Dr. King And Mr. King
PG stumbled onto a blog post about a speech. It was delivered August 28, 1963, by Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. You have probably heard the money quote many times, but how many have heard the entire 881 words. PG had not, and decided to take a look.
The speech is really a sermon. It is delivered with the cadence, and rhetorical flourishes, of the church. Dr. King was a minister. The Jesus worship church is a huge player in African America. The fact that slaves were introduced to this religion by their owners seems to be forgotten.
The term used is Negro. This was the polite word in 1963. The custom of saying Black started in the late sixties, at least partially inspired by James Brown. Negro began to be seen as an insult, along with the infamous N-word … which is really just a lazy way of saying Negro.
As the speech is working up to the climax, there is a line “But not only there; let freedom ring from the Stone Mountain of Georgia!” Today, Stone Mountain is a middle class black community. DeKalb County is mostly black, and the political leadership is African American. This was a long way from happening in 1963.
Twelve weeks after Dr. King gave his speech, President John Kennedy was killed. Part of the reaction to this tragedy was the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The next year saw the Voting Rights Act, and escalation of the war in Vietnam. It seemed that for every step forward, there was a half step back. People lost patience with non violence. America did not implode, but somehow survived. It is now fifty three years later.
The other day PG stumbled onto a blog post, about a speech given by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This address was deemed “the singularly most-important speech on race in the history of this country.”
PG admires Dr. King. He is also suspicious of superlatives. There were some comments made by Rodney Glen King III. The comments by Mr King were briefer, and tougher to live up to.
While thinking of things to write about, PG realized that he had never seen the actual quote by Mr. King. It is embedded above. When you see this video, you might realize that Mr. King has been misquoted. The popular version has him saying “Can’t we all just get along.” He did not say just.
Mr. King was known to America as Rodney King. His friends called him Glen. His comments, at 7:01, May 1, 1992, went like this: ““People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along? Can we get along? Can we stop making it, making it horrible for the older people and the kids? . . . Please, we can get along here. We all can get along. I mean, we’re all stuck here for a while. Let’s try to work it out. Let’s try to beat it. Let’s try to beat it.”
The circumstances of the two comments could not be more different. Dr. King was giving the sermon of his life. There was an enormous crowd, both in person and on TV. His comments were scripted, rehearsed, and delivered with the style that he was famous for.
Mr. King, by contrast, had just seen the officers who beat him acquitted. Cities from coast to coast were in violent upheaval. Mr. King was speaking to reporters without benefit of a speech writer. What he said might be more important. This double repost has pictures from The Library of Congress.
Thomas Jefferson Said What?
PG was wasting time with facebook when he saw a friend say “Damn I love this quote”. The passage being praised was “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” Desmond Tutu. The rhetoric alert started to flash. These days, the wolf and the sheep buy their clothes at the same Walmart. To hear some oppressors talk, they are the ones under attack. It is tough to tell the good guys from the bad guys. Often you can make things worse by getting mixed up. Sometimes the best thing to do is mind your own business.
Ok, now that is out of the way. Some lines sound good, but don’t hold up to a bit of thinking. As for the veracity of the quote, Desmond Tutu may very well have said it. (or maybe one of his rivals said it, and Mr. Tutu copied it.) The quote has been attributed to Thomas Jefferson, Edmund Burke, Patrick Henry, and probably others. Almost no one has a source, for the quote, from the dead white guys.
A post called MISQUOTING THE FOUNDERS did not mince words. “The only problem with this scene that has been repeated many times across the country is that Thomas Jefferson never said that, never wrote that, and quite possibly never thought it. Our aspiring politician had fallen victim to the perils of popular misattribution. You could fill a book with misquotes and misattributed quotes we hear repeated regularly today. Right now if I Google “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent” the entire first page of results wrongly attribute it to Thomas Jefferson. The quote and its many variants have been attributed in the past to Thomas Paine and Edmund Burke, but no record exists of the quote in any of their writings or contemporary accounts.”
On November 13, 1787, Mr. Jefferson wrote a letter to William Smith. The letter is full of zesty quotes. “What country before ever existed a century & a half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.”
A few lines above that, Mr. Jefferson said “God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion.” Twenty years after he wrote this, Mr. Jefferson was President. He probably did not want to deal with a revolution when he was President.
Getting back to the quote about tyranny, Martin Porter wrote an entertaining essay, A study of a Web quotation. He gives credit, or blame, to Edmund Burke. First, a list of different versions is presented. This is a clue that something is awry. The conclusion: “There is no original. The quote is bogus, and Burke never said it. It is a pseudo-quote, and corresponds to real quotes in the same way that urban legends about the ghost hitch-hiker vanishing in the back of the car and alligators in the sewers correspond to true news stories.”
Mr. Porter wrote a follow up essay, Four Principles of Quotation. These principles are: Principle 1 (for readers) Whenever you see a quotation given with an author but no source assume that it is probably bogus. Principle 2 (for readers) Whenever you see a quotation given with a full source assume that it is probably being misused, unless you find good evidence that the quoter has read it in the source. Principle 3 (for quoters) Whenever you make a quotation, give the exact source. Principle 4 (for quoters) Only quote from works that you have read.
