Seven Brilliant Quotes
There is a little graphic floating around, Seven Brilliant Quotes. Some find these sayings to be inspirational. PG smells a rat. Here are the seven quotes:
William Shakespeare – Never play with the feelings of others because you may win the game but the risk is that you will surely lose the person for a life time.
Napoleon Bonaparte – The world suffers a lot. Not because of the violence of bad people, but because of the silence of good people.
Albert Einstein – I am thankful to all those who said NO to me. Its because of them I did it myself.
Abraham Lincoln – If friendship is your weakest point then you are the strongest person in the world.
Martin Luther King Jr. – We must learn to live together as brothers or we will perish together as fools.
Mahatma Gandhi – The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
Abdul Kalaam – It is very easy to defeat someone, but it is very hard to win someone.
If nothing else, research into the veracity of these quotes should provide some amusing text to go between the pictures. When you go looking in the land of google, there is no telling what you will find. During this expedition, the first page rule will be in effect. Only results on the first google page will be considered. The NB quote has 1.7 million results, which is too much work.
Lets begin with Willie the shake. Did he really say “Never play with the feelings of others because you may win the game but the risk is that you will surely lose the person for a life time.”? Or, as they say in the Yahoo village, Does anyone know where this Shakespeare quote comes from?
hugeshantz Does anyone know where this Shakespeare quote comes from? I’ve seen this quote all over the internet, always attributed to Shakespeare, but I can’t find a legitimate source of where it comes from (i.e. a specific sonnet, play, speech, etc.): “Never play….” Can anyone help me out here?
Dude the Obscure This is 20th/21st century psychobabble. Shakespeare never wrote anything remotely resembling that. Please never trust any of these idiotic “internet quote sites.” They are all, all, all crap. I can’t believe that any intelligent person could think for a minute that this was written by Shakespeare. Really. Get some critical-thinking skills, child.
The next quote is by Napoleon Bonaparte, not Napoleon Dynamite. “The world suffers a lot. Not because of the violence of bad people, but because of the silence of good people.”
Before we consider the veracity of this quote, lets consider two things. NB did not speak english, so there is likely to be translation confusion. Second, the wars NB started caused widepread suffering. Little of this suffering was caused by the silence of good people.
The sources on page one do little except show the quote, usually with the credit going to NB. No one shows when or where he said it, or in what context. Brainyquotes doea not show it on the NB pages.
Number three is from Albert Einstein.” I am thankful to all those who said NO to me. Its because of them I did it myself.” According to Shelly Winters, Marilyn Monroe did not say no to Dr. Einstein. Google has a doozy of a forum, Misquoting Einstein?.
Jimmy Snyder says the quote has been attributed to Dorothy Parker, Yogi Berra, William Shakespeare, The Bible, Benjamin Franklin, and Groucho Marx. This is a clue that the quote is bogus.
zoobyshoe’s I just found this an another wiki page discussing the quote page: “I am thankful …” This is being attributed to Einstein on the Internet, but it appears to come from Wayne W. Dyer’s book You’ll See It When You Believe It, page 54, according to Google Books. Dyer does not attribute it to Einstein, but mentions Einstein in the same paragraph. “In my office I have two framed posters. One is a picture of Albert Einstein, beneath which are the words “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.” The other poster is made up solely of words: “I am grateful to all those people who said no. It is because of them I did it myself.” Great thoughts!”
Ryan_m_b’s “Never believe quotes you read on the internet” – Winston Churchill zoobyshoe’s His actual words were: “The internet has nothing to offer, but blood, tears, toil, and misquotes.”
It should not be surprising that Winston Churchill finds his way into this discussion. He has a taste for the spotlight, even 47 years after his demise. He is an example of how truthiness is sometimes all you need. His most famous speech was a radio address during a bad part of World War Two. The speech was read by an actor. England was inspired, and went on to win the war. Why should anyone worry if an actor gave his speech for him?
This is enough fun for one day. There will be a part two soon, and it will probably be full of number two. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Welcome to part two of the Chamblee54 due diligence report on the Seven Brilliant Quotes. In part one, we checked out the first three. At no time was a source for the quote found. All three are suspect, with “misunderstanding” indicated in the Albert Einstein quote. It is amazing how quickly accepted these sayings are by the inspiration hungry public.
Getting back to business, did Abraham Lincoln say “If friendship is your weakest point then you are the strongest person in the world.” There are lots of links to this quote, in a variety of fonts and colors. Some have spectacular photography in the background. However, none of these links has a source for this quote, or any indication of the context.
Wikiquotes has 43,444 words about Abraham Lincoln. PG copied these words, and did a search for the word “friendship”. The quote from the poster was not found. The meme is missing. This wikiquotes test has been very useful for checking out quotes. It is not authoritative, but is a good place to start.
This type of research can be frustrating. Being inspired by beautiful words can give you strength and purpose. It can also make you feel foolish, when the lovely words are revealed to be lies. Being a cynic gets lonely. Children of all ages don’t like to be told that there is no Santa Claus.
The good news is that number five is for real. Martin Luther King gave a speech at Western Michigan University in 1963. There is a probably his standard speech, given many times. The second section of the speech is “Call for action.”
“The world in which we live is geographically one. Now we are challenged to make it one in terms of brotherhood. Now through our ethical and moral commitment, we must make of it a brotherhood. We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will perish together as fools. This is the great challenge of the hour. This is true of individuals. It is true of nations. No individual can live alone. No nation can live alone.”
“I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality. [W]e’re challenged after working in the realm of ideas, to move out into the arena of social action and to work passionately and unrelentingly to make racial justice a reality.”
