Fighting Racism With Clickbait
This feature was originally published in 2014. … A link keeps turning up on facebook. It is for an item, 18 Things White People Should Know/Do Before Discussing Racism. It was posted at The Frisky | Celebrity Gossip, Relationship Advice, Beauty and Fashion Tips. The facility has a series of suggested posts. The first one you see is BLOWJOB TECHNIQUES YOU NEED TO TRY.
18 Things is supposed to be educational. PG was encouraged to read the piece two weeks ago, and found it lacking. The link today was from a combination facebook friend/ facebook unfriend. Maybe 18 Things deserves another look.
18 Things is garbage. Take a look at number one. “1. It is uncomfortable to talk about racism. It is more uncomfortable to live it.” You would never know this from the number of people who seem to enjoy talking about racism. The louder you talk, the more passion you display, the more truth your words have. What is uncomfortable is to quit talking, and listen.
But then, maybe the idea is for everyone to talk at once. Here is item 16: “16. Silence does nothing. Blank stares and silence do not further this difficult but necessary conversation.” If you are going to listen to someone, it is very helpful to keep your mouth shut.
“2. “Colorblindness” is a cop-out. The statements “but I don’t see color” or “I never care about color” do not help to build a case against systemic racism. Try being the only White person in an environment. You will notice color then.” This is a curious paragraph. Sentence one has little to do with sentences two, three, and four.
Sentences three and four are connected. The author assumes that the PWOC reading this piece has never been the only pale face in an environment. Actually, it is probably more common to be the only white person in the room, than to be the only black person in a room full of whites.
“3. Oprah’s success does not mean the end of racism. The singular success of a Black man or woman (i.e. Oprah, or Tiger Woods, or President Obama) is never a valid argument against the existence of racism. By this logic, the success of Frederick Douglass or Amanda America Dickson during the 19th century would be grounds for disproving slavery.”
Has anyone ever said that the success of Oprah Winfrey is the end of racism? Do you have a link for that? Ok, and even if they did say that, it would be wildly untrue. But it gets better. If you agree with this statement that very few people have made, that is like saying that the success of Frederick Douglass disproves slavery. This is ridiculous.
The rest of the piece is little better. Items 4, 5, 9, 14, and 15, can be summed up with the five words … there is racism in America. You are encouraged to use google to educate yourself. This can go in different directions. Maybe you could google “logical fallacy,” or “critical thinking.”
This feature should not be taken as denying the existence of race problems in America. (The words racism/racist are problematic.) People should be treated with kindness and respect. Opportunities should be available to all people. The police should not target racially defined populations. Celebrities should not say tacky things.
The question arises, though. What value do articles like 18 Things have? Do they inform people who need to learn? Are they preaching to the choir? (Frisky has a header ad for Red Bull. Do articles like this sell power energy drinks?)
There are other possibilities. Do articles like 18 Things trivialize racial problems? Maybe the constant promotion of nonsense like 18 Things will lead people to believe that there really isn’t a race problem in America. People who uncritically praise articles like this are doing more harm than good. Those who claim to educate should be held to some sort of standard. Posting nonsense on the internet is not the same thing as working for equality and justice.
A website called The Frisky still exists, in a dramatically different form. @TheFrisky “Hi, former Frisky EIC Jessica here. The chop shop that bought our site never bothered to take the Twitter from me. Go figure. So sad about the loss of all the extremely good work, and also sad that i basically only got to come onboard to see the site ushered to its fall.” Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken!
This is a repost from 2021. Morgan Spurlock passed away May 23, 2024. … Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken! was recently the featured presentation at a documentary discussion group. Morgan Spurlock, is the auteur. In Super Size Me, Mr. Spurlock lived on a McDonald’s diet, and survived. SSM was successful enough to justify a sequel.
SSM2HC is not as much a documentary, as it is a “reality” show. Mr. Spurlock wants to open his own restaurant, with healthy food. A consultant sells him a bite of reality. “You know, consumers crave this food. They’re not willing to sacrifice the taste. But there’s this interesting shifting definition of health, so it’s not necessarily 100% healthy for you. It may be bad for you, it’s fried, but it’s got some vegetables in it, so you feel better about it. -So it’s a perception.” Another consultant tells him about the “health halo.” A pinch of lettuce, under the bun, makes the burger taste healthy.
Mr. Spurlock decides to go with chicken, and raise the birds himself. Mr. Spurlock will take the poultry that he raised, and feature them at his own restaurant: Holy Chicken. Nobody knows where he gets the capital, not to mention the time to make it all happen. Mr. Spurlock even has time to call the FDA, on camera, and ask about the rules are for labeling chickens “free range.”
The practices of “Big Chicken” get worked over. (An eye-rolling shot of Marietta’s Big Chicken was cut from the finished film.) It is tough to get real facts here. The giant poultry suppliers have some shady practices. It is in their best interest to keep the story from getting out. A warning letter is sent out by Thomas Super, “Senior Vice President Communications the National Chicken Council.”
The story rolls on. Mr. Spurlock finds an old Wendy’s, in Columbus OH, to house Holy Chicken. The place is decorated, employees are hired, and the media is alerted. Starting a new restaurant is another capital intensive, 25-hour-a-day job. Except for Morgan Spurlock. He takes time out, from his chicken farm, and his restaurant start up, to go to Washington DC. Mr. Spurlock goes, without an appointment, to the National Chicken Council. The plan is to invite Thomas Super to the Holy Chicken grand opening. Mr. Super declined the invitation.
SSM2HC is a joke. The consultants used are real. One wonders why they would participate in something like this … it must be true, there is no bad publicity. CCD Innovation, in $an Francisco, is a real company. Their story took a sad turn. “Kimberly Egan, CCD Innovation Partner, loses battle with breast cancer.” Ms. Egan is the other lady at the table in this clip.
