Seven Score And Nineteen Years Ago
A vicious battle had been fought near Gettysburg, PA.. It is widely considered the turning point of “Mr. Lincoln”s War,” the moment when the Union took the upper hand. It came at a horrible price, and a cemetery was built to hold this price.
The ceremony to dedicate the cemetery was held November 19, 1863. The headline speaker was Senator Edward Everett. The President was an afterthought. After it was over, Mr. Everett reportedly told the President that he said more in two minutes than he did in two hours.
The speech by Mr. Lincoln is an American classic. Schoolchildren are forced to memorize it. There are a few legends, many of which are not true. According to The Lincoln Museum , the speech was written on White House stationary, not the back of an envelope. The train ride would have been too bumpy to write. There is also confusion about what happened to the original text that the President read from.
HT to Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. Measured in pixels, the picture of George Custer is 720×666. This is a repost.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
RuPaul
November 17, aka yesterday, was the birthday of Rupaul Andre Charles. The following compilation is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress, and “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library.”
PG often does not fit into pigeonholes. Liberal or conservative. Ally or enemy. Racist or whatever. After a while, it becomes apparent that labels are part of the packaging, and usually have little to do with the product inside the box.
Then a facebook friend (a person who PG likes, and respects, in real life) put up a link to a RuPaul interview, Real Talk With RuPaul. The FBF is over RuPaul. PG read the interview, and found many things that he agreed with. Is it possible to be a conservative because you like RuPaul?
The Vulture feature is similar to the WTF podcast that RuPaul did. Chamblee54 wrote about that interview. The Vulture chat is better for bloggers, since it is a copy friendly text affair. When you see quotes, you can include them verbatim.
RuPaul has a talent for snappy sayings, to be remembered for later use. An example would be “I’d rather have an enema than have an Emmy.” Some unkind people say that if you were to give RuPaul an enema, you could bury him in a shoebox.
A persistent theme of RuPaul’s moving lips is “the matrix.” “Because you get to a point where if you’re smart and you’re sensitive, you see how this all works on this planet. It’s like when Dorothy looks behind the curtain. Like, “Wait a minute. You’re the wizard?” And you figure out the hoax. That this is all an illusion. There’s only a few areas you can go. First, you get angry that you’ve been hoaxed and you get bitter. But then, take more steps beyond the bitterness and you realize, “Oh, I get it. Let’s have fun with it. It’s all a joke.”
The Bosslady of “RuPaul’s Drag Race’ is an African American. Duh. In the Vulture piece, there are 4355 words. Racism/racist is not included. Could it be that America’s obsession with other people’s racial attitudes is part of the illusion? “Derogatory slurs are ALWAYS an outward projection of a person’s own poisonous self-loathing.”
RuPaul is not always politically correct. She supports Shirley Q. Liquor. RPDR was instrumental in the rise to fame, (or descent into the abyss), of Sharon Needles. “But if you are trigger-happy and you’re looking for a reason to reinforce your own victimhood, your own perception of yourself as a victim, you’ll look for anything that will reinforce that.”
Years ago, PG worked with someone who liked to say “and a ru hu hu.” This was shortened to ru, and was usually said very loud. Ru became a greeting.
About this time, Ru Paul was living in Atlanta. Many people remember her (“RuPaul Andre Charles, best known mononymously as RuPaul”) as a spectacular self promoter. Ru Paul would sit in an apartment balcony, and wave at cars passing by. Posters for her band, Wee Wee Pole, were on telephone poles up and down Ponce de Leon Avenue.
One night, Ru Paul was working as a gogo dancer in a club called Weekends. During a break, PG went over to talk to her. The use of ru as a greeting was mentioned. Soon, some people came over, and PG started to leave. Before PG could get away, Ru Paul turned to PG, lifted her index finger, and said “Keep on saying my name.”
Ru Paul went on to become famous. Weekends was torn down, and is the site of the Federal Reserve Bank. PG does not watch much TV, and has never seen an episode of “Ru Paul’s Drag Race.” This is a TV show about a TV.
