PRX Racism Scandal Part Three
“Everyone at PRX should know that each characteristic on the list of White Supremacy Culture Characteristics is fully expressed in the workplace …” The first time I ever heard of WSC was a scandal at PRX. The story about WSC yesterday got me to take a look at PRX, and how they were doing, WSC wise, in the 30 months since the scandal broke.
When in doubt, have an outside study done. PRX hired Prince Lobel Tye LLP to investigate. “Palace Shaw, a Black woman and former employee of Public Radio Exchange, lnc. (“PRX”), sent an email to all staff in which she recounted what she described as the “systematic mistreatment” she experienced that prompted her to resign from her position. … The investigation did not uncover any evidence of unlawful discrimination or anything to suggest that any PRX policy was violated related to Ms. Shaw’s employment. However, there was some evidence that microaggressions and unconscious bias, while not unlawful, may have adversely affected Black, indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) employees, including Ms. Shaw. … there is nothing to suggest that Ms. Shaw was ever treated adversely because of her race or gender, the touchstone of a cognizable discrimination complaint based on her being a
Black woman. No singular reason emerged as to why the Black women to whom Ms. Shaw alluded left PRX. They all did so for different reasons, and none of the three cited mistreatment because they were Black women as a motivating reason for leaving PRX. However, the investigation uncovered signs of what can be described as unconscious bias and “microaggressions” that tended to make the work experience for some BIPOC employees difficult. … These types of complaints were not universal among BIPOC, and some said they had never experienced unconscious bias or microaggressions.”
“In April 2021, PRX hired Byron Green as senior director of DEI.” Current: “A October 2020 investigation … did uncover what it called unconscious biases and microaggressions that made work difficult for BIPOC employees at PRX. How have you been working to address issues of inherent biases and microaggressions?” Green: “Straight on. Notably we’ve done emotional intelligence, identity development and unconscious bias training at large. …”
PRX CEO Kerri Hoffman, whose hair-touching sparked this drama, is still in charge at PRX. Aggrieved employee Palace Shaw has turned up at Ten Percent Happier. “The Dalai Lama’s GUIDE TO HAPPINESS. We went halfway around the world to find out what it actually takes to become happier. Journey with us and learn how to train your mind to be happier over time alongside the most qualified people on the planet—including the Dalai Lama.” TPH recently featured Ms. Shaw on a podcast episode, Why The Tears, about the difficulties some people have with crying. The transcript does not include the word “white.”
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. “Meeting of UCAPAWA (United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Workers of America) in Bristow OK.” Russell Lee was the photographer, in February 1940.
White Supremacy Culture
@jessesingal “2/ It is genuinely bizarre. In the case of journalists, they are making these really intense accusations against other journalists and they get super pissed when you ask them for specific examples.” @chamblee54 “Asking for specific examples is white supremacy culture.”@NotaNeoLiberal1 “And most certainly a trait from someone imbued with colonizer ideology.” The @chamblee54 comment got 115 likes. @dcherring “lol.”
“White Supremacy Culture is a form of racism centered upon the belief that white people are superior to people of other racial backgrounds and that whites should politically, economically, and socially dominate non-whites. While often associated with violence perpetrated by the KKK and other white supremacist groups, it also describes a political ideology and systemic oppression that perpetuates and maintains the social, political, historical and/or industrial white domination.” This is a typical description of WSC. It does not make a lot of sense. WSC is connected to WS, which is essentially anything that you say it is.
Most WSC talk centers this list of characteristics. It is from “Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change Groups, by Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun, 2001.” There is a list of items that WSC embodies. “the belief that there is such a thing as being objective” “equating individual acts of unfairness against white people with systemic racism which daily targets people of color.”
@chamblee54 first became aware of WSC by reading about the PRX Racism Scandal. PRX is a foundation-funded organization that assists public radio endeavors. A young lady of color, Palace Shaw, quit her job at PRX, and issued a viral letter about her experience. PRX CEO Kerri Hoffman touching Palace Shaw’s hair was the first issue addressed in the viral letter. FWIW, this list of WSC characteristics does include hair-touching.
“Everyone at PRX should know that each characteristic on the list of White Supremacy Culture Characteristics is fully expressed in the workplace … For current donors/financial supporters: How much would you be willing to increase your current pledge if PRX makes necessary changes to address its white supremacy culture?” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
This Is A Repost
A tweet started it all. “15 words you need to eliminate from your vocabulary.” In case you were wondering, they are: 1. That, 2. Went, 3. Honestly, 4. Absolutely, 5. Very, 6. Really, 7. Amazing, 8. Always, 9. Never, 10. Literally, 11. Just, 12. Maybe, 13. Stuff, 14. Things, and 15. Irregardless.
