Inspiration Is For Amateurs
It is a T shirt treasure, and a coffee cup classic. “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” This gem is blamed on Allan Stewart Konigsberg, better known as Woody Allen. The percentage goes up and down, and life is sometimes substituted for success.
The quote was recently featured at WIST, or Wish I’d Said That. This quote site is known for giving a source, unlike the sites featuring purring platitudes in front of a cultural kitten. The current top offering is “Bach almost persuades me to be a Christian.” Virginia Woolf attributes the baroque comment to Roger Fry who was not afraid of the author.
Getting back to Mr. Allen and success statistics. He accepts full responsibility for the remark. In 1989, notorious conservative columnist William Safire asked Mr. Allen about whether he said life or success. The answer was rather surprising.
“The quote you refer to is a quote of mine which occurred during an interview while we were discussing advice to young writers, and more specifically young playwrights. My observation was that once a person actually completed a play or a novel he was well on his way to getting it produced or published, as opposed to a vast majority of people who tell me their ambition is to write, but who strike out on the very first level and indeed never write the play or book.”
In other words, you don’t just show up empty handed. If you have an idea, you have to employ the writing formula, ass + chair. You have to turn the tv off, leave the beer in the refrigerator, sit down, and push buttons on the keyboard. … Pictures for this repost are from The Library of Congress.
November 11
Veterans day was originally Armistice Day. On November 11, 1918, at 11 am, Paris time (the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month) a cease fire went into effect for “The great war”. Officials of the major armies agreed to the ceasefire at 5 am (European time). There were an estimated 11,000 casualties in the last six hours of the war.
At 11:59 am, U.S. army private Henry Gunther became the last soldier to die in World War I. “According to the Globe and Mail this is the story of the last soldier killed in WW1: On Nov.11, 1918, U.S. army private Henry Gunther stood up during a lull in the machine gun fire and charged the enemy. “The Germans stared in disbelief,” says the Daily Express. “They had been told that morning that the fighting was about to stop; in a few minutes they would stop firing and go home. So why was this American charging at them with his bayonet drawn? They shouted at him to stop and frantically tried to wave him back but… he hadn’t heard anything of the ceasefire.” A German gunner released a five-round burst and the soldier lay dead, at 10:59 a.m. In his recently published Eleventh Month, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Hour, U.S. Military Historian Joseph Persico notes that Private Gunther had previously been a sergeant but was demoted after an Army censor read his letter to a friend back home, urging him to steer clear of the war at all costs. Gunther, who was in no-man’s land when the ceasefire news arrived, had been trying to prove himself worthy of his original rank.”
This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Veteran’s Day is a bad day for a cynic. I appreciate living in The United States. Even with all of her flaws, I have a good life here. The role that Veterans have played should be honored. On the other hand, those who profit from war often exploit Veterans, for political mojo. Many of these people did not serve. Those who profit from war, without serving, deserve our scorn.
Veterans are often not treated well after their service. It is estimated that a quarter of the homeless are veterans. The services offered to wounded veterans are shamefully lacking.
Hugh Pharr Quin CSA was my great grandfather. He served with the Georgia State Troops, in the War Between the States. I prefer the USA to the CSA, or whatever would have followed a Confederate victory. The Union army had to prevail, over the various Confederate Armies, for this to happen. Do I dishonor my great grandfather by saying, we are better off that the other side won?
Veterans Day was originally Armistice Day. This was the day, 105 years ago, when the War to End All Wars ended. World War I was a ghastly bloodbath, in which millions died. It affected many of the problems that plague us today. I would be willing to bet that not one person, in ten thousand, knows what World War I was about. And yet, the men who fought in that conflict (I don’t think they had women soldiers then) deserve the same gratitude as those who fought in any other conflict.
The soldier…many of whom are drafted…doesn’t get to choose which war to fight in. The sacrifice of the World War II soldier was just as great as the Vietnam fighter, but the appreciation given was much greater. I grew up during Vietnam, and saw the national mood go from patriotic fight, to dismayed resistance. By the time I was old enough to get drafted, the Paris accords had been signed. For better or worse, there went my chance.
We Were Lied To
This is a repost from 2018. The last five years have been fun to watch. Brian Kemp was inaugurated as Governor. Stacey Abrams became the darling of the chattering classes. In 2020, President Orangehair saw Stacey’s election denial, and took it to the next level. POTUS-TUBBY called Governor Kemp, and politely requested Georgia’s electoral votes. The Governor declined. Two years later, Governor Kemp beat the stuffin’ out of Stacey Abrams to win re-election.
One of the tropes in the Georgia gubernatorial election is voter suppression. The story goes that the Secretary of State’s office is making it more difficult for certain people to vote. Since the Secretary of State, Brian Kemp, is the Republican candidate, this issue is getting a lot of play. Voter suppression has been the number one issue for the Democrats, and their candidate Stacey Abrams.
Sec. Kemp Submits Resignation to Gov. Deal. This was the news today, two days after the election. If only for the sake of appearances, this should have happened a long time ago. The election is close. Is it a good idea to have one of the candidates counting the votes?
The comments are where things get interesting. “If he did this last week, many a problem would have been resolved or not even created.” “Nothing would have changed. Each county is responsible for it’s own elections and tabulation and certification of those elections. They process absentee and provisional ballots for their own county. The data is uploaded to the Secretary of State’s office for compiling. I wish more people would go observe how the process actually works in their county.” “But, the damage was mostly done during the registration processing anyway.” “Well, guess who processes registrations – the counties. Also, compiles the data submitted by the county – They don’t create the data, they just compile and report it. The counties certify.”
We have been lied to. If Brian Kemp had the political sense to resign several months ago, he would have removed the appearance of impropriety. The Democrats would not have had an issue to run on, except their proposals for education and health care. Everybody is going to improve education and health care. Spending tax money is what politicians do. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Joni Mitchell
Tuesday is Joni Mitchell’s 80th birthday. Roberta Joan Anderson was born November 7, 1943, in Fort Macleod, Alberta. For this birthday tribute we will revisit four previous posts. one two three four Pictures are from The Library of Congress. … A facebook friend went on a Joni Mitchell kick. First it was a link to an interview. Then it was a quote from The Last Time I Saw Richard. A lady said Blue was her favorite album all all time, and a man enthusiastically agreed.
Given the apples and oranges quality of her catalog, it would be tough to pick one album as a favorite. PG then realized that fbf was going to be thirty soon. PG is sixty. These are two different perspectives on the craft of Joni Mitchell. One has driven through the storm, not knowing what was next. The other is presented with an almost complete body of recorded work.
PG has known about Joni since high school, and been a devoted fan since 1976. Joni’s most popular album, Court And Spark, came out in 1974, eleven years before fbf was born. Who would be the equivalent female musical force from 1943, when PG was minus eleven? The answer is nobody. (Coincidentally Roberta Joan Anderson was born on November 7, 1943.)
After the comment about Blue, PG listened to For The Roses. Joni’s craft is like a cluster bomb… there are lines that you never fully felt, bomblets waiting to explode in your gut. Let The Wind Carry Me has one of those hidden threats. Mama thinks she spoilt me, Papa knows somehow he set me free, Mama thinks she spoilt me rotten, She blames herself, But papa he blesses me.