“[W]e must never substitute a doctrine of Black supremacy for white supremacy. For the doctrine of Black supremacy is as dangerous as white supremacy. God is not interested merely in the freedom of black men and brown men and yellow men but God is interested in the freedom of the whole human race, the creation of a society where all men will live together as brothers.”
PG has written about the problem of quoting Mohandas Gandhi before. Supposedly he said “I love your Christ, but I dislike your Christianity.” PG thinks this is a fabrication.
The quote on the poster is “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” Wikiquotes has a link to Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi Online. The next stop is page 302 of this section. Mr. Gandhi gave an “Interview to the press” in Karachi, on March 26, 1931. A freedom fighter named Bhagat Singh had been executed by the British three days earlier.
Do you not think it impolitic to forgive a government which has been guilty of a thousand murders?
I do not know a single instance where forgiveness has been found so wanting as to be impolitic.
But no country has ever shown such forgiveness as India is showing to Britain?
That does not affect my reply. What is true of individuals is true of nations. One cannot forgive too much. The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
The bottom line is from Dr. Abdul Kalam. (The name is misspelled on the poster.) The phrase is “It is very easy to defeat someone, but it is very hard to win someone.” Many viewers have no idea who this person is. Once again, Wikiquotes comes to the rescue. “Dr. Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam (born 15 October 1931) Indian scientist and engineer; 11th President of India; generally referred to as Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.” The quotes are from Wings of Fire: An Autobiography of APJ Abdul Kalam.
A search for the word “defeat” did not show results. A search for “win” shows a few, but not the poster child. The phrase on the poster is also credited to John Keats. There is also the story of the student who argues with an atheist professor, and ultimately wins. The student is sometimes said to be Albert Einstein. In this version, Argumnent : What, Who is GOD?, the coda is “This seems to be a true story, and the student was none other than APJ Abdul Kalam, the former President of India “.
The research for part one consisted of entering the quote into a search engine. It was not until the Lincoln investigation that the method of copying wikiquote, and searching for a key word, was discovered. Out of a sense of fairness, the first three quotes will be investigated using this method.
For William Shakespeare, the search word was risk. There were no results. For Napoleon Bonaparte, the search word was violence. There was one result. “There is no such thing as an absolute despotism; it is only relative. A man cannot wholly free himself from obligation to his fellows, and not the one on the poster. For Albert Einstein, the search word was thankful. There were no results.
So, there are seven quotes in the motivational poster. Only two of the seven have a apparent source. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost. This version is edited, out of concern for the attention span of the audience.
Slavery And The Star Spangled Banner
There is a terrific Backstory episode about the War of 1812. This is a conflict that is not much thought about, even during its bicentennial. It was not a good war for people of color. Native tribes fought with the British in Michigan, and were soundly defeated. After this war, the attitude of the white man towards the natives got worse.
Perhaps the most famous product of the War of 1812 is The Star Spangled Banner, a.k.a. the national anthem. There are a few legends about writing this song that skeptical bloggers like to shoot down. At the 43 minute mark of the backstory episode, another aspect of TSSB is discussed.
It seems as though slaves were escaping their owners, and fighting with the British. Washington lawyer Francis Scott Key was a slave owner, and thought that the slaves would be better off with their owners. This is the sentiment behind the third verse of TSSB.
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
The image of F.S. Key has been cleaned up over the years. This biography omits the third verse of TSSB, and does not mention his slaves. Wikipedia tells a different story.
In 1836, Key prosecuted New York doctor Reuben Crandall, brother of controversial Connecticut school teacher Prudence Crandall, for “seditious libel” for possessing a trunk full of anti-slavery publications in his Georgetown residence. In a trial that attracted nationwide attention, Key charged that Crandall’s actions had the effect of instigating enslaved people to rebel. Crandall’s attorneys acknowledged he opposed slavery but denied any intent or actions to encourage rebellion. In his final address to the jury, Key said “Are you willing gentleman to abandon your country, to permit it to be taken from you, and occupied by the abolitionist, according to whose taste it is to associate and amalgamate with the negro? Or gentleman, on the other hand, are there laws in this community to defend you from the immediate abolitionist, who would open upon you the floodgates of such extensive wickedness and mischief?” Crandall was acquitted.”
The Huffington Post has a story about F.S. Key, ‘Land of the Free?’ Francis Scott Key, Composer of National Anthem, Was Defender of Slavery.
Buying and selling humans remained a respectable business in Washington City. The slave holding elite of the south had a majority in the Congress and a partner in President Andrew Jackson…
To reassert the rule of law, Key set out to crack down on the anti-slavery men and their “incendiary publications.” Informants had reported to the grand jury about an abolitionist doctor from New York who was living in Georgetown. Key charged Rueben Crandall with bringing a trunk full of anti-slavery publications into the city.
In the spring of 1836, Key’s prosecution of Rueben Crandall was a national news story. In response, the American Antislavery Society circulated a broadsheet denouncing Washington as “The Slave Market of America.” The abolitionists needled Key for the hypocrisy of using his patriotic fame to defend tyranny in the capital: “Land of the Free… Home of the Oppressed.”
Key shrugged off his liberal critics. In front of courtroom crowded with Congressmen and correspondents Key waxed eloquent and indignant at the message of the abolitionists. “They declare that every law which sanctions slavery is null and void… ” Key told the jury. “That we have no more rights over our slaves than they have over us. Does not this bring the constitution and the laws under which we live into contempt? Is it not a plain invitation to resist them?”
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
Hair
There is a tasteful feature on the innertubes now, A Few Good Reasons Why White People Should Not Wear “Mohawks” or Dreadlocks. Yes, this is another polemic about cultural appropriation. If you want to skip the text, and look at the pictures, no one will get mad. Or get even. If you read the text, you might get odd. It is your choice.