No discussion of Morgan Spurlock is complete without his Me Too story. In December 2017, with the release of SSM2HC eminent, Mr. Spurlock released a statement about his problem. It is uncertain why he chose to do this, but it had consequences. It puts a different spin, on SSM2HC, to know about Morgan Spurlock. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Don’t Try This At Home
This has been a lively week in the real world. It started last Sunday, when I decided to clean the laptop. I turned off the power, sprayed some cleaner on it … bad move … and wiped it down with a rag. Then, I sprayed some cleaner on the keyboard … worse move … and worked between the keys with a toothbrush. Then, instead of leaving it open overnight, I closed it.
The next morning, I was typing something, and I noticed that it was all caps. When I tried to change it to regular letters, it went blank. I booted it, and could not type in the password. This is not a good situation. As soon as the computer place opened, I went over there.
Delta computers is a building on Tilly Mill Road, next door to Home Depot. It has the same two men who are always there … probably Indian, although I have never discussed it. They provide fabulous, quick service every time.
I go in the shop. Zefir plugs a keyboard in, and tells me the keyboard is shorted out. Basically, I need a new laptop. The next day, I get a new machine, with much more RAM and Windows 11. After two days of brain damage, the device is running well.
All this time, the sore spot on my foot was getting worse. A few weeks ago, I stepped on something in the back yard. A splinter/thorn became part of my anatomy. A tweezer procedure left enough of the foreign object to cause problems. Finally, the swelling and tenderness became impossible to ignore. It was time to see someone. It was going to get worse otherwise.
Piedmont Urgent Care in Chamblee Plaza, where the Walgreens was sixty years ago. The granite wall in back is still there, where the site was blasted out of the Stone Mountain spillover. The only problem with the waiting room is the direct sunlight, but I don’t have to stay there very long. They seem to be happy with my Medicare.
The PA cleans it out, which was not terribly pleasant. The nurse bandages me up, and gives me a script for antibiotics. There are instructions for care, and a trip to the modern Walgreens … on the other side of Peachtree Industrial … for drugs and supplies. The rest of the day was spent staying out of the rain. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
UPDATE: The original title of this episode was Tussit Chronicles 072024. When I was posting the link on facebook, I clicked in the add photo spot. When I pasted the link in the place, FB put it up without the picture. I quickly realized my mistake, and deleted the entry. When I returned, I posted the link in the proper manner. Before I could see the post, FB sent word that my post violated a rule, and was deleted. I appealed the deletion. When I closed that window, the second entry was still up, with the picture intact. Nonetheless, I decided to err on the side of caution. The post was deleted, and reposted under the title Don’t Try This At Home.
On The Road Part Three
This is a repost from 2019. … In the last installment of this On The Road slackathon, Dean Moriarty (Neal Leon Cassady) and Sal Paradise (Jean-Louis Kérouac, aka Jack) were being obnoxious in Frisco. 71 years later, the Family Barber Shop was closing. In the next 13 days, MAD magazine announced plans to cease publication, and the thirteen star flag became a symbol of racism. The world is without redeeming social value. One answer is to go back 71 years, and see where the road takes us.
In chapter 3 of part 3, Dean and Sal are about to go to New York. First they are going to have 2 days of kicks in Frisco. Before this happens, a lady needs to tell Dean off. “Your have absolutely no regard for anybody but yourself and your damned kicks. All you think about is what’s hanging between your legs and how much money or fun you can get out of people and then you just through them aside. Not only that but you’re silly about it.”
Chapter 4 is wasted on a trip to jazz nightclubs in seedy neighborhoods. “Holy flowers floating in the air, were all these tired faces in the dawn of Jazz America.” Chapter 5 is where the story picks up again. A travel bureau helps D&S get a ride in a “fag Plymouth.” I read that line in amazement … that was something he remembered from reading OTR in 1984. The Orwellian synchronicity of it all. 1984 was just another year. Ronnie Reagan won a landslide re-election over its-his-turn Walter Mondale. America tottered on. I settled into a slack lifestyle. What I did in 1984 had little to do with a dystopian book … a book that everybody talks about, but few have read. One thing I did in 1984 was read OTR, and remember almost none of it 35 years later.
D&S are careening across the deserts and mountain passes into Denver. Along the way, they scared the fag Plymouth driver into prophylactic pansexuality. “At one point the driver said, “For God’s sakes, you’re rocking the boat back there.” Actually we were; the car was swaying as Dean and I both swayed to the rhythm and the IT of our final excited joy in talking and living to the blank tranced end of all innumerable riotous angelic particulars that had been lurking in our souls all our lives.” After a while, FPD hits on Dean, but can’t afford him.
“It was with a great deal of silly relief that these people let us off the car at the corner of 27th and Federal. Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.” Once in Denver, D&S go looking for kicks, Dean’s father, and whatever else gone thing is the IT of the day. Cousin Itt shakes his head. Dean does connect with a beloved cousin, who has gotten religion. Beloved cousin no longer wants to associate with Dean.
Before moving on with OTR, this narrative has been interrupted for a youtube euthanasia emergency. Eighteen years after Dean/Neal went chasing kicks in the sky, bf Allen Ginsberg (Carlo Marx in OTR) wrote a poem about Allen’s butthole. This ode to shipping and receiving was recently indentured by a Tennessee entertainer. While looking for the text, google supplied a link to an Urban Dictionary definition of Allen Ginsberg. This UD page features an ad for Joe Biden.