If these principles were to be used, then there would be a lot less hotheaded talking on the intercom. Those who are trying to influence you to the justice of their cause will not want you to read this. Pictures for this feature are from The Library of Congress. These pictures are Union soldiers, from the War Between the States. When war is discussed, all inspiring quotes are in doubt.
This is a repost. It is written like James Joyce. In the past year, doing due diligence on alleged quotes has become a hobby. Many people don’t care who said it, if they agree with the thoughts expressed. The prevailing thought is that an idea becomes more true with a famous name at the end. If the famous person is deceased, and cannot defend his/her reputation, that is not a problem. People do not like being told that Santa Claus does not exist.
Kenneth Fults And Cathy Bounds
Kenneth Earl Fults is scheduled to be executed on April 12. Mr. Fults (GDC ID: 0000927117) was convicted of killing Cathy Bounds on January 30, 1996. Here is exerpts from the Press Advisory, issued by Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens.
The evidence adduced at Fults’ sentencing trial showed that he carried out a week-long crime spree which was centered, at least in part, upon his desire to murder a man who was engaged in a relationship with his former girlfriend. Fults first committed two burglaries, obtaining several handguns. After a failed attempt at murdering his former girlfriend’s new boyfriend with one of the stolen handguns, Fults then burglarized the home of his next-door neighbors. After the male neighbor left for work, Fults forced his way through the front door wearing gloves and a hat pulled down over his face. Fults confronted the female occupant of the home, Cathy Bounds, brandishing a .22 caliber handgun he had stolen during one of the burglaries. Ms. Bounds begged for her life and offered Fults the rings on her fingers. Fults turned Ms. Bounds around toward the bedroom, either taped or forced her to tape her eyes closed by wrapping over six feet of electrical tape around her head, forced her into the bedroom, placed her face-down on her bed, placed a pillow over her head, and shot her five times in the back of the head.
A search of Fults’ trailer home revealed a boastful letter he had written in gang code in which he described the murder with some alterations of detail. Upon being confronted with this letter by a law enforcement officer, Fults confessed to killing Ms. Bounds but maintained that he had shot her by accident while in a dream-like state. The murder weapon was recovered from under Fults’ trailer home, and .22 caliber shell casings shown to have been fired by the murder weapon as well as items from the earlier burglaries were found behind Fults’ trailer home.”
Kenneth Fults is black. His victim, Cathy Bounds, apparently is white. Chamblee54 has been unable to find a picture of Ms. Bounds. One indication that she is white is a comment made by juror Thomas Buffington. “In a footnote to the 22-page decision, the three-judge appellate panel noted that “Buffington denied having any racial prejudices” during voir dire questioning before the trial. … Buffington had told the court back in 1997 “that it did not matter that Mr. Fults was black and that Ms. Bounds was white,” the footnote states.” We will hear about Thomas Buffington again.
There are indications that his attorney, Johnny Mostiler, was incompetent. “Former jurors on the case have since signed affidavits saying that Kenneth’s trial lawyer made little effort to save his client from, and was seen to be asleep during the proceedings. ‘Mr Fults’s lawyer… was uninterested in what was happening, and it seemed like something was wrong with him. I saw him fall asleep repeatedly during the trial, and he would wake up, startled, when it was his turn to examine witnesses. I saw him sleeping off and on throughout the whole trial.’
Kenneth Fults had a tough life. There are indications that he is “intellectually disabled.” Mother Jones discusses these issues in detail. “I just lost sight of raising my kids,” his mother, Juanita Wyatt, told a state court judge, explaining the result of her crack and alcohol addictions. She was court-martialed from the military for writing bad checks to buy drugs, moved her children from house to house and state to state, abused them with switches and belts and electrical cords—using the plug end when the cord itself ceased to have the necessary impact. Whatever boyfriend happened to be with her at the time often joined in. As for Kenneth’s father, the man was no more than a name to him.
Kenneth’s mother didn’t just lose sight of raising her children—she lost sight of them entirely. His younger sister remembered how their mom had abandoned the kids after moving the family to Houston: “We stayed there alone without any adults watching over us so long that the power company had turned off all the utilities. We didn’t have heat or lights; I don’t remember if we had water. I don’t remember how long we were alone…I know it was at least a couple of months. I was really scared. Kenny and Michael tried to make it like it was fun and we were just camping out or something. I know they started stealing for us to have something to eat, because we did not have any money. I also remember that Michael had them dig a hole in the ground in the backyard to bury some of our food to try and keep it cold when our electricity was turned off.”
Legally speaking, the most compelling reason not to sentence Fults to death is that he may be intellectually disabled. Three separate IQ tests over a 16-year period, one of them seven years prior to the murder, all fall within the range for mental retardation. By seventh grade, Fults was testing near the bottom in basic skills. In eighth, he was placed in a “special class…for slow learners.” In that class, a former teacher recalled, Kenny was the “poorest performing student.” There also was abundant testimony that he was incapable of keeping his money straight or filling out job applications. And as a child, he related to far younger children.”
