Race-rot
America clearly has a problem of color. One way view to this racial dysfunction is as a unified quagmire, rather than competitive hating of wokeness and racism. This approach does not offer any easy solutions. We need to treat people with kindness and respect, no matter what adjective you put in front of people. As a man named King said, “can we all get along?”
I recently wrote about Flannery O’Connor. She was a gifted storyteller, who posthumously run afoul of “whiteness studies and critical race theory.” (This was in 2020, when CRT was respectable. Today, CRT is demonized by some, while others say “thats-not-what-it-means.”) The story cited an interview with Alice Walker, who grew up in Eatonton GA, a few miles up hwy 441 from Andalusia. When discussing her former neighbor, Ms. Walker said “Take what you can use, and let the rest rot.” With that in mind, I am going to call this unified approach to racial dysfunction “race-rot.”
One of the nastier parts of race-rot is name calling. There are a pair of six-letter slurs. One starts with r, one ends in r. One I am forbidden to say, while the other I am forbidden to not say. The mentionable slur is racist. You know what the other one is. We would be better off not using either six-letter slur. People enjoy using six-letter slurs, so this is not going to happen anytime soon.
I am a certified white person, of Scottish and Irish descent. I am from Georgia. My great-grandfather fought for the Georgia State Troops, in the War Between the States. This affects the way in which I approach race-rot. I see that racism is a problem, and find the bungling efforts at fighting racism … aka wokeness … to be incredibly annoying.
The problems with racism affect millions of people every day. One could reasonably ask, what is wrong with being against racism? The problem is not that you are fighting racism, but the way you are doing it. The trouble with wokeness includes disrespect, fallacious logic, indifference to collateral damage, inflammatory rhetoric, hypocrisy, name calling, and a host of other micro/macro aggressions. The list could go on for a long time.
This is not a comprehensive look at race-rot. There are many layers to this onion. Racism and wokeness (RAW) are only part of the picture. The story of Black and White has many shades of gray. We could spend hours talking about race-rot, and only be more angry and confused when we are done. The best thing to do now is present some photographs, from The Library of Congress.
We are all God’s children, not a walking six-letter slur. Be kind to each one. Please don’t shout.
Facts About Words
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is the longest common word in english.
Strengths and screeched are the two longest one-syllable words in english.
Facetious, abstemious, annelidous, arsenious contain all five vowels in alphabetical order.
Uncopyrightable is the longest english word with no repeating letters.
Stewardesses is one of the longest words typeable on a normal keyboard with left hand.
Polyphony is one of the longest words typeable on a normal keyboard with right hand.
Quattuordecillion is a cardinal number represented in the U.S. by 1 followed by 45 zeros.
Deeded is the only word that is made using only two different letters, each used three times.
Queueing is the only word with five consecutive vowels.
The word with the most consonants in a row is latchstring.
The only words with three consecutive double letters are bookkeeping and bookkeeper.
Underground is the only word that begins and ends with “und.”
If you spell out every number from 0 to 999, you will find every vowel except for “a”.
You have to count to one thousand to find an a.
Q is the only letter that is not used in the name of any of the United States.
The only words with “uu” are vacuum, muumuu, residuum, and continuum.
Subcontinental is the only word that uses each vowel only once, in reverse alphabetical order.
More English words begin with the letter s than with any other letter.
The longest English word without a true vowel (a, e, i, o or u) is rhythm.
More English words begin with the letter “S” than any other letter of the alphabet.
“I am.” is the shortest two words sentence in the English language.
If you were to write out every number name in full (one, two, three, four…),
you wouldn’t use a single letter B until you reached one billion.
In written English, only one letter in every 510 is a Q.
The shortest -ology is oology, the scientific study of eggs.
11% of the entire English language is just the letter E.
Happy is used three times more often in English than Sad.
Approximately one new word is added to the English language every two hours,
and around 4,000 new words are added to the English dictionary every year.
Only two English words in current use end in “-gry”. They are angry and hungry.
A sentence that contains all 26 letters of the alphabet is called a pangram.
The dot over the letter i and the letter j is called a “superscript dot”.
In English, the @ symbol is usually called “the at sign” or “the at symbol”.
There are only 4 English words in common use ending in “-dous”:
hazardous, horrendous, stupendous, and tremendous.
Stewardesses is the longest word that can be typed with only the left hand.
“No.” is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
What is the first four letter word in the National Anthem.
Borrowed from definitions.net. Pictures from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
The Cynic’s Word Book P – R
What follows are selections from The Devil’s Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce. TDD began as a newspaper column, and was later published as The Cynic’s Word Book. TDD is in the public domain. TDD is a dictionary, going from A to Z. Today’s selection covers P to R. More selections are available. (A – D E – G H – I J – L M – O ) Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
PAINTING The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.
PEACE In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.
PHILOSOPHY A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
PIETY Reverence for the Supreme Being, based upon His supposed resemblance to man.
The pig is taught by sermons and epistles, To think the God of Swine has snout and bristles.