The first thing PG heard by Joni was Big Yellow Taxi. It was on The Big Ball, a 1970 mail order sampler from Warner Brothers. This was when Joni shacked up with Graham Nash. The next year saw Blue, followed by For The Roses, and Court And Spark. PG always thought Joni was someone he should like, but somehow didn’t. It wasn’t until 1976 that PG broke through the barrier, and became a Joni Mitchell fan. Seeing her in concert did not hurt.
On February 3, 1976, PG took a study break. (He scored 100 on the test the next day) Joni Mitchell was playing at the UGA coliseum a few blocks away, and the door was not watched after the show started. PG found a place to stand, on the first level of the stands. The LA express was her band that night, and created a tight, jazzy sound, even in the UGA coliseum. Tom Scott pointed at Joni, said she was crazy, and drew circles around his left ear. The one line PG remembers is “chicken scratching my way to immortality” from Hejira.
The Hissing of Summer Lawns might not be her best album, but it is certainly her bravest. Court And Spark was a commercial success. Instead of producing a bestselling followup, Joni took a ninety degree turn. Summer Lawns, for all its eccentric sparkle, confused the record buying public. The gravy train took off in another direction.
In those days, 96rock played a new album at midnight, which people were known to tape. On the night of the Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash, the album was Hejira. This was followed by Mingus, another curve ball. Finally, Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter appeared, and did not make a good impression.
The eighties, nineties, and aughts appeared. PG, and Joni, lived their lives. 1996 saw a frightening interview in Details magazine. It was startling to see that for all her granola glory, Joni Mitchell might not be a very nice person. In a pot and kettle moment, David Crosby said “Joni’s about as humble as Mussolini.” Music is a tough way to make easy money.
More recently, there was a long interview on Canadian television. She is not mellowing with age. The cigarettes have not killed her, even if her voice is not what it once was. The recent albums that PG heard are strong. There seem to be more on the way. Maybe the facebook friend will have have the “what is she going to do next” experience after all.
A few weeks ago, PG was at the library. He had a story to take home, before going over to the biography section. There he found Reckless Daughter: A Portrait of Joni Mitchell. At least with fiction, you know you are dealing with a made up story. With biography, you have to use judgment.
It is a familiar story. Joni was born in the frozen north, was a rebellious girl, and got pregnant. She gave up the daughter for adoption, only to be reunited many years later. Joan Anderson gets married to, and divorces, Chuck Mitchell. Joni sings, writes, tunes her guitar funny, becomes a star, gets too weird to be popular, makes and loses money, smokes millions of cigarettes, and becomes an angry old lady. There is a bit more to the story than that. Reckless Daughter fills in a few of the blank spots.
Millions of cigarettes might be an exaggeration. Joni started smoking when she was nine. When she was a star, she was almost as well known for her constant puffing as her pretty songs. When Joni was in a Reagan era slump, she was going through four packs a day. Just for the sake of statistics, lets call it two packs, or forty fags, a day. Multiply forty by 365 and you get 14,600. If she started at 9, and had her aneurysm at 72, that gives you 63 years of nicotine abuse. If you assume that there were forty fags a day for 63 years, that gives you 919,800 smokes. IOW, while seven figures is not out of reach, it is rather unlikely that Joni smoked more than 2,000,000 cancer sticks.
The author of Reckless Daughter, David Yaffe, is a problem. He talks about the mood of America in 1969, four years before he was born. Mr. Yaffe goes to great lengths to show us that he knows about making music. Some readers will be impressed. There are mini-essays on Joni songs from her golden years, the time between “Ladies of the Canyon” and “Hejira.” And gossip, gossip, and more gossip. Joni is well known for her celebrity lovers.
We should make the point that PG enjoyed Reckless Daughter. The inside stories are fun, and pages turn over without too much head scratching. Maybe this is a statement about the career of Joni Mitchell. You enjoy the music for many years, and then complain about the details. Reckless Daughter follows the trajectory of other celebrity biographies. The star is born, takes up a craft, gets a break, becomes successful, goes over the mountaintop into a long decline. With Joni, nothing after “Mingus” was well received. The chanteuse was broker, and angrier, by the minute.
On page 13, Joni hears Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini by Sergei Rachmaninoff. This is the piece that makes her want to be a musician. One page 129, we learn the story of A&M studios in Hollywood. At one time, The Carpenters were in studio A, while Carole King was recording “Tapestry” in studio B. Joni was recording “Blue” in studio C, which had a magic piano. One time, Carole King learned of a break in the studio C booking, and ran in. Three hours later, “I feel the earth move” was recorded.
A few years later, Joni was on the Rolling Thunder tour with Bob Dylan. One of the concepts was support for Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, whose story can be found elsewhere. Joni became disillusioned with Mr. Carter. When Joan Baez asked Joni to speak at a benefit concert, Joni said she would say that Mr. Carter was a jive ass N-person, who never would have been champion of the world. Joni later got in SJW trouble for posing in blackface, for the cover to “Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter.”
On page 251, we learn that Bob Dylan does not dance. Other items include “Free man in Paris” being written about David Geffen, and Jackson Browne writing “Fountain of Sorrow” about Joni. Mr. Brown is a not-well-thought-of ex of Joni. As for Mr. Geffen…. Joni stayed at his house for a while, at a time when Mr. Geffen was in, and out, of the closet. Did they make sweet music together?
So this book report comes to an end. Joni is recovering from a brain aneurysm, and will probably not produce anything else. The book is going back to the library, and PG will move on.
Joni Mitchell has product to promote. She gave an interview to New York magazine, where she smoked a few cigarettes and expressed a few opinions. There were enough attention getting comments to make the news.
“When I see black men sitting, I have a tendency to go — like I nod like I’m a brother. I really feel an affinity because I have experienced being a black guy on several occasions.” She proceeds to tell a story about dressing like a down and out black man as a way of dealing with an obnoxious photographer. “I just stood there till they noticed me. I walked really showily, going, Heh heh heh. It was a great revenge. That was all to get his ass. To freak him out. I had to keep him on the defensive.”
Gay-mafia-made-man David Geffen was a target. “I ask her about a painting, visible in a vestibule, on the way to her laundry room, of a curly-haired man with a banana lodged vertically in his mouth; turns out it’s Geffen, and she painted it. “Before he came out. He’s never seen it,” she says, before explaining: “He was using me as a beard. We were living together, and he’d go cruising at night. He was very ambitious to be big and powerful, and he didn’t think he would be [if he was openly gay].” By 1994, the two had fallen out over her insistence that he didn’t pay her enough in royalties.”
The product is a four cd boxed set, Love Has Many Faces: A Quartet, A Ballet, Waiting To Be Danced. There was a single one star comment about the joniproduct. Al Norman Seems like a collection of Joni’s forgettable tunes February 3, 2015 ~ “My wife loves Joni Mitchell, and never listens to this set. Seems like a collection of Joni’s forgettable tunes.” This comment was sponsored by Head and Shoulders. “100% flake free hair & A GREAT SCENT”
You just can’t get away from capitalism. Ms. Mitchell heard “… on the radio, a record executive “saying quite confidently, ‘We’re no longer looking for talent. We’re looking for a look and a willingness to cooperate.” As interviewer Carl Swanson notes, “For now, she’s hoping that people buy her boxed set, with her self-portrait on the cover. To that end, she gives me a Joni Mitchell tote bag with one of her paintings on it to carry my things home in. Get the word out.”