There is the possibility that others were involved in the killing. “Fults contends that his trial counsel, who is now deceased, rendered ineffective assistance by failing to investigate more fully Fults’ claim that other persons were involved and were more culpable in the murder than he was. … Fults testified in the evidentiary hearing held on remand that he informed his trial counsel approximately two weeks before jury selection began that several other persons were involved in the burglary of the victim’s trailer home and that another person, identified by Fults in the evidentiary hearing as “D.” and as “Derrick Smith,” did the actual shooting at the behest of someone identified as “K. G.” Fults further testified, however, that he would not have allowed trial counsel to present this theory about the crime at trial and that he had informed his trial counsel that he would not testify about the alleged co-perpetrators because he feared for the safety of his daughter.”
Perhaps the strangest thing about this case is juror Thomas Buffington. “It was not until April 2005, eight years after sentencing, that Fults claimed in an amended state habeas corpus petition that the “improper biases of jurors … infected their deliberations,” causing them to “improperly prejudg[e]” his case. In support of that claim, Fults provided a handwritten, signed and notarized affidavit from one of the sentencing jurors, Thomas Buffington, dated two days before the petition was filed. “I don’t know if he ever killed anybody, but that nigger got just what should have happened,” Buffington wrote. “Once he pled guilty, I knew I would vote for the death penalty because that’s what that nigger deserved.”
“Court papers offer no explanation for why eight years elapsed between the trial and Buffington’s comments to the investigator. Lindsay N. Bennett, an assistant federal public defender in Sacramento, California, who is representing Fults, said it is common in Georgia for a defendant’s legal team to reach out to jurors at that stage of an appeal, but not earlier. “During the course of the interview about his jury service, he made the statements reflected in the affidavit,” Bennett said. “They caught the investigator completely off guard because she had no reason to believe prior to that time that this was the case.” Buffington further surprised the investigator by agreeing to sign the statement.”
Mr. Fults requested “a t-bone steak, baked potato with butter, brown rice and apple juice ” for his last meal. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. UPDATE: Kenneth Fults died at 7:37 pm, April 12, 2016.”…he ended the prayer offered by the chaplain with, “Amen.””
Shocking Information
I wrote 1984. as a warning not as a fucking instruction manual. ~ Did anyone “change their profile in solidarity” after a drone strike? ~ I always wonder what sort of crookedness is going unnoticed when nonsense like RFRA gets all the attention. ~ @JoanneWiggyG Love space,cats,yoga,karaoke,Poetess © #JoanneWiggyG Smart,passionate,loyal.#No2EU,#Brexit,#Jockney,#MiddleKid, ❤️#2ndWifey ❤️ #LetsUnite #BetterTogether #COYG ~ @SusanSarandon Mother, activist, actress and ping pong propagandist at @WeAreSPiN New York, NY ~ Lets do a remake of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Donald Trump can be Frank N Furter. Ted Cruz can be Rif Raff. Hillary Clinton can be Magenta. Susan Sarandon can repeat as Janet Weiss, with Bernie Sanders as Brad Majors. ~ The calculator on this machine says “invalid entry” when I ask for the square root of -2 and -9. Is the square of invalid entry a walking exit? ~ @milkvamp Susan Sarandon also supported Ralph Nader? Sounds like she has good taste in politicians to me. @chamblee54 @milkvamp Ralph Nader helped get George W Bush elected good intentions sometimes have horrific results @OmanReagan In Florida’s 2000 presidential election 308,000 Democrats voted for Bush, only 24,000 Democrats voted for Nader @OmanReagan Aside from Democrats in FL, Gore lost 191,000 self-described liberals to Bush, but less than 34,000 self-described liberals voted for Nader. @OmanReagan In 2000 in Florida, irregularities aside, Gore ‘lost’ to Bush because women, democrats, and independents voted for Bush, not Nader. @OmanReagan It wasn’t Third Party that did it, it was Democrats (and SCOTUS): 12% of Florida Democrats (over 300,000 people) voted for Bush in 2000 @OmanReagan Write these facts down, share them every time you hear the myth. Americans are terrified of 3rd parties b/c elites want it that way. ~ Maybe the test should be whether you are good at making an educated guess. I only knew five of the questions, but guessed four out of the other five. I also might (if I cared enough, which is doubtful) investigate some of these questions. I never heard of it being illegal to name a horse Hitler, and suspect BS. ~ Sounds like fun Do you have a link? ~ I find it curious that respect-ability is a dirty word to some. ~ Has @realDonaldTrump @tedcruz @SenSanders ever paid for an abortion? Has @HillaryClinton ever had an abortion? ~ Is @nero the illegitimate offspring of @realDonaldTrump and @Courtney Love Cobain? ~ Shocking information found about Marshall Hill ~ In the pool at Pineapple Point Guest House in Victoria Park, we listened to a proctologist from Minneapolis list the things he has extracted from clients. These include a baffling number of batteries (in a wide range of sizes from AAA – D and dangerous when they leak) and a Barbie shoe. ~ Why would you need professional help to get a Barbie shoe out? I didn’t ask. ~ The Sponsored Listings displayed above are served automatically by a third party. Neither Parkingcrew nor the domain owner maintain any relationship with the advertisers. ~ 1- Lets do a remake of the #RockyHorrorPictureShow. @donaldtrum can be Frank N Furter.