PREJUDICE A vagrant opinion without visible means of support.
PROPHECY The art and practice of selling one’s credibility for future delivery.
QUILL An implement of torture yielded by a goose and commonly wielded by an ass.
QUOTATION The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.
RASCALITY Stupidity militant. The activity of a clouded intellect.
RATTLESNAKE Our prostrate brother, Homo ventrambulans.
RADICALISM The conservatism of to-morrow injected into the affairs of to-day.
RECONSIDER To seek a justification for a decision already made.
REFORM A thing that mostly satisfies reformers opposed to reformation.
The Golden Calf
When PG was a kid in sunday school, he heard about the the golden calf. It turns out that, splendid allegory aside, he didn’t really know much about the story. With the help of google and Bible Gateway, the text of Exodus 32 showed up. God bless public domain, and copy paste. The Bible is the main source for this tale. It doesn’t really matter if it is the inerrant word of God, it is a pretty good story. And much of the message rings true today.
1 And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him. 2 And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me. 3 And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. 4 And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
This is a modern story. The church is begging the people for gold. The sons are wearing golden earrings. The church takes these ill gotten gains, and forge a make believe God. This time, it looks like a cow. Billy Graham will come much later.
7 And the Lord said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves: 8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. 9 And the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people:
Moving down a few verses, the story gets good. 19 And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses’ anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount. 20 And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it. 21 And Moses said unto Aaron, What did this people unto thee, that thou hast brought so great a sin upon them? 22 And Aaron said, Let not the anger of my lord wax hot: thou knowest the people, that they are set on mischief. 23 For they said unto me, Make us gods, which shall go before us: for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him. 24 And I said unto them, Whosoever hath any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it me: then I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf. 25 And when Moses saw that the people were naked; (for Aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their enemies) 26 Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, Who is on the Lord’s side? let him come unto me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him. 27 And he said unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour. 28 And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: there fell that day about three thousand men.
Lets get this story right. Moses comes back from somewhere, and sees a naked party by the golden calf. He has a hissy fit, threw the golden calf into the fire, and tells people to start killing each other. Over three thousand men are killed. This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Seven Brilliant Quotes
There is a little graphic floating around, Seven Brilliant Quotes. Some find these sayings to be inspirational. PG smells a rat. Here are the seven quotes:
William Shakespeare – Never play with the feelings of others because you may win the game but the risk is that you will surely lose the person for a life time.
Napoleon Bonaparte – The world suffers a lot. Not because of the violence of bad people, but because of the silence of good people.
Albert Einstein – I am thankful to all those who said NO to me. Its because of them I did it myself.
Abraham Lincoln – If friendship is your weakest point then you are the strongest person in the world.
Martin Luther King Jr. – We must learn to live together as brothers or we will perish together as fools.
Mahatma Gandhi – The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
Abdul Kalaam – It is very easy to defeat someone, but it is very hard to win someone.
If nothing else, research into the veracity of these quotes should provide some amusing text to go between the pictures. When you go looking in the land of google, there is no telling what you will find. During this expedition, the first page rule will be in effect. Only results on the first google page will be considered. The NB quote has 1.7 million results, which is too much work.
Lets begin with Willie the shake. Did he really say “Never play with the feelings of others because you may win the game but the risk is that you will surely lose the person for a life time.”? Or, as they say in the Yahoo village, Does anyone know where this Shakespeare quote comes from?
hugeshantz Does anyone know where this Shakespeare quote comes from? I’ve seen this quote all over the internet, always attributed to Shakespeare, but I can’t find a legitimate source of where it comes from (i.e. a specific sonnet, play, speech, etc.): “Never play….” Can anyone help me out here?
Dude the Obscure This is 20th/21st century psychobabble. Shakespeare never wrote anything remotely resembling that. Please never trust any of these idiotic “internet quote sites.” They are all, all, all crap. I can’t believe that any intelligent person could think for a minute that this was written by Shakespeare. Really. Get some critical-thinking skills, child.
The next quote is by Napoleon Bonaparte, not Napoleon Dynamite. “The world suffers a lot. Not because of the violence of bad people, but because of the silence of good people.”
Before we consider the veracity of this quote, lets consider two things. NB did not speak english, so there is likely to be translation confusion. Second, the wars NB started caused widepread suffering. Little of this suffering was caused by the silence of good people.
The sources on page one do little except show the quote, usually with the credit going to NB. No one shows when or where he said it, or in what context. Brainyquotes doea not show it on the NB pages.
Number three is from Albert Einstein.” I am thankful to all those who said NO to me. Its because of them I did it myself.” According to Shelly Winters, Marilyn Monroe did not say no to Dr. Einstein. Google has a doozy of a forum, Misquoting Einstein?.
