Why The War Between The States Was Fought
This was a repost from 2017. … Recently, Mr. Trump said something stupid about the War Between the States. After his comments began to filter into the marketplace of ideas, people began to react. There was a good bit of self righteous talk about how bad the Confederacy was. Maybe it is time for another point of view. This feature will have minimal research. Mistakes will be made. The reader is encouraged to do their own research.
When the colonies declared independence in 1776, nobody knew how things would turn out. First, Great Britain needed to be defeated. After that, the Articles of Confederation went into effect. “Under these articles, the states remained sovereign and independent, with Congress serving as the last resort on appeal of disputes. Congress was also given the authority to make treaties and alliances, maintain armed forces and coin money. However, the central government lacked the ability to levy taxes and regulate commerce …”
This arrangement was not working, and the Constitutional Convention was called. Originally, the CC was going to revise the Articles of Confederation, but wound up throwing the whole thing out, and creating the Constitution. This document called for greater federal authority. The issue of what powers to give to the states, and what powers to give to the central government, was contentious. It remains controversial to this day.
Had any group of autonomous states formed a federal union before? Usually, such a union is the result of a conquest, with one of the states ruling the others. It is unclear whether such a union had been attempted before, or how successful it was. When the “founding fathers” created the constitution, they probably did not foresee how it would play out. The current system, with a massive central government cat-herding the 50 states, would have been laughed off as a dangerous fantasy.
So the states start to have disagreements. One of the things they disagreed over was slavery. Yes, this was an important factor in the unpleasantness to come. Slavery influenced a lot of the economic conflicts. The North wanted high tariffs to protect industry. The South wanted low tariffs, so they could sell cotton to Europe. There were many other ways for the states to not get along.
Finally, in 1861, the disagreements became too big to ignore. The south seceded, and the War Between The States began. The Confederate States of America was a looser union than the United States. The thought was that the states were more important than the federal union. Mr. Lincoln disagreed. (One popular name for the conflict was Mr. Lincoln’s war.) Many people say that Mr. Lincoln was not especially concerned about the slaves, but wanted to keep the union together.
How does slavery enter into this? Imagine the conflict over states rights vs federalism to be an open tank of gasoline. The lit match that was thrown into that tank was slavery. When the winners wrote the war history, it sounded better to say that the war was fought to free the slaves.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The social media picture: “Unidentified young soldier in Confederate infantry uniform” … In 1865, the national debt was $2.6 billion.
Sunday Morning Drabbles
Today is May 18, 2025. I am going to write new material for my blog today, based largely on content from May 2008. This was the first year that chamblee54 was on WordPress. I was driving a truck in Marietta, and listening to am talk radio. The 2008 election was going on. John McCain was going to be the Republican candidate, and Barack H. Obama was the Democrat wannabe. The 2008 economic meltdown was a few weeks away. After the economic meltdown, I lost my job, and the election of Obama became inevitable. 17 years later, I am assembling this collection of drabbles.
Another shot in the arm deals with capital punishment. On May 6, 2008, Georgia was preparing to off a convict. … Semantic timeout. While hung, shot, or beheaded are obvious verbs for more archaic means of execution, what is the expression for “executed by lethal injection”? What do you call the process where a GDC employee shoots up a person with substances that will cause their demise? Injecticide? … With all the corruption, lawyers, and rampant egomania in the justice business, how can the death penalty ever be administered fairly? Was this practice ever intended to be fair?
There was a comment thread at a Christian blog. The topic of preaching at funerals came up: “I want to see God’s grace and name honored.” Preaching an unwanted message to grieving people does not honor God. Christians frequently do not respect non-believers. Christians feel that if they only repeat their message over and over that others will agree with it. However, many of us have made up our minds. The more you try, the more you alienate us. A heavy religious message at a funeral is an example of this. Many incontinent evangelicals are like dogs that will not quit barking.
Like many men of my degeneration/generation, I had long hair. The problem is, with a Georgiawhiteboi like me, hair turns into worms after about three centimeters. It is way too much work to take care of. So I bought a pair of clippers. It was the modern version of letting my freak flag fly … I was in the church’s fried chicken on Broad street downtown. The two drag queens were in front of me in line.They got their food and left. When I stepped to the counter, I heard this girl say to her friend ”Her hayyer is so preeiitee”
Tallulah Bankhead was making a movie, “Lifeboat”, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Some of the other actors commented that Miss Bankhead was not wearing panties. Mr. Hitchcock wondered if this was a matter for wardrobe or a matter for hairdressing … Did Mohawks really shave their heads except for a stripe of hair in the middle? That would seem to be a lot of trouble for pre-modern men living in upstate New York. A Mohawk haircut is high maintenance, just like many who display them. … When asked how long it takes to do her hair, Dolly Parton replies. “I don’t know I am not there”
A clean pair of socks is change you can believe in. … The intangibles include respect, good will, and trust. Semantic fine tuning aside, these words mean the same thing. … A man has to believe in something. I believe I will have a drink. W.C. Fields … Mr. Barnum once said “there is a sucker born every minute”. This belief served Mr. Barnum abundantly … Miss Teenage South Carolina gave a famous speech. The first three words were ” I personally believe” … Anyone can quote the Bible. To do so without the trust of the listener is to speak in vain.