#tedcruz as Rif Raff. @HillaryClinton can be Magenta. 2- @SusanSarandon can repeat as Janet Weiss, with @SenSanders as Brad Majors. ~ @AryehCW Everyone mentioned in this post this post should #DonSackclothAndAshesAndWalkBarefoot @chamblee54 can you make a sackcloth and ashes pantsuit for Hillary? @AryehCW she should trek to Lourdes and bathe in the healing waters ~ @Zigmanfreud ~ @chamblee54 i got “Another Roadside Attraction” at the library yesterday After 38 years going to do it again @DailyRobbins attaboy. that’s what I like to hear. ~ is this worth one my free peaks behind the pay wall? ~ big mac is two for five dollars what could go wrong? ~ even if benghazi was real f up, few would believe it…fox news, & fellow travelers, had been crying wolf for years ~ I just got a robocall from someone running for Dekalb County CEO. The name is @conniejstokes I will not vote for her ~ the abbreviation for singular they should be sin. they ~ @freddiedeboer Well this is the most manipulative thing I’ll read in 2016 @chamblee54 is this worth one my free peaks behind the pay wall? @freddiedeboer No need to worry – if you click a link from Twitter, it bypasses the pay wall. @freddiedeboer (You should still subscribe if you are a regular consumer of their news and if you can afford to, though. @chamblee54 pay wall links are hit or miss … that was also a rhetorical question ~ George Orwell ~ Orwell was a warning, not an instruction manual ~ Atlas Shrugged is a warning not an instruction manual. ~ George Orwell ~ The masterpiece that killed George Orwell. ~ 2001 ~ Obama’s Feds Spend Thousands to Study French Lesbians… No Wonder We Are a Joke ~ test ~ Schedule 5 – Registration of Ownership Names’ and Styles ~ Schedule 1 – Registration of horse names ~ Horse Racing: Banned Horse Names ~ ‘Mental.’ ‘Utterly Stupid.’ ‘Trump Only Cares About Trump.’ ~ daddy ~ video ~ A Note on Call-Out Culture ~ In Defense Of Donald Trump’s Heidi Cruz Tweet ~ Milo Yiannopoulos ✘ ~ Daddy ~ First openly gay congressman savages Bernie Sanders: ‘He’s achieved very little’ ~ him ~ Here’s why a Bernie Sanders victory for the nomination would make him a hypocrite ~ Did he say it? Misquoting Noam Chomsky on Gaza ~ Michael Sam Says He Faced More Racism In The LGBT Community Than Black Homophobia ~ F*cking A Black Person Does Not Mean You Fight For Black Lives ~ pictures from The Library of Congress. ~ selah
Joshua Bishop And Leverett Morrison
The State of Georgia is planning to execute Joshua Bishop tonight. Mr. Bishop was convicted of beating Leverett Morrison to death June 25, 1994. A co-defendant, Mark Braxley, is currently serving a life sentence in Reidsville. There is a possibility that Mr. Morrison was the father of Mr. Bishop
A press advisory from the State Attorney General tells the story as well as anyone. Further details will be supplied in parentheses, with a link to the source.
“[Leverett] Morrison drove Bishop and Bishop’s co-indictee, Mark Braxley, to a bar. Bishop and Braxley decided to steal Morrison’s car. The three left the bar around 11:00 p.m., June 24, 1994, and drove to Braxley’s trailer. (192 Linton Road) Bishop reached into the sleeping Morrison’s pocket for the car keys, but Morrison awoke and sat up. Bishop began to beat Morrison about the head and face with a blunt object. When Morrison was unconscious, Bishop took the car keys. Eventually realizing that Morrison was dead, Bishop and Braxley wrapped and then loaded the body into the back seat of Morrison’s car. They drove to a dumpster which was located a short distance from Braxley’s trailer. After unsuccessfully attempting to toss Morrison’s body into the dumpster, Bishop and Braxley left the body on the ground where it was discovered several hours later. They drove Morrison’s car into the nearby woods, set it on fire, and then walked back to Braxley’s trailer to dispose of evidence of their crimes. (No murder weapon was ever recovered.) After his arrest, Bishop made a statement in which he admitted delivering the blows with a wooden rod until Morrison stopped breathing, and described how he and Braxley disposed of the body and burned the car. Bishop subsequently confessed that, some two weeks prior to the murder of Morrison, he participated in the murder of Ricky Lee Wills and that he buried Wills’ body in the woods near Braxley’s trailer. (…then-district attorney Fred Bright said Willis died June 9, 1994. He was beaten with a blunt object, had eight deep lacerations on his head and face, had four broken ribs and his throat was cut with a knife. Bright told jurors Bishop and Braxley buried Willis in the woods behind Braxley’s father’s trailer and had to break the man’s legs to get him into the shallow grave.) After investigators recovered Wills’ body, a grand jury indicted Bishop and Braxley for that murder as well. The trial court admitted evidence regarding Bishop’s participation in Wills’ murder in aggravation of punishment during the penalty phase of this trial for Morrison’s murder. (Bishop said he killed Wills because Wills boasted about sexually assaulting Bishop’s mother.)