Jimmy Snyder says the quote has been attributed to Dorothy Parker, Yogi Berra, William Shakespeare, The Bible, Benjamin Franklin, and Groucho Marx. This is a clue that the quote is bogus.
zoobyshoe’s I just found this an another wiki page discussing the quote page: “I am thankful …” This is being attributed to Einstein on the Internet, but it appears to come from Wayne W. Dyer’s book You’ll See It When You Believe It, page 54, according to Google Books. Dyer does not attribute it to Einstein, but mentions Einstein in the same paragraph. “In my office I have two framed posters. One is a picture of Albert Einstein, beneath which are the words “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.” The other poster is made up solely of words: “I am grateful to all those people who said no. It is because of them I did it myself.” Great thoughts!”
Ryan_m_b’s “Never believe quotes you read on the internet” – Winston Churchill zoobyshoe’s His actual words were: “The internet has nothing to offer, but blood, tears, toil, and misquotes.”
It should not be surprising that Winston Churchill finds his way into this discussion. He has a taste for the spotlight, even 47 years after his demise. He is an example of how truthiness is sometimes all you need. His most famous speech was a radio address during a bad part of World War Two. The speech was read by an actor. England was inspired, and went on to win the war. Why should anyone worry if an actor gave his speech for him?
This is enough fun for one day. There will be a part two soon, and it will probably be full of number two. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Welcome to part two of the Chamblee54 due diligence report on the Seven Brilliant Quotes. In part one, we checked out the first three. At no time was a source for the quote found. All three are suspect, with “misunderstanding” indicated in the Albert Einstein quote. It is amazing how quickly accepted these sayings are by the inspiration hungry public.
Getting back to business, did Abraham Lincoln say “If friendship is your weakest point then you are the strongest person in the world.” There are lots of links to this quote, in a variety of fonts and colors. Some have spectacular photography in the background. However, none of these links has a source for this quote, or any indication of the context.
Wikiquotes has 43,444 words about Abraham Lincoln. PG copied these words, and did a search for the word “friendship”. The quote from the poster was not found. The meme is missing. This wikiquotes test has been very useful for checking out quotes. It is not authoritative, but is a good place to start.
This type of research can be frustrating. Being inspired by beautiful words can give you strength and purpose. It can also make you feel foolish, when the lovely words are revealed to be lies. Being a cynic gets lonely. Children of all ages don’t like to be told that there is no Santa Claus.
The good news is that number five is for real. Martin Luther King gave a speech at Western Michigan University in 1963. There is a probably his standard speech, given many times. The second section of the speech is “Call for action.”
“The world in which we live is geographically one. Now we are challenged to make it one in terms of brotherhood. Now through our ethical and moral commitment, we must make of it a brotherhood. We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will perish together as fools. This is the great challenge of the hour. This is true of individuals. It is true of nations. No individual can live alone. No nation can live alone.”
“I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality. [W]e’re challenged after working in the realm of ideas, to move out into the arena of social action and to work passionately and unrelentingly to make racial justice a reality.”
“[W]e must never substitute a doctrine of Black supremacy for white supremacy. For the doctrine of Black supremacy is as dangerous as white supremacy. God is not interested merely in the freedom of black men and brown men and yellow men but God is interested in the freedom of the whole human race, the creation of a society where all men will live together as brothers.”
PG has written about the problem of quoting Mohandas Gandhi before. Supposedly he said “I love your Christ, but I dislike your Christianity.” PG thinks this is a fabrication.
The quote on the poster is “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” Wikiquotes has a link to Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi Online. The next stop is page 302 of this section. Mr. Gandhi gave an “Interview to the press” in Karachi, on March 26, 1931. A freedom fighter named Bhagat Singh had been executed by the British three days earlier.
Do you not think it impolitic to forgive a government which has been guilty of a thousand murders?
I do not know a single instance where forgiveness has been found so wanting as to be impolitic.
But no country has ever shown such forgiveness as India is showing to Britain?
That does not affect my reply. What is true of individuals is true of nations. One cannot forgive too much. The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
The bottom line is from Dr. Abdul Kalam. (The name is misspelled on the poster.) The phrase is “It is very easy to defeat someone, but it is very hard to win someone.” Many viewers have no idea who this person is. Once again, Wikiquotes comes to the rescue. “Dr. Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam (born 15 October 1931) Indian scientist and engineer; 11th President of India; generally referred to as Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.” The quotes are from Wings of Fire: An Autobiography of APJ Abdul Kalam.
A search for the word “defeat” did not show results. A search for “win” shows a few, but not the poster child. The phrase on the poster is also credited to John Keats. There is also the story of the student who argues with an atheist professor, and ultimately wins. The student is sometimes said to be Albert Einstein. In this version, Argumnent : What, Who is GOD?, the coda is “This seems to be a true story, and the student was none other than APJ Abdul Kalam, the former President of India “.
The research for part one consisted of entering the quote into a search engine. It was not until the Lincoln investigation that the method of copying wikiquote, and searching for a key word, was discovered. Out of a sense of fairness, the first three quotes will be investigated using this method.