Opinions are like a smelly, though productive, body part. What does this say about beliefs? … Believe is a seven letter word. The first two letters are BE. The next three letters are LIE … Cher had a hit song called “Believe” The hair is a wig, the plastic surgery is paid for, but do you believe. … John 3:16 has more than 22 words. That verse helps reduce Jesus to a scheme for life after death. … My opinions about G-d, the Bible, Jesus, and Life after Death are none of your business. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The social media picture: “Private Lucien Love of Co. D, 43rd Virginia Cavalry Battalion … Photo shows young identified soldier. Lucien Love is one of six Mosby Rangers executed by the Union in September 1864 near Front Royal, Virginia.”
Marilyn Truther
Marilyn Monroe was photographed reading Ulysses, the famously difficult book by James Joyce. 63 years later, a man posted the picture on twitter, while promoting a study course on Ulysses. If Marilyn read it, then you can too! I said something uncooperative, and a brief twitter fight broke out. Since the Ulysses dude, and his tweeting buddy, did not give permission, they will not be quoted here. One exception, the titular “Marilyn Truther,” was coined by the study course promoter.
@chamblee54 It was a joke, at one time, to give models a book to pose with. It was considered funny to give them a difficult book like “Ulysses” ~ Who needs to show a citation? I may be wrong. I asked Mr. Google, and found this. ~ According to photographer, she did not read it from start to finish. A more accurate answer is that she read parts of it Story by photographer should not be taken as unchallenged truth, but it is all we have I should have researched this before i spoke. Did you? ~ I had read that about other models. I also read numerous quotes, attributed to Marilyn, that proved to be phony. Photography is a medium open to manipulation, and creation of fantasy. Just because you see a picture, that does not mean it happened. ~ Eve Arnold… a woman … took that picture. How do we know Marilyn told the truth? Maybe Marilyn was just trying to make a good impression on the lady. Would Marilyn have said the same thing if the photographer was a man?
I disputed that Marilyn Monroe had read Ulysses, and will never know for sure either way. I am not the first person to wonder about this. “Richard Brown, a Professor of Modern Literature at the University of Leeds with a special interest in James Joyce, was intrigued by Eve Arnold’s photos of Marilyn. Curious to know if Marilyn was indeed reading Joyce’s novel or if she was merely posing for the photo, Brown wrote Arnold a letter, which she replied on 20 July 1993. Unfortunately, I don’t have Arnold’s complete letter to show you … In any case, the excerpt from Arnold’s letter is interesting as she was telling Brown exactly what he wanted to know”:
“We worked on a beach on Long Island. She was visiting Norman Rosten the poet. … I asked her what she was reading when I went to pick her up (I was trying to get an idea of how she spent her time). She said she kept Ulysses in her car and had been reading it for a long time. She said she loved the sound of it and would read it aloud to herself to try to make sense of it — but she found it hard going. She couldn’t read it consecutively. When we stopped at a local playground to photograph she got out the book and started to read while I loaded the film. So, of course, I photographed her. It was always a collaborative effort of photographer and subject where she was concerned — but almost more her input.” “Quoted in Richard Brown, “Marilyn Monroe Reading Ulysses: Goddess or Postcultural Cyborg?”, in R. B. Kershner (Ed), Joyce and Popular Culture, p. 174.”
“Monroe is reading the 1934 Random House edition, with the dust jacket removed. This is the edition that was famously set from a pirate version containing numerous errors. This defect notwithstanding, the dust-jacket artwork and typographic design by Ernst Reichl constitute one of the great works in the history of book design.”
What does this say about a screen icon who died in 1962? Maybe she was smarter than your typical dumb blonde. Maybe not. Marilyn had an instinct for the camera, and looking good on the screen brought joy to millions of fans. Is this post mortem resurrection, as an intellectual philosopher, merely another fantasy concocted by well meaning fans? Pictures never lie, and there is a picture of Marilyn, reading Ulysses, with a serious look on her pretty face. Of course it is real! A fantasy involving Norma Jean Baker Marilyn Monroe? How absurd! As long as the merchandise is paid for, and the instagrammers inspired, should we even care?