Although both Bishop and Braxley initially denied any involvement in the murder of Morrison, Bishop later confessed in a statement given to Detective Ricky Horn. In his statement, which was audiotaped and played by the State for the jury, Bishop explained at considerable length the events culminating in the beating and murder of Morrison.(Bishop urges that his inculpatory in-custody statement should not have been admitted because, as the result of antecedent drinking and smoking crack cocaine, he was unable to make a knowing waiver of his rights.)
Bishop, Braxley, and Morrison had been drinking through the afternoon and had smoked crack later that evening. That night, Braxley suggested that Bishop take the keys to Morrison’s Jeep; Morrison was lying in bed at the time. According to Bishop, when he reached into Morrison’s pocket, Morrison “popped [him] and asked [him] what [he] was doing.” Bishop then hit Morrison with a wooden stick that “was like a closet rod.” In Bishop’s words, he used “[o]ne of them big heavy closet rods.” Bishop explained, “I hit him too hard, I reckon, and he didn’t say anything. He just wouldn’t breathe.” At one point in his statement Bishop said that he hit Morrison on the backside of his head “about twice” and Braxley hit him “about three times.” “I hit [Morrison] like three times in the head with that stick, just to see the first time if I could knock him out where I could get his keys. But he wouldn’t knock out. I hit him one more time and finally, he looked like he was knocked out.”
According to Bishop, he then exited the room, but left the key to Morrison’s Jeep on a coffee table. Bishop added that, while he was outside the room, he “heard something loud.” He elaborated: “When I went back in there after I left the key on the coffee table, I walked back there and saw that [Morrison] was dead. I saw we were messing up pretty bad. He wasn’t breathing. I checked him out and he wasn’t breathing. He was dead.” Bishop explained that he and Braxley then wrapped Morrison in a comforter and placed his body in the back seat of the Jeep, and that they tried unsuccessfully to put Morrison’s body in a dumpster but ended up leaving the body between two dumpsters. At Braxley’s suggestion, Bishop took the Jeep to a nearby pond, poured gasoline all over it, and lit it on fire, destroying all but the frame of the vehicle. ( Prior to Bishop’s arrest, the officers had the following reasonably trustworthy information: Morrison was last seen alive leaving the bar with Bishop and Braxley around 11:00 p.m. Although Bishop and Braxley claimed Morrison left the trailer in his car about 2:00 or 2:30 a.m., they were seen driving Morrison’s car after 3:00 a.m. Morrison’s body was found several hours later, less than a mile away from Braxley’s trailer. These facts were sufficient to give the officers a particularized and objective basis for believing that Bishop murdered Morrison. … The singed hair on his hands indicated that Bishop set fire to Morrison’s car.)
Dr. James Dawson testified regarding Morrison’s injuries and cause of death. He determined that Morrison died in the early morning hours of June 25, 1994, as a result of inner cranial bleeding, with contributing factors of a cerebral contusion and aspiration of blood, all caused by blunt force trauma to the head. Dr. Dawson confirmed that Morrison was beaten to death. Several of Morrison’s seven significant head wounds appeared to have been caused by a cylindrical, circular, or tubular object, while other wounds appeared to have been caused by a flat object. Dr. Dawson could not state the order in which the seven injuries took place, nor could he state whether the first blow, the seventh blow, any of the blows in between, or any combination of the blows caused the cerebral contusion (bruising of the brain) or the hemorrhage resulting in inner cranial bleeding and ultimately death; finally, the medical examiner confirmed that all seven injuries occurred while Morrison was alive.” (Leverett Morrison is buried at Baldwin Memorial Gardens, Milledgeville GA)
The fishwrapper published a story the other day, Violent childhood put Georgia killer on sure path to Death Row. It is a doozie. Here are excerpts.
“When Morrison and Wills were murdered, Bishop had been living under a bridge with his mother, an alcoholic and drug addict who sometimes prostituted herself. She was heard telling her son that men show their love with punches, slaps and verbal assaults. She knew a man loved her, she told her son, if he beat her. … Bishop’s mother treated her two sons like “drinking buddies,” wrote Barbara Cheeley, the boys’ aunt. “This seemed to be the way she dealt with them best.” …
Carolyn Bishop was 17 when she gave birth to Joshua Bishop’s older brother, Michael. Michael Bishop’s father, Mike, was 14 years old when he married Carolyn. Joshua Bishop, however, never knew for certain who his father was. “Josh was almost obsessed with finding out who his daddy was,” the brother wrote in an affidavit. “It was sad for me to hear Josh ask so many people while he was growing up who his daddy was. The answer was usually ‘I don’t know.’”