The gist of the tract is “When white people wear “Mohawks” or dreadlocks it twists those hairstyles into symbols of privilege rather than symbols of survival and resistance.” Little is known about why the Natives of Upstate New York wore their hair the way they did. Isn’t calling this hair choice “symbols of survival and resistance” playing into the game of misunderstanding non European cultures? Anthropology is not an exact science.
The tract is not well written. Maybe the author feels like using good grammar is appropriating someone else’s culture.
There is one part of the tract that had PG shaking his buzz cut head. This is a free country. Can’t I do whatever I want? This country has never been free for people of color/non-white people. Certainly, you can choose wear your hair however you want. Historically, however, people of color have not been able to make that choice. This is not why the Bronner Brothers are multi millionaires. Black Americans spend more on hair care products than the gross national product of many African countries.
Both mohawks and dreadlocks are high maintenance affairs. After his struggles with shoulder length redneck curls, PG is not about to shave the sides of a beaver tail every day. And dreadlocks have always seemed to be just a bit on the dirty side. The rastas are welcome to wear dreadlocks, as long as they pass the spliff.
One thing PG has wondered was answered as a result of this polemic. Did the Mohawk tribe really wear their hair that way? When you type “Did the Mohawk… ” into google, the rest of the phrase to pop up is “Did the Mohawk Indians have mohawks?” Someone else has wondered the same thing. Wikipedia has more information.
The mohawk (also referred to as a mohican in British English) is a hairstyle in which, in the most common variety, both sides of the head are shaven, leaving a strip of noticeably longer hair in the center. Though mohawk is associated mostly with punk rock subculture, today it has entered mainstream fashion. The mohawk is also sometimes referred to as an iro in reference to the Iroquois, from whom the hairstyle is derived – though historically the hair was plucked out rather than shaved. … The Mohawk and the rest of the Iroquois confederacy (Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Tuscarora and Oneida) in fact wore a square of hair on the back of the crown of the head. The Mohawk did not shave their heads when creating this square of hair, but rather pulled the hair out, small tufts at a time. … Therefore a true hairstyle of the Mohawks was one of plucked-out hair, leaving a three-inch square of hair on the back crown of the head with three short braids of hair decorated.
They didn’t shave the sides of the head, they plucked the hair out. That does eliminate the need to shave the sides of your head every day. This is not the way the fashion conscious hair people do the modern mohawk. The question arises if this non authentic hairstyle is really cultural appropriation.
Wikipedia goes on to add that this do might not be an Iroquois invention. “The hairstyle has been in existence in many parts of the world for millennia. For instance, the Clonycavan Man, a 2000-year-old male bog body discovered near Dublin in 2003, was found to be wearing a mohawk styled with plant oil and pine resin. Artwork discovered at the Pazyryk burials dating back to 600 BCE depicts Scythian warriors sporting similar mohawks. The body of a warrior occupying one of the kurgans had been scalped earlier in life and wore a hair prosthesis in the form of a mohawk. Herodotus claimed that the Macai, a northern Libyan tribe, “shave their hair so as to leave tufts, letting the middle of their hair grow long, but round this on all sides shaving it close to the skin.” Amongst the Pawnee people, who historically lived along in present-day Nebraska and Kansas, a “mohawk” hair style was common.”
Part of the polemic took a question and answer format. “But, I wear my hair this way as a statement against oppressive cultures and governments. How is that racist?” “You can take a stand against oppression and dominant cultures without appropriating the cultures of the people being hurt by them. Appropriation actually enforces oppression, it does not stand against it. Appropriation is part of the problem, not part of the solution”
To paraphrase this, you can be anti racist without proudly avoiding high maintenance hairdoos. Especially one that bears little resemblance to the actual article.
There was a statement in yesterday’s post . “Black Americans spend more on hair care products than the gross national product of many African countries.” This was tossed out in a careless moment, which is not a good thing to do. Today’s post is an investigation. For purposes of this report, America’s gross national product is the republican party.
Finding out how much African Americans spend on hair care is more google intensive than this slack reporter imagined. Madame Noire has a feature, Black Women Spend Half a Trillion Dollars on Haircare and Weaves! Why? “Black women spend half a trillion dollars to keep our hairstyles tight, our weaves looking good and our “kitchens” tamed. Why do we do this?” The $500 billion figure might include pain and suffering. Target Market News is more conservative, reporting “Personal Care Products and Services – $6.66 billion”.
In the chatter about a Chris Rock movie, Good Hair, the phrase “9 billion dollar hair trade industry” is used. The Magazine Publishers of America report that advertising spending on “Hair Products & Accessories” was $1,242,700 in 2007.
The short answers are “a lot”, and “we don’t know”. It is probably less that $500 Billion. For the purposes of this feature, we will go with a conservative estimate. This would be Target Market News. Since not all “Personal Care Products and Services” are hair related, we will call our number Five Billion. This is probably a conservative figure, but for our purposes it will do.
The second part of the statement was “Black Americans spend more on hair care products than the gross national product of many African countries.” The numbers come from Wikipedia and the International Money Fund. There are sixteen African countries with GNP less than $5 billion. They include: Mauritania, Swaziland, Togo, Eritrea, Lesotho, Burundi, Sierra Leone, Central African Republic, Cape Verde, Djibouti, Liberia, Seychelles, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Comoros, and São Tomé and Príncipe. The last seven have a GNP less than the amount spent advertising hair products and accessories for Black Americans.
This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Coat Of Many Colors
PG saw a story, and thought about the song, “Coat of many colors”. The b side was by Porter Wagoner, “Coat of many sequins”. COMC is about a woman who is too poor to buy her little girl a coat at the store, so she makes a quilt. The other kids make fun of her, but little Dolly knows that the coat is really made of love.