Joni Mitchell gave am interview recently to a Canadian Broadcaster. She is famously Canadian. The chat was in her California living room, which is littered with her paintings. Many of the paintings are things like Saskatchewan at forty below. Mrs. Mitchell alternates between painting and music, which tend to balance her cigarette fueled mind.
The CBC interview is paired with a more formal chat in Toronto. She could not smoke during the Toronto interview. The Toronto interviewer is just a bit smarter than Jian Ghomeshi, who endured the second hand smoke in California. Mr. Ghomeshi said things like “The song “Woodstock” defined a generation.” Mrs. Mitchell was in a New York City hotel room that famous weekend.(Spell check suggestion for Jian Ghomeshi: Joan Shoeshine)
There are some juicy quotes. Art is short for artificial. When listening to Joni songs, you should look at yourself, and not at her. Free love was just a gimmick for the men to get laid. False modesty is pointless. Sylvia Plath was a liar, or maybe it was Anne Sexton. (James Dickey said that Sylvia Plath was the Judy Garland of American letters.)
A fearsome foursome gets in the game. Someone screamed, on a live album. “Joni, you have more flash than Mick Jagger, Richard Nixon, or Gomer Pyle combined!.” Years later, the fan introduced himself to Mrs. Mitchell.
The conversation mentioned Bob Dylan. He is from Northern Minnesota, and not quite Canadian. Apparently, Mrs. Mitchell kicked up a fuss with some comments in 2010. ” Bob is not authentic at all. He’s a plagiarist, and his name and voice are fake. Everything about Bob is a deception. We are like night and day, he and I. … Grace [Slick] and Janis Joplin were [sleeping with] their whole bands and falling down drunk, and nobody came after them!”
Did Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell ever tune up together? Joan Baez, a similarly named contemporary, is well known for dating Mr. Zimmerman. Ms. Baez did sing at Woodstock.
Mrs. Mitchell doesn’t exactly take back her comments about Bob Dylan. ““I like a lot of Bob’s songs, though musically he’s not very gifted. He’s borrowed his voice from old hillbillies. He’s got a lot of borrowed things. He’s not a great guitar player. He’s invented a character to deliver his songs. Sometimes I wish that I could have that character — because you can do things with that character. It’s a mask of sorts.”
In a kill the messenger moment, Mrs. Mitchell lashed out at the interviewer from the 2010 piece. It is odd, since he didn’t ask any trick questions. Black and white transcripts are tough to deny. “The interviewer was an asshole.” (The body part is bleeped.) “I hate doing interviews with stupid people, and this guy’s a moron” “His IQ is somewhere between his shoe size and (unintelligible)”.
The troublesome 2010 interview was conducted with John Kelly, a Joni Mitchell tribute artist. “JK: Drag does have a power, though — that netherworld of a thing you can’t quite know, which makes people nervous. JM: Drag wasn’t always counterculture. In his memoirs, Nixon talked about the Harvard and Yale men in power who would put on these plays where they dress like women, and Milton Berle did a kind of “hairy drag.” Becoming a gay thing made drag go underground.” Did Mick Jagger and Gomer Pyle ever do drag with Richard Nixon?
Turn Turn Turn
This is a repost from 2008. It was a kinder, gentler time. … This is about a song, Turn, Turn, Turn. It is based on Ecclesiastes 3. … We are now in a time of war. One side is heavily armed, and slaughters unarmed women and children. The Prime Minister of the heavily armed country uses Ecclesiastes 3:8 to justify mass murder. … I recently published a poem, that includes the line “Ecclesiastical abomination.” When I wrote that, it was just a clever phrase, rhyming with cultural appropriation. In fact, I considered saying cultural abomination/Ecclesiastical appropriation. Now, Bibi Netanyahu has taught me the meaning of Ecclesiastical abomination.
The word Ecclesiastes has a poetic tingle. It’s place in the Old Testament is between the poetry of Proverbs, and the enticements of the Song of Salomon. Richard Brautigan counted the punctuation marks in Ecclesiastes, and found no errors. Ecclesiastes 3 was even the lyrics for a top forty song.
Turn Turn Turn is taken almost verbatim from the book of Ecclesiastes. Pete Seeger wrote a melody, and added a line. “There is a time for peace, I swear its not too late”. TTT became a hit for the Byrds in 1965, as the escalation of the Vietnam war was in full bloom.
TTT is about the dualities of life, and how there is a place for all these things. When I was collecting rocks from destroyed houses, it was a time to gather stones together. TTT can serve as a companion to the vibrations of day to day living.
Pete Seeger died January 27, 2014. I first heard of him when he was on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. It was during Vietnam, and Mr. Seeger did a song … “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy” … about how “The big fool said to push on, push on”. The CBS censors did not allow this the first time he appeared. Many thought he was talking about Lyndon Johnson.
“Pete Bowers” was a stage name for a young Pete Seeger. This was to avoid making trouble for his father. The band he played in, the Weavers, popularized a Gullah spiritual, “Kumbaya”. This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
#OPKKK
This is a repost from 2015. It was a simpler time. The worst problem we had was choosing a President. The options were a geriatric criminal, and an orange haired idiot. (Democrats still had to pick between BS and HRC, who are both geriatric criminals.) Most of the links in this post no longer work. One exception is Occupy Democrats, which has more toxic spam than ever before. … PG was minding his business when he stumbled onto a tweet. @neonflag “This number on Anonymous’ KKK data dump jumped out at me: 770-499-4633. That’s the Cobb County Sheriff. #gapol.”
There had been rumors. Anonymous was going to release the names of KKK members. The people wearing Guy Fawkes masks were going to expose the people wearing bedsheet hoods. Twitter nation was abuzz with excitement…lets expose the racists. PG was concerned about collateral damage, about innocent people being dragged into the mess. And now it was happening.
They’re publishing their data there. In addition to the phone numbers, there were email addresses, many with .ru addresses. There was also a list of politicians. There were lurid articles, like Racists Panic As Anonymous Starts Releasing Details Of KKK Members.
Included on this list was Georgia Senator Johnny Isakson. A conservative Republican that many would not want to defend, Sen. Isakson had been in real estate before he ran for election. This is an image conscious business, that would not lend itself to bedsheet wearing. Nonetheless, facebook was soon crowded with people calling for the resignation of Senator Isakson.
Before long, common sense began to creep in. If You Really Think Four Republican Senators Are in the KKK, You’re a Fool. Relax: #OpKKK Did Not Release Info Linking Elected Officials To The KKK. One division of the hydra headed anonymous tried to back away from another. @Operation_KKK This account has NOT YET released any information. We believe in due diligence and will NOT recklessly involve innocent individuals #OpKKK .
Several questions remain. How will we know who to believe? Was the preliminary *data dump* a false flag operation, designed to damage anonymous credibility? Why are they worried about the KKK? Is genuine evil flourishing while America chases bedsheets?
Despite it’s fierce reputation as a “racist terrorist” organization, the KKK is in bad shape. It has less credibility than the Westboro Baptist Church. The custom of wearing bedsheets makes them the easy target for jokes. The Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center say the membership of the KKK is dwindling.