For William Shakespeare, the search word was risk. There were no results. For Napoleon Bonaparte, the search word was violence. There was one result. “There is no such thing as an absolute despotism; it is only relative. A man cannot wholly free himself from obligation to his fellows, and not the one on the poster. For Albert Einstein, the search word was thankful. There were no results.
So, there are seven quotes in the motivational poster. Only two of the seven have a apparent source. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost. This version is edited, out of concern for the attention span of the audience.
Greeted As Liberators Part Two
Paul Wolfowitz has been a government player for years. After finishing his education, he got a job in the Nixon Administration, and worked with Ford and Reagan. He became a star under GHWB and GWB. Mr. Wolfowitz never served in the military.
Under George W. Bush, Mr. Wolfowitz was Deputy Secretary of Defense. After 911, he became a forceful advocate of War in Iraq. He is regarded by some as the “Architect of the War in Iraq”.
On February 27, 2003, Mr. Wolfowitz testified before congress. “There has been a good deal of comment—some of it quite outlandish—about what our postwar requirements might be in Iraq. Some of the higher end predictions we have been hearing recently, such as the notion that it will take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq, are wildly off the mark. It is hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take … to secure the surrender of Saddam’s security forces and his army…”
The conquest was the easy part. The occupation, the act of putting humpty dumpty back together, has been the tough part. More than a few people saw this in 2003.
Mr. Wolfowitz gave an interview to Vanity Fair magazine May 9, 2009. The interview had a quote about WMD. “The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason.” The possession of WMD by “next Hitler” Saddam Hussein was one of the leading reasons for the invasion. Iraq was known to have used poison gas against the Kurds (while he was an ally of the United States). The warehouses of WMD have never been found.
In 1941, The United States was attacked by Japan at Pearl Harbor. A declaration of war was issued within a week. There was no settling on an issue for bureaucratic reasons.
PG found a transcript of the complete interview. The link no longer works. HT to Tom Dispatch. Apparently, Mr. Wolfowitz likes to talk. The part that interested PG concerns the Cruise missile, and other “smart” weapons. It seems as though the research on these weapons was almost suspended. The United States was negotiating arms control with The Soviet Union. The Cruise missile was almost abandoned as a concession to the Soviets. The Navy supported this, as they felt that the torpedoes on submarines were taking up too much room already.
This is a repost. Here is part one. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. The pictures were taken in Omaha NE, in November 1938. The photographer was John Vachon.
Meet Oliver Anthony
The display of a link on this page does not indicate approval of content.
What if Your Neighbor Asks You to Call Her a Him? Andy Naselli
Journalism fails miserably at explaining what is really happening to America
I’m so sorry for psychology’s loss, whatever it is plane crashed nobody checked the bodies
Meet Oliver Anthony: The New Voice of America’s Working Class
No Nobel Prize for Math … mathematician carrying on an affair with Alfred Nobel’s wife?
Vous dites que je suis une énigme de l’attribution des prix Nobel de 2014
Understanding Gender Radicalism and White Racial Guilt as Ersatz Religious Movements
Ram Dass | Methods to Consciousness Part 2 [Black Screen/No Music]
A crackdown on ‘woke’ coverage is tearing Atlanta magazine apart
Backroom deals and elasticity clause increase public cost of Cop City
history of anti-immigrant bias, starting with Benjamin Franklin’s hatred of Germans
The Supreme Court Is Infected With the ‘Most Damaging’ Human Bias
wendell wilkie ~ jre nobel ~ abb ~ briarcliff rd ~ burning nan
lgf ~ fracking ~ guide to tom waits ~ mermaids ~ Philology
lexicographer ~ aphotic ~ paranoid ~ mantra ~ maja nin
Anaïs Nin ~ Anaïs Nin ~ oliver anthony ~ quotidian ~ nobel
nobel ~ gadsen flag ~ oxycodone ~ peter berg ~ nyc
cannabis ~ dear colton ~ cop city ~ diane vail ~ commentary
ar15 ~ quotidian ~ merchant of death ~ Peter Berg ~ nobel ~ nobel
o’connor on mccullers ~ carson mccullers ~ lift him up ~ abpw ~ jimmy buffet
cary grant ~ Miss Welch ~ Mister Ed ~ nobel obituary ~ nobel prize
nobel prize ~ alfred nobel’s will ~ waits ~ idiotie ~ wokeism flaw ~ famous people ~ blusky