The song talks about a story in the Bible. PG had heard about the story, but didn’t remember the details. He must have been daydreaming in Sunday School when that story was taught. With the help of google, Genesis 37 appears, as if by magic. Pass the popcorn.
2 These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren; and the lad was with the sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives: and Joseph brought unto his father their evil report.
3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours.
4 And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him.
Ok, hold on for a minute. Israel had at least two wives. The Biblical definition of marriage must be between a man and two women.
The story gets a bit weird here. Joseph has this dream, where he becomes the boss hog brother. The other brothers decide something needs to be done, that Joseph needs to die. Reuben tries to help Joseph, and has a plan to save him. Joseph is stripped of the coat of many colors, and placed in a pit, with no water. Before Reuben can sneak Joseph out of the pit, a camel caravan comes by. Twenty pieces of silver change hands, and Joseph is sold into slavery. The brothers decide to pull a cover up, and make it look like Joseph was dead. Reuben made another sandwich.
31 And they took Joseph’s coat, and killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the coat in the blood;
32 And they sent the coat of many colours, and they brought it to their father; and said, This have we found: know now whether it be thy son’s coat or no.
33 And he knew it, and said, It is my son’s coat; an evil beast hath devoured him; Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces.
34 And Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days.
35 And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted; and he said, For I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning. Thus his father wept for him.
This feature was originally posted in 2012. The pictures, from The Library of Congress, are 4 years older. Dolly Parton is 4 years younger.
The Cost Of Football
Football is just around the corner. The teams are busy with the pre season, and soon weekends will be full of hitting and drinking. Perhaps this is a good time to wonder whether football is worth the human cost. Especially now, with a national debate raging about the future of our health care. Football injuries keep hospitals hopping during the autumn.
This is the annual post about the down side of football. There is a helping of hypocrisy here, as PG enjoys watching the hits. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Football season is here. While the games are fun to watch, the players are paying the price. Your health insurance premiums just might be affected.
Football is a contact sport. On every play, the linemen block other lineman to keep them from tackling a back. Someone gets hit on every play. Most of these hits are “clean” and cause only bruises. Some are “dirty”, and cause injuries. Even the clean hits can hurt someone.
It is estimated that 187,000 emergency room visits every year are due to football. What if an illegal drug sent 187k to the er annually? There would be a hue and cry to kill the pushers.
Knee injuries are especially prevalent. An estimated 45,000 knee operations are performed each year due to football injuries. Arthroscopy is a wonderful invention.
With all those helmets slamming into each other, head injuries occur. “The researchers found that there is approximately one catastrophic head injury per every 150,000 athletes playing, or 7 catastrophic injuries yearly. There were 0.67 injuries per 100,000 players at the high school level and 0.21 injuries per 100,000 for college level football players.” Often, the coaches get caught up in the do or die spirit of a big game, and don’t get the player the medical attention that he needs. “Football is a very macho sport. Athletes are taught to play through pain,” …“But concussions range in severity and symptoms, so all a player may experience is a headache several hours after impact. High school players need to be educated in these symptoms and encouraged to self report.”
Even cheerleading squads are reporting more injuries, due to botched stunts.
When you see the players in their youthful glory, you don’t think what they will look like after they quit playing. Many players know this, but the lure of today’s glory justifies the pain of tomorrow. The heroes of yesterday often walk with pain today.
A Prophet And His Honor
PG was editing pictures, listening to the birds and the lawn mowers, and enjoying himself. He began to think about recent events, both global and local. A phrase came to mind, about a prophet who is not without honor, except in his own land. Wasn’t Jesus supposed to have said that? Before you could say algorithm, there were 1.6 million choices. This is a repost.
The quote is in three of the four gospels. In all of these quotes, Jesus is not received as Lord and savior. It is interesting to see the authors of Matthew, Mark, and Luke agree on this. It is noteworthy that the Council of Nicea decided to include it. Here are the three quotes.
Matthew 13 55 Is not this the carpenter’s son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? 56 And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things? 57 And they were offended in him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house. 58 And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief.
Mark 6 3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him. 4 But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house. 5 And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them. 6 And he marvelled because of their unbelief…
Luke 4 22 And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph’s son? 23 And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country. 24 And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country.
The historic Jesus, as portrayed in the Bible, is a flawed messenger. He apparently did not have the trust of the people. Jesus did not have a problem with false modesty. John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
PG heard a motivational speaker once. He said to sell yourself first, your company second, and your product third. If you are going to win someone over, the person needs to trust you. You cannot call yourself a prophet, and expect them to believe you because your message is so wonderful. This is a concept that Jesus might have had a problem with. Many believers today have the same problem.
Jesus is worshiped as a G-d these days. Modern Christians are more interested in his death, than in his life. The worship of Jesus has devolved into a scheme for life after death. Those who decline to participate in this religion can expect to be insulted. It is a curious sales pitch. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. The agencies were Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information.
The Funeral Of Elvis
PG was going to write about some depressing subject. People that are not kind to each other. People in Israel and people in Gaza just don’t seem to get along. Somebody driving a “faded red F-150 pickup truck” in Livonia MI was mean to a little girl. (HT to Neo Prodigy.) This is a repost. Pictures are from the Farm Security Administration collection of The Library of Congress.
There is a saying, “if a story seems too bad to be true, it probably isn’t”. PG tried to google that phrase, and got confused. Then he seemed to remember reading it in a column by Molly Ivins. Another google adventure, and there was this film. Miss Ivins, who met her maker January 31, 2007, was promoting a book. She sat down with a bald headed man to talk about it. PG could only listen to 24:30 of this video before being seized with the urge to write a story. There is a transcript, which makes “borrowing” so much easier. This film has 34 minutes to go, which just might yield another story or two.