A good argument could be made that anonymous publicity is helping the KKK. It makes bedsheets look dangerous. While the three digital stooges of anonymous/facebook/twitter are focused on bedsheets, more dangerous white (and other color) hate groups are operating in darkness. With people fascinated with who is under the bedsheets, people that can do damage are buying ammunition, and buying elections. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
The “official” data dump on the KKK has hit the ether. Anonymous promised the material at 10 am CST Thursday. It was five and one half hours late, which led to speculation that @Operation_KKK’s #OpKKK Exposed: ‘Anonymous’ was Geraldo the Whole Time!.
In any event, it is here, and less sensational than the widely discredited politician breakdown earlier this week. There are some who still believe that the earlier data dump was real. Some people are very gullible when it comes to fighting racism. Anonymous does not help by including a famous grand dragon, Calvin Craig, who died in 1998. Louisiana celebrity David Duke is also on the list.
The information on the list seems to have been collected through common sense browsing. Many of the facebook peeps shown seem to be proud of being idiots. Others outed themselves in chat rooms and forums. As the report says, “You never know who you are talking to on the internet”.
PG has been clicking on some of the facebook pages. Some of them are amusing. Here are a few highlights. This digest will continue until it gets too long, which probably won’t take too long. (One hour later) This is not that much fun. The names are in alphabetical first name order. After going through the J names, these are the only text items. There are dozens of memes, many of which feature stars and bars, Jesus, Obama, expressions of white pride, and paranoia. It can be discouraging. If you want to look for yourself, there is a link above to the report.
woman Baby I love this picture of you you’re so sexy… man Lmwao woman Not funny!! And before you ask… No baby I have not smoked crack today! Lmmfao *wink emoticon* man Crack head. woman I am not!! man Lmwao
Arianna Wolfe I try to give some ppl the benefit of a doubt when I accept friend requests….. but when I look at what your about I see a lot of men are not true aryan but just womanizing druggies or drunks that act so much like our enemy’s that all that separates you from them is skin color
Chase N Graceland (from report) Buford Forest AKA Don Hall AKA Chase N Graceland East Coast Knights Elvis Impersonator (lulz) Says he does not have enough money to pay his klan dues so he is not a member (In the klan, you pay up or youre not a member) However, he may be a member of Confederate White Knights (out of Maryland) Interesting Fact: 3 or 4 different Elvis impersonators have tried to join the klan. Creepy. … Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Bridget Phetasy
This is a repost from 2019. @BridgetPhetasy had a baby, and enthusiastically supports Israel in the dispute over Gaza. … Joe Rogan Experience #1367 – Bridget Phetasy hit the ether last week. Miss Phetasy bills herself as Writer, Comedian, Verified Nobody. Her real name is Bridget Anna Walsh. The Rogan appearance was impressive. At 03:00, Miss Phetasy made a comment.
03:00 “I don’t blame myself for that happening but I do have to take responsibility for the fact that when you’re a woman or a girl and you’re out getting blacked out … bad things happen.” Where was this voice of reason during the Brock Turner circus? A young lady, with a history of blackout drinking, passes out behind a dumpster. This was scarcely mentioned in all the outrage about Brock Turner.
Before going further with this, we can mention a couple of youtube gadgets. If you look under the viewing window, you see three dots. If you click on those dots, you will be able to see a transcript of the show. You copy some of this text, and make a comment. If you put the time of the text in your comment, youtube will make a link to the text. That is how the link, at the start of the paragraph above, was made. The link goes directly to the “don’t blame myself” comment.
Bridget Phetasy is a cool person. She has a youtube show, Dumpster Fire. She likes to make fun of sjw goofiness … a topic that never runs out of material. At 3:48 of the latest episode, she dropped this tidbit: “moving on … clapping banned at Oxford University to stop people from being triggered” She ranted for a few minutes, leading up to this: “around this they banned clapping banned it like I’m gonna end up in the gulag someday fucking clapping I know by these people.”
PG had never heard of this, and wanted to know more. There were several tabloid articles, and this: ‘University of Oxford Clapping Ban’ Rumor. This is the danger of saying “google it.” Someone might find information that you don’t want them to find.
“The first Student Council meeting of the academic year, … passed the motion to mandate the Sabbatical Officers to encourage the use of British Sign Language (BSL) clapping, otherwise known as ‘silent jazz hands’ at Student Council meetings and other official SU events. … BSL clapping is used by the National Union of Students since loud noises, including whooping and traditional applause, are argued to present an access issue for some disabled students who have anxiety disorders, sensory sensitivity, and/or those who use hearing impairment aids.”
Clapping out loud is not banned. Nobody is going to the gulag for applauding. While some noise-weary people might appreciate the use of jazz hands, this ban is simply not going to happen. Bridget Phetasy does not always know what she is talking about. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The spell check suggestion for Phetasy is Pheasant.
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kjv ~ fast ~ plo/al fatah ~ bob & eli ~ hearts
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gaza ~ Solace by ZéM ~ tm ~ b52s ~ jenna ellis
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13 reasons why ~ 13 reasons why ~ 13 reasons why ~ the atomic cafe ~ fractal
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chappelle ~ richie ~ paula nick ~ who shat ~ sms
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nir oz ~ gaza ~ gsu ~ roku ~ rubin
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dolly ~ mick ~ mtv ~ carol ~ 3910 Randall Mill Road
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tm ~ hiv story ~ bnr ~ ong ~ ong
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satan ~ Nosferatu the Vampyre ~ big lebowski ~ einstein letter ~ ed begley jr
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coleman hughes ~ men of order ~ 10%h-meditations ~ 10% happier ~ roku ~ rubin
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This is the monday morning reader for this bye week. … Why Israel’s bombardment of Gaza neighborhood left US officers ‘stunned’ … “you can’t say, it doesn’t matter what the truth is here” #rachelmaddow … Was Israel Warned Of Hamas’ Attack And What Did Egypt Say? ~ who shat on the floor at my wedding America ~ it is perhaps the most famous photograph from the depression. The semi official title is Migrant Mother. The Library of Congress says “Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two. Nipomo, California.” ~ did the translators and scribes get it wrong? Maybe Jesus did not say to love your enemy. Maybe what Jesus said was to show kindness to everyone. This is a practice thing, rather than a belief thing ~ one guy he was a painter in Denver and he was really proud he did really the very best prep work he he said he he didn’t do any spray work it was all brush work just he was you know a fantastically good house painter and he had had a really checkered life he’ done a lot of intravenous drugs and he ended up uh HIV positive and he wasn’t married wasn’t in a relationship he had this little pug dog that he just adored he loved this little dog and every night before he he fell asleep he would uh jerk off in bed and he’ clean up with a water Kleenex and he’ drop it off the side of the bed and uh every morning he’d look down and there’d be the Pug dog shredding the kleenex and I kind of shot myself in the foot here because at this point he didn’t know he was HIV positive but he goes in for a test for new insurance or something and they say you’ve got to come in for a face to face and that’s never good so he goes in for a face to face and they’re talking about you know extending his life and treatments and regiments and on and on and all he can think of is every morning for God knows how many years my dog has eaten those Kleenex oh my God I gave my dog AIDS and he’s just completely freaked out it doesn’t matter whether he’s sick or he might die he is just completely completely traumatized over the idea that he might have killed this thing that he loves the most and so while the social worker is