The cult of Marilyn has shown up on chamblee54 before. “Someone told me that Marilyn Monroe once remarked that she enjoyed reading poetry “because it saves time.” I like this quotation so much that I’ve never dared to confirm it; I’d feel disenchanted to learn it was bogus.” This search for authenticity led to a forum called Data Lounge … “get your fix of gay gossip, news and pointless bitchery.” The “Marilyn: Smart or Stupid” debate rages through 200 comments, reaching a peak at comment 196. “Yes MM said every one of those quotes by herself! … But I’m worried for her, cause She’s my main spirit guide and Saviour and she recently commanded me to share this message! …
In 2014, a facebook notice appeared. It was promoting a blog post by known idiot Matt Walsh. “If you can’t accept me at my worst, then you don’t deserve me at my best.”… “the original quote is from Marilyn Monroe. It’s even more vapid and nauseating when taken in its full context: “I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.” Out of all the profundities ever uttered, what does it say about our society that THIS is the quote we’ve decided to take to heart?” It is generally accepted that Marilyn did not say that. The top debunker is now a malware distributor, and not available for viewing. Somehow, that seems appropriate.
Pictures today are from the Library of Congress. “Listening to speeches at mass meeting of Works Progress Administration (WPA) workers protesting congressional cut of relief appropriations. San Francisco, California.” Photographer: Dorothea Lange February 1939. This is a repost.
One Star Jeffy
Two stories appeared here in 2011. 052811 052911 They were both based on a facebook quote … “I think we’re having a misunderstanding about what I mean by emotional truth aka “your truth.” It’s a new concept for me too.” The concept today is to assemble a collection of drabbles … 100 words stories … on the murky concept of “your truth”. The only rule is not to spend too much time, or effort, writing this thing. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. “Jewell Pathe’s Bathing Beauty Pirates capture Vitagraph Ships for “Captain Blood”, Balboa Beach, California, June 15, 1924”
Dog Jail, a substack organ, ran a story about the coming obsolescence of clickbait. Before you start cheering, what AI has planned is much worse. … “Last week, an AI-generated image of an explosion near the Pentagon went viral on social media, briefly spooking the stock market. … The AI technology that really made stocks flutter was the social media algorithms that showed the image to so many, so fast.” … Content consumers “have become vigilant against clickbait. Most now know that the link promising “One Weird Trick to Prevent Colon Cancer” is unlikely to save your life. The designers …”
“Government Official Who Makes Perfectly Valid, Well-Reasoned Point Against Israel Forced To Resign” The Onion 052011 “State Department diplomat Nelson Milstrand, who appeared on CNN last week and offered an analysis implying that Israel could perhaps exercise more restraint toward Palestinian moderates in disputed territories, was asked to resign Tuesday. … “The United States deeply regrets any harm Mr. Milstrand’s remarks may have caused our democratic partner in the Middle East,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in an unequivocal condemnation of the veteran foreign-service officer’s statements. “U.S. policy toward Israel continues to be one of unconditional support and fawning sycophancy.”…
The seminal blog post appeared in 2011. Most of the links are no longer operative. Currently existing sites will have priority today. … Reality Sandwich is for people who cannot afford a nothing burger. One of the most commented on stories is “Lady Gaga: The Visionary Rebirth of the Divine Mother Monster”. The linked feature deals with flying saucers. “ … Naked Hunger talks about a woman who wants to lose weight. “Nobody said that “my truth” was going to interest anyone except me! … We enter into a war we will never, I repeat never, win: woman against her appetite.”
The me me me meme gets a further workout in Saying “Yes” to Me … I felt as if the very foundations of my life had shifted” … Some guy named Jeffy is promoting a book called Get Laid or Die Trying. There is a quote from Tupak Shakur about players and bitches. At the end, the book gets one more plug… “Hate to be such an annoying ass (not really), but if you haven’t got a copy of the book yet, get it today. It’s really good! I swear! Excellent coffee table book and perfect for the bathroom.”
The one star reviews of Jeffy’s book are a hoot. … “ this person is a sleazy airhead … His approach, style, attitudes etc. have all the charm and sex appeal of an overflowing toilet.” … I got the audiobook, narrated by the author. It’s a complete pain to listen to, because he insists on screaming regularly. If I turn the volume down, I can’t hear the regular speaking at all, and if I turn it up to a normal volume, suddenly he’s screaming again and I have to turn it down.”
