman took over. Soon Mr. Ray entered a guilty plea.
In the show, people talk about how worthless Percy Foreman was. I was curious if Mr. Foreman was still alive, so I googled him. A legal document turned up. JB Stoner was lawyer number three. Mr. Stoner was an extreme racist, even by Georgia standards. He ran for Governor in 1970, and made a spectacle of himself. At one point, Mr. Stoner sued a TV station, to allow an ad with the n-word.
There are many stories that could be told about JB Stoner. The candidates were speaking at the Governor’s Honors program. Mr. Stoner was going through his routine, when three students starting walking up the aisle. A young black man, with a blonde on each arm, walked up the aisle to the front of the hall. The man who won the Governor’s race, Jimmy Carter, was laughing so hard that tears came out of his eyes. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the featured photograph in May 1938. “Making a purchase at cooperative store. La Forge project, Missouri”
Thursday Already
@AmishPornStar1 “Ironic that those who are most upset about athletes “dishonoring our flag” are the same ones who still like to honor this one…” · @chamblee54 “do you have any examples? who are these people you are talking about? maybe this is just another instance of facebook recreational hypocrisy” · @PhoenixRemnant “You’re trying to argue a widely displayed and discussed behavior, that ANYONE from the areas it is common in has first hand experience with, doesn’t occur because you don’t think there’s evidence for it. This isn’t a debate club, fuck off with your sealioning attempts.” The spell check suggestion for sealioning is seasoning. · @chamblee54 “twitter/facebook are full of “casual observations” about hypocrisy, media representation, and poor judicial decisions it is a cheap way to make a point, even if you are not sure what the point is if you can’t say anything good about anybody, you can talk about the media.”
Putting these examples of commodity wisdom into a recreational blog post can lead to brain damage. Facebook is a mine field of people trying to make sense of a hostile world. A lot of things are not fair. The media does not cover events in a way that pleases everyone. Some crimes are more severely punished than others. With the advent of photo challenging software on everyone’s telephone, the urge to be clever can be overwhelming. The problem comes when people feel the need to share this intellectual compost with the digital world.
Hypocrisy is a prime target for opprobrium. This is always the cheapest argument to be made. The occasional validity does not negate the annoyance of every mememonger, with an iphone, railing against the hypocrisy of whatever fingers their fee fees. The best line about hypocrisy stands unblemished. A man said to a preacher, I don’t like to go to church because too many hypocrites go there. The preacher said, yes, and we always have room for one more.
Before this post goes past the attention span threshold, we have one more exchange about America’s favorite insult. This was on facebook, and the thread was deleted. · Luther Mckinnon Calling someone racist is not about them. It is about you. · Cheryl Cheavers nope. If I call an abuser an abuser, is that about me? No. Racists and racism exists. It’s exhausting and frustrating when people who’ve never experienced racism tell us how to think and feel about it and try to flip the blame back to us. You think we can’t be trusted to reliably relate our experiences. · Luther Mckinnon what about prejudice? you never hear people name calling about prejudice, only “racism” Is prejudice and bigotry acceptable? · Marsha Warfield Prejudice is not racism. Don’t conflate terms to make a moot point. · Marsha Warfield and please try to make your points without whitesplaining racism or mansplaining to the little women. · Luther Mckinnon a moo point what do cows have to do with this?
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the featured photograph in April 1941. “Singing “Trying To Make a Hundred, Ninety Nine and a Half Won’t Do” during the collection at a Negro church service in Heard County, Georgia.”This is a repost from 2019.
Oreo
This feature was originally posted on the 100th anniversary of the Oreo. The cookie sandwich was first sold in New York on March 6, 1912. Over 491 billion Oreos have been sold.
About.com 20th Century History has a few details on this important anniversary. In 1898, several baking companies merged to form the National Biscuit Company (NaBisCo), the maker of Oreo cookies. By 1902, Nabisco created Barnum’s Animal cookies and made them famous by selling them in a little box designed like a cage with a string attached (to hang on Christmas trees).