In the original tweet, the url did not work. PG googled the phrase, and got a bunch of other 15 word collections. He thought it would be cool to see the other collections, and maybe compile the results. However, all of the other collections used the same 15 words. The Muse started it, and even got mighty Time to copy them.
Two words you need to eliminate from your vocabulary is a non conformist. “1. Replace the word ’’but’’ with ’’and’’ … 2. Replace the phrase ’’I have to’’ with ’’I want to’’
Ditto “7 Words To Remove From Your Vocabulary.” Their crew of deplorables include: “I Should… I Can’t… I Hope… I Have To… I’ll Try… I’ve Got a Problem… But.” This gives us 25 words to never use… enough to write a poem. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
I hope that maybe I can’t absolutely
I’ll try I should but I’ve got a problem
Irregardless I have to stuff things literally
Just very honestly never really went dim
A David Bowie Book
David Bowie: A Life was sitting on the biography shelf at the Chamblee library. It is an “oral biography.” Dylan Jones gets the blame, and the copyright. He took a bunch of interviews, and curated salient passages into a narrative. It is a fun book to read, full of sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
The Amazon one star reviews beg to differ. Guitar Gregg “I thought this would be biography not assorted comments. Very few comments from David Bowie. Who cares what Debora Harry or hundreds of “Joe blows” have to say? No pictures? 500 pages? Too much too little. Buy his cd’s instead.” worst read ever “Belongs in the fire … worst read ever!”
PG enjoyed DBAL. At some point, the lurid tales of depravity got too quotable, and PG started keeping a list. In this book report, we will use this list, until the list, or the reader’s attention span, is exhausted. There may be another installment. Part one was published last week.
“There’s one instance — probably included just so it would be cited — about someone calling Bowie’s room in New York with an offer of a still-warm corpse. “The town had never seen anything like David before,” says onetime groupie Josette Caruso. “And he obviously looked like such a freak that some sick people thought he might be into necrophilia.” (He wasn’t.) (Page 142)
Page 146 “He (Lou Reed) had an auteur complex, and Bowie didn’t fit into that. Lou was also a prime member of the awkward squad. He could lose a charm competition with Van Morrison.” In 1972 David had gone through years of struggle, and was starting to make it. After the Ziggy Stardust tour, he was hot. At this time, David wound up helping two struggling artists, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop
The Elton John/Rolling Stone article was published during one Iggy phase. “May 1975 — It’s four in the morning, Hollywood time, and David Bowie is twitching with energy. … Bowie clutches his heart and beams like a proud father watching his kid in the school play. His whisper is full of wonder. “They just don’t appreciate Iggy.” he is saying. “He’s Lenny fucking Bruce and James Dean. When that adlib flow starts, there’s nobody like him. It’s verbal jazz, man!” … Bowie and Iggy never did make it back into the studio. Pop slept past the booked time, called up drunk several nights later and when Bowie told him to “go away” — meaning “hang up” — Iggy did just that. Now he’s disappeared. “I hope he’s not dead,” says Bowie, “he’s not a good act.” Iggy will show up later in this story.
Page 151 has stories from the Ziggy tour. In Seattle, the entourage went to a gay bar, and someone invited David to a party. When the next day came, and the tour needed to go to the next city, David was nowhere to be found. When he finally called the hotel, all he knew was that he was in a house, with a lot of trees around it. A hotel employee talked to David on the phone, and they managed to figure out where he was.
Page 155 Lori Mattox was a fifteen year old rock fan in 1972. “We got to the Beverly Hilton, and all went up to Bowie’s enormous suite. … We were getting stoned when, all of a sudden, the bedroom door opens and there is Bowie in this beautiful red and orange and yellow kimono … “Lori, darling, can you come with me? … Of course I did. Then he escorted me into the bedroom, gently took off my clothes, and de-virginized me.”
There is a lot of text about David’s sex life. The boy got around, in spite of, or because of, his open marriage with Angela. Apparently, nature was generous with David. While performatively gay during this era, David made plenty of exceptions with ladies. DBAL is an entertaining book.
Page 176 Ava Cherry was a girlfriend who stuck around. “… and yes, we did have some fun together. We were staying at the Sherry-Netherland one night in New York, where David had given a party for Rudolph Nureyev. At the end of the party, everyone was gone apart from me and David and Mick, (Jagger) so it just ended up with the three of us sleeping together.”
Page 263 87 pages later, David has burned out on American rock stardom, and is living on top of an auto parts store in Berlin. This is the phase which produced Low and Heroes, two creative, though non commercial, efforts. Iggy Pop is back in the picture. Longtime assistant Coco Schwab never left. Iggy Pop : “There’s sevent days in a week: two for bingeing, two for recovery, and three more for any other activity.” Coco Schwab “I remember one elevated subway ride where you ride into East Berlin with no checkpoints and then back out with Absinthe into the west. Trust Jim (Iggy) to find that one.”