More one star Jeffy: May Karma Visit Upon Jeff Allen “This guy is a narcissitic player without emotion … A really sad, selfish character who is all about himself to the bitter end. Guys, if you want to be like that, please find your own planet!” … How about you just die trying? “This is the last guy in the world that you should be getting dating advice from: […] Honestly, you’d probably get more romantic or at least creative approaches for free by driving to your local state penitentiary and interviewing a serial pedophile.”
Blonde Stories
The world is in turmoil. People are killing people for no good reason. The government is run by liars and scoundrels. Religion is a dirty word. It is time for blonde stories . Thank you FunnyJokes. Pictures are from The Library of Congress
A married couple was asleep when the phone rang at 2 in the morning. The very blonde wife picked up the phone, listened a moment, and said ‘How should I know, that’s 200 miles from here!’ and hung up. The husband said, ‘Who was that?’ The wife answered, ‘I don’t know, some woman wanting to know if the coast is clear.’
Two blondes are walking down the street. One notices a compact on the sidewalk and leans down to pick it up. She opens it, looks in the mirror and says, ‘Hmm, this person looks familiar.’ The second blonde says, ‘Here, let me see!’ So, the first blonde hands her the compact. The second blonde looks in the mirror and says, ‘You dummy, it’s me!’
A blonde suspects her boyfriend of cheating on her, so she goes out and buys a gun. She goes to his apartment unexpectedly and when she opens the door she finds him in the arms of a redhead. Well, the blonde is really angry. She opens her purse to take out the gun, and as she does so, she is overcome with grief. She takes the gun and puts it to her head. The boyfriend yells, ‘No, honey, don’t do it!’ The blonde replies, ‘Shut up, you’re next!’
A blonde was bragging about her knowledge of state capitals. She proudly says, ‘Go ahead, ask me … I know ‘em all.’ ‘OK, what’s the capital of Wisconsin ?’ The blonde replies, ‘Oh, that’s easy. Its W.’
Q: What did the blonde ask her doctor when he told her she was pregnant? A: ‘Is it mine?’
Bambi, a blonde in her fourth year as a UCLA Freshman, sat in her US Government class. The professor asked Bambi if she knew what Roe vs. Wade was about. Bambi pondered the question; then, finally, said, ‘That was the decision George Washington had to make before he crossed the Delaware.’
Returning home from work, a blonde was shocked to find her house burglarized. She telephoned the police at once and reported the crime. The police dispatcher broadcast the call on the radio, and a K-9 unit, patrolling nearby, was the first to respond. As the K-9 officer approached the house with his dog on a leash, the blonde ran out on the porch, shuddered at the sight of the cop and his dog, then sat down on the steps. Putting her face in her hands, she moaned, ‘I come home to find all my possessions stolen. I call the police for help, and what do they do? They send me a BLIND COP!’
Winston Churchill Said What
Another ghastly meme has surfaced on facebook. “When Winston Churchill was asked to cut arts funding in favour of the war effort, he simply replied, “then what are we fighting for?” The quote is not in the Churchill archive, which is either fifteen million documents, or fifteen million words. The authorities use the figures interchangeably.
The Telegraph has an article debunking the meme. It has a splendid sentence: “But that anecdote does not so easily play into the screeching rhetoric of today’s 140-character political ding-dongs.” There are also some lovely quotes from Mr. Churchill. 
In 1937, Mr. Churchill spoke before the Peel Commission. It was discussing “partitioning British mandated Palestine into Arab and Jewish states.” At the time, Mr. Churchill was a minor figure in British politics, disgraced by his blundering in the Great War. The quote: “I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.”
Winston Churchill is quite the quote magnet. This is somehow fitting for a man whose most famous speech was read, on the radio, by an actor. There is a page on the internet devoted to times when he was falsely accused of saying something inspiring.
One of these stories is notable. “The only traditions of the Royal Navy are rum, sodomy and the lash… Churchill’s assistant, Anthony Montague-Browne said that although Churchill had not uttered these words, he wished he had.”
UPDATE: Sir Anthony Montague-Browne KCMG CBE DFC appears to have been a piece of work. He is acknowledged to be the illegitimate father of The Most Reverend Justin Welby Archbishop of Canterbury. Sir Montague Brown was the private secretary of Winston Churchill from 1953 until Churchill’s death in 1965. “As well as his duties as a chief of staff, Montague-Browne lunched and dined with Churchill and provided an opponent for his favourite card game, rubicon. He also accompanied Churchill on his trips abroad.” While it is possible that Monatague-Brown did ask Churchill about the quote, there is no solid documentation. It is also possible that Churchill was in decline, or drunk, and could not remember something he said in 1911.