D&S cavorted for a few days in Denver, and got out before they were, justifiably, arrested. “As the cab honked outside and the kids cried and the dogs barked and Dean danced with Frankie I yelled every conceivable curse I could think over that phone and added all kinds of new ones, and in my drunken frenzy I told everybody over the phone to go to hell and slammed it down and went out to get drunk.” Soon, they had a ride to Chicago. Through cruel fate, Dean was allowed to drive. “We had come from Denver to Chicago via Ed Wall’s ranch, 1180 miles, in exactly 17 hours, not counting the two hours in the ditch and three at the ranch and two with the police in Newton, Iowa, for a mean average of seventy miles per hour across the land, with one driver. Which is a kind of crazy record.” There should be a video game. Sit terrified in the backseat of a 1940’s Cadillac, while Dean Moriarty drives a hundred miles per hour, on the wrong side of the road, getting back on the right side of the road just in time to avoid a head on collision with a truckload of cattle. The telekinetic essence of the Frisco jazzmen can be recruited to provide the soundtrack. The death defying cattle will be played by Charlie Parker. Dean’s play by play filled in by Gene Krupa. “Sal, we gotta go and never stop going till we get there.” “Where we going, man?” “I don’t know but we gotta go.”
“Every now and then a clear harmonic cry gave new suggestions of a tune that would someday be the only tune in the world and would raise men’s souls to joy.Once there was Louis Armstrong blowing his beautiful top in the muds of New Orleans; … sending it out broadcast to rock the jazz world.” … Later the idea would be to jazz the rock world, before hip hop levels the playing field once again. … “Then had come Charlie Parker, a kid in his mother’s woodshed in Kansas City, blowing his taped-up alto among the logs, practicing on rainy days, coming out to watch the old swinging Basie and Benny Moten band that had Hot Lips Page and the rest — Charlie Parker leaving home and coming to Harlem, and meeting mad Thelonius Monk and madder Gillespie — Charlie Parker in his early days when he was flipped and walked around in a circle while playing.”
Thelonius Monk … thank g-d for copy/paste … lived longer than most of the players in this tale. I first heard of TM on the loudspeaker at Atlanta Stadium, when the announcer told of a Jazz Festival coming to the newfangled stadium. In his later life, Mr. Monk got as weird as his first name. Al McKibbon tells this tale: “He was also the bassist on Monk’s last album, made in 1971. At that time the two men toured with the Giants of Jazz, and McKibbon experienced more of the pianist’s eccentricities: “In Tokyo we were having suits made, because they do it so fast and all that. Monk had his measured lying in bed. He wouldn’t get up for them. … On that tour Monk said about two words. I mean literally maybe two words. He didn’t say ‘Good morning’, ‘Goodnight’, ‘What time?’ Nothing. Why, I don’t know. He sent word back after the tour was over that the reason he couldn’t communicate or play was that Art Blakey and I were so ugly.”
“Great Chicago glowed red before our eyes.” D&S delivered the vehicle to its owner. “It was now time to return the Caldillac to the owner, who lived on Lake Shore Drive, in a swank apartment with an enormous garage underneath manged by oil-scarred Negroes. We drove out and swung the muddy heap into its berth. The mechanic did not recognize the Cadillac. We handed the papers over. He scratched his head at the sight of it. We had to get out fast.”
After a visit to Detroit, D&S made their way to New York. Sal’s aunt said Dean could only stay for a little while, and then he would have to go. Dean needed to behave himself for a while. “Not only that, but a few months later Camille gave birth to Dean’s second baby, the result of a few nights’ rapport early in the year. And another matter of months and Inez had a baby. With one illegitimate child in the West somewhere, Dean then had four little ones and not a cent, and was all troubles and ecstasy and speed as ever. So we didn’t go to Italy.”
Part three of OTR ends here. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. The complete series has been published. part one part two part three part four part six part seven
JD Vance
@JDVance1 “Praying for our friends in Israel this morning. Just an awful situation.” 5:57 AM · Oct 7, 2023. This tweet is how I found out about the attack on Israel. The war that followed is a historic tragedy, no matter which team you are on.
John David Vance is going to be the Republican nominee for Vice President. The odds are very good that he will be elected. Since he is 39 years old, he should have a long career.
@JDVance1 “As we watch this horrible situation in Israel unfold, Americans must face a stark truth: our tax dollars funded this. Money is fungible, and many of the dollars we sent to Iran are being used to now kill innocent people. This must stop. Israel has every right to defend itself. I wish our friends well, but most of all I wish they weren’t fighting against weapons bought with our money.” 6:44 AM · @JDVance1 “We didn’t give them money we just unfroze their money.” “They promised they’d only spend it on humanitarian supplies. I’m sure they’re very trustworthy.” “I’ll ignore the $400m pallet of cash delivered by the last Democrat administration.” Complete idiocy.” 1:31 PM
The initial reactions of people to historic landmarks can be revealing. It is noteworthy that Sen. Vance chose to talk about Iran. The money was earned by selling Iranian oil. It was frozen in western banks because of sanctions against the Iranian regime. It was Iran’s money. We did not give them anything.
As a private citizen, I am not obligated to comment on current events. When Al-Aqsa Flood started, I knew two things. Israel would exponentially retaliate, and lose most the world. The supporters of Israel would fight, using every trick of shady propaganda known to man. This was going to result in bitter, toxic arguments. I did not yet know the terms “hasbara” and “hannibal directive.”
Al-Aqsa Flood has already had a devastating impact on Palestine. There is a potential for greater conflict in the region, including war with Iran. A war with Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz, and shut down the world economy. It is telling that the reaction of Sen. Vance, on October 7, was to denounce Iran. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Opens Up on Why
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A young Richard Simmons (yes, that’s really him) in Fellini’s film Satyricon, 1969
Richard Simmons appeared in two Fellini films: Satyricon (1968) and The Clowns (1970).