Page 277 David meets Adrian Bellew, who is in Frank Zappa’s band. David is talking to Adrian about doing a tour with David. At some point, the two go to a restaurant, where they run into Frank Zappa. “…David tried to strike up a conversation with Frank, saying “This is quite a guitar player you have here” And Frank said, “Fuck you, Captain Tom.” David persisted, and said “Oh come on now, Frank, surely we can be gentleman about this?” And Frank said, “Fuck you, Captain Tom.” … so David said, “So you really have nothing to say?” To which Frank said, “Fuck you, Captain Tom.”
Picture are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the photographs in April, 1941. The setting was Chicago, IL. The bar at Palm Tavern, Negro restaurant on 47th Street. Chicago IL Having fun at roller skating party at Savoy Ballroom. Chicago IL This is a repost.
Dan Quayle
“It is part of my existence to be the insect of metaphors” I was listening to a story, while editing photographs from The Library of Congress. I was starting to get bored with the story. I made the conscious decision to turn the story off. This was the last line that I heard before I turned the story off.
I finished a folder of pictures. With the Internet there’s plenty of temptation, and rabbit holes to go down. I found this delightful tweet by Andy Sullivan. It was a link to a a story about how Donald Trump was still trying to steal the election. Here is the first money quote: “Trump was busier attempting to undo the election than he had ever been as president.”
The YouTube video I was listening to was an excerpt from a Dan Carlin show. He was talking about Douglas MacArthur, and the great man theory of history. I have the opinion that history is going to happen the way it happens, and the celebrity gets too much credit. This is the thing about Gen. MacArthur and President Trump. I consider Mr. trump to be a speedfreak, who, in a combination of luck, and pluck, got himself elected. If he had been moderately competent, and half as evil as the Democrats claim, America would have been in a world of trouble. And now, he is allegedly working harder to reverse an election, than he did when he was in office.
“And though Mike Pence, pressed hard by Trump for the last full measure of devotion, wavered (he phoned Dan Quayle for advice), in the end, he did what he knew was right.” Lord, you can’t make this stuff up. James Danforth Quayle is a major idiot, though probably not a dumb as many suspect. OTOH, Mike Pence … aka “Lester Maddox — without the spine” … is as worthless as people think.
The Bulwark article was written by Mona Charen. The scribe was a speech writer for Nancy Reagan, and was rumored to have been fired from that position. In the early nineties, Ms. Charen had a regular column in the fishwrapper. Once she said, regarding gay marriage, It is not marriage which civilizes people, but women. (Full disclosure: That quote is from memory, not a verified source.)
In 1992, when Ms. Charen had that column, I was working downtown. One afternoon, the Vice-Presidential debate was in Atlanta, and the candidates made appearances throughout the day. I stepped out of the office, to buy a bag of Fritos at a neighborhood store. I looked down the street to see the Vice President vehicle going down Forsyth Street. I waved at Dan Quayle. I only used one finger. This is a repost. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Was Mohandas Gandhi A Racist?
A meme appeared on facebook, “GHANDI’S 7 DANGERS TO HUMAN VIRTUE.” Below the misspelled name were seven concepts, written in all caps. This got PG thinking.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (M.K. Gandhi) “was born was born on October 2, 1869, at Porbandar, a small town on the western coast of India.” At some point the title Mahatma was applied, and is often used as though it was his name. Exact transliterations between languages using different alphabets is tricky. What is the “correct” spelling of this man’s last name? Most sources today use Gandhi.
Another term, Gandhiji, turns up in the research. “‘Ji’ in Hindi or Urdu is a suffix used after the names of respectable persons and elders like father and mother. It is used every day by millions of Indians to address their elders. Hence Gandhiji is but Mahatma Gandhi, father of our nation, addressed reverently and respectfully. We call mother mataji. Mata means mother.”
The quote in the meme is real. It is found on page 135 of Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi Vol. 33. It was in an article found in Young India on October 22, 1925.
“SEVEN SOCIAL SIN The same fair friend wants readers of Young India to know, if they do not already, the following seven social sins: Politics without principles, Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Knowledge without character, Commerce without morality, Science without humanity, Worship without sacrifice. Naturally, the friend does not want the readers to know these things merely through the intellect but to know them through the heart so as to avoid them.”
The next entry in the collected works is interesting. “79. THAT ETERNAL QUESTION However much I may wish to avoid it, the Hindu-Muslim question will not avoid me. Muslim friends insist upon my intervention to solve it. The Hindu friends would have me discuss it with them and some of them say I have sown the wind and must reap the whirlwind.”
The meme had comments. Lloyd Lachow Gandhi was intensely racist. Joanne Gibson Gandhi was not intensely racist. Fighting racism was his first cause. John Janiga Gandhi racist??? John Taylor Lloyd, were you born an idiot, or did you have to work at it?