“Montague-Browne confirmed this to Richard Langworth, one of the most respected Churchill biographers. In his great book about Churchill quotations and misquotes, Churchill by Himself: The Definitive Collection of Quotations, Richard Langworth says that Montague-Browne personally told him that he had asked Churchill about the quote. According to Montague-Browne, Churchill responded: “I never said it. I wish I had.” Langworth notes that “rum, sodomy and the lash” is similar to “rum, bum and bacca” — a catchphrase from an old saying about the, er, pastimes of British sailors, dating back to the 1800s.”
This is a repost, with pictures from The Library of Congress. The facebook picture: Captain William W. Cosby of H Company, 2nd Virginia Light Artillery Regiment.
Rhetoric Butler
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The Biden-Trump Path to Global Ruin | Robert Wright & Matt Duss
The whispers of Joseph Joubert by Mark LaFlaur On Paul Auster’s translation …
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rawdogging · maple thorpe · mapplethorpe · israel · sunshine
here is today’s abbreviated monday morning reader. One loose thought: The problem is toxic rhetoric, and the performative arguments that go with it. Logical fallacies, hypocrisy, authoritarian bullying … The picture below is an “Unidentified soldier in Confederate uniform with D-guard Bowie knife, musket, and revolver.” · The facebook photograph: “Unidentified soldier in Confederate uniform with D-guard Bowie knife, musket, and revolver.” · in today’s act of pointless, feel good activism, I am putting this on my facebook wall. · @robertwrighter Breaking the Silence is a group of Israeli military veterans who try to call attention to crimes and moral outrages committed as part of the occupation of Palestinian territories. That can make them unpopular in some parts of Israeli society, and I’ve long admired their courage and commitment. @BtSIsrael Right now, it seems the Israeli army is wiping out the village of Khalet a-Duqayqa— evicting families, destroying homes, water wells, terraces, and solar panels. In the photo, you can see a sentence written on the wall of a house now being demolished: “Let me live my life.” A simple, human plea — and under decades of brutal occupation, even that is too much to ask · This is the least helpful video on youtube. I had always wondered how to pronounce Robert Mapplethorpe. Is it maple, or apple? This video has speakers saying it both ways. FWIW, the best answer I can get is apple. · Pictures today are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library. The picture on facebook was taken June 24, 1949. “Gone with the Wind” tenth anniversary” · This is a repost from 2010. … · Ira Hayes was a native American, from the Akimel O’odham. Their land is on both sides of the border between Arizona and Sonora. Ira Hayes was one of the men raising the flag on Mount Suribachi. This is his story. · one of us is a rotisserie chicken · Russell Lee took the facebook photograph in March 1939. “Negro boy drinking “milk” made of flour and water. He was sick and his mother, the wife of a sharecropper, had given him this as a delicacy. Near Marshall, Texas” · This is a repost from May, 2024. The Israel story keeps getting worse, in practically every way. … · I knew two things on October 7. There was going to be a lot of killling. There would be a tsunami of bad faith rhetoric to justify this mass homicide. Both things have been true beyond my worst nightmare. · This is a repost from 2024. · Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the facebook picture in October 1939. “Sampling room, cotton compress, part of compress. Port of Houston, Texas · selah
Always Take Sides
“Always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.” This meme, illustrated by the gnomic face of Elie Wiesel, turns up on facebook a lot. (Elie Wiesel is pronounced like Elly Mae Clampett) Some find it inspiring. Others think it is simplistic and manipulative.
There are two questions. Did Mr. Wiesel say that? What was the context? The quote appears in the acceptance speech for the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize. The next sentence is “Sometimes we must interfere.” We immediately go from the absolute always, to the conditional sometimes. That is progress, even if it does not fit on a bumper sticker.
“Elie Wiesel was born in Sighet, Romania, in 1928. … In May 1944, Wiesel was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp along with his parents and his sisters. Wiesel and his father were slave laborers at Auschwitz. His father died in January 1945 during a forced march to another camp, Buchenwald, and his mother and younger sister were murdered as well. After the war, Wiesel moved to France, where he worked as a journalist.”
The Israel-Palestine problem was just as vexing in 1986 as today. Here is what Mr. Wiesel said in his speech. “More people are oppressed than free. And then, too, there are the Palestinians to whose plight I am sensitive but whose methods I deplore. Violence and terrorism are not the answer. Something must be done about their suffering, and soon. I trust Israel, for I have faith in the Jewish people. Let Israel be given a chance, let hatred and danger be removed from her horizons, and there will be peace in and around the Holy Land.”