The problem with the Alfred Nobel Story The story about Nobel has a problem. The newspaper clipping is from a publication called “L’Idiotie Quotadine” The headline is in English. reddit rejected this twice ~ galatians 3:28 “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” ~ is the Bible #nonbinary ? Galatians 3:28 “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” ~ @MasterTimBlais Let me tell you the story of this still of stephen colbert wearing meat goggles, my buddy Frank, and how I learned to distrust science journalism 1/ ~ the “AR” in AR-15 stands for “ArmaLite Rifle” … The AR-15 is closely related to the military M16 and M4 Carbine rifles, which all share the same core design. Invented by infantry rifle designer Eugene Stoner in 1956 …in 1956 for use in the 7.62 NATO caliber ArmaLite AR-10 battle rifle Jesse “do they mean giving rides to furry events, or rides on a furry horse” Katie “that’s your fantasy Jesse” ~ SPAM Filtering – Karma and Account Age Minimums You must meet Karma and account age minimums to post to this subreddit. This rule is in response to massive amounts of SPAM we’ve been receiving. WE DO NOT DISCLOSE THE MINIMUMS FOR ACCOUNT AGE OR KARMA. When we did disclose those numbers, spammers simply bought accounts that met those requirements and continued to spam the subreddit. Increase your karma by visiting other subreddits that do not have minimum requirements and make posts and comments that contribute positively to that forum. ~ L’Idiotie Quotadine ~ “The causes and consequences of America’s opioid epidemic unfold in this drama following its perpetrators, victims and an investigator seeking the truth.” ~ quotadine The word you’ve entered isn’t in the dictionary. Click on a spelling suggestion below or try again using the search bar above. ~ quotadine Sorry, no results for “Quotadine” in the French-English Dictionary. ~ Suggestions proposées par le correcteur quotidien aquitaine aquitain quatrain quittaient quotidienne quêtaient quittai quota quêtai ~ Apparently, the word quotadine, with that spelling, does not exist in either french or english ~ pictures are from The Library of Congress ~ selah
How To Start A Fight
One year, I decided to buy my mother-in-law a cemetery plot as a Christmas gift… The next year, I didn’t buy her a gift. When she asked me why, I replied, “Well, you still haven’t used the gift I bought you last year!”
My wife and I were watching Who Wants To Be A Millionaire while we were in bed. I turned to her and said, ‘Do you want to have Sex?’ ‘No,’ she answered. I then said, ‘Is that your final answer?’ She didn’t even look at me this time, simply saying, ‘Yes..’ So I said, “Then I’d like to phone a friend.”
I took my wife to a restaurant. The waiter took my order first. “I’ll have the rump steak, rare, please.” “Aren’t you worried about the mad cow?” “Nah, she can order for herself.”
My wife sat down next to me as I was flipping channels. She asked, “What’s on TV?” I said, “Dust.”
My wife was hinting about what she wanted for our upcoming anniversary. She said, “I want something shiny that goes from 0 to 150 in about 3 seconds .” I bought her a bathroom scale.
My wife and I were sitting at a table at her high school reunion, and she kept staring at a drunken man swigging his drink as he sat alone at a nearby table. I asked her, “Do you know him?” “Yes”, she sighed, “He’s my old boyfriend…. I understand he took to drinking right after we split up those many years ago and I hear he hasn’t been sober since.” “My God!” I said, “Who would think a person could go on celebrating that long?”
When our lawn mower broke and wouldn’t run, my wife kept hinting to me that I should get it fixed. But, somehow I always had something else to take care of first, the shed, the boat, making beer. It was always something more important to me. Finally she thought of a clever way to make her point. When I arrived home one day, I found her seated in the tall grass, busily snipping away with a tiny pair of sewing scissors. I watched silently for a short time and then went into the house… When I came out again I handed her a toothbrush. I said, “When you finish cutting the grass, you might as well sweep the driveway.” The doctors say I will walk again, but I will always have a limp.
Saturday morning I got up early, quietly dressed, made my lunch and slipped quietly into the garage. I hooked up the boat up to the van and proceeded to back out into a torrential downpour. The wind was blowing 50 mph, so I pulled back into the garage, turned on the radio and then I discovered that the weather would be bad all day. I went back into the house, quietly undressed and slipped back into bed.. I cuddled up to my wife’s back, now with a different anticipation and whispered, “The weather out there is terrible.” My loving wife of 5 years replied, “And, can you believe my stupid husband is out fishing in that?”
After retiring, I went to the Social Security office to apply for Social Security. The woman behind the counter asked me for my driver’s License to verify my age. I looked in my pockets and realized I had left my wallet at home. I told the woman that I was very sorry, but I would have to go home and come back later. The woman said, ‘Unbutton your shirt’. So I opened my shirt revealing my curly silver hair. She said, ‘That silver hair on your chest is proof enough for me’ and she processed my Social Security application. When I got home, I excitedly told my wife. She said, ‘You should have dropped your pants. You might have gotten disability, too.’
These human interest stories are borrowed from Expressing Myself. This is a repost, with pictures from The Library of Congress. “Halloween party at Shafter Camp for migrant agricultural workers. Shafter, California.” November 1938. Photographer: Dorothea Lange.
L’Idiotie Quotadine
Peter Berg told a story on the Joe Rogan Experience. A newspaper printed an obituary, saying Alfred Nobel had died. (It was Ludvig Nobel, Alfred’s brother, who died.) Alfred Nobel had accumulated a fortune by inventing dynamite. The obituary called him a “merchant of death.” Mr. Nobel decided he wanted to be known for something else, and established the Nobel prize. Alfred Nobel died December 10, 1896, eight years after Ludvig died.