still prattling on and on and on he finally just he says you’ve got to stop just stop I only need to know one thing I only need to know just one thing just stop just shut up and she stops and you know it’s clear she’s got this sort of saintly look she’s given this this talk so many times and he goes I just need to know could I have given aids to my pug dog and he says in that moment the look on her face just hardens it’s not a smile anymore it’s just like a muscle cramp and he says he can actually hear her chair Creak this wooden chair because she’s so pushing herself back trying to distance herself in this invisible way and the room is deadly quiet and then Don some he he goes oh she thinks I [ __ ] my dog oh my gosh he thinks I [ __ ] my pug dog and he goes you think I [ __ ] my dog oh no no no it’s not like that and he tells the story about the kleenex and about the dog eating the kleenex and at that point the social worker goes from this complete disgust to this enormous relief and she starts to laugh and she says no there a reason it’s called HIV and not div it is human immuno suppressive virus not dog immuno and the two of them are so overwhelmed with relief and joy in this moment that his dog’s not going to get sick and she’s not counseling a guy who [ __ ] dogs that after that HIV is just something they can deal with they’re both so happy and life goes on and the guy was writing to me years and years after the fact and he still seems to be very well um I love that story but I ~ in 2012, I got a book about Mick Jagger at the library. It had been rejected by the National Inquirer … something about community standards. 11 years later, The Glimmer Twins are too profitable to die. ~ a recent conversation had this comment. “because the Palestinians continue to think that a strategy of causing atrocities will eventually convince Jews to leave a country.” If you like, you can read some commentary on this. You can also ignore the text, and look at the pictures. ~ “because the Palestinians continue to think that a strategy of causing atrocities will eventually convince Jews to leave a country.” You can ignore the text, and look at the pictures. Or you can read another commentary. .@robertwrighter .@EliLake ~ this is a repost from 2015. It was a simpler time. … It is the first full day back in town, after fall gathering. If you have to ask where I was, you don’t need to know. … ~ 1. The fattest knight at King Arthur’s round table was Sir Circumference. He acquired his size from too much pi. 2. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian. 3. She was only a … @millsalice144 ~ gaza population 2.3 m usa population 331.9 m israel 9.3m usa/gaza=144 ~ @chamblee54 @robertwrighter asks @EliLake what caused #Hamas to take control of #Gaza. @EliLake goes off on a rant about how bad #Hamas is. At some point, the correct thing to do is to say you ignorant slut ~ “because the Palestinians continue to think that a strategy of causing atrocities will eventually convince Jews to leave a country” ~ “because the ______ continue to think that a strategy of causing atrocities will eventually convince _____ to leave a country” “Jews” and “Palestinians” go into the blanks. @EliLake @robertwrighter #Gaza_Genocide ~ had a good morning. I did laundry, put it out to dry in the yard, backed up my computer onto an external hard drive … now i am finishing lunch, and will go to meditation group at 6pm ~ 17 “‘Do not hate a fellow Israelite in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in their guilt. 18 “‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. ~ @DFlyAwayHome I want to start a two band cover band called ABBA-KISS but I worry it would seem too calculated ~ @Higgins802 Reminder that Friends has aged horribly & contains a lot of homo/transphobic content, especially around the Chandler character, so be careful what you share. That said, it’s a tragedy to lose Matthew Perry, especially after all he has gone through & survived with addiction. RIP … @Higgins802 Look mom, I offended the shitty part of this hellsite, and went viral. LOL … @Higgins802 Apparently asking people to be mindful of their LGBTQIA friends while morning an actor is a bridge too far. 🤷♂️ Sorry, not sorry. @ProfessionalJu2 Matthew Perry had been declared dead for literally an hour before this posts reminding us that transphobia is really really bad. What a cancer this ideology is. ~ pictures today are from The Library of Congress ~ selah
Punzi Scheme
1. The fattest knight at King Arthur’s round table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi. 2. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian. 3. She was only a whiskey maker, but he loved her still. 4. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class, because it was a weapon of math disruption. 5. No matter how much you push the envelope, it’ll still be stationery. 6. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering. 7. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart. 8. Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie. 9. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it. 10. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. 11. Atheism is a non-prophet organization. 12. Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said to the other: ‘You stay here; I’ll go on a head. ’13. I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me. 14. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: ‘Keep off the Grass.’ 15. The midget fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large. 16. The soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran. 17. A backward poet writes inverse. 18. In a democracy it’s your vote that counts. In feudalism it’s your count that votes. 19. When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion. 20. If you jumped off the bridge in Paris, you’d be in Seine. 21. A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at him and says, ‘I’m sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger.’ 22. Two fish swim into a concrete wall. One turns to the other and says ‘Dam!’ 23. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Unsurprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can’t have your kayak and heat it too. 24. Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says, ‘I’ve lost my electron.’ The other says ‘Are you sure?’ The first replies, ‘Yes, I’m positive.’ 25. Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal? His goal: transcend dental medication. 26. There was the person who sent ten puns to friends, with the hope that at least one of the puns would make them laugh. No pun in ten did. 27. Pictures for this entertainment are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost..
Mick Jagger
This is a repost from October 2012. It was a simpler time. Barry was about to be re-elected. Facebook was festive. There were problems in the world, but rock and roll was more fun than social justice jihad. … There was a book at the Chamblee Library, Mick: The Wild Life and Mad Genius of Jagger. The work is credited to a man named Christopher Anderson, who has a slew of best sellers to his credit. The copyright was issued to “Anderson Productions.”
When you write about Mickie, you have to post a few videos. One of the first to come up is “Waiting on a friend.” This was the first video that PG saw on MTV. One night in early 1982, PG rode his bike to an apartment on Buford Hiway. While he was there, someone said hey watch this, music television. The video was a favorite that first winter of MTV, even though it wasn’t really that good.
Mick Jagger has been a part of many lives the last fifty years. The stones were conceded to be number two to the beatles, but stayed together longer. The era of rock concert as megaevent coincided with the reinvention of the stones, after the demise of Brian Jones. He did after all start the band. Mr. Jones had become too much of a druggie to be relied on, and was fired. The book says that Mr. Jones was drowned, by a construction worker.
Ok, we are three paragraphs in, and we have not discussed Mr. Jagger’s pecker. Most of the book is about this instrument of undetermined size. The book says Mick stuffed a sock in his pants before shows. Mick has screwed thousands of women, and more than a few men. Whether Mick is a top, or a bottom, is left to the imagination.
The phrase “fuck Mick Jagger” is seminal. One night, the B52s were playing at a toilet on Ponce De Leon Avenue called the Big Dipper. The venue was later torn down, the ground decontaminated, and an animal clinic built on it’s site. After the show, one of the girls (either Kate or Cindy, or maybe neither, since this story is possibly probably an urban legend) was hanging out in the parking lot. “Beulah” was running his mouth, as he liked to do, talking about his hero Mick Jagger. Finally, the 52-girl had heard enough. “Fuck Mick Jagger, one day Mick Jagger will come see me me me.”