Who is the oppressor in the Middle East, and who is the victim? Many sides can make a case for their cause. Who is the better at persuasion? Who is better at playing the shady game of influence, and money. Often, more noise encourages the tormentor. The answer to age old conflicts is seldom found in bumper stickers, or facebook memes.
“…to whose plight I am sensitive but whose methods I deplore.” “Always take sides” means that you pick one side in a conflict, and use the tools of rhetoric to promote that cause. It can be tough to tell the good guys from the bad guys. Human suffering is human suffering. Simplistic rhetoric is *never* the answer.
In 1986, the Iran-Iraq war was raging. Hundreds of thousands of men died. Many said the war was allowed to go on intentionally. Allegedly, if Iran and Iraq were not fighting each other, they would be fighting Israel. The United States was allied with Iraq, while making arms deals with Iran. Israeli dealers participated in the United States-Iran arms trading. The profits from those deals went to supply terrorists in Central America. “Sometimes we must interfere.”
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
Al-Aqsa Flood
This is a repost from May, 2024. The Israel story keeps getting worse, in practically every way. … I knew two things after Al-Aqsa Flood. One, Israel would exponentially retaliate, and alienate much of the world. Two, there were going to some some incredibly toxic discussions about the matter. This feature is going to focus on number two.
If you listen to the conversations about the war, you will hear a lot of misused logic. Distraction, derailment, false equivalence, two-wrongs-that-make-a-right, forgotten details, and outright lies. You are either on one side or another, and proceed accordingly. FWIW, I am on team Palestine.
There is an easy test. Do they say Hamas, or do they say Palestinian? Hamas is the boogeyman of today’s rhetoric, and anything less than total demonization is considered support. The fact that thousands of unarmed Palestinians have died is a pesky detail.
One thing I did not know on October 7 was the role the IDF played. Many of the Israelis who died were killed by their own army. This fact is often overlooked in angry sermons about AAF.
I also did not know that Israel created, and supported Hamas. Before AAF, Hamas was seen as a way to degrade the Palestinian Authority, and keep Palestinians divided. The ultimate goal was to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state. This is part of Israel’s longtime strategy of interfering in the internal affairs of her neighbors, for Israel’s benefit.
In 1987, I had a workplace frenemy. Steve was the son of Holocaust survivors, and a staunch supporter of Israel. I mentioned that the Iran-Iraq war was being kept going, to distract the combatants from fighting Israel. Steve got very angry. “Yes, and it’s for your benefit. We need to fight terrorism.” This policy was also seen in the Syrian civil war.
This feature will be brief. If the reader wants to know more, Google is at your service. A question could be raised about how neutral Google is in this conflict. There are numerous other commentaries. Let the buyer beware. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the facebook photograph in March 1939. “Negro boy drinking “milk” made of flour and water. He was sick and his mother, the wife of a sharecropper, had given him this as a delicacy. Near Marshall, Texas”
Antidote To Racism
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#nationalpoetrymonth 29/30 · #nationalpoetrymonth 30/30 · Another week, another monday morning reader. I am finally through listening to that podcast about Israel, and am ready to do something elseRussell Lee took the facebook photograph in August 1940. · “Mormon farm family, members of FSA dental cooperative, in dentist’s office. Tremonton, Box Elder County, Utah” · The problem is toxic rhetoric, and the arguments that go with it. Logical fallacies, hypocrisy, authoritarian bullying … I could go on, but the sun is shining outside · Opinion rhymes with rack and pinion, dominion, and virginian. · oday’s feature links to the blog of Atlanta fashion influencer Neal Boortz. If you click on Boorzdotcom today, you get the UFABET site, written in ภาษาไทย · The facebook picture is of “Private James B. McCutchan of Co. D, 5th Virginia Infantry Regiment” · The quote about shouting fire in a crowded theater is from a SCOTUS ruling on a WWI draft evasion case. The other famous quote is from Ronald Reagan, who might not have known what he was saying. The picture below is Private James B. McCutchan of Co. D, 5th Virginia Infantry Regiment · what am i supposed to do now, sounding like a what she said joke, how do you react when she calls you a cow, do you back to your room and croak, i wonder how many well meaning people, go to say something about donnie trump, ping the cell phone tower in the steeple, just like sheriff taylor and helen crump, thats what she said covers so many sins, what a non binary they said pretends, want to succeed but only suck harda, to take uber but settle for marta, what do you give when you’re fresh out of shucks, want a fast quack but you’re all out of ducks · Q- Is that youtube video propaganda? A- Only if it has an off/on button · One of the problems with my music player is Extreme sensitivity I don’t even have to I don’t know sometimes I don’t know what I’ve