I was in skeptic mode, and decided to talk to Mr. Google. A story came up. It had a photograph of the headline … in English … in a newspaper called L’Idiotie Quotadine (Quotadine Idiocy.) History.com has another take. “The newspaper incident is often cited as the driving force behind Nobel’s philanthropy, but historians have yet to find an original copy of the “Merchant of Death” obituary.”
A google search for Quotadine led me to Kathy “Kathy Loves Physics” Joseph. She has an article, and two videos, (one two) about the Nobel urban legend. Apparently, the word quotadine, with that spelling, does not exist in either french or english.
The short version: The term “Merchants of Death” was coined in 1932, 43 years after the death of Ludwig Nobel. “The term seems to have been coined by an author of an article written in 1932 about a real character named Basil Zaharoff who was known for his ruthlessness, selling munitions to anyone who had enough money. In fact, Zaharoff was even known to encourage conflict and then sell arms to both sides! This article was poetically titled, “Zaharoff, Merchant of Death”
In later years, a pair of biographies (Fant Halasz) applied the MOD tag to Mr. Nobel, along with the festive origin story. The truth seems to be a bit more romantic. Mr. Nobel befriended a lady named Bertha Von Suttner, who seems to be a be a bit of a character. As time moved on, Mrs. Von Suttner became involved in a peace movement, and recruited Mr. Nobel to the cause. “In 1905, Bertha von Suttner was awarded the 4th Nobel Peace prize.”
Peter Berg is the JRE guest who told this tale. Mr. Berg is promoting a tv show, Painkiller, about the Oxycontin tragedy. At least some of what he is saying about opioids is the truth. It is a shame he needs to embellish that tale with Quotadine Idiocy. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Aristocratic Takeover
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Gloria Steinham has an “interesting” past. “Equality and full humanity” is recognizing this.
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Gloria Steinham has an “interesting” past. “Equality and full humanity” is recognizing this.
heidi wu ~ gpb ~ heidi wu ~ pfizer ~ nghf
joan rivers ~ buck angel ~ flu nosode ~ tom spanbauer ~ @repnikema
meta ~ #011 scott adams ~ emory ~ fda-ivm ~ baldwin
glaad ~ frog ~ burroughs ~ you caught ~ progressives
carl schmitt ~ S’phongo ~ its it’s ~ spade ~ leap year ~ wabe
joe ~ crip daddy ~ julian calvin ~ baldwin ~ Baldwin Digital
@chamblee54 pharmacist anagrams as phat racism ~ @chamblee54 what if we had put the same effort into treatment, that we have put into MRNA vaccines? ~ @whoresofyour@WhoresofYore The expression “call a spade a spade” comes from the work of Plutarch, who originally wrote “call a fig a fig & a trough a trough.” Figs & troughs were crude slang for the Vulva, so what Plutarch meant was “call a c*nt a c*nt”. When Erasmus (1466-1536) translated Plutarch’s work & changed it to a garden spade to avoid embarrassment. ~ on December 31, 1988, I drank my last beer, I was 34 years and 238 days old. Today is 34 years and 238 days later. ~ “do you identify as trans now” “no I identify as a woman I you know luckily I never did anything like I never took testosterone I never gotten breast removal or anything like that um I looked into it it was very I was very serious about it I realized that it would medicalize me forever” ++ ~ @chamblee54 @chamblee54 Who is going to set the values for AI? There are decisions being made, that will lead to future decisions. It is like the direction of a railroad will determine where trains will go. Take covid. Is the mrna vaccine, as the one true way to deal with the virus, is the one truth ~ it took many years of vomiting up all the filth i’d been taught about myself, and half-believed, before i was able to walk on this earth as though i had a right to be here ~ in this essay, Baldwin was charged by Mademoiselle to report on student activism in Florida after the Greensboro (North Carolina) sit-in, which the editors framed, in part, as follows: ~ baldwin ~ start or end words with of comfort Chief Homicide Inspector Sweaty regards The victims: Corporate litigator Greasy Louissey,Investment banker, Flabby freddie, Hedge-fund founder, Gropy garbell, Tony-winning playwright underwear Uzi,Nardozian Commander scabby surplus …All former companions of gertrude grabby who met her maker last year, and needs to get evenat least it will not be as hot soon on earth ~ History is a wepon They Can’t Turn Back James Baldwin (1960) ~ lesson you learned from disappointmenta problem when the hero and villian both play games of shipping and sentselling a bill of goods to the willingcannot be told apart, because the herois either the con man or the markyou think it is caesar but it is nerofiddler who hands rome to the narknato promising not to expandrussia did not want germany to unitelet loose the whoop ass they should have stayed cannedwhen you break your promise you get in a fight ~ what if the villain won the game ~ @chamblee54 I have been an enthusiastic fan since 2010. I do not remember hand held phones, though. I did not expect much from BHO. I had seen and heard too much racial dysfunction to expect much from a lips moving performance artist. Racism has become boring to talk about. ~ IANATS … I am not a Trump Supporter For situations where you need to critique the rampant foolishness of the times, but want to remind people that you do not appreciate the orange haired idiot ~ 239 – 126 = 113 – may 6 1954 – day 127 of 366 127 – 239 leap year 9 lead years – august 27 2023 day 238 of 365 7 leap 34 Years 238 Days – 1954-1988 12310 9 239 12,558 days 1989 – 2023 12310 7 238 12,555 days ~ The corporate grip on opinion in the united states is one of the wonders of the world. no first world country has ever manged to eliminate from its media all objectivity – much less dissent. ~ pictures today are fromThe Library of Congress ~ selah