Carolyn Bishop told her younger son that one of three men could be his father, most likely Albert Ray Morrison, who was Leverette Morrison’s brother. “Many people say Josh is my son but I don’t really know for sure,” Albert Morrison wrote. “His mama, Carolyn, went with a lot of men, including me and Leverette.” … his dead brother had “problems with drugs as far back as I can remember…. I know Josh was charged with killing Leverette and received a death sentence for it. But Josh is the same people as me and Leverette. With all the drinking and crack going on, it could just as easily have been Josh who was killed as my brother.” …
Joshua Bishop first tasted alcohol at 4 and in just a few years was “huffing” chemicals like gasoline. Eventually, he was using cocaine and drinking with his mother. ” His last meal request is a barbecue sandwich, Brunswick stew, potato chips, coleslaw, lemonade and purple candy. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. UPDATE: Joshua Bishop died at 9:27 pm, March 31, 2016.
Warning Not A Manual
What better way to start the new week but a meme, featuring a quote from a famous person. “I wrote 1984. as a warning not as a fucking instruction manual.” George Orwell
Chamblee54 has a ten minute rule on quotes. If you can’t find the source in ten minutes, then the quote is disputed. Fake is a harsh word. “I wrote 1984.” fails the ten minute test. It also has an extra period, which does nothing for it. A learned Englishman like Eric Blair (the birth name of George Orwell) would not insert a useless period into a sentence. Ditto the use of fucking as an adjective. 1984 is not a sex education text.
The first page of google results has a couple of forums, and a handful of tasteful graphics. The quote is expressed as Orwell was a warning, not an instruction manual, and Atlas Shrugged is a warning not an instruction manual. At no time is a source for the quote, from the words of Eric Blair, given.
George Orwell died January 21, 1950, six months after the publication of 1984 Mr. Blair had been in very bad health. There were indications that he preferred working on his manuscript to taking care of his health. ( The masterpiece that killed George Orwell tells the story.) This fact is another indication that the meme is an example of *doublespeak*.
1984 was an influential book in the sixties and seventies. When the actual year took place, it was a bit of a relief. It was the year of Ronald Reagan’s landslide re-election. While technocratic control of the population was in effect, it was not as overt as the book would have it. (PG has never read 1984. It is uncertain how many people using the adjective “Orwellian” have read the book.)
The reality of the present does not always line up with the sci-fi predictions in the past. 2001 was going to be the year of interplanetary exploration. Instead, September 11, 2001, was the start of the twenty first century. Jet airliners as WMD sucker punched America into a series of self destructive wars. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Slavery And Global Warming
Have you ever wondered why your ancestors owned other human beings? How can you justify something this cruel? In an NPR interview to promote a new book, 1861: The Civil War Awakening, Adam Goodheart has an answer.
It was economics. “But I think we think of it differently when we realize that the value of slave property, some $4 billion, enormous amount of money in 1861, represented actually more money than the value of all of the industry and all of the railroads in the entire United States combined. So for Southern planters to simply one day liberate all of that property would have been like asking people today to simply overnight give up their stock portfolios, give up their IRAs.”
Mr. Goodheart compares it to the situation today with fossil fuels. “many of us recognize that in burning fossil fuels we’re doing something terrible for the planet, we’re doing something terrible for future generations. And yet in order to give this up would mean sort of unraveling so much of the fabric of our daily lives, sacrificing so much, becoming these sort of radical eccentrics riding bicycles everywhere, that we continue somewhat guiltily to participate in the system. And that’s something that I use as a comparison to slavery, that many Americans in the North, and even I believe sort of secretly in the South, felt a sense of guilt, felt a sense of shame, that knew that the slave system was wrong but were simply addicted to slavery and couldn’t give it up. “
When the economic pressure is there, people will find a way to justify their actions. Slavery was justified in a number of ways. Today, there are people who deny the ill effects of using fossil fuels, and they have an eager audience. The payback for the environmental horror is in the future. This is similar to the way people today are paying … with racial turmoil … for slavery.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
Singers Who Wear Wigs
If you go to google, and type in “singers that wear wigs”, the first name to appear is Mary J. Blige. PG does not follow her closely, but went to youtube and found a video. This is probably not her real hair.
Dolly Parton is known for a lot of things, at least two of which are real. The hair is not. If you ask her “How long does it take to do your hair?”, she says “I don’t know, I’m never there”
If anyone is known for enhancing her natural attributes, it would be Cher. Her fondness for plastic surgery is well known, as is the way her head fits in a hairpiece. In this number, Mrs. Bono talks about some of her favorite people.
Grace Slick is basically retired these days. In her hey day, she never appeared in public in her real hair. PG saw her at the Omni once, and was horrified by her wig. (Grace sells her paintings these days. Her white hair is cut short. The wigs are in a museum.)