The book goes into excruciating detail about the stones story. Mick grew up middle class, and was close to his parents. He bit the end of his lip playing basketball, and sounded different. While going to the London School of Economics, he connected with Keith Richard, and found that they both liked Chuck Berry. The Glimmer Twins started to hang out together, and played a few gigs at a nightclub owned by Alexis Korner. (Mr. Korner opened for Humble Pie and Edgar Winter at the Atlanta Municipal Auditorium in 1972. He was ignored by the festive crowd.)
At this time, Mick had been introduced to sex by the other boys at his school. The first time with a woman was when Mick was an orderly at Bexley Mental Hospital. A nurse “yanked him into the linen closet where, surrounded by sheets, mops, and bedpans, Mick lost his virginity standing up”.
At some point Brian Jones came into the picture. Mick moved into a flat with Brian and Keith, and lived in picturesque squalor. At some point Mick and Brian bumped gooberheads, which left Mick confused. It is not known whether the lads could afford drugs at this point.
The story goes on and on. There are ugly moments, pretty moments, good songs written, lots of drugs, lots of sex. As Mick said in “Shattered,” “sex and sex and sex and sex and sex and sex and sex.” A few begin to wonder if he is capable of a one on one relationship, but those opinions don’t count.
One afternoon in 1978, PG was driving a truck in Decatur. He worked for a lady who did sampling projects, which means giving out samples to consumers. The product this time was Playtex Plus deodorant tampons. The truck was the rag wagon. There was an announcement on the last am rock and roll station in Atlanta. The stones were going to play the Fox Theater, and tickets were on sale now. The signal of the am station faded out at this point, with a gospel station preacher blocking out the rock and roll announcement. PG did not hear the location of the ticket sales. It turns out the tickets went on sale at the box office of the Municipal Auditorium, which was two blocks away from the rental facility of the rag wagon. Such is life.
In 1991, PG was walking to work and noticed an army of movie trucks. Mr. Jagger was appearing in a film, “Free Jack.” PG saw a scene filmed from his perch in the Healey Building, and stood behind a chair with the name “Mick Jagger” stenciled on. There were reports of a van rocking in Cabbagetown. On January 12, 1992, Georgia May Ayeesha Jagger was born.
Mick: The Wild Life and Mad Genius of Jagger is not a bad book. It is easy to read, and does not skimp on slime. The phrase “cringe inducing” is used several times, which may be the result of a focus group. It is not worth $27.00, or $29.99 Canadian. The publisher is Simon&Schuster. The dalliance between Mr. Jagger and Carly Simon is dutifully noted. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
</Migrant Mother
It is perhaps the most famous photograph from the depression. The semi official title is Migrant Mother. The Library of Congress says “Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two. Nipomo, California.” The exact date is unknown, and was either February or March of 1936. The photographer was Dorothea Lange (pronounced dore-THEE-ah lang). The model was Florence Owens Thompson .
Ms. Lange was born Dorothea Margaretta Nutzhorn May 26, 1895 in Hoboken, N.J. When she was seven she had polio, and when she was twelve her father left. Both events affected her deeply. (Lange is her mother’s maiden name, chosen for use after the father left.) She became a photographer, and had a successful studio in San Francisco. By 1936 she was with her second husband, her sons were in boarding school, and she went to work for the Farm Security Administration.
The Farm Security Administration hired a number of photographers to document the lives of Americans between 1934 and 1944. (During part of this time, it was connected to the Office of War Information, and the Resettlement Administration.) Since they were working for the government, the photographers were not entitled to copyright protection. The majority of these pictures are in the public domain, including the famous pictures of Florence Thompson.
This feature started with a google search for the correct way to pronounce Dorothea Lange. (Readers of this blog have seen the fondness for Library of Congress historic pictures. Ms. Lange is one of their stars.) This search led to a teacher’s guide from Yale University. This guide is about Dorothea Lange and the Migrant Mother. It tells the story as well as PG could. Bless his pea picking heart.
The day that Dorothea Lange photographed what would become her most famous photograph, Migrant Mother, has been retold by Lange in numerous sources. She was on her way home from a trip documenting the living and working conditions of the migrants to California. She followed their schedules, getting up at sunup and working until sundown, which made for long, sixteen-hour days. She was tired, and she was ready to see her family.
With about seven hours of driving left ahead of her, she passed a homemade sign that said Pea Pickers’ Camp. She knew that a late frost had ruined the pea crop, and was concerned about the people who might be at the camp. It nagged at her to turn around, to go back and visit the camp, another opportunity to document. About 15 minutes (20 miles) later, Lange did turn around.
Right away she saw the woman who would be the subject of Migrant Mother. Some sources say she took 5 shots, but she really took 6; in any case each shot focuses in on the woman a little more, and the final shot is the one that would become the “timeless and universal symbol of suffering in the face of adversity “ (The Library of Congress only has five of the shots.)
Early the morning after she got home, instead of spending time with her family Lange rushed to develop the photographs and submit them to the FSA and The San Francisco News. She thought that these photographs could help bring attention to the plight of these American migrant farmers. She was right; the story was printed in newspapers around the country, and the federal government immediately sent 20,000 pounds of food…. (The Thompson family had left for Watsonville by the time the food arrived)
The Dust Bowl refugees were of European descent, and were migrating to California because they were displaced from their farmland by drought. Florence Owens Thompson, though from Oklahoma, was a full-blooded Native American, and her family had been displaced from tribal lands by the U.S. government. (By 1930, Native Americans had lost more than 80% of their lands this way).
The day Lange photographed Thompson, she and her family were driving towards Watsonville, hoping to pick lettuce in the Pajaro Valley. The timing chain on their car broke just outside Nipomo, and so they pulled into the pea -pickers camp to fix it. While fixing the chain, the radiator was punctured; Thompson’s two boys (and likely her male companion) (Wikipedia says it was husband Jim Hill) brought the radiator into town to be fixed. While they were gone, Lange arrived…
The choices Lange made in terms of shooting the scene are very telling in light of our discussion about documentary photography. Most strikingly, the woman’s teenaged daughter is purposefully excluded from the photograph. She appears in the first two photographs of the series, but Lange thought that including her would cause the viewer to speculate about how old the mother was when she began having children (Curtis p. 55). At the time, the ideal family contained no more than three children; this woman’s family of seven could have detracted from the matter at hand, and maybe caused people to feel less sympathetic towards her (Curtis p. 52).
In the third shot, all you see is the mother nursing her youngest child. Migrant Mother is often referred to as Migrant Madonna… Lange thought that her subject looked too anxious and uncomfortable with the camera, as Lange seemed to have triggered in her what she called “that self-protective thing” (Curtis p. 57). So, despite being uncomfortable with how unpredictable children were to photograph, to calm the mother she added one of the children back into the frame for the fourth shot. She had the child rest her chin on her mother’s shoulder, which, though somewhat unnatural, served the purpose of anchoring the child still. She was also asked to remove her hat, which would have obscured her facial features. This resulted in a good photograph. Lange “thought she could do better.”
The fifth shot was the same, but from a different angle, which illuminates an empty pie tin, heavily symbolic of the hunger the family was facing. It also highlighted a warm and loving relationship between mother and child, as the child is leaning lovingly on the mother’s shoulder, which is comforting to the child.