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parliament of owls ~ meddle ~ atom heart mother ~ saucerful of secrets ~ dark side of the moon
@mattlcullen ~ @kingdwarfnyc ~ king dwarf ~ george carlin ~ msnbc
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simmons satyricon ~ simmons ~ simmons satyricon ~ richard simmons ~ trump shot
first they came ~ elizabeth wurtzel ~ part two ~ Rachel Maddow ~ The Uterus Collector
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galaxie a15 ~ pcb ~ darryl cooper ~ simmons satyricon ~ richard simmons
@LiZaOutlives Liza Minnelli has outlived Dr. Ruth Westheimer whose many television appearances made her America’s best-known sex counselor. ~ Samsung Next, a corporate venture arm of South Korea-based conglomerate Samsung, is shutting down its office in Israel. … The departure comes due to the ongoing war in Gaza and amid calls for an embargo on Israel over human rights concerns in Gaza, which have led to a decline in confidence in the Israeli economy. Ratings agency S&P Global cut Israel’s long-term ratings and Israel’s GDP fell 5.7% in the last quarter of 2023. ~ Hello Melissa Manchester. This is the story about how I became a fan. One time during the Nixon Administration, Martin Mull opened for you at the Great Southeast Music Hall, in Atlanta GA. I was a fan of Mr. Mull, and knew little about you. The only thing I knew is that someone I know saw you on tv, and thought you were lousy. After seeing Mr. Mull (not the same Mr. Mull who repaired our TV in the fifties), I stayed for the headliner. You were terrific. I became a fan. I even went back to GSEMH to see you a second time, when James Newton Howard was in your band. And so we have lived our lives. Sadly, we recently lost Martin Mull. This prompted a comment to your facebook endeavor, which led to this comment. You and I are still going. I cannot say I have ever bought anything by you, but I still have the memory of seeing you perform all those years ago. ~ “has it ever occurred to you,’ he said, ‘that the whole history of English poetry has been determined by the fact that the English language lacks rhymes?'” —1984 ~ there is a Maddow-pants-on-fire story in the news cycle. I wrote about the story in 2020. If this slack blogger can easily see the problems with a story, why was MSNBC fooled? ~ The Uterus Collector Part Two Judge says Maddow, other MSNBC hosts made ‘verifiably false’ statements about doctor suing for defamation. This is how one outlet covered the latest Maddow-pants-on-fire story. At first glance, this is not newsworthy. However, curiosity got the best of me, and I looked into the story. I soon realized that I had written a blog post about the story.. When I hear that something I wrote four years ago might be relevant, my instinct is to look for it. Unfortunately, Google advanced search was not helpful. Even a post titled The Uterus Collector is missed by the algorithm, when searching for “uterus” at chamblee54.wordpress. . It is almost as if someone did not want me to find it. Fortunately, I have other methods for finding old posts. Here is what the chamblee54 post found. “The story broke with a report from Project South. The whistle blower was Dawn Wooten. video video Ms. Wooten, a single mother of 5, worked at ICDC (Irwin County Detention Center) until her hours were cut, after a dispute about Covid-19 infection. As is the case with many workplace stories, there are conflicting accounts.” … “The focus of the complaint is inadequate safety measures, taken with regard to Covid-19. “Priyanka Bhatt, staff attorney at … Project South, told The Washington Post that she included the hysterectomy allegations because she wanted to trigger an investigation. …” “If ICDC did not have the resources to provide adequate safeguards against Covid-19 infection, how are they going to have the resources to provide hysterectomies? … a hysterectomy can cost thousands of dollars and both ICE and the private companies that contract with the agency to oversee its detention centers notoriously provide dangerous and substandard medical care to cut costs and maximize profits.” There are more problems with TUC narrative, which you can see at the post. This post was thrown together by an old white guy with too much free time. Why was he able to see this better than a major news organization? ~ there is a legendary chain of male bonding. It goes from Oscar Wilde, to Walt Whitman, to Edward Carpenter, to Gavin Arthur, to Neal Cassady, to Allen Ginsberg. Or so the story goes. ~ @octopuscaveman If it was staged he didn’t go far enough. Fake your death, come back in 3 days and really rile up the voters. ~ pictures today are from The Library of Congress ~ selah
Electric Toothbrush
It was a hot July morning. Manley Pointer noticed a yard sale, and decided to go. After going up the path, and past the school, he came to the sale.
Most yard sales have a table with arcane electronic gear. There was something there called a router refresher. You plug it in, and the wifi is stronger throughout the house. Two electric toothbrushes were on another table. MP’s dentist has been harassing him for years about getting one. The sign said $5, quickly negotiated down to $3.
Walking home on the path, MP thought about the issues of the day. Today it was the stylistic similarities of hasbara to wokeness. The overblown rhetoric. The hypocrisy. The name calling. The flaky logic. The tendency to cut off people in the middle of a sentence, and start ranting. None of this leads to peace on earth, and good will towards men.
Getting home, MP took out the electric toothbrush. The bathroom was too small to have a convenient place to plug it in. There had been another electric toothbrush, which appeared to have a wall mount. MP walked back up the path, to see if he could exchange the non-mounting toothbrush for the mounting toothbrush.
Alas, the second toothbrush did not have a wall mount. What looked like a wall mount was another mysterious electronic device. MP went home, and put a brick on top of a cabinet to make the charger more accessible. The ET was not comfortable to use the first time. There will be other attempts. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Whitman To Ginsberg
“… I’ve slept with Neal Cassady who slept with Gavin Arthur who slept with Edward Carpenter who described sleeping with Whitman to Gavin Arthur. [The “Gay Succession”]” Allen Ginsberg was fond of his place in a line of gay succession. This is a repost.
A 1974 interview makes the same point about Whitman-Carpenter-Arthur, but does not mention Cassady-Ginsberg. Could anyone be telling stories? The Carpenter-Arthur connection happened in 1924, but is described in wonderful detail by Mr. Arthur in 1967. There are few details about the Arthur-Cassady link in the chain. As a BBC interviewer said to Mr. Ginsberg in 1994 “Both Bob Dylan and Jack Kerouac, I think, described you as a “con-man extraordinaire”. What did they mean?” AG: “Oh, maybe they were projecting their own goofiness on me.”