RuPaul is not really blonde. That is a part of her wardrobe. In this video, she co stars with Martha Wash, in a remake of “It’s Raining Men”. The working title for this video was Piggly Wiggly.
It is a bit of show business wisdom that you put the horses at the end of a parade. Deaundra Peek fills this important role today. Last year it was a remake of “Supermodel”, which has copyright issues. Today, it is a cooking lesson. The last three characters of the Youtube code are M2M.
This is a repost. Pictures, from The Library of Congress, model “Inter-city beauties, Atlantic City Pageant, 1927.” As a bonus to our reader(s), we will explore the issue, Does Lady Gaga wear a wig? The answers are a bit contradictory, which is somehow fitting. One page says she does not wear a wig, but does wear extensions in some videos. Another answer is that dying her hair is damaging to the hair, if she went to a salon the paparazzi would see her, so yes, she does wear a wig.
Anita Aretha and Elton
In the early nineties, PG had too much free time. On March 25 of one year, he looked in the fishwrapper, and found a list of famous people with birthdays.
There was an unlikely trio celebrating that day. This would be (in order of appearance) Anita Bryant (1940), Aretha Franklin (1942), and Elton John (1947). All three have been paid for singing. The three have a total of five husbands, with Miss Bryant and Mr. John currently attached (Not to each other). Miss Franklin has good taste in hats.
Several other people have arrived on planet earth on March 25. They include , in 1911, Jack Ruby, the killer of Lee Harvey Oswald (d. 1967) (They don’t say alleged when it was on live TV). 1918 produced Howard Cosell, American sports reporter (d. 1995). Flannery O’Connor (d. 1964) arrived in 1925. 1934 gave us Gloria Steinem. To make room for all this talent, Buck Owens died March 25, 2006.
March 25 is after the spring equinox, and has been Easter. A few noteworthy events have gone down on this day. In 1894, Coxey’s Army departed Massillon, Ohio for Washington D.C. In 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire killed 146 garment workers in New York City. In 1939 Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli becomes Pope Pius XII, to the delight of Adolph Hitler. 1955 saw the United States Customs seizes copies of Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” as obscene. In 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono began their first Bed-In for Peace at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel.
HT and applause to wikipedia. This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Oppressed
There was a link to some racial polemic today, White People Explain Why They Feel Oppressed. The feature talks about a group of people, known as both “white people” and “some white people.” If you read anything about racism, this will be familiar material.
“Modern white Americans are one of the most powerful groups of people to ever exist on this planet and yet those very people—or, if you’re white, you people—staunchly believe that the primary victims of modern racism are whites. We see this in poll after poll. A recent one by the Public Religion Research Institute found 52 percent of whites agreed, “Today discrimination against whites has become as big a problem as discrimination against blacks and other minorities.” … Why is it that some white people feel like they are the primary victims of racism?”
This is an interesting bit of logic. A slim majority, in one study, says the discrimination against whites is as big a problem as discrimination against blacks. In the next paragraph, whites are “the primary victims of racism”. Not only that, this statement is assumed to be the truth. We bypass the determination of truth, and go directly to wondering about the reason.
The 52 percent figure is found on pages 45 and 46 of the study. Other demographics involved are age and religion. In fact, “37% of religiously unaffiliated Americans believe that discrimination against white Americans has become as big a problem as discrimination against other groups.” Maybe the question should not be about white people, but about Christians.
The rest of the article is full of semantics and rhetoric. It makes statements like “It’s definitely easier to blame a person of color than it is to try to understand how faceless global economic forces have screwed you over.” You could easily substitute white person, for person of color, and get the same result. People are going to look for someone, usually “the other,” to blame.
The Vice article was written by Touré Neblett, whose byline typically only has his first name. He has stuck his keyboard in his mouth before. “Neblett tweeted out an article calling for slavery reparations and endorsing its arguments. One of his followers shot back that “My family survived a concentration camp, came to the US w/ nothing, LEGALLY, and made it work.” But Neblett responded by chalking their survival up to “the power of whiteness.”
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Some pictures are of the Tuskegee Airmen.