For the sixth and final shot, (the one which became famous) Lange brought another child in, but she had both children face away from the camera, so that her shot would not be jeopardized by their unpredictability, and they would serve as a loving frame for the mother. Lange asked the mother to bring her right hand up to her face, and that resulted in exactly what Lange wanted and knew was there (Curtis p. 65). It softened her anxiety about the camera into a mother’s concern for the welfare of her family. The mother was worried about letting her sleeping child slip, so in the original sixth shot you could see her thumb grasped around the pole for support. In her excitement Lange did not see it. She eventually altered the original photonegative because she “did not want a small detail to mar the accomplishment (of overcoming her subject’s defensiveness) (Curtis p. 67).”
In this feature, the second image from the session is missing. The pictures in this feature are as follows. 1- The famous picture, cropped. 2- The first shot from the session. 3- A detail from the first shot. 4- The Migrant Madonna. 5- Child on the shoulder. 6- Child on the shoulder #2. 7. The full length famous picture. 8- A portrait of Dorothea Lange. 9- Another photograph by Ms. Lange, taken on the California-Arizona border in the summer of 1936. 10- The information from the famous picture. 11- The famous picture with the thumb included.
2012 Repost Notes This was on a list of posts that could be repeated. Of course, there are usually improvements to be made. Youtube was searched, and some videos were found. One of them mispronounces Dorothea. A search for the correct pronunciation of that first name was how this post got started in 2010.
Looking at the pictures reveals a glitch in the famous picture. If you look in the part of her hair, you will see a gray stripe. This is a bit of damage to the negative, and is common to old photographs. Ordinarily, PG would paste over a spot like that, but this is a sacred photograph.
The files of the LOC were consulted, and a 115mg original was downloaded. The grey stripe was still in the part, which is where it will stay. The original has the thumb, which was taken out of the famous prints. It is included in this post, along with the information typed into the side.
A look at some of the other pictures taken that day show a grey spot in the part. Maybe it wasn’t a photo glitch. Raising seven children can give any woman a few gray hairs.
Another question is about Florence Thompson, the “Migrant Mother”. It was noted that she was a Native American. PG has decided that the expression “Native American” is the invention of European Import Americans, and is only marginally less offensive than Indian. There are hundreds of tribes in the Americas. A person is a member of a tribal nation. What tribe was Florence Thompson?
Mr. Google points us to this answer. “Thompson, a “full-blooded” Cherokee, was born Florence Leona Christie on September 1, 1903, on the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma. Her father, Jackson Christie, was an ex-convict who had abandoned the family before her birth. Her mother, Mary Jane Cobb, married Charles Akman, a Choctaw, in 1905, with whom she raised Thompson near Tahlequah OK”
At the start of World War II, Dorothea Lange went to a Japanese internment camp, . The experience nearly destroyed her. This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Civilian Victims In War
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@benryanwriter The term BIPOC had a moment, but now the @APA is arguing it is insensitive.
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ong ~ ong ~ not the occupation ~ manhattan project ~ einstein quote
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einstein quote ~ inclusive language guide ~ apa ~ gaza ~ channel 4
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gaza ~ darkhorse ~ @efenigson ~ golden ratio ~ caravaggio.
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bandcamp ~ norm finkelstein ~ brookhaven festival ~ utbaph ~ Koyaanisqatsi
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gaza ~ 911 ~ gaza ~ muzak ~ fbi
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sunday bloody sunday ~ java ~ L5p ~ repost. ~ quark ~ repost
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repost. ~ sex pot ~ sex pot ~ combat forum ~ channel4
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adl ~ conspiracy theory kit ~ goodreads ~ rand ~ academia ~ repost
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fbi ~ fbi ~ fbi ~ luke the drifter ~ luke the drifter ~ human shields
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Happy Birthday Oscar Wilde ~ this is the chamblee54 monday morning digest for this week. ~ is it cultural abomination or vulgar unsightly appropriation ~ use the plus sign with control shift as a backspace ~ mansplaining The Urban Dictionary has entries for both mansplain and womansplain. Neither entry is complimentary. This is a repost. Many of the links no longer work. The pictures are more entertaining. ~ at one point in their evolution, both the Grateful Dead and the Velvet Underground were known as the Warlocks. ~ at home in Berlin in April 1929, Albert Einstein received an urgent telegram from Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein of New York: “Do you believe in God? … ” His reply: “Ich glaube an Spinozas Gott der sich in gesetzlicher Harmonie des Seienden offenbart, nicht an Gott der Sich mit Schicksalen und Handlungen der Menschen abgibt.” – Einstein received an telegram. His reply: “Do you believe in God? ” “Ich glaube an Spinozas Gott der sich in gesetzlicher Harmonie des Seienden offenbart, nicht an Gott der Sich mit Schicksalen und Handlungen der Menschen abgibt.” @QuoteResearch ~ the story is rather disturbing. (Spoiler to follow) Aoife is being sexually harassed at school, and files a complaint. The boy who gets metooed is the son of a laundry owner. … ~ This is a repost from 2020. It was a simpler time. … ~ this is a repost from 2020. It was a simpler time. … PG took his brother GP to early voting. Georgia/Dekalb county sent PG an absentee ballot in the mail, which he did not ask for. ~ what follows are selections from The Devil’s Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce. Many things could be said about Mr. Bierce. TDD began as a newspaper column, and was later published as The Cynic’s Word Book. … ~ terpsichorean diarrhea ~ I never meant to say conservatives are generally stupid, I meant to say stupid people are generally conservative ~ “What I stated was, that the Conservative party was, by the law of its constitution, necessarily the stupidest party. Now, I do not retract this assertion; but I did not mean that Conservatives are generally stupid; I meant, that stupid persons are generally Conservative. I believe that to be so obvious and undeniable a fact that I hardly think any hon. Gentleman will question it. …” *In a Parliamentary debate with the Conservative MP, John Pakington (May 31, 1866). Hansard, vol 183, col 1592]. Pakington was referring to Footnote 3 to Chapter 7 of Mill’s “Considerations on Representative Government”: “The Conservatives, as being by the law of their existence the stupidest party” * Misquoted as “I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.” in “Life of John Stuart Mill” (1889) by W. L. Courtney, p. 147. *This seems to have become paraphrased as “Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.” which was a variant published in Quotations for Our Time (1978), edited by Laurence J. Peter. ~ it is not scary to preach to strangers, but it usually creates ill will for jesus – this is what the third commandment is about … using sacred names without trust – this is for adults … i will leave it to your conscience about doing this to trick or treating children ~ Insider admits Israel attack was false flag to start holy war and usher in one world government ~ @iyad_elbaghdadi Good afternoon (or morning, or evening). I went dark yesterday, really dark. But I managed to sleep and I have some clarity about the Al Ahli hospital massacre that I want to share with you. I’ll only tweet this rambling thread today and then log off. Please read and share. – @iyad_elbaghdadi For 10 days we’ve been hearing openly genocidal statements fully supported and sometimes even endorsed by Western leaders, leaders who are supposed to stand up for “democracy”, “human rights”, etc. But not only for 10 days. This has been our entire lives. This has been 75 years. – @iyad_elbaghdadi It’s important to understand that we were primed to expect bloody massacres. For 10 days there’s been a long list of genocidal statements, clearly saying that everyone is a target, there are no civilian vs combatant distinction, hospitals aren’t safe, and vengeance will be severe – @iyad_elbaghdadi