“Edward Carpenter (1844-1929) was a writer and gay mystic and lived in England all his life. Although ordained an Anglican priest in 1869 he soon renounced religion and became a Fabian socialist. Among his works on social reform is Towards Democracy (1883-1902), a long, un- rhymed poem revealing the influence of his friend Walt Whitman. He edited the first gay literary collection, Iolaus: An Anthology of Friendship”
Mr. Carpenter exchanged letters with Mr. Whitman. “Although Whitman was not a socialist, his writing had a profound effect on Carpenter, who made the long trip to America primarily as a pilgrimage to his literary and spiritual inspiration. He visited the poet for several weeks in 1877 and again in 1884. In 1906 he published an account of his visits to America, Days with Walt Whitman, writing a respectful, even somewhat glorified, portrait of his idol.”
“It was not until the 1966 publication of a memoir by Gavin Arthur entitled The Circle Of Sex that the intimate details of Carpenter’s visits were revealed. Arthur slept in bed with Carpenter … leaving us with our only description of Whitman’s sexual behavior, an area otherwise shrouded in mystery and controversy.” In later years, we learned that Mr. Whitman possibly spent a happy afternoon with Oscar Wilde. Mr. Whitman was also fond of cruising the Brooklyn Waterfront.
Gavin Arthur (born Chester Alan Arthur III; March 21, 1901 – April 28, 1972) is a key link in this chain. As often noted, he was the grandson of Chester Arthur. The elder Mr. Arthur was elected Vice President in 1880, and promoted after the death of James Garfield.
The younger Mr. Arthur was a piece of work. In the early 1920’s, Mr. Arthur dropped out of Columbia, got married, and moved to Ireland. Mr. Arthur somehow got to meet his idol, Edward Carpenter. At the time of this meeting, Mr. Arthur was 23, and Mr. Carpenter was 80.
THE GAY SUCCESSION “… is a document given me by Gavin Arthur in 1967.” The story goes into extravagant detail about the meeting between Mr. Arthur and Mr. Carpenter. One wonders how the elderly Mr. Arthur remembers all this 43 years later.
EC – “No, Walt was ambigenic,” he said. “His contact with women was far less than his contact with men. But he did engender several children and his greatest female contact was that Creole in New Orleans. I don’t think he ever loved any of them as much as he loved Peter Doyle.”
GA – “I suppose you slept with him?” I blurted out half scared to ask.”
EC – “Oh yes–once in a while–he regarded it as the best way to get together with another man. He thought that people should ‘know’ each other on the physical and emotional plane as well as the mental. … the best part of comrade love was that there was no limit to the number of comrades”
GA – “How did he make love?” I forced myself to ask.”
EC – “I will show you,” he smiled. “Let us go to bed.”
Mr. Arthur spares few details in what happens next.
Chester III renamed himself Gavin. After losing the financial support of his family, Mr. Arthur moved to San Francisco. For a while, he sold newspapers on the street. “And he delved deep into both astrology and sexology. Gavin took his star charts very seriously: When one self-administered reading told him he was heading to prison soon, he immediately drove to San Quentin and took a job as a teacher, the better to prevent going in as an inmate.”
“By the 1960s, Gavin Arthur had become a well-known and respected astrologer. In 1966, some Bay Area activists, cultural and political, began to plan a transformative event. They wanted to unite the cultural radicals of the Haight, and the political radicals of Berkeley. Those plans led to the Human Be-In. In order to have maximum astrological impact, its organizers asked Arthur to determine the most auspicious date. Arthur determined that January 14, 1967, would have the greatest impact.”
“I had a flashback to the time I spent with Ginsberg in Cambridge, MA, in 1982, when he told me that I was part of an erotic lineage that connected me to Whitman … a quick Google search identifies Arthur as ”a certain astrologer and San Francisco character, Gavin Arthur … gave lectures at San Quentin while Neal was a prisoner.” Another entry reports that he studied astrology with Ronald Reagan before Reagan started his political career.”
“In 1958, he (Neal Cassady) was arrested after being caught using marijuana at a San Francisco nightclub. He was sentenced for two years at San Quentin State Prison.” This was when Mr. Arthur was teaching at San Quentin. Mr. Cassady mentions him in two letters to his wife Carolyn. (For those who just got here, Neal Cassady was the model for Dean Moriarty in On The Road. Mr. Cassady also drove the bus “Further,” for the Merry Pranksters.)
August 13, 1959 from San Quentin to Carolyn Cassady “Last Saturday, “Uncle Gavin” Arthur, grandson of our twenty-first President who, Republican though he was, could hardly have been more conservative than is Gain underneath all his Occult Astrology, failed to show (again, for the third time in six weeks) to teach our class in Comparative Religion and Philosophy, about three dozen regularly in attendance, on account of a death in his group at the Global House, which he bought by selling papers on Market Street for ten years; so again it was my pleasurable duty to instruct the boys in Cayce-hood [Edgar Cayce]”
Septetmber 22 1959 from San Quentin to Carolyn Cassady “Uncle” worry-wart [Gavin Arthur] missed showing up for the class again last week and I hear, probably unfounded, rumors that it is to be discontinued, too bad if true, because it was fun to hear the old geezer expound, without at all remembering he had, on the very same things week after week. I mean his examples, and their wording were always so alike one could not only anticipate, but, with any memory at all, give in advance the exact sentence he would be about to pronounce: it was sort of a game.” Eight years later, the “old geezer” described a 1924 tryst in clinical detail.
San Quentin broke Neal Cassady. The railroad would not take him back, and Carolyn divorced him. “He, however, felt now he had utterly failed in his mission, and he knew he could never go back. He died inside; only his body survived. This he did his best to destroy. He no longer believed in suicide, but he did all he could to be killed. … He told me he swallowed handfuls of pills anyone offered, even not knowing what they were. Is this not an obvious death-wish? He admitted it was.”