There is a recent controversy about RPDR. It seems that the phrase shemale has been used. Some people are offended by this. The expression is no longer used on the show.
PG has only one trans person friend. Sashia is the first person that PG heard use the expression shemale. PG does not know if Sashia still uses this expression. It has been a while since PG learned this expression, and ideas about language do change. Spell check suggestion for Sashia: Hashish.
The use of offensive language is to be avoided. If you know something is going to hurt people, then you should avoid saying it. There is a good possibility that Ru Paul knew what she was doing, and just didn’t care. The problem comes when you haven’t received the latest update from the language authorities. Keeping up with with is cool to say can be a full time job. Is it still ok to say ru?
RuPaul is no stranger to attention being thought strange. The latest bit of publicity… there is no bad publicity, and they spell the name right … is an article in the eyeball grabbing HuffPo, RuPaul Responds To Controversy Over The Word ‘Tranny’. (Spell check suggestion: Granny) PG gave into temptation, and clicked on the link. It seems as though there was an appearance on the WTF podcast. Why settle for a sensational sample, when you can hear the entire show?
If you have an hour and twenty four minutes to spare, listen to this show. If you like, you can skip the first thirteen minutes, which is host Mark Maron talking about himself. The show is highly entertaining. A theme is that the world is the matrix, a fake construction. Some people look behind the curtain and see the wizard. Some people believe the matrix is reality. You should already know which side RuPaul takes. He was not born blonde.
The quote about the T-word comes toward the end of the show. PG has mixed feelings about the whole affair, and does not completely agree with RuPaul. However, this human being is entitled to an opinion. Even if he wasn’t, he is going to share it anyway. RuPaul does not suffer from false modesty.
For a show that gets attention about language, it is a bit strange at times. While describing his career trajectory, RuPaul says he went through a phase of “gender f-word.” The show is called WTF. Twice a week, the host says fuck a dozen times in the first sixty seconds. And RuPaul said “gender f-word.”
Even more amazingly, RuPaul said that things were “n-word rigged”. RuPaul did break down and say the ultimate dirty word. When his mother saw his act on television, she said “N****** you crazy.”
RuPaul has had quite a career. He mentions that he has been sober for fifteen years, and had some therapy to get there. This was not the case when he lived in Atlanta. Many stories from those days are in the show. The bs detector went off a couple of times. PG saw the Now Explosion, and did not remember seeing a tall black guy.
This is a rich seventy five minutes. Like saying that Madonna is a curator, that most fashion designers don’t know how to sew. The part that is getting the attention is towards the end of the show, and is just a small part. It is all part of the matrix.
This feature is a repost. Some of the pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. Other pictures are from The Library of Congress. The images are of women, training to be bus drivers and taxi drivers. This was in Washington DC, November 1942. The photographer was Andreas Feininger, working for the Office of War Information. The picture of a dipstick demonstration is #8d36666.
Line Mining The Sonnets
Find the sonnets of Shakespeare. Copy them into a word document. Read each one, and isolate the lines that resonate. Match up the lines by rhyme. Compile villanelles when appropriate. Retrofit rhymes onto others, pair them into couplets. Incorporate them into sonnets and octrains. Since the lines are already iambic pentameter, there should be minimal metric revision.
It became obvious that hearing them read would work better. A lovely source turned up. Earlier this year, Sir Patrick Stewart read a sonnet a day. The actor sat down, put his glasses on, opened his book, and read a sonnet for the camera. There were little comments, about the poems, scattered throughout the videos. With the aid of Sir Patrick, I began to get a sense for the iambic feng shui. In my own craft, I have long struggled with meter. Maybe this will help.
Everything is lower case in my graphic poems. There is no punctuation. It soon became apparent that commas were essential to the pacing of the sonnets. As for the capital letters, it is likely that Mr. Shakespeare capitalized. This was a few hundred years before e. e. cummings.