This looks like a job for Mr. Google. When you type the phrase “Is Gandhi,” suggested searches include “sill alive” and “on netflix.” This does not help if you want to know if someone is racist.
Mr. Gandhi lived in South Africa from 1893-1915. During this time he was offended at the treatment of Indian nationals, which led to a decision to fight for Indian rights. Unfortunately, these rights were not to be extended to the native South Africans.
… there’s no doubting that Gandhi had little time for black people. During his 21 years in South Africa, he repeatedly expressed contempt for the native population, claiming they were no better than the “untouchables” of Indian society. One speech in particular stands out. In 1896, he was quoted as referring to black South Africans as the “raw kaffir, whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with, and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness.” For those of you who aren’t up on your South African slang, “kaffir” is a direct equivalent of our N-word. Another time, he complained about finding himself in a “kaffir” prison, claiming Indians were “above” natives, who “are troublesome, very dirty and live like animals.”
There is the story of the Durban Post Office. “The first major accomplishment of the Natal Indian Congress was to further entrench racial segregation into South African society during a time of massive racial strife. At the time, the Durban, South Africa post office had two doors. One was for whites and the other for Indians and black natives. Gandhi was so disgusted at having to share a door with blacks that he initiated a campaign for the creation of a third door. … A year later, after the issue had already been resolved, Gandhi chose to expound upon his reasons for raising it in the first place. In his August 14, 1896 letter, “The Grievances of the British Indians in South Africa: An Appeal to the Indian Public,” he called being “put on the same level with the native” a “disability.”
This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Question Authority Part Two
The facebook thread that produced the meme discussed yesterday had a tasteful photo comment. “Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.” Albert Einstein The sans serif text was illustrated with a photograph of an thoughtful Dr. Einstein. Since I was already on a debunking rampage, google was the logical next stop.
The short version is that young Albert said something similar in a letter, which was possibly mistranslated in the meme. “It comes from a letter he wrote to Jost Winteler, with whom he had boarded while at school in Aarau, Switzerland. In the letter, written on July 8th, 1901 (when he was aged 22), Einstein complained about German physicist Paul Drude, editor of Annelen der Physik, who had dismissed EInstein’s criticism of his electron theory of metals (now known as the Drude Model).”
“Was Sie über die deutschen Professoren gesagt haben, ist gar nicht über-trieben. Ich habe wieder ein trauriges Subjekt dieser Art kennen gelernt – einen derersten Physiker Deutschlands. Auf zwei sachliche Einwände, welche ich ihm gegen eine seiner Theorien anführte, und die einen direkten Defekt seiner Schlüsse darthun, antwortet er mir mit dem Hinweis, daß ein anderer (unfehlbarer) Kollege von ihm der selben Meinung sei. Ich werde dem Mann demnächst mit einer tüchtigen Veröffentlichung ein heizen. Autoritätsdusel ist der größte Feind der Wahrheit.”
“What you have said about German professors is not exaggerated. I have got to know another sad specimen of this kind – one of the foremost physicists of Germany. To two pertinent objections which I raised against one of his theories and which demonstrate a direct defect in his conclusions, he responds by pointing out that another (infallible) colleague of his shares his opinion. I’ll soon make it hot for the man with a masterly publication. Autoritätsdusel is the greatest enemy of truth.”
“I’ve left the word “autoritätsdusel” untranslated, since this is the key to the quote. Princeton translates it as “authority gone to one’s head”, and in a paper published in Science and Engineering Ethics, it is translated as “the stupor of authority” (“dusel” meaning “stupor or daze”).”
The Science and Engineering Ethics document promises more cheap thrills. Suppression of Scientific Research:Bahramdipity and Nulltiple Scientific Discoveries “Just as Horace Walpole coined serendipity, so can the term bahramdipity be … defined as the cruel suppression of a serendipitous discovery. Suppressed, unpublished discoveries are designated nulltiples. Several examples are presented to make the case that bahramdipity is an existent aspect of scientific discovery.” A recent example might be the suppression of ivermectin, in favor of more profitable vaccines, and other proprietary therapeutics. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Question Authority Part One
“It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.” Benjamin Franklin This nugget appeared on facebook recently, and the bs detector was buzzing. I never heard the phrase “Question Authority” before 1981. QA sounds awfully modern for 18th Century America.
I quickly googled the phrase, and found indications that it was in not found in the Franklin Papers at Yale University. A search of the Mr. Franklin’s wikiquote did not turn up QA.
Unfortunately, I chose to include a link to Snopes in my facebook reply. The meme-poster saw Snopes, and said that was not a valid source. We went back and forth on the issue. I did say that Snopes was questionable, but had other sources that fueled my skepticism.