During this down and out time of his life, Neal Cassady apparently connected with Gavin Arthur. In a 1974 radio interview, Allen Ginsberg recalls “That was already the ’60’s, but there was that atmosphere back in San Francisco, around Gavin Arthur, particularly. Arthur was a great friend of Neal Cassady, slept with him all the time, or whenever Neal had nowhere to go he’d wind up in Gavin’s house, sort of falling asleep, exhausted, in his bed.”
The Neal Cassady to Allen Ginsberg connection is well documented.
“A second, serendipitous event further spurred (Joey) Cain’s interest in researching Gavin Arthur. Cain found a used copy of Carpenter’s “Towards Democracy” in a used bookstore for $3.00. It had a lot of writing in it. Cain noticed the following lament among the notes in the book, “This is one of my Bibles, please return. This volume is the third I have had to buy, people being so dishonest about books.” Then he looked below and saw Gavin Arthur’s signature and address. The writing belonged to Arthur. The book in his hand had once belonged to Gavin Arthur. He went up to the cashier who said, “It’s a shame about all this writing in it.” Cain replied, “Let me pay for it first, and then I’ll tell you about this writing.” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
The Uterus Collector Part Two
Judge says Maddow, other MSNBC hosts made ‘verifiably false’ statements about doctor suing for defamation. This is how one outlet covered the latest Maddow-pants-on-fire story. At first glance, this is not newsworthy. However, curiosity got the best of me, and I looked into the story. I soon realized that I had written a blog post about the story.
When I hear that something I wrote four years ago might be relevant, my instinct is to look for it. Unfortunately, Google advanced search was not helpful. Even a post titled The Uterus Collector is missed by the algorithm, when searching for “uterus” at chamblee54.wordpress. It is almost as if someone did not want me to find it. Fortunately, I have other methods for finding old posts. Here is what the chamblee54 post found.
“The story broke with a report from Project South. The whistle blower was Dawn Wooten. video video Ms. Wooten, a single mother of five, worked at ICDC (Irwin County Detention Center) until her hours were cut, after a dispute about Covid-19 infection. As is the case with many workplace stories, there are conflicting accounts.” …
“The focus of the complaint is inadequate safety measures, taken with regard to Covid-19. “Priyanka Bhatt, staff attorney at … Project South, told The Washington Post that she included the hysterectomy allegations because she wanted to trigger an investigation. …”
“If ICDC did not have the resources to provide adequate safeguards against Covid-19 infection, how are they going to have the resources to provide hysterectomies? … a hysterectomy can cost thousands of dollars and both ICE and the private companies that contract with the agency to oversee its detention centers notoriously provide dangerous and substandard medical care to cut costs and maximize profits.”
There are more problems with TUC narrative, which you can see at the post. This post was thrown together by an old white guy with too much free time. Why was he able to see this better than a major news organization? Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Cringeworthy Conversation
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hog wrestling ~ reggie jackson ~ christian cooper ~ Col. Douglas Macgregor ~ kamala
fp ~ ruin ~ fellatio ~ Bari ~ cecil render
Belkys Dominguez ~ catharine butler ~ dan stephens ~ barnett harden ~ victor jackson
tony sanford ~ pc ~ john astin ~ tomorrow ~ bari
risk ~ risk ~ hawkwind ~ tia ~ als
marta ~ ms ~ peter frampton ~ mahmood od ~ shiama
gray zone ~ hydrocholorothiazide ~ lives well lived ~ jamie farr ~ hawk tuah
theresa davis ~ Mr. Whitman’s ~ walt ~ Nathan Englander ~ Chris Adrian
@NathanEnglander ~ @NathanEnglander ~ diarrhea ~ diarrhea ~ letters
whitman in camden ~ story ~ Nathan Englander ~ story ~ @NathanEnglander
@NathanEnglander ~ diarrhea ~ preachers ~ fireworks ~ stormy daniels
pearl sandow ~ Feb. 16, 2023. ~ Lawrence K. Altman, M.D. ~ alvin bragg ~ fani
cafe ~ cafe brief ~ pc biz ~ backfired ~ @ori_goldberg
@ori_goldberg 1/ The IDF and Shin Bet have released Shifa hospital director Mohammad Abu Salmiya after months of detention back to the Gaza strip. Israel’s government is in an uproar. This state of affairs demonstrates the depths of Israel’s unhinged mendacity. —> ~ Fiction Issue ~ @NYerFiction “New fiction by Sally Rooney, in The New Yorker’s annual Fiction Issue.” Back in the corner newstand days, the AFI was a lot of fun.. I miss dead tree magazines, and decided to go out and get a copy. Barnes & Noble was still open on Perimeter Center W. I had not been in a bookstore in a long time. They still smell the same. The price was going to be ridiculous, but it was time for a foolish extravaagence. The periodicals were against the western wall. I looked carefully in every section, but did not see TNY. A second examination of the magazine shelf yielded the same result. A lady said that some magazines were in a rack by the front. In the second rack we perused, TNY was for sale. The cost was $8.99, before tax. It was not the summer fiction issue. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress ~ @mtracey Presidents enjoyed functional immunity from criminal prosecution for “official acts” between 1789 and 2023. Now, the Supreme Court has codified that immunity. This is largely thanks to the Special Counsel purporting to criminalize a massive array of “official” actions undertaken by Trump, such as conferring with Justice Department officials, conferring with the Vice President, and even Tweeting — under a cockamamie and newly concocted theory designed to specifically prosecute Trump. Given the clear excesses of this literal “conspiracy theory” proposed by Jack Smith, the Court has accordingly formalized a wide-ranging immunity for all presidents, even for future “official acts” which might be more narrow and concrete, and related to more straightforwardly “unlawful” conduct. So if the President has now been accorded King-like immunities for his “core Constitutional” acts, as well as far-reaching “presumptive immunity” for his “official” acts, the reason for this new monarchical standard ultimately stems from the heedless crusade of Jack Smith and the DOJ ~ but when you impose meaningful search parameters, the truth emerges: The charges against Trump are obscure, and