Julian Carr And Silent Sam
This is a repost from 2018. … A Confederate monument was torn down last night in Chapel Hill NC. The statue, known as “Silent Sam,” was intended as a monument to students who left school to fight in the War Between the States. “In 1913, the Daughters of Confederacy, after four years of fundraising, paid sculptor John Wilson, a Canadian, $7500 for the statue. Wilson used a Boston-man, Harold Langlois, as the model. It’s unclear, however, if those attending Silent Sam’s dedication knew they were celebrating a Yankee’s profile. Silent Sam was among many “Silent Sentinels,” – statues of soldiers without cartridge box, soldiers who could no longer fire a shot – that were manufactured and bronzed in the North and then sent down south for public display. Many of these statues look remarkably similar. Like Silent Sam, they also face north, toward the Union.”
Many of the comments today quote a speech made at the 1913 unveiling. The speech was by Julian Carr, a prominent businessman and philanthropist. Mr. Carr is considered, with some justification, to have been a white supremacist. A Confederate veteran, Mr. Carr appears to have been a complex man, who did both good and harm.
This tweet is typical of today’s discourse. @jjones9 “From white supremacist Julian Carr’s speech at the dedication of Silent Sam in 1913.” The tweet features a screen shot, of a quote from the 1913 speech. “I trust I may be pardoned for one allusion, howbeit it is rather personal. One hundred yards from where we stand, less than ninety days perhaps after my return from Appomattox, I horse-whipped a negro wench until her skirts hung in shreds, because upon the streets of this quiet village she had publicly insulted and maligned a Southern lady, and then rushed for protection to these University buildings where was stationed a garrison of 100 Federal soldiers. I performed the pleasing duty in the immediate presence of the entire garrison, and for thirty nights afterwards slept with a double-barrel shot gun under my head.”
What was the rest of the speech? A bit of research turned up a transcript, Julian S. Carr, “Unveiling of Confederate Monument at University. June 2, 1913.” The rest of the speech has little in common with the “one allusion.” The speech sounded like the memorials to fallen soldiers in many other wars. “They served, they suffered, they endured, they fought, [and died – crossed out] for their childhood homes, their firesides, the honor of their ancestors, their loved ones, their own native land.”
Mr. Carr’s theme is defense of a the homeland. When the War broke out, the concept of a United States, ruled by a strong federal government, was less accepted than it is today. Many people in the South saw it as a failed experiment. Slavery was an important issue in the decision to secede, along with economic matters that do not get twenty first century people worked up. Slavery is not mentioned in the 1913 speech.
“Of the students and alumni of the University of North Carolina, about 1800 entered the Confederate army … . The University had in the service 1 lieutenant-general, 4 major-generals, 13 brigadier-[page break 8] generals, 71 colonels, 30 lieutenant-colonels, 65 majors, 46 adjutants, 71 surgeons, 254 captains, 161 lieutenants, 38 non-commissioned officers and about 1000 privates. I regard it as eminently appropriate to refer briefly at his point to the magnificent showing made by our state in the military service of the Confederacy. … The entire Confederate loss on the battlefield was 74,524, of which North Carolina’s share was 19,673, or more than one-fourth; 59, 297 died of disease, and of these, 20,602 were North Carolinians.”
“And I dare to affirm this day, that if every State of the South had done what North Carolina did without a murmer [sic], always faithful to its duty whatever the groans of the victims, there never would have been an Appomatox[sic]; Grant would have followed Meade and Pope; Burnside, Hooker, McDowell and McClellan, and the political geography of America would have been re-written.”
There are three other noteworthy quotes in the speech. “Even the great Northern universities – Harvard, Yale and Princeton – furnished quotas of soldiers for the Confederate ranks. From Harvard came 257, of whom 58 were killed in battle and 12 died in the service, and in this large list appear 8 brigadier-generals and 5 major-generals. Of the graduates and students of Yale, 48 entered the Confederate service, and of these 8 were killed in battle or succumbed to disease. At Princeton 55 men left the University, early in 1861, to enter the Confederate service, and from the somewhat incomplete records of that University it appears that a considerable percentage of these young men were killed in battle, or died from disease.”