Molly Ivins was a Texas woman. These days there is a lot of talk about Texas, with Governor Big Hair aiming to be the next POTUS under indictment. Mr. Perry claims that his record as Texas Governor qualifies him to have his finger on the nuclear trigger. Miss Ivins repeats something that PG has heard before… “in our state we have the weak governor system, so that really not a great deal is required of the governor, not necessarily to know much or do much. And we’ve had a lot of governors who did neither. “ It makes you wonder how much of that “economic miracle” is because of hair spray.
Texas politics makes about as much sense as Georgia politics. For a lady, with a way with words, it is a gold mine. “the need you have for descriptive terms for stupid when you write about Texas politics is practically infinite. Now I’m not claiming that our state Legislature is dumber than the average state Legislature, but it tends to be dumb in such an outstanding way. It’s, again, that Texas quality of exaggeration and being slightly larger than life. And there are a fair number of people in the Texas Legislature of whom it could fairly be said, `If dumb was dirt, they would cover about an acre.’ And I’m not necessarily opposed to that. I’m–agree with an old state senator who always said that, `If you took all the fools out of the Legislature, it would not be a representative body anymore.'”
We could go through this conversation for a long time, but you probably want to skip ahead and look at pictures. There is one story in this transcript that is too good not to borrow. For some reason, Molly Ivins went to work for The New York Times, aka the gray lady. In August of 1977, she was in the right place at the right time.
Mr. LAMB: And how long did you spend with The New York Times as a reporter?
Ms. IVINS: Six years with The New York Times. Some of it in New York as a political reporter at City Hall in Albany and then later as bureau chief out in the Rocky Mountains.
Mr. LAMB: Would you take a little time and tell us about reporting on the funeral of Elvis Presley?
Ms. IVINS: Oh, now there is something that when I’ve been standing in the checkout line at the grocery store and if I really need to impress people, I just let fall that I covered Elvis’ funeral. And, boy, people just practically draw back with awe. It may yet turn out to be my greatest claim to fame.
I was sitting in The New York City Times one day when I noticed a whole no–knot of editors up around the desk having a–a great scrum of concern, you could tell. It looked sort of like an anthill that had just been stepped on. And it turns out–The New York Times has a large obituary desk, and they prepare obituaries for anybody of prominence who might croak. But it turns out–you may recall that Elvis Presley died untimely and they were completely unprepared.
Now this is an enormous news organization. They have rock music critics and classical music critics and opera critics, but they didn’t have anybody who knew about Elvis Presley’s kind of music. So they’re lookin’ across a whole acre of reporters, and you could see them decide, `Ah-ha, Ivins. She talks funny. She’ll know about Mr. Presley.’
So I wound up writing Elvis’ obituary for The New York Times. I had to refer to him throughout as Mr. Presley. It was agonizing. That’s the style at The New York Times–Mr. Presley. Give me a break. And the next day they sold more newspapers than they did after John Kennedy was assassinated, so that even the editors of The New York Times, who had not quite, you know, been culturally aton–tuned to Elvis, decided that we should send someone to report on the funeral. And I drew that assignment. What a scene it was.
Mr. LAMB: You–you say in the book that you got in the cab and you said, `Take me to Graceland.’ The cabbie peels out of the airport doing 80 and then turns full around to the backseat and drawls, `Ain’t it a shame Elvis had to die while the Shriners are in town?’
Ms. IVINS: That’s exactly what he said. `Shame Elvis had to die while the Shriners are in town.’ And I kind of raised by eyebrows. And sure enough, I realized what he–what he meant after I had been there for awhile because, you know, Shriners in convention–I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a whole lot of Shriners in convention, but they were having a huge national convention that very week in Memphis. And they tend to wear their little red fezzes, and sometimes they drink too much and they march around the hotel hallways tooting on New Year’s Eve horns and riding those funny little tricycles and generally cutting up and having a good time. That’s your Shriners in convention, always something very edifying and enjoyable to watch. But they–every–every hotel room in Memphis was occupied with celebrating Shriners, and then Elvis dies and all these tens of thousands of grieving, hysterical Elvis Presley fans descend on the town.
So you got a whole bunch of sobbing, hysterical Elvis fans, you got a whole bunch of cavorting Shriners. And on top of that they were holding a cheerleading camp. And the cheerleading camp–I don’t know if your memory–with the ethos of the cheerleading camp, but the deal is that every school sends its team–team of cheerleaders to cheerleading camp.
And your effort there at the camp is to win the spirit stick, which looks, to the uninitiated eye, a whole lot like a broom handle painted red, white and blue. But it is the spirit stick. And should your team win it for three days running, you get to keep it. But that has never happened. And the way you earn the spirit stick is you show most spirit. You cheer for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You cheer when the pizza man brings the pizza. You do handsprings end over end down the hallway to the bathroom. I tell you, those young people will throw–show an amount of spirit that would just astonish you in an effort to win that stick.
So here I was for an entire week, dealing with these three groups of people: the young cheerleaders trying to win the spirit stick, the cavorting Shriners and the grieving, hysterical Elvis fans. And I want to assure you that The New York Times is not the kind of newspaper that will let you write about that kind of rich human comedy.
Mr. LAMB: Why?
Ms. IVINS: Because The New York Times, at least in my day, was a very stuffy, pompous newspaper.
Mr. LAMB: What about today?
Ms. IVINS: A little bit better, little bit better than it was.
Mr. LAMB: And…
Ms. IVINS: Has–has–it has a tendency, recidivist tendencies, though. You–you will notice if you read The Times, it–it collapses into pomposity and stuffiness with some regularity.
Mr. LAMB: Why did you leave it?
Ms. IVINS: Well, I–I actually got into trouble at The New York City Times for describing a community chu–chicken killing out West as a gang pluck. Abe Rosenthal was then the editor of the Times and he was not amused.