nearly entirely unprecedented. In fact, no state prosecutor — in New York, or Wyoming, or anywhere — has ever charged federal election laws as a direct or predicate state crime, against anyone, for anything. None. Ever. Even putting aside the specifics of election law, the Manhattan DA itself almost never brings any case in which falsification of business records is the only charge. Standing alone, falsification charges would have been mere misdemeanors under New York law, which posed two problems for the DA. First, nobody cares about a misdemeanor, and it would be laughable to bring the first-ever charge against a former president for a trifling offense that falls within the same technical criminal classification as shoplifting a Snapple and a bag of Cheetos from a bodega. Second, the statute of limitations on a misdemeanor — two years — likely has long expired on Trump’s conduct, which dates to 2016 and 2017. So, to inflate the charges up to the lowest-level felony (Class E, on a scale of Class A through E) — and to electroshock them back to life within the longer felony statute of limitations — the DA alleged that the falsification of business records was committed “with intent to commit another crime.” Here, according to prosecutors, the “another crime” is a New York State election-law violation, which in turn incorporates three separate “unlawful means”: federal campaign crimes, tax crimes, and falsification of still more documents. Inexcusably, the DA refused to specify what those unlawful means actually were — and the judge declined to force them to pony up — until right before closing arguments. So much for the constitutional obligation to provide notice to the defendant of the accusations against him in advance of trial. (This, folks, is what indictments are for.) In these key respects, the charges against Trump aren’t just unusual. They’re bespoke, seemingly crafted individually for the former president and nobody else. ~ @Fritschner “Kennedy told the person, who was traveling to Asia, that he might enjoy a restaurant in Korea that served dog on the menu, suggesting Kennedy had sampled dog. The photo was taken in 2010, according to… metadata—the same year he was diagnosed with a dead tapeworm in his brain.” ~ On July 3, 1981, an article appeared deep inside the New York Times. “RARE CANCER SEEN IN 41 HOMOSEXUALS.” Very few people knew how big that story was going to get. The author, Lawrence K. Altman, is still writing for the NYT. ~ Tyler Mahan Coe (chaotic good) @TylerMahanCoe I know I’m supposed to ignore the trolls but it’s so difficult to do when I know they became the way they are from feeling ignored by their mommies … @chamblee54 If only they hadn’t been drunk the day she got out of prison … the tweet has been deleted. ~ Every night for a thousand years. ~ “I do not need to wash my hands every day!” The words were probably grumbled in many bars, ball games and bathrooms across the country. It is hard to identify a fatal organism when we cannot see it with our eyes. So it is difficult to get the masses to believe that some tiny microorganism can cause a miserable death. ~ “That whole damned war business is about 999 parts diarrhea to one part glory.” Looking for the source of that quote led to the research shown above. … “Intimate with Walt Selections from Whitman’s Conversations with Horace Traubel, 1882-1892.” ~ contestants on the Hollywood Squares would tape five episodes at a time. You would bring a blazer, and five ties. ~ I just listened to this wonderful show, with Jamie Farr talking to Gilbert Gottfried. Towards the end of the show, someone mentioned that Jamie worked with Milton Berle. The story about “just take out enough to win” was mentioned, without any context. Someone said, you must not have worked with Forrest Tucker. ~ “He sounded terrible and then he went to Waffle House and then was fine.” “He was reinvigorated by the Waffle House.””I want to know what he ordered.” ~ Seán Ono Lennon @seanonolennon I really don’t know what people expect from me when they insult my mother. The mind boggles. ~ true stable genius i074 i075 0718i 0718ii ~ zabriskie point ~ I drive by a sign everyday. “Nancy Creek Cemetary” The spell check suggestion is elementary. ~ @QuoteResearch Before you engage in a protracted argument on x-twitter please consider this comment from Cyrus Stuart Ching in 1948: ‘What’s the sense of wrestling with a pig? You both get all over muddy . . . and the pig likes it.’” @chamblee54 When clicking on this link, I found myself in an argument with google ads. Arguing with the algorithm is the modern version of wrestling with a pig. ~ Prompt If I Were a Photograph or Picture this – I confirmed that it was blow up, and not throw up. That moment I captured at Krystal left room for doubt. The lady who took my order asked if I wanted to take an art portrait of her. I thought I would let it slide, since I knew that art was slang for porn, and there was no lens strong enough to make the onion hamburger smell go away. But there was no film in my camera anyway, and you can take that at face value, or think that it is a cliche metaphor. I wanted to be kind to the lady, so I ordered a sack full of Krystalburgers, and prayed that I would be alive when I finished eating them. The happy krystal habit is not what it used to be. If only they had white castles in georgia, but you can’t have everything. I can always settle for the mystery meat at taco bell, my true idea of junk food nirvana. Meanwhile, the rain is coming down here, and I am going to continue to type until the call to action. Maybe I could have considered what I could have done to make a naked krystalburger mama look like something other than the way those hamburgers smell. In the old days, of the Krystal emporium on peachtree industrial boulevard, across from the frito plant, the management would not have tolerated a krystalburger princess asking a poet to take her art portrait, with or without the side of fries. ~ “He sounded terrible and then he went to Waffle House and then was fine.” “He was reinvigorated by the Waffle House.” “I want to know what he ordered.” ~ pictures today are from The Library of Congress ~ selah
Racially Motivated
A post on chamblee54 examined the local custom of changing street names. Towards the end, there was this sentence: “Some of these changes are racially motivated, while others are not. Some make sense, while most do not.” If you were to say this out loud, chances are good that someone would interrupt you, and say “Why don’t you say racist?” This is a repost.