“Permit me to refer at this point to a pleasing incident in which that distinguished son of the South, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, had the leading part. A year or two ago diplomas were given by our University to all the students who had interrupted their studies to enter the military service of the Confederacy. Mr. Wilson, then President of Princeton University delivered these diplomas. One man only of the Class [handwritten – that Matriculated in 1862] wearing the Confederate uniform, came forward to receive that highly prized token. It was the humble individual who now addresses you. At the dinner, later in the day, Professor Wilson greeted me with the remark that in many years nothing had so much touched and warmed his heart as the sight of that Confederate uniform.”
The speech went on and on, and sounded much like any other memorial. Once again, it should be noted that defense of the homeland received much more notice than a defense of slavery. The speech ended with these words: “In the knowledge of subsequent developments, the progress, peace and prosperity of our united, common country, victor and vanquished now alike believe that in the Providence of God it was right and well that the issue was determined as it was. And the people of all sections of our great Republic, moved by the impulse of sincere and zealous loyalty, of fervent and exalted patriotism may say: “All is well that ends well.”
“Again, dear Daughters of the Confederacy, I thank you in the name of the eighteen hundred brave, loyal, patriotic, home-loving young student soldiers who went out from this grand old University to battle for our Southern rights and Southern liberties, five hundred of whom never came back. God bless every one of you, and every Daughter of the Confederacy in our dear Southland.”
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest 2023 Part Two
Part Two of the 2020 chamblee54 report on The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is here. Part one is there. Pictures for this affair are from The Library of Congress.
Sitting on the saloon stool, Cody quickly downed some liquid courage before reading what he thought would be grim news about his brother at the Battle of Shiloh, but the telegram turned out to be from that mysterious company who kept offering to extend his horse warranty.
Douglas Purdy, Roseville, CA
I stared out at the crepuscular finish to the day, considering all of the factors, all of the options, all of the consequences, my brain twitching in much the same manner as my colon had following my last feast of convenience store sushi. Timbo Gillespie, Orange, CA
The oyster slid down his throat, leaving it raw and scratchy, and for my sake, thought Pete, why people considered them delicious was mysterious, though as a case in point he noticed his companions had pried theirs open and were eating only what was inside.
Joel Phillips, West Trenton, NJ
“Admitting the need for change is the first step toward recovery—I’m really proud of you,” said the first-year psych student, moonlighting as a supercilious clerk at the mini-mart, and Jane responded, “I’m really just trying to break a twenty and get some ones.” John Tracy, Palm Desert, CA
Having sent his wife Rosemary to their cabin (for it was an unlit and turbulent night at sea), Basil maintained his position at the helm while the driving rain peppered his graying ginger hair, and the old salt thought sagely that it was a good thing he was a well-seasoned sailor.
Donna Parsons, Tulsa, OK
That night she looked a million dollars, which, when considering the sum of her lifetime outlay on her cosmetic surgery ($456,783), her wardrobe ($893,324), her hair and make-up ($379,330) and her jewelry ($432,339), was a poor return, indeed a hefty deficit. Joseph Williams, Devizes, Wiltshire, UK
It wasn’t the way that she moved that first caught Edward’s attention but rather that she didn’t move at all, and her cold porcelain-like skin set his heart aflame because after all, she was the most beautiful corpse he had ever laid eyes on. Ryan Hanaway, Dearborn, MI
While she had no regrets about throwing the lever to douse her husband’s mistress in molten gold, Blanche did feel a pang of conscience for the innocent bystanders whose proximity had caused them to suffer gilt by association. Adam Chmelka, Olathe, KS
Half of Rome was ablaze, but the emperor Nero reclined in his palace, plinking out a disconsolate tune on his lyre, when the door flew open, and in charged his favorite mistress (barking mad but delightfully zaftig) with a knife in each hand, and evidently set on regime change, forcing Nero to leap to his feet and snarl “Come on, baby, fight my lyre!” Daniel Smith, Centennial, CO
“Brawl, grapple, battle, spar, roughhouse, clash, combat, altercation, dust up”, the drunken cowpoke grunted at the lawman, a wobbly hand dangling above his pistol like a spider waiting to descend upon on a helpless fly but Sheriff Thesaurus only stared him down coldly and responded through gritted teeth: “Mister, them’s fightin’ words.” Donald J. Hicks, Manchester, NJ
“Wagon’s Ho!”, shouted Sweaty Mike the trail boss, waving his hat dramatically over his head, and though his grammatical error remained effective at directing the wagon train to begin the day’s travel, he failed to recognize that he had just given Lumpy Maude, the caravan’s only “working girl,” a new nickname in the process. Eric Williamson, Nine Mile Falls, WA









































































































































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