Mr. LAMB: Did–but did they let it go? Did they let it…
Ms. IVINS: Oh, no. It never made it in the paper. Good heavens, no. Such a thing would never get in The Times in my day.
POSTSCRIPT PG found some pictures, marked up the text, and was ready to post the story. He decided to listen to a bit more of the discussion between Molly Ivins and the bald headed man. When he got to this point, it became apparent that he could listen to Molly Ivins talk, or he could post his story, but he could not do both at the same time.
Ms. IVINS: Oh, well, of course, I’m gonna make fun of it. I mean, Berkeley, California, if you are from Texas, is just hilarious.
Mr. LAMB: Why?
Ms. IVINS: Well, of course, it is just the absolute center of liberalism and political correctness. And it is a veritable hotbed of people, of–bless their hearts, who all think alike, in a liberal way. And, of course, I’m sometimes called a liberal myself, and you would think I would have felt right at home there. But I just am so used to–I’m so used to Texas that I found the culture at Berkeley hysterical.
SJW Are Yucky
This is comment 66.6 I agree with you that SJW are yucky. I disagree with a blanket condemnation of Islam. I would have dealt with white self loathing, and the obsession with OPRAH…other people’s racial attitudes hello. However, you are the one who took the time to make a video. If you want my opinions, you can go to my blog. ~ Listen more than you talk. If you want to be understood, try to understand others. Labels are for jars, not people. ~ @AngryBlackLady It’s not my problem if you (a) are bad at Twitter; (b) get riled up over out-of-context screenshots; (c) can’t read; or (d) are stupid. ~ @dailyzen Find creative ways to release anger that don’t involve having a temper tantrum. ~ the third commandment includes memes ~ @SlavojTweezek great confusion, fallacious argument, intellectual masturbation…. aka the 2016 presidential election ~ Is the big announcement the retirement of Willie Wonka? ~ This would also explain Bernie Sanders. ~ 4110 glenwood road 30032 – 215 sycamore street 30030 ~ @LearningthePath @Frank_Turk @ABereanOne Given that it’s an apologetics podcast and not a discernment podcast… @chamblee54 Maybe it is just somebody that likes to use a lot of big words that they don’t understand ~ Our commenting rules are pretty simple: If you make any overly offensive comment (racist, bigoted, etc..) or go way off topic when not in an Open Post, your comments will be deleted and you will be banned. If you see an offensive or spammy comment you think should be deleted, flag it for the mods and they’ll be forever grateful and give you their first born (although, you probably don’t want that). ~ You and I used to know a few people that would benefit from knowing this. ~ Matt lives in Virginia, where you will, theoretically, have a vote. Many of us do not have a vote. The state we live in is written off to one party or another. Another thing to consider is the local races. Apparently Matt does not worry about the local races. What a conservative. ~ your right to be angry does not include my obligation to listen ~ @KingEric55 Eight years have brilliant Black man as POTUS has so damaged white racists feeling of superiority that many have suffered mental breakdown @chamblee54 8 years with mixed race POTUS has inflated constipated egos to point that many have exploded in shower of shit ~ I would like to believe this. However, the polls said the Senate and Governor’s race was close in 2014. On election day, it was a Republican rout. ~ Is the non binary dude/dudette a dud? ~ @DanaSchwartzzz Even if they want him out, I say the GOP needs to carry their candidate fully to term ~ The sidebar of other articles at the site is called “Thou Shalt Read” ~ @50NerdsofGrey ‘I’ve been a very bad girl,’ she said, biting her lip. ‘I need to be punished.”Very well,’ he said and installed Windows 10 on her laptop. ~ I quit reading when I saw “gaslighted.” ~ @RachelMcKibbens white savior poems that interrogate other white saviors is like watching the front end of a loaf of Wonder bread talk trash on its back end ~ Luther Mckinnon If you were to take a transcript (or a cis-script) of this program you could put a blank every time Kat says black or white. Then, you could put either black, or white,in many of the blank spaces, and it would be true. In a few spots, you would have to substitute prejudiced for racist, because that is how we use those words. Still, many, though not all, of the things Kat is saying about white people, are also true for black people. ~ Kat Blaque Black people have never had the history of supremacy and power that white people have had. So no, these aren’t interchangeable and you look old enough to be more aware of that than the emailer. ~ Luther Mckinnon I was referring to the concept that the community you are familiar with affects the way that you think. ~ Kat Blaque Sure. I didn’t grow up in a black community so I’m not sure how that applies to me. Sometimes switching places doesn’t work. ~ Luther Mckinnon It would have been fun to be comment six, for episode sixty six.~ @suzannahweiss A friendly reminder that even women who are open about sex don’t appreciate being objectified, disrespected, harassed, or made uncomfortable ~ @chamblee54 A friendly reminder that men don’t appreciate being objectified, disrespected, harassed, made uncomfortable ~ @TheBillyProcida Dude if you’re a listener of my podcast, I’m ashamed of you. Bye, boy. ~ @chamblee54 you have just illustrated my point ~ You are blocked from following @TheBillyProcida and viewing @TheBillyProcida’s Tweets. ~ @suzannahweiss Writer, editor, dick pic theorist. Get me drunk & I’ll talk about robot ethics. @glamourmag, @Refinery29, @bustle, @washingtonpost, etc Suzannahlweiss@gmail.com ~ @chamblee54 the manwhore podcast dude blocked me… you have the right to your opinion but men don’t deserve gratuitous abuse ~ You are blocked from following @suzannahweiss and viewing @suzannahweiss’s Tweets. ~ 2 bodies found behind Roswell Publix ~ Natalie Henderson, Carter Davis ~ Keaira Palmer ~ Woman shot in head while driving in Atlanta ~ Ariel & Alaynah ~ Jamarion Rashad Robinson ~ Dylan Scott ~ Robert Wright ~ Exposure to Sexist Humor and Rape Proclivity: The Moderator Effect of Aversiveness Ratings ~ Jessica Lynn Sanders