A google search credits Timothy Leary with saying “Think for yourself and question authority.” … “Timothy Leary’s track on Sound Bites from the Counter Culture (1989.)” 1989 is a few years after I saw my first QA bumper sticker. Maybe Mr. Leary heard someone else say QA, and claimed it for himself. Timmy Leary was an authority that required enhanced interrogation.
A Christian oriented forum says that Mr. Leary got QA from Ben Franklin. At any rate, QA is counter-culture phrasing, of the type that Ben Franklin probably did not use. According to Google n-gram, QA does not appear in print before 1885. 1976 and 1987 saw QA spiking, with QA usage peaking in 2005.
Let’s examine the concept of questioning authority. In this case, the authority was a facebook meme. When I presented Snopes as a dissenting authority, it was rejected. When I presented Wikiquotes as an authority/source, I was satisfied, and my facebook opponent dismissive. I should note that in my initial facebook reply, I said that it was unlikely that Mr. Franklin said QA. We cannot claim to have heard every conversation Ben Franklin had, or if he said something similar.
Did Mr. Franklin question authority? Lets take a look at a famous quote: “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” “The words appear originally in a 1755 letter that Franklin is presumed to have written on behalf of the Pennsylvania Assembly to the colonial governor during the French and Indian War. … the Assembly wished to tax the lands of the Penn family … to raise money for defense against French and Indian attacks. … In other words, the “essential liberty” to which Franklin referred was thus not what we would think of today as civil liberties but, rather, the right of self-governance of a legislature in the interests of collective security.” The “essential liberty” Mr. Franklin referred to was the ability of the government to tax citizens. It’s all about the Benjamins.
One type of questionable authority invoving Mr. Franklin was slavery. Benjamin Franklin owned slaves. Pennsylvania tax records of 1769 and 1774 show “1 Negro” as being in his possesion. “Franklin owned slaves from as early as 1735 until 1781. The Franklin household had six slaves; Peter, his wife Jemima and their son Othello, George, John and King.”
Mr. Franklin ran advertising for the slave trade in his publications. “To be SOLD A very likely breeding Negroe Woman, and a Boy about two years old. The woman is fit for any Business Either in Town or Country. Enquire of William Bafdon, over against the Coffee House in Front Street.” … “Advertisement for an enslaved woman and an enslaved child from Benjamin Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette (December 9-16, 1736).”
Mr. Franklin later changed his tune. “In 1787 Franklin became the President of the Philadelphia Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, often referred as the Abolition Society. … The Abolition Society was the first in America and served as inspiration for the formation of abolitionist societies in other colonies. The group focused not only in abolishing slavery but also in education, moral instruction and employment. In a letter dated November 9th, 1789, Franklin wrote wholeheartedly against the institution of slavery. He argued that slaves have long been treated as brute animals beneath the standard of human species. Franklin asked for resources and donations to help freed slaves adjust to society by giving them education, moral instruction and suitable employment. … On February 3rd, 1790, less than three months before his death, Franklin petitioned Congress to provide the means to bring slavery to an end. When the petition was introduced to the House and the Senate it was immediately rejected by pro-slavery congressmen mostly from the southern states.” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress
Catgender Non-Binary
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Examining America’s War in Iraq It was a blunder. Worse than that, it was a crime.
… earliest known recordings of trans icons Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera
myth of Marsha P Johnson … how trans ideologues are rewriting gay-rights history.
Joe Rogan Anti-Semitism Controversy: Free Speech Double Standards?
The Iraq War, 20 Years Later It wasn’t the disaster everyone now says it was
The rise of the Trump-Russia revisionists – attempt to rewrite the Trump-Russia scandal …
Timeline: The long, risque history of Atlanta’s nightlife If you can remember everything …
We need to talk about chemsex Power structures shape and curtail our desires
“I have to run to the hospital because I have to have a colonoscopy”
Black Democrats differ from others in views on gender identity, transgender issues
You said ‘The world is going back to Paganism’. Oh bright Vision! I saw our dynasty …
She Diqk Shamed Men, They Pulled The Uno Reverse Card
Quote Origin: Everything in the Universe Has a Rhythm. Everything Dances
You’re Not Imagining It, Blinding Headlights Are a Real Problem
The following media includes potentially sensitive content.
Nick Sandmann, Who We Were Told Would Be Rich … Loses Basically All Of His Cases
unable to locate evidence that Benjamin Franklin ever said it was first responsibility …
in Favor of Niceness, Community, and Civilization – Content warning: Discussion of …
who decided that “cis” was the CORRECT term for not trans?
Fox News hosts spread election lies they didn’t believe. Were you fooled by them?
Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling ‘You could not have misunderstood me more profoundly.’…
John MacArthur is wrong about so much more than keeping women in abusive marriages
Four obsolete labels: liberal, conservative, racist, terrorist
Antonio Brown Questions Colin Kaepernick’s Charity Work
Critical chemsex studies: Interrogating cultures of sexualized drug use beyond risk paradigm
Pleasure Consuming Medicine The Queer Politics of Drugs
‘Drug’ journalist lambasted after calling to ‘destigmatise chemsex’: ‘Do I want to know …
@trogmignon I can think of few people less qualified to speak on this matter than JBP
loscil ~ shazam it ~ letter ~ d-now 092403 ~ from time immemorial
joan peters ~ von nukem ~ sharing your medicine ~ He Gets Us ~ interahamwe
cumberland mall attack ~ prank ~ puerto vallarta ~ محمد سهیل شاهین ~ @Taliban_times
taliban ~ taibbi ~ jamie reed ~ kurtisraycutler ~ prison
reenactment ~ banana skin reefers ~ bs ~ tpc-bs ~ bs
tpc-bs ~ stephen molldrem ~ schlitz ~ raquel welch ~ raquel welch
electrostani ~ fred sargeant ~ repost ~ tim pool ~ trugoy the dove
andre ~ 5 phrases ~ reenactment ~ kwf contrapoints ~ “the book”
“I do do in the book” ~ @ZaidJilani Georgia’s Jon Ossoff, who led investigations into federal prisons last Congress, will become new chair of Subcommittee on Human Rights. ~ @HeartlandSignal Minnesota State Sen. John Jasinski (R) argues against legalizing marijuana because it will result in early retirement for drug-sniffing dogs: “The police dog discussion … that’s a big issue.” ~ The Infernal Grove is an unsystematic structural analysis of drug use, addiction and recovery (not necessarily in that order) ~ “the deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence.” Thomas Henry Huxley As quoted in: A Study of the Relationship Between Rate and Ability, by L. M. Hunsicker (Teachers College, Columbia Univ., 1925), p. 15 We are being asked to believe that the author of this item is Aldous Huxley, the grandson of Thomas. The evidence offered is a facebook meme. ~ actually, there are some back roads … i came home on hwy 19, Roswell Rd/Atlanta Street, and it was not too bad, this time … i used to work off hwy 400 at the northridge exit … this was 1985 – 1989, when hwy 400 ended at i285. It was nothing but woods on both sides of the highway … i went out johnson ferry road, past the hospitals, and took a right turn through a yield sign to get on 400 … sometimes the good old days really were better ~ Did Andy Warhol really say “in the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes”? ~ … “then Along Came Ta-Nehisi Coates and he started to say Bernie has a problem with race Bernie has a problem with race because he won’t come out robustly for black reparations so as a political reality the black reparations was being used as a weapon to derail the Bernie campaign.” ~ Longer Finkelstein rant ~ Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders left a campaign event in Seattle without giving his speech Saturday after “black lives matter” activists took over the podium. It is the second time in a month that activists protesting racial inequality have interrupted an event featuring the progressive candidate. On July 18, “black lives matter” demonstrators entered a Netroots Nation forum featuring Sanders and Martin O’Malley in Phoenix and began chanting slogans ~ michellelhooq SO MUSH LOVE 2 MY 2 SURROGATE MOMS Ophelia and Teresa for building @enter.the.mushwomb’s beautiful pussy portal!!! Incredible to have two mothers with Hollywood film backgrounds working on this together; I just told them “I don’t want this to be a perfect porn pussy and I DEFINITELY want it to be hairy” and they took it from there – even adding a magical clit (now you really have no excuse not to find it 😂) Plus, since these are moms who always think about safety, they also made sure the portal didn’t block the exit in case there was an emergency. T+O YALL ARE MY SOUL MODELS TYSM FOR THIS PERFECT PUSSY!!! ~ @FredSargeant This Sunday I’d like to talk about Marty Robinson. Just before Stonewall, Marty found LGB activism. He understood intrinsically that the old style of activism promoted by groups like Mattachine was falling far short of what was needed to move the ball forward. He… 1/16 ~ @Homonotqueer thread show How trans queer intersexual asexual catgender non-binary neurodivergent people conquered gay rights: ~ @ContraPoints Last year I received an email from Megan Phelps-Roper, estranged daughter of Westboro Baptist Church. She asked if I’d give an interview for a podcast on J.K. Rowling, the world’s foremost champion of backlash to trans rights. This was a serious lapse in judgment~ pictures today are from The Library of Congress ~ selah
Jordan Peterson Sex Party
@jordanbpeterson “And the immature impulsive hedonism continue, unabated: possession by basic biological drive elevated into object of unconscious worship. The worst of an emergent polytheistic paganism. With all the requisite pseudo-intellectual jargon.” @trogmignon I can think of few people less qualified to speak on this matter than JBP.”