How do we know for sure? The original manuscripts are not available. “None of Shakespeare’s original manuscripts have survived, due perhaps to the fact that they were written, many of them hastily, strictly for stage performance. Not so much as a couplet written in Shakespeare’s own hand has ever been proven to exist.” There is speculation as to the true authorship of these pieces.
“Shakespeare’s sonnets were first published together in 1609 as a quarto, athough they were probably written much earlier. The sonnets, far more popular today than the epic poems, are still published both individually and as a group.” How did these sonnets get from the desk, to the printed page?
Sonnet LIV ends with “When that shall vade, my verse distills your truth.” @SirPatStew commented on the word vade, just as I was ready to take a google break. A site, Shakespeare’s Words, appeared. Vade seems to be the same word as fade. And no, this blog was not named for Sonnet 54.
1609 not only saw the publication of the sonnets, but the production of the King James Bible. There are legends that Mr. Shakespeare was involved in this project. “Because, if you count 46 words from the beginning of Psalm 46 and 46 words from the ending of the psalm (not counting the “Selahs”), you arrive at these two words: “shake” and “spear.” … Shakespeare would have been 46 years old in 1610, when scholars were finalizing the translations for publication the following year.”
Some Bible scholars are not fond of this story. “Nevertheless, just like the idiotic claim that King James was a sodomite, the story will undoubtedly be repeated ad nauseum no matter how thoroughly it has been discredited.” Less debunkable is this: “William Shakespeare is an anagram of ‘Here was I, like a psalm.'” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
The Burning Of Atlanta
Around this time 157 years ago, Atlanta was on fire. General Sherman was preparing for his March to the sea, and wanted to destroy anything of value in the city. The fire is reported as being on 11-15 of November, depending on what source you use.
The November fire was the second great fire in Atlanta that year. On September 2, the city was conquered by the Union Army. The fleeing Confederates blew up a munitions depot, and set a large part of the city on fire. This is the fire Scarlet O’Hara flees, in “Gone With The Wind”.
After a series of bloody battles, the city was shelled by Yankee forces for forty days. There were many civilian casualties. General Sherman was tired of the war, angry at Atlanta, and ready for action. This is despite the fact that many in Atlanta were opposed to secession.
Click here to hear a lecture by Marc Wortman at the Atlanta History Center. Mr Wortman is the author of “The Bonfire: The Siege and Burning of Atlanta”. The hour of talk is fascinating. This is a repost. The pictures are from The Library of Congress
About this time every year, there is a post about the burning of Atlanta. One of the sources is a lecture by Marc Wortman. If you have an hour to spare, this talk is worth your time. One of the stories told is the tale of Mr. Luckie.
“According to folklore, two stories abound as to how Luckie Street was named. The first is that its moniker came from one of Atlanta’s oldest families. The other, probably closer to the truth, regales the life of Solomon “Sam” Luckie. Luckie, as it turns out, wasn’t so lucky after all. When General William Tecumseh Sherman first came marching through Atlanta in 1864, Luckie, a free Black man who made his living as a barber, was leaning against a gas lamp post in downtown talking to a group of businessmen. A burst from a cannon shell wounded him; he survived, but later died from his injuries. Folklore suggests that he may have been one of the first casualties of the assault on Atlanta. Luckie Street, an extension of Auburn Avenue, was later named in his memory.”
Marc Wortman wrote a book, The Bonfire: The Siege and Burning of Atlanta. The one star review, and comments to that review, are unusually detailed. Here is a selection.
“…People forget – or were never taught in school – that most Confederate soldiers descended from Revolutionary War patriots or were up-country poor sons of farmers. Many Confederate soldiers were relatively recent new arrivals to the U.S., semi-literate dirt poor immigrants from Ireland and Scotland who’d never had the chance to own even an acre of their own land in Europe. In the mix were well-educated, elite merchant business owning French Huguenot refugees of the Catholic Bourbon genocide of Protestants. These immigrants had nowhere else to go, 9 times out of 10 never owned a slave, and fought for the CSA to keep what little they’d hardscrabble carved out over a decade of arrival into the U.S.”