Chicago Racist ~ Does anyone know what happened before the video started? What did MrCrim3 say, or do, to the young lady? ~ Photographer Files $1 Billion Suit Against Getty for Licensing Her Public Domain Images ~ Black Lives Matter Atlanta leaders you should know: Mary Hooks ~ MyScriptFon ~ Admitting that white privilege helps you is really just congratulating yourself ~ @SlavojTweezek In which I show that postgenderism leads to racism, classism, and marriage with animals. The Sexual Is Political ~ @jaxx_mca This should be read, if only to witness great confusion, fallacious argument, and intellectual masturbation. ~ Read Bret Easton Ellis’ excoriating monologue on social justice warriors and political correctness ~ Sky Ferreira ~ campus map ~ Trump or Jesus? ~ Letter to the Terrorists of Palestine ~ Critics See Efforts by Counties and Towns to Purge Minority Voters From Rolls ~ Airbnb’s racism problem is much bigger than a few racist hosts. ~ Black Lives Matter’s Jewish Problem Is Also a Black Problem ~ “it doesn’t matter who you love, or how you love, but that you love”. ~ @NotShaunKing SJWs are now more offended by the Gadsen and Confederate flag, than the ISIS flag. Nice job, people! ~ Wearing ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ insignia could be punishable racial harassment ~ did betsy ross own slaves ~ pictures are from The Library of Congress. ~ selah
Hiroshima 71 Years Later
At 8:15 am, August 6, 1945, Hiroshima got nuked. It was the start of a new era. Since Japan is 13 hours ahead of Georgia, and standard time was used, the literal anniversary is 8:15 pm, August 5.
Tsutomu Yamaguchi was working in Hiroshima when the bomb hit. He survived, and found a train to take hime to his home town, Nagasaki.
The device dropped on Hiroshima, the Little Boy, had an estimated force of 13 kilotons of Trinitrotoluene, or TNT. A kiloton of TNT is roughly a cube whose sides are ten meters. This device is fairly tiny compared to many of the warheads developed since. Many of the modern appliances are measured in megatons, or millions of tons of TNT. The Soviet Union had a bomb with a capacity of 50 megatons, or 4,000 times the size of the Little Boy.
The largest weapon tested by The United States is the Castle Bravo. This device destroyed Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. The two piece swimsuit was named for this island. The Castle Bravo device had a yield of 15 megatons of TNT. This is roughly 1,000 times the power of the Little Boy.
The decision to drop the bomb has long been controversial. There are a lot of factors and gray areas, and the issue does not lend itself to sound bite solutions. The conventional wisdom is that Japan surrendered because of the nuclear attack. This meant the war was shortened by at least a year, there was no invasion of Japan, and many lives were saved. PG is scared by the moral calculus involved in a decision like this….do 100,000 civilian deaths prevent the deaths of 500,000 soldiers? PG suspects that even G-d herself would lose sleep over that one.
There is also evidence that the bomb was not needed. Japan was whipped in August 1945. The air raids were conducted in daylight with little resistance. A debate was going on in the Japanese government on whether to continue the fight.
An event happened the day between Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, which influenced the Japanese decision to surrender. The Soviet Union had agreed to help the United States with the war against Japan. On August 8, The Soviet Union invaded Japanese occupied Manchuria. There are indications that Japan knew the fight was hopeless at this point, and would rather surrender to The United States than The Soviet Union. This is one of the gray areas that never seems to be mentioned.
The United States wanted the war to end quickly for obvious reasons, and a few subtle ones. America did not want to share the spoils of Japanese war with The Soviet Union. There were already tensions between the two allies, and the cold war was not far off. Many felt The United States used the Little Boy as a warning to The Soviet Union.
When you get your moral software out, you might want to figure in the effect of opening the nuclear Pandora’s box. Would the nuclear bomb have been developed by other countries if America had not led the way? The science is not that complicated…after all, America hit paydirt with the Manhattan Project fairly quickly. Nonetheless, there is karma involved in using a terrible new device on a civilian population. The United States started the wind of the arms race, and has yet to feel the whirlwind.
This is a repost. The pictures are from The Library of Congress. Ansel Adams took pictures of Japanese Americans, in a World War Two internment camp. The ladies in the bridge game are Aiko Hamaguchi, Chiye Yamanaki, Catherine Yamaguchi, and Kazoko Nagahama.
#NPS2016 Semi Finals
When PG left the Decatur Library auditorium wednesday, he thought he was through with the National Poetry Slam. Too much anger. Too much shouting. Going home with a headache is not pleasant. Your right to be angry does not include my obligation to listen.
An email thursday changed that. “Hello All, We also have ten to twelve shifts to fill for Friday that are up for grabs! Please shout out if you can be one of those people :)” Maybe Wednesday afternoon was a fluke, and things would be better with another try. PG replied to the email. The next assignment was a semi-final bout on Friday night. The venue was a chapel at Agnes Scott College. This is the beautiful women’s college just south of downtown Decatur.
The event began like most volunteer NPS gigs. You show up on time, and wait for something to do. The email said something about keeping food out of the auditorium. PG wound up standing at the front door, welcoming people with badges and tickets, and directing those needing tickets to the sales lady. It was the loosest door PG has ever seen. It was basically honor system, and seemed to work pretty well. The chapel was about two thirds full.
The plan was for a few teams, who won the first round, were competing for the finals. People… either solo, in pairs, or in teams… performed the work. The pieces were memorized, not read. Judges gave a score. Somebody was keeping track of the points. At the end, a winner was announced.