Dr. Peterson has a way with words. The author of the seminal piece, @MichelleLhooq, replied “The worst of an emergent polytheistic paganism” is definitely the most based epithet anyone has ever blessed me with, and for that I will be forever grateful to fellow pseudo-intellectual JP.”
We need to talk about chemsex is the feature at the amphetaminated heart of this kerfluffle. Before pasting purple party prose, a note on usage is in order. I have long been aware of gay men using drugs to speed up the process. The phrase I always hear is pnp, or party and play. (When you see pnp in a profile, you can assume two things. They take drugs, and you are buying.) In none of these profiles do you see “chemsex.” Maybe chemsex is an LA thing.
The article that triggered Dr. Benzos was not your traditional pearl-clutching. The author, Michelle Lhooq (Pronounced Michelle Luke) is the author of the RaveNewWorld.Substack and Weed: Everything You Want to Know But Are Always Too Stoned to Ask. Lady Lhooq was up to the task, and had receipts. One especially lurid link was “Critical chemsex studies: Interrogating cultures of sexualized drug use beyond risk paradigm.”
“What was remarkable was the diversity of not just age, gender, and racial identities in the room, but the breadth of psychoactive experiences across the sober-using spectrum — from former heroin junkies to professionals who’ve never touched a drug, devout AA members to party-loving recreational ravers, underground psychedelic healers to sober-curious skaters. …
“AA’s dogma of total drug abstinence does not appeal to everybody, and many are hungry for alternatives. New groups such as The Infernal Grove now cater to those seeking more sustainable relationships to substance use beyond the established orthodoxy of traditional sobriety paradigms. Despite the necessity of these alternative paths, I had been afraid that the chemsex discussion would be seen as problematic or triggering. Conversations about drugs usually play out as a moral drama of extremes: the anti-drug abstinence of AA vs the drug-positive enthusiasm of recreational settings. It is still so rare to enter a thought space where sobriety is discussed as more of a spectrum, where the ambiguous zones of druggie disinhibition can be untangled by people from all over the drug-sober continuum. It felt like the future.”
“The movement to destigmatise chemsex is … still in its infancy. As a woman, I am also not the traditional demographic that is typically “allowed” to even discuss this concept … In fact, Stuart has accused folks who use this term but do not identify as gay men of cultural appropriation … It could also help us to understand how this practice reflects the historical and social contexts from which they emerge — including the pharmaceuticalisation of sexuality, contemporary culture of endless self-enhancement, and crisis of intimacy under neoliberal individualism.”
“THE WORST OF AN EMERGENT POLYTHEISTIC PAGANISM” “How my essay on druggy orgies triggered Jordan Peterson/FOX News’ latest satanic spiral.” After @jordanbpeterson scored a few FOX points, Lady Lhooq published a reply at her Substack, RaveNewWorld. “When an editor from UnHerd reached out to me in December asking if I could turn my latest RaveNewWorld post on chemsex into an essay for their site, my main concern was whether I’d be able to squeeze the assignment in between building a pussy portal for my shroom rave.”
“The reply-guys seemed to fall into three camps: people who think chemsex should stay stigmatized (white Christians and dudes with lots of numbers in their usernames); people who couldn’t believe that “drug journalist” was a real beat (mostly meme shitposters); and homophobic monkeypox truthers slinging incel slurs about my fuckability (my personal fave). … That this assignment for an outlet that claims to be post-partisan turned out to be the ultimate trigger for satanic-slaying conservative cucks was the ultimate irony.”
michellelhooq “SO MUSH LOVE 2 MY 2 SURROGATE MOMS Ophelia and Teresa for building @enter.the.mushwomb’s beautiful pussy portal!!! Incredible to have two mothers with Hollywood film backgrounds working on this together; I just told them “I don’t want this to be a perfect porn pussy and I DEFINITELY want it to be hairy” and they took it from there – even adding a magical clit (now you really have no excuse not to find it 😂) Plus, since these are moms who always think about safety, they also made sure the portal didn’t block the exit in case there was an emergency. T+O YALL ARE MY SOUL MODELS TYSM FOR THIS PERFECT PUSSY!!!”
The pictures today are from The Library of Congress. These details are from picture #06666, documenting “First Internation[al] Pageant of Pulchritude & Seventh Annual Bathing Girl Review at Galveston, Texas.” It was taken in 1926.
Hillary Vs. Bernie Again
Matthew Colin Taibbi talked to Joe Rogan for three hours the other day. At one point, MCT recalled the time when Bernie Sanders was gaining ground against Hillary Clinton. All of a sudden, Ta-Nehisi Coates published a story in The Atlantic, Why Precisely Is Bernie Sanders Against Reparations?