Troll
A fine quotation is a diamond on the finger of a man of wit, and a pebble in the hand of a fool. Joseph Roux ~ I can assure you that your strident bitchiness about either Democratic candidate is not changing anyone’s mind. ~ Your snark about Donald Trump is reinforcing the admiration of his followers. ~ News-Sentinel.com reserves the right to remove any content appearing on its website. Our policy will be to remove postings that constitute profanity, obscenity, libel, spam, invasion of privacy, impersonation of another, or attacks on racial, ethnic or other groups. For more information, see our user rules page. ~ It really doesn’t matter if the “historic Jesus” did, or did not, live. What we might call “worship Jesus” is a totally different critter. ~ @realDonaldTrump @BernieSanders on twitter your lips are always moving ~ @AdamJames_42 Wannabe historian who dabbles in being wrong. Also masochistic enough to enjoy politics. Sadly, I am not a troll. ~ @chamblee54 @ConnerHabib 1- from Slaughterhouse Five: I’ve visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe, and I have studied reports on one @chamblee54 @ConnerHabib 2- hundred more. Only on Earth is there any talk of free will.” ~ KimKierkegaardashian @KimKierkegaard Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Eat, drink, & be merry. It is the coward’s response to the prospect of death. ~ @dailyzen We don’t find peace through constant spiritual readings. We find it through mindful engagement with the world. ~ tell someone not to do something enough times and they will do it ~ @whitman632 Patriotism is a disease of the working class to shield the reality that they die in war to keep rich men wealthy. ~ I would push the line between baby boomers and me generation to 1954. The me generation was too young to go to Vietnam. ~ Vietnam conflict ended 1975, so ME generation line would have to be pushed to ’57 or ’58 to exclude military service. I’m Gen X, so my math may very well be off… ~ I would say the Me Generation may not have been too young to go to Vietnam, they just DIDN’T. They’re the ME Generation . . . It’s possible that the facts of a person’s life makes them more like the people a few years older or younger than themselves than their classmates. Like Myke was saying–his childhood may have been more like an X childhood, even though he was born as a Y. ~ PAGV ~ We need to talk about the Bernie Bros who keep throwing black people under the bus ~ How Trump Happened ~ Detailed Maps of Where Trump, Cruz, Clinton and Sanders Have Won ~ ranked ~ delegates ~ Thick of Tongue ~ establishment ~ 7 ‘Positive Thinking’ Phrases That Can Actually Cross the Line Into Gaslighting ~ the sublime narcissism of getting offended on other people’s behalf ~ Protocol and Principles for White People Working to Support the Black Liberation Movement We will not let the white culture of perfectionism get in the way of us taking bold action. ~ Lie by Lie: A Timeline of How We Got Into Iraq ~ Can We Guess Whether You’re A Top, Bottom, Vers Or Side? ~ The American troops were withdrawn in 1973. The bulk of the fighting was done by South Vietnamese by this time. By the time I got my lottery number in early 1973, the selective service had quit inducting men into the service. Maybe we could have gone to ‘Nam, but we were not legally compelled to like the baby boomer men were. ~the separation of the races is not a disease of colored people ~ @steveweinstein Dear pundits, it’s not economic anger propelling Trump. It’s a racist tantrum over the loss of white supremacy symbolized by Black Guy in WH @chamblee54 talk like this is going to elect mr orange hair @EdDarrell Why do you say that? What do you suggest, alternatively? @chamblee54 – 1 I am so tired of talking about racism, which frequently leads to being called racist I am not the only one @chamblee54 – 2 DT says little about blacks, but rather mexicans and moslems “birtherism” is about african father as much as @chamblee54 – 3 skin color of bho, who, with white mother, is arguably not black the “trump is racist” cliche is entertaining @chamblee54 – 4 to people who are going to vote democratic anyway but tiresome to those in the middle as for alternatives …@chamblee54 – 5 idk what to do my electoral votes are going republican so i don’t have a vote ~ disdains ~ what BS foreign policy ~ @AfroEmotive 1- a very short man walked up to Sophia Loren at a party, and said I’d like to fuck you. She replied 2 if you do, and I find out about it, I am going to be very upset ~ pictures today are from The Library of Congress. ~ selah
Institutional Racism
It is blackberry winter in Brookhaven. PG is editing pictures from The Library of Congress, some of which will illustrate this repost. While fussing over group portraits from a Navy vessel, PG is listening to The Glenn Show. Today’s episode features the host, Glenn Loury, and frequent guest John McWhorter. Both men are professors at Ivy League institutions. They are also African Americans. Their conversations are usually entertaining, and provide fodder for slack blogger content.
The first part of the chat involves politicians who say, in effect, “my opponent is not black enough.” An incident involving Barack Obama was discussed. In some of his early elections, the opponent charged that BHO was too closely connected to the big money elite.
Duh. You don’t get elected to public office without having wealthy friends. They want a return on their investment. This has been a problem for the *naive* people who thought they were voting for hope and change. BHO did not raise a billion dollars without making shady promises.
Most politicians face the “authentic enough” issue. When running in the party primary, they try to appear blacker than Spike Lee, or more conservative than Herbert Hoover. When the general election arrives, the need to reach less radical voters arises. Many politicians see the need to back away from what they were saying a few weeks earlier. Saints do not win elections.
After a while, Doctors Loury and McWhorter moved onto the issue of gentrification. Dr. McWhorter wrote a Time magazine piece, “Spike Lee’s Racism Isn’t Cute: ‘M—–f—– Hipster’ Is the New ‘Honkey” Regarding this article, there is a lovely quote from Dr. McWhorter. The quote says to always remember that racism is institutional.
Hissy fits about racism like to have it both ways. They will tell you that racism is *really* about institutional systems that oppress POC. Ok, fine. Exactly what does a tweet, quoting a joke taken out of context, have to do with institutional systems of oppression?
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