When the subject matter got too heavy, PG would step back into the lobby, or go outside. It was not an endurance contest. Most of the first few performers talked about black anger. This is a constant topic at NPS, and the rest of America. PG is sympathetic up to a point. This is a sensitive issue. If listening to all this anger would produce good results, PG would cheerfully do so. Instead, PG just tries to remember that he is one of G-d’s children. These things too shall pass away.
The other hot subject was rape. The winner of the haiku tournament was a lady from Austin TX, Gloria B. She performed a piece about rape. There was a lot of fast, loud, angry talking. PG missed some of the qualifying details. What he did hear was at the end. This is not a verbatim quote. “Men, if you want to know what rape culture is, it is you.” While Gloria B might not have meant that…. that men were rape culture … that is the message the PG heard. When people are shouting, subtleties and nuance go out the window. What comes through is the message… YOU ARE RAPE CULTURE.
Gloria B, and a partner, had a piece later in the show. The two women shouted, both standing up and crouched over. The piece could be summed up by a haiku Gloria B did wednesday… again, this is not a verbatim quote… call me bitch and that gives me permission to show you what one is. The piece was extremely well received by the audience. As for confusing Gloria B with a lady dog ….
There were several rounds of competition. One man did a delicious piece about bacon. A team from Charlotte did a piece where a black man told a poem, and a white man danced. The black Charlotte man later performed a piece, that referenced some of the other performers. The piece acknowledged the anger that drives many of the poets, but also saw a need to move past this into something for the greater good. (This is way one volunteer usher heard it.) PG thought this was the best piece of the night.
The winners were announced. Neo Soul, from Austin TX, goes to the finals. This is Gloria B’s team. PG hung around the chapel for a while, until the late show crew took over. PG had a headache when he left. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. While looking for these pictures, PG found his annual post about Hiroshima. The first atomic bomb was dropped on Japanese civilians seventy one years ago today.
Conservative Liberal Racist
The management of this blog is not responsible for brain damage incurred while reading this post. If you cant take the heat, get out of the kitchen. Those threatened by this discussion, or not interested, are encouraged to skip over the text, and look at the pictures. These images, of Union Soldiers of the War Between the States, are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
There is a meme, with the text a conservative is a liberal who has been labeled a racist. A few comments followed publication. Someone was paying attention. Uhm…WTF?! ~ its a long story ~ All three labels are useless and misleading. I try not to let the labels of others describe me, but sometimes it happens. It is a bit of poetic license.
The words liberal and conservative are useless. When he started to make the comment, PG intended to refer to those two expressions. Then he started to type.The realization hit … the word racist was just as obsolete as liberal and conservative, and probably misused more often.
The next day at work, PG began to think. If you saw a mushroom cloud rising over Jimmy Carter Boulevard, that is what you saw. Random thoughts began to emerge.
A- The popularity of con, lib, and rac, derive from America’s blind allegiance to the belief paradigm The general thought is that what you believe is more important than what you do. The dominant religion in America is Jesus Worship, which is based on beliefs rather than practices. While America is not officially a Christian country, their thought processes dominate the way things work here.
B- The belief paradigm filters down to the popularity of silly labels.We have people who claim to be small government conservatives, and who support sending 200k troops to a war eight time zone away. You can treat your black neighbors with kindness and grace, but if you say the wrong things on facebook you are considered a racist. It is a funny system.
C- Conservatives use liberal as an insult. Liberals use racist as an insult.
D- No one is certain what the words conservative, liberal, and racist mean. You should beware of anyone who claims to be certain of what these labels represent.
Mystics And Statistics
In a recent survey, 78.7% percent of the respondents agree with the statement “Statistics can be trusted to give an accurate description of the facts”.
Statistics are a part of modern life. Numbers tell us who is expected to win, who is expected to lose, and how many men wear a tie. Statistics are often misleading, or an outright lie. And yet, people believe statistics. (The middle three letters of believe are lie).
Talk about statistics is little better. Mark Twain gets the credit/blame for popularizing the phrase, “lies, damn lies, and statistics”. According to Wikipedia , Mr. Clemens may have been mistaken. “Twain popularized the saying in “Chapters from My Autobiography”, published in the North American Review in 1906. “Figures often beguile me,” he wrote, “particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: ‘There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.'”…”The term was popularized in the United States by Mark Twain (among others), who attributed it to the 19th Century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881): “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” However, the phrase is not found in any of Disraeli’s works and the earliest known appearances were years after his death.”
Mr. Twain was in the twilight of his career, and angry at aggressive militarism. Why would he would give credit/blame for a phrase to a conservative Prime Minister of England, dead twenty five years?
When PG took English101, the teacher was an inspiring lady named Ann Peets. Between stories of Faulkner and comma splices, she contributed this gem. ” The best way to win an argument is to use statistics. The best way to use statistics is to make them up. ”
In 1954, a bestselling book came out, “How to Lie with Statistics .” The premise was that the pros knew the tricks, and the public has a right to self defense. There are numerous examples of the ways that you can lie with numbers just like you lie with words. Calculator lips don’t move.
One word to watch out for is average . The three most popular types are mean, median, and mode. Mean is the one most people think of as average…you add all the figures up, and divide by the number of entries. In median, you line up the entries in numeric value, and choose the entry in the middle. In mode, the number that the most entries identify with is the average. Any one of these three can be called average, and yet none might describe the typical entry.
HT to Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub for attributing the LDL&S quote to Mr. Disraeli. MFB was talking about global warming denial, a cesspool of lies and statistics. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. These pictures were taken by Ansel Adams at a relocation camp for Japanese Americans during World War II. Pictures of Mark Twain were recently posted. This is a repost.
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