All of this was in our psyche *before* the news broke. That’s why when the frantic news came (I got it by whatsapp first) we were already primed to believe it. Because we were long expecting a bloodbath and every single second was a worse nightmare, wishing the worst won’t happen – @iyad_elbaghdadi This explains the virality of the news. What actually happened? There are lots of threads offering educated & uneducated guesses both ways and I’ll ignore all of them. There are few journalists on the ground. And we know there won’t be an independent investigation anytime soon. – @iyad_elbaghdadi But we’re past the point where the facts matter. Listen to Jordan’s FM explain why. Most Arabs & Muslims already formed an opinion based on a long history of Israeli brutality, disregard for human life, public lies, disinformation, and Western support. ~ apology to People of Color for APA’s Role in Promoting, Perpetuating, and Failing to Challenge Racism, Racial Discrimination, and Human Hierarchy in U.S. – Resolution adopted by the APA Council of Representatives on October 29, 2021 ~ Do not grow old, no matter how long you live. Never cease to stand like curions children before the great mystery into which we were born. ~ “people like you and I, though mortal of course like everyone else, do not grow old no matter how long we live. What I mean is we never cease to stand like curious children before the great Mystery into which we were born.” – Albert Einstein in a letter to Otto Julius Birger, September 29, 1942. ~ this is a remarkable video. I cannot find a youtube link, so if you have a twitter account you can go there. Apparently, some Arabs are not happy with Hamas.@hxhassan I haven’t seen such relentless interrogation of Palestinian leadership before, esp. in Arabic. On Saudi Arabia’s main TV channel, Hamas leader is clearly startled by the intensity of the questions & responses to his answers. Crucial points in next tweets ~ Luther Mckinnon @chamblee54 @coldxman I had to turn this one off. John’s reaction to the brewing Gaza genocide is to talk about social media. ~ I turned it off at 50 minutes. I heard “Hamas” many times. I do not recall hearing “Palestinian” To be fair, I heard it after the hospital bombing ~ @Yascha_Mounk Actually astonishing that, because of the extremism of the Republican Party and the depth of dysfunction in Congress, America currently does not have ambassadors in Israel, Lebanon or Egypt. ~ Hamas Leader Abroad Khaled Mashal Rejects Accusations Of Transgressions Against Civilians On October 7 Attack: We Have Nothing To Apologize For; Hamas Only Fights Soldiers, But Sometimes There Are Civilian Victims In War; Hizbullah, Arab Countries Should Do More To Help Us ~ Expanded Homicide Data Table 6 ~ 1 -“the Palestinian narrative is denying the holocaust” This is where I quit reading. ~ 2 – I agree that it’s not accurate. I wrote this long post in a very shaken state of mind, as one can be in a state of war. It’s clear that you were checking every word I wrote, so I still invite you to read all of them and try to get my message as a whole. I think both narratives are misusing the holocaust. But perhaps you should read about Palestinian authority’s president, Abbas’s book “the other face”, and his interpretation of the holocaust, which does resonate with the works of authors which are denying it. I’m not referring to analogies being made between the holocaust and the nakba. Even though I see an essential difference between the two, both are great tragedies that defined the rest of history for the peoples that suffered them. I am referring to concepts like a cooperation between Nazis and Zionists that initiated the holocaust, that are a main message in Abbas’s book. So even if saying “the Palestinian narrative is denying the holocaust” isn’t accurate, it does play an important role in the narrative as it’s expressed by Palestinian leaders. ~ 3 – I was writing a reply to your reply, and facebook told me that the post had been taken down. I am going to send this by private message. I could write for hours about this, and only confuse and depress all parties involved. Truth be told, I did go back to your original post. I can see how the comment that “triggered” me could have several meanings. It is tough to make sense of this clusterfuck. So much of our information is not true. I also have a life outside of this … for which I am intently grateful … and should go back to. …Thank you for your thoughtful answer. It is a very complicated situation. I feel a great deal of despair when I try to go through the massive amount of rhetoric, talking points, misinformation, malinformation, etc. etc. So much of what I have seen and heard so far is lies. I feel as though my opinion does not matter, so why torture myself with trying to understand this. I feel the US government has a great deal of the blame. Our unquestioning support of Israel is very harmful, similar to the way a … at this point facebook showed a screen … Post Has Been Removed The post or object that you were commenting has been removed by its owner and can no longer be commented on. ~ 4 – Thanks for your reply. I wanted to edit the post, as I realized you are right about the way I phrased my thoughts on Palestinian narrative. I got a message from FB that the post is now pending approval by group admin. But my main message is that both narratives, as they’re being expressed in the media and in educational programs, belittle or avoid the other side’s suffering and connection to the same land. I’m thankful for this conversation because I feel that this war naturally widens the gaps in communication. I’ve experienced quite some negative energy from faeries because of being an Israeli, and it’s hard for me to except that people that are anti-nationalists treat me and my faerie community in a nationalist way… basically all faeries in Israel are fighting against right wing governments all the time… And it’s frustrating to be judged by your governments actions, especially when you’re scared for your life and grieving friends AND the many innocent lives taken in Gaza by Israeli attacks. I believe it’s possible to fight for Palestinian freedom without justifying Hamas’s attack (not saying you did, but some other queer people do) ~ 5 – I am reminded of a conversation I had in the eighties. A man had an Israeli bf. I started saying all of the complaints du jour about Israel. Basicly that they are a warmonger state, and that they treat Palestinians like shit. Remember, this was before the Palestinian Authority, when Israel unapologetically occupied the west bank and gaza. My friend agreed with every point I made. I don’t think the conversation ever concluded, except for one of us to get more food. Nobody was angered by the discussion. I saw this person recently, at a GSV conference. (GSV is a spin-off of the radical faeries. I say that GSV is the faeries with indoor plumbing. … Talk about history is like quicksand. In all of the denunciations of Hamas, nobody seems to say why they gained control of Gaza. During the period between 1967 and quasi-independence, Israel did not prepare the Gaza residents for the chore of governing themselves. It should surprise nobody that when there was an election … for a people totally not familiar with democratic government … and the choice was between Hamas, and Fatah … much reviled in the west bank, and connected to the PLO … that the people chose Hamas. Also remember that Israel created Hamas, to serve as an opposition to the PLO. I could go on ad infinitum. I have a lot of thoughts, which I may collect and post on my blog i will keep you posted ~ 6 – I’m aware of the fact that Israeli leadership created Hamas… after the murder of PM Rabin, Nethaniahu did all he could to kill any hope for a peace agreement. As in many other countries Israel became more and more right-wing over the years, I believe the majority of people gave up on the idea of peace (that was never given a real chance). Regarding supporting building a democratic government in Gaza, you know as I do how complicated it is- any formal intervention by global and especially Israeli factors will be seen as looking down on the Palestinians. And we already know the effects of “behind the curtain” interventions. But at this moment I think that only global intervention can help, although it’s hard to trust it as well. This conflict is such a good deal for the weapon industry… It’s so fucking complicated and frustrating. ~ 7 I had a conversation with ___ in a private chat. I think it is best to keep it between the two of us. Everybody feels the need to express their wonderful opinions regarding this situation. Few of these opinions will help. I would prefer to talk less, and listen more ~ This monolog includes pictures from The Library of Congress ~ selah
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