“Unfortunately, Sanders’s radicalism has failed in the ancient fight against white supremacy. What he proposes in lieu of reparations—job creation, investment in cities, and free higher education—is well within the Overton window, and his platform on race echoes Democratic orthodoxy. The calls for community policing, body cameras, and a voting-rights bill with pre-clearance restored— all are things that Hillary Clinton agrees with. And those positions with which she might not agree address black people not so much as a class specifically injured by white supremacy, but rather, as a group which magically suffers from disproportionate poverty.”
As we all know, the Bernie campaign ran out of steam, and HRC bulldozed her way to the nomination. Democrats saw how well crying racist worked against Bernie, and made a major issue out of Donald Trump’s racial attitudes. Soon, well meaning people were saying that if you vote for Donald, then you are a racist. Swing state voters were offended, and Donald won the electoral college. Did shouting racist lose the election for Hillary? We will never know for sure.
Woke and Unwoke – Robert Wright & Norman Finkelstein also turned up this week. Dr. Finkelstein is, to put it mildly, a piece of work. Dr. F has opinions about Mr. Coates: “then Along Came Ta-Nehisi Coates and he started to say Bernie has a problem with race Bernie has a problem with race because he won’t come out robustly for black reparations so as a political reality the black reparations was being used as a weapon to derail the Bernie campaign.”
Before long, Dr. F had to leave. “I have to run to the hospital because I have to have a colonoscopy.” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Fifteen Minutes
Andy Warhol is quoted as saying that “in the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.” This has become a popular saying. If a celebrity is getting tiresome, people will wonder when their fifteen minutes will be up. After hearing about fifteen minutes his entire life, PG began to wonder if Drella really said that. If you can’t be cynical about Andy Warhol … This is a repost.
Wikipedia is a good place to start. “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes” … appeared in the program for a 1968 exhibition of his work at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden. Photographer Nat Finkelstein claimed credit for the expression, stating that he was photographing Warhol in 1966 for a proposed book. A crowd gathered trying to get into the pictures and Warhol supposedly remarked that everyone wants to be famous, to which Finkelstein replied, “Yeah, for about fifteen minutes, Andy.” Nat Finkelstein was a sketchy character, in the Warhol tradition. His version is suspect. The Swedish museum part is real.
“Andy Warhol’s first European museum solo show took place at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm from February through March 1968. Pontus Hultén curated the exhibition together with Olle Granath. The exhibition came with a catalogue that was, like the show, named ‘Andy Warhol’. Kasper König, who worked for the Moderna Museet as an intern of sorts in New York, developed a basic concept for the book. … After Warhol had given his approval to this first proposal, König proceeded to create a dummy. … When König returned his dummy to the Factory, Warhol scrutinized it carefully but made only a small number of changes. Contrary to what Warhol wanted to be popular belief, those who produced input at the Factory were carefully monitored. … The final edits on the dummy were made in Stockholm by Olle Granath. He compiled a small selection of Warhol quotes and aphorisms from a stack of books and clippings collected by Hultén and placed them in the book as an introduction before the image sections.”
“Sometime in the autumn of 1967, Pontus Hultén called and asked me if I (Olle Granath) could help him and the Moderna Museet to organize an Andy Warhol exhibition that was due to open in February…. An important part of the exhibition was the production of a book. It was not supposed to be an analytical catalog of Warhol’s work, but a book that conveyed his aesthetics without heavy texts. … One day, Pontus brought me a box, almost the size of a Brillo box, and told me that it contained everything written by and about Andy Warhol (today the equivalent would probably be two truck loads). My job was to read it all and present a proposal for a manuscript with Swedish translations. After a couple of nights of reading and taking notes I delivered a script to Pontus and awaited his reaction with great anticipation. ‘Excellent,’ Pontus said when he called me, ‘but there is a quotation missing.’ ‘Which one?’ I said. ‘In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes,’ Pontus replied. ‘If it is in the material I would have spotted it,’ I told him. The line went quiet for a moment, and then I heard Pontus say, ‘If he didn’t say it, he could very well have said it. Let’s put it in.’ So we did, and thus Warhol’s perhaps most famous quotation became a fact.”
“The exhibition in Stockholm attracted a relatively small number of visitors, due to the extremely cold winter, but also to the fact that leftist radicalization increasingly drove the Museets public to mistrust anything American or consumerist. There was no space yet for a more complex reading of Warhol’s relation to consumption. The book, however, became very popular: its enormous edition allowed it to be distributed in nightclubs and record stores, not only museums. A timeless update on the latest from New York, it first became a cult object, then a collectors item.”
Did Andy say that? Probably, but not definitely. Andy was shot by Valerie Jean Solanas on June 3, 1968, a few months after the show in Sweden. Andy survived, and had fifteen more minutes. Pictures today are from Pictures are from The Library of Congress. The 1927 pictures were taken at “California Beauty Week, Mark Hopkins Hotel, July 28 to Aug. 2, auspices of San Francisco Chronicle.”
Chamblee54 
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