The War Between The States continues to be a source of controversy. After the Charleston church killings, many comments were made about the Confederate battle flag. (If you can’t talk about gun control or mental health, you talk about a symbol.) This led to discussions about the war itself. There were ritual denunciations of slavery, assumed to be the sole cause of the conflict.
The notion of autonomous states in a federal union was novel when the United States Constitution was written. The debate over federalism versus states rights continues to this day. States that want to legalize marijuana may be the next battleground. (Few are expecting secession over bong rights.) Many in the CSA saw the Union as being a conquering army, and fought to defend their homes. While slavery was certainly a factor in the creation of the CSA, it was not the only Casus belli. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Hard To Believe
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Somehow I Find It Hard To Believe That Any Of These Things Happened (19 Posts)
“I would like to begin by offering congratulations to Governor Brian Kemp”
Gay and Alcoholic: A Lost Autobiography – Robert Hutton’s Of Those Alone
Swedish engineer creates playable accordion from 2 Commodore 64 computers
ben avery shared an ice cream cone with his dog and grosses out tim dillon
@catholiccom Our office is being haunted by a biblically accurate McDonald’s character
Utah lab not discussing ATL Child Murders progress a year after receiving DNA samples
Pacific volleyball team refuses to play at BYU, cites Duke claim of ‘racist comments’
7 spiritually helpful Catholic practices that any Protestant can also benefit from.
17 Things I Would Do Differently If I Were Fully Convinced I’m Going to Die
The Birthday Boy: Roy Cohn is 52 at 54 Big Apple rogue’s gallery turned out to celebrate …
dr caitlin green (parody) @caitlinmoriah hope you’re all as excited as i am
@marina0swald ~ h061 ~ h062 ~ trump ~ trump
trump ~ n$$$$$ ~ [sic] ~ policing ~ sean carroll
route 66 ~ lesa pamplin ~ SSnoose ~ vatnik ~ happy burrito
grizzlelpc ~ tim dillon recovery ~ r/timdillon ~ my pillow
duchamp archives ~ tom fogerty ~ tao lin ~ nonplussed ~ Bjørn Lomborg
stacey concedes ~ stacey concedes ~ hedley lamarr ~ midterms ~ repost
lesa pamplin ~ fluidmaster adjust ~ usb ~ polls ~ worms delight
fluidmaster 400 series ~ This is a repost from 2017. Politico is still in business. Two weeks ago, they posted an item about Paul Pelosi, which made me take an interest in that story. “Paul Pelosi was able to dial 911 himself after telling the intruder he had to go use the bathroom and then calling from there, where his phone had been charging, according to a person familiar with the situation.” ~ This is a repost from 2014, and the Mike Brown case. ~ @abrahampiper I hope you haven’t heard anyone called a hussy recently. But you know what it means, right? ✨A promiscuous woman✨ A quaint synonym for “slut.”It started out short for “housewife,” though. What happened? (1/…) ~ @abrahampiper (Interestingly, linguist Larry Trask points out, this leaves “Mrs” “in the embarrassing position of being an abbreviation for nothing.”) ~ @RicksRambles A random person just walked up and told me I look like Mr Haney from Green Acres. I’m not sure how I feel about that. ~ @chamblee54 In 1970, the governor could not succeed himself. Lester Maddox had to wait until 1974 to run again. Lester made a spectacle of himself that entire time. By 1974, people were tired of Lester. This is what happened to @staceyabrams ~ Lesa Pamplin is the Godmother of Rachel Richardson, the Duke volleyball player who said someone shouted the n-word at her. The claim has been discredited. Ms. Pamplin tweeted about this claim. In the election, Lesa Pamplin was running for Judge of the judge Tarrant County Criminal Court, in Texas. Ms. Pamplin recieved 45