done wrong or if I’ve even done anything wrong this just took a Sinister turn I was listening to question everything they were having a discussion of an incident at Tufts University for a lady was abducted and sent to ice prison after riding an op-ed denouncing denouncing the gym denouncing the genocide in Palestine I was listening I was very concerned I was thinking about some of my thoughts and my experiences in this and then all of a sudden I don’t know even know what I did I think I reached into my pocket to look at something and I may have jiggled it somehow but all of a sudden without warning that podcast was over and I was on to another podcast okay I just got cut off here oh this is getting weird okay did Big Brother I was listening to a podcast about the security melt press security meltdown in America right now and I wondered did Big Brother want me to listen to this did Big Brother know I was listening to something that I wasn’t supposed to listen to and change the program on my phone without my consent · the military industrial complex is its own worst enemy. The goal is to make money, not win wars. Drones are cheap to make, and do not produce much profit. … “explain to me why we’re not doing more for them drone-wise well in part for the same reason that amazingly enough it turned out that you know US and European industry um could not produce nearly remotely as many 155 mm artillery shells as they needed And the answer is that drones and artillery shells are cheap they make uh only small profits uh for the military-industrial complex Uh the drones in particular are not even produced largely uh by the traditional companies And it makes much more sense for Rathon and company and all the retired generals who either are working for Rathon or are going to work for Rathon to produce F-35s aircraft carriers uh which are very very profitable Um and and very vulnerable But very vulnerable ” · here is a similar story. I got dogpiled in a facebook “community”. I later found out that one of the haters committed suicide. · @jessesingal I didn’t know this until 5 mins ago but the dude who spent a chunk of tonight telling me to kill myself and cheering on his followers to do the same has spoken pretty openly on a recent podcast about his internet addiction, alcoholism, and depression. He’s a dad too. It’s not an easy listen and I feel gross for engaging. Deleting my tweets. · Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The facebook photograph: “Unidentified soldier in Confederate uniform with D-guard Bowie knife, musket, and revolver.” · selah
Truth About Opinions
Chamblee54 is normally a profanity free blog. However, for this piece, certain cuss words are essential to the free flow of information. In other words, IF YOU DON’T LIKE CUSS WORDS, YOU DO NOT NEED TO READ THE TEXT.
Once, when his blog was active, a radio whiner referred to a study, that said that one third of all people were not qualified to have opinions. This was said before a commercial break, without saying why this percentage should be without opinions. Possible reasons would be lack of education, inability to think critically, or a disturbing tendency to disagree with the person doing the study.
Opinion is derived from “opīniōn- (stem of opīniō), derivative of opīnārī to opine.” Opinion rhymes with rack and pinion, dominion, and virginian. The anagram of opinion is onion pi. The Power Thesaurus has 1,326 synonyms for opinion. Many are notoriously anal, like assumption. Or the sister of suppository, supposition.
“Opinions are like assholes, everybody’s got theirs.” The truth is, opinions have more in common with the waste that comes out of the anal sphincter, than the port of exit. Feces (thesis) is the product of food fed into the digestive system. Opinions are the result of information (and misinformation) fed into the thought system. Doodoo is influenced by the digestive system, like opinions are influenced by the attitudes, and thought patterns, of the individual. They all stink.
“Four Jews, Five opinions” is another crowd pleaser, like “You are entitled to your opinion.” The latter is usually said when you disagree with what you have just heard. When a Court of Law issues a ruling, it is called an opinion. Sometimes, a justice will write a dissenting opinion. When getting a provider to pay for a procedure, you often need to get a second opinion.
Opinions are frequently more valued by the giver than by the receiver. Some opinions are best kept to the owner. You should be wary of someone who feels that his shit does not stink, because he will usually feel the same about his opinions. You don’t have to have an opinion about everything. Many things are beyond or control, or do not interest you. Also, you should be wary of those who try to “fire up” your opinions. Often these people do not have the best of motives.
Opinions are seldom humble, no matter what the owner of the opinion might say. In fact, the act of holding an opinion is often self aggrandizing, and contrary to humility. Opinions are seen as a way of asserting ones individuality. Many people have lives of quiet desperation, full of struggle and turmoil. There are many situations where what the individual thinks is simply useless to the powers that be. In times like this, having opinions can restore a sense of self worth to the individual. I am somebody. I have my opinion. This does not mean that anyone is listening.