The AP style guide took up this issue earlier this year. Here is what they say: @APStylebook “Do not use racially charged or similar terms as euphemisms for racist or racism when the latter terms are truly applicable.” @APStylebook “The terms racism and racist can be used in broad references or in quotations to describe the hatred of a race, or assertion of the superiority of one race over others. Our new race-related coverage entry on Stylebook Online offers details on when and how to use the terms.” You have to pay for the Stylebook online. God is in the details, and hiding behind a paywall.
@AnApeInKhakis “Remove nuance from journalism. If water’s not frozen, it’s boiling.” @beautypill “Yes, for example “You’re missing the point” and “You should go fuck yourself” both apply here, but critical differences in tone guide which one I should use to address your tweet.”
@Zigmanfreud “Yeah, the HUGE problem with this AP stylebook decision is that the people making the judgment call on what is “racist or racism” are so liberal & so PC that anything short of a white person apologizing for being born white (especially if they are a conservative man) would qualify”
@EvanDonovan “Yes, but when are they truly acceptable? Increasingly, newsrooms want attribution when that word is used. “Xxxxx has been under fire since making controversial comments last week. Yyyyy called those comments racist….”
This quotefest could go on all day. If you want to explore the racially/racist rabbit hole, go to an internet near you. More to the point, is changing a street name racially motivated, or racist? This statement applied to multiple street name changes. Often, race was not an apparent factor. We don’t know when the changes took place, or what government body made the changes.
Is this institutional oppression, or just government nonsense? Changing the street name is typical of the petty, separate-water-fountains nature of Jim Crow. Is the water boiling, or is it not frozen? At some point, the writer needs to think for them self. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Is Facial Recognition Technology Racist?
Wrongfully Arrested Because Face Recognition Can’t Tell Black People Apart This headline. posted on facebook, led to a discussion of Facial Recognition Technology (FRT). The headline pushed a lot of my buttons. People are aroused, to the breaking point, about racism. The person who posted the story disagrees. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
The reply posted by person #1 featured some other links. One was for a video, Wrongfully Arrested Because of Flawed Face Recognition Technology. To me, this is more reasonable, and less inflammatory, than “… Can’t Tell Black People Apart.” It is also easier to believe. I can accept that FRT has more problems with POC, than with PWOC. To make a blanket claim like “… Can’t Tell Black People Apart” seems like an dangerous exaggeration.
The conversation sat still for the rest of the day. Person #1 is an attorney, who used to live in Atlanta. This is where I met him. Person #1 is an intelligent, thoughtful person, someone you should listen to. I might disagree with person #1 on this issue, while still having respect for him.
Then person #2 entered the conversation. I have never met person #2. All he knows is what he sees on her facebook page. It shows pictures of a vacation in Havana. Person #2 is clearly white. The fact that she took a vacation in Havana indicates that person #2 enjoys a certain amount of privilege. Here is what person #2 added to the conversation:
“”…flawed face recognition technology” sounds like there was a glitch, not like the entire technology was designed in a way that supports white, male normativity (aka white supremacy). Your suggestion that this is the same message is false and suggests we should avoid being more upset by avoiding the actual issue here—because we should frame matters in ways that obfuscate the real problem. We can’t begin to solve these problems if we are afraid to actually say what they are. Yeah, people are going to be upset. THEY SHOULD BE.” … “If you are following the protests and the recent changes that have happened, you know exactly what the anger has led to. If Black anger makes you uncomfortable, address your white fragility. Try to let go of your tone policing and actually engage with the issues. That’s work you have to do on your own.”
University Avenue cleared of barricades near property where Rayshard Brooks was killed. This was the story I posted in response to “you know exactly what the anger has led to.” In the aftermath of the Rayshard Brooks killing, an armed gang took over the burned out Wendy’s on University Avenue, where the incident occurred. “Residents of the south Atlanta neighborhood in the area had grown frustrated by the blockade that formed – guarded by what they described as armed citizens who they said were not protesting but using the space for their own gain. Residents said that the people would block the street and sometimes not allow them to get in or out of their neighborhood.”
This is one of many examples of where the anger caused by current events has spilled over to harm people. Often, the “collateral damage” did nothing to deserve the abuse they are getting. In many cases, it is POC who are suffering the brunt of the damage. When a privileged white person, like #2, rabble rouses people into action, this is what can happen. University Avenue is the first exit on i75/i85 south of downtown, and is an important access point for many neighborhoods. Many of the people affected by the turmoil on University Avenue are white.
After hearing talk about “white fragility” and “tone policing,” I am inclined to dismiss person #2 as a cliche spouting idiot. Unfortunately, that seems to be the approach many people have to complex issues. The idea that FRT is designed to reinforce white supremacy would be very amusing to the Chinese government. They are major players in FRT, using it to enable Asian hegenomy.
Lets examine the notion that FRT is racist by design. If this were the case, the developers would go the extra mile to make fewer mistakes with POC. If the goal of FRT is to keep the lawless POC masses under control, then it would help if the system actually worked on POC.
One of the articles cited by person #1 mentioned announcements by some major tech industry players that they were not going to sell FRT services to police. The article linked above mentions concerns about race/gender bias. However, the greater focus here is the overall privacy concerns about FRT.
Is it really a good idea to focus on the racial problems with FRT? There have long been overall privacy concerns about Big Brother. Unfortunately, many people will see an headline about racism and either tune it out, or think that it does not affect them. (“If you are tired of talking about racism, how would you like to live with it”) The human rights concerns about FRT affect everyone. To dismiss these concerns as “white fragility” is counterproductive, insulting, and insane.
This feature is approaching the attention limit of many readers. The facebook thread, and the identity of persons #1 and #2, were hidden out of respect for the privacy of the people involved. Even a cliche-spouting SJW deserves privacy.
Chamblee54 
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