In 1912, Nabisco had a new idea for a cookie – two chocolate disks with a creme filling in between. The first Oreo cookie looked very similar to the Oreo cookie of today, with only a slight difference in the design on the chocolate disks…
So how did the Oreo get its name? The people at Nabisco aren’t quite sure. Some believe that the cookie’s name was taken from the French word for gold, “or” (the main color on early Oreo packages). Others claim the name stemmed from the shape of a hill-shaped test version; thus naming the cookie in Greek for mountain, “oreo.” Still others believe the name is a combination of taking the “re” from “cream” and placing it between the two “o”s in “chocolate” – making “o-re-o.” And still others believe that the cookie was named Oreo because it was short and easy to pronounce.
In the fifties, Oreos had a great commercial. The song went “Girls are nice but oh what icing comes in oreos. Oreos, the best because it’s the grandest cookie that ever was. Little girls have pretty curls but I like oreos; Oreos, the best because it’s the grandest cookie that ever was…”
HT goes to the always entertaining site, The Field Negro. There is an unfortunate urban usage of Oreo, about people who are black outside, but white inside. Field lists ten people who qualify. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the featured photograph in October 1941. “FSA rehabilitation borrower who is a dairy farmer with one of his cows, Tillamook County, Oregon”
Bowels Of Walmart
The latest episode of Blocked and Reported is a return to form. Jesse and Katie are fun to listen to again, although that can change at a moment’s notice. There is a story about a nine year old boy in Vermont inventing a statistic about paper straw use. It was repeated endlessly, without anybody ever asking if it was true. Supposedly, every american uses 1.5 plastic straws a day, although nobody knows what happens to the other half of the second straw. What few thought to say, at least here, was that this was a straw boy argument.
I am the lurking in the bowels of Walmart. That putrescent high Temple of fevered consumerism, where the unwashed masses pay tribute to the mammon of whatever product the boats from China can drag in. And who do I see in the cake mixes, with her cartoon image on the front of a box of Duncan Hines, but Dolly Parton. Who’d a thunk it? Those clever guys know what they’re doing. Dolly is a trusted name brand, with a whole lot more sex appeal than the Pillsbury Doughboy. I suppose you shouldn’t be surprised at anything you see these days.
A cherished part of Little 5 Poetry Bash is stopping for junk food on the way home. First Burger King on North Druid Hills, then Taco Bell on Buford Hiway. It is a treat, and only once a month. The first one to fall was the Taco Bell, which is now closed permanently. The TB on North Druid Hills is a drive through only nightmare, which leaves BK. Tonight, after a night of poetry and a coffee refill … sleep is overrated … it meant braving the pot-hole infested menace of Briarcliff/North Highland, only to find that the time-honored BK has closed.
One of the poets at L5PB posted some pictures. One was me, in my Big Chicken sweater vest, wishing I had not put that haircut off. I was reading my most recent product, a sonnet about passive agressive cliches in today’s discourse. The thing that most offends me is the overblown rhetoric that “both sides” are using to promote their cause. The poem was printed on the back of a list of Piedmont medical facilities, and a few sentences promoting MyChart, the well meaning Piedmont online portal. One cause of high medical costs is the redundant paperwork your provider supplies.
L5P is an alternate reality, especially when you live in McMansion City and only venture into town on the first Monday night every month. When I got to Euclid Avenue, there was a man, walking down the sidewalk with a blanket wrapped around him, shouting Godknowswhat to himself. I get into Java Lords, get my coffee … another thing I don’t do every day, but you have to patronize the establishment. It was a great night, even when Han Vance looked me in the eye while shouting “you’re my wife.” Does Rosser wear the outfit, or does the outfit wear Rosser?
“either you are on the bus or you are not on the bus … that was a catchphrase of the merry pranksters in the electric kool aid acid test” That is a good quote for Mardi Gras. I was in New Orleans for the carnival in 1990, which is the only time I have been there. Tuesday started with mushrooms and a “special” cake, and walking over to where a neighborhood parade was starting. I was thoroughly overwhelmed by the whole experience, sort of enjoying it but feeling an intense sensory overload, and totally feeling like I did not fit it. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Arthur Rothstein took the photograph in July 1938. “A veteran steelworker, Aliquippa, Pennsylvania” · selah
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