This is a repost with pictures from The Library of Congress. Edward H. Hart was the photographer, working for Detroit Publishing Co. “U.S.S. Brooklyn, after supper” The pictures, taken between 1896 and 1899, are more reliable than the text.
Critical Becky Studies
Becky is a generic insult for *some* white women. If you don’t know what a Becky is, you might not understand the feature below. Chad is the equivalent expression for white men. He is not important enough to be studied critically. This is a repost. Very few of the links in this feature work in 2o25.
It started out with a tweet, about a symposium, Critical Becky Studies: Critical Explorations of Gender, Race, and the Pedagogies of Whiteness. Soon, I was googling CBS. The paywall protected Wall Street Journal had an article on CBS. The seminal article was at City Journal, Racial Resentment As Pedagogy. The CBS flap originated at 2019 AERA Annual Meeting, sponsored by American Educational Research Association.
@chamblee54 @CityJournal @maxeden99 There was no link to this event in your article. I suspect this is a hoax. Please provide a link to the location on the event guide, for “critical becky studies.” The AERA conference guide is a confusing academic labyrinth. After a while, I clicked on the correct link, and found a way to search for whiteness pedagogy.
CBS is real. “In the tradition of speculative fiction, parable, and counterstorytelling within critical race theory, this session aims to problematize the characterization of “Becky,” a term specific to white women who engage whiteness, often in gendered ways. This characterization is relevant to education by critically examining who is Becky and how she is characterized, her positionality in education, and how the hope for diversity, inclusion, equity, and racial justice within the P-20 educational pipeline is impacted by Becky. … tied to the gendered and raced mechanisms of whiteness enacted by Becky. ”
The symposium featured the presentation of several papers. If, after reading this feature, you want to learn more about these papers, you can follow the links.
This Ain’t No “Wizard of Oz,” Becky “The chapter is a parable in the spirit of speculative fiction, about the fictional (mis)adventures of Becky in the land of Ny as she faces obstacles that she can only overcome by grappling with her own whiteness.”
Two Woke Beckys? “Although both Sheila and Erika slip into different whiteness performances during their conversation, including passive aggressiveness and tone policing, white innocence, and white saviority, they check each other and delve into how they each have and are employing whiteness, despite their desires to rid themselves of whiteness, albeit through different means. …”
Love in the Time of Beckyism “… a particular white heterofeminine citizen-subject popularly known as “Becky,” … Despite “progressive” commitments such as equality, and social justice; and sentimental responses to historical atrocities and current social events, these (conditional) protestations made by Becky serve as a hedonistic mechanism for image management that hinges on the exploitation and social death of people of color. …” How can a teacher preparation program work to rethink the episteme and ethos that socializes Beckyism?”
Book Club Becky: White Racial Bonding in the Living Room “Many liberal white women gather monthly for book clubs … This paper reveals the more insidious workings of these spaces, as they are places where white women bond in order to maintain their place in white patriarchy, what Christine Sleeter named white racial bonding. The conversations that take place, the women who are included as “educated,” and the spaces where they meet are laced with white supremacy and surveillance.”
Border Becky “… why white women still invest in whiteness. Using the term “Becky” establishes an academic backing that can be applied and analyzed when researching the pathology of whiteness. … whiteness manifests in classrooms riddled with white women seeking to prove how they are not like other racist white people. Becky in the counterstories demonstrates the character-like roles white women play in a white supremacist folklore.”
It was a busy weekend for whiteness pedagogy. Ekemini Uwan shocked a Christian conference with her remarks about whiteness. “So then when we talk about white identity, then we have to talk about what whiteness is. Well, the reality is that whiteness is rooted in plunder, in theft, in slavery, in enslavement of Africans, genocide of Native Americans, … It’s a power structure, that is what whiteness is, and so that the thing for white women to do is you have to divest from whiteness because what happened was that your ancestors actually made a deliberate choice to rid themselves of their ethnic identity and by doing so they actually stripped Africans in America of their ethnic identity. … Because we have to understand something – whiteness is wicked. It is wicked. It’s rooted in violence, it’s rooted in theft, it’s rooted in plunder, it’s rooted in power, in privilege … ”
Today’s images are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the facebook photograph in August 1940. “Mormon farm family, members of FSA dental cooperative, in dentist’s office. Tremonton, Box Elder County, Utah” We do not know if any of these ladies were named Becky. UPDATE @chamblee54 I found the link. My apologies for doubting you. @maxeden99 No worries. I couldn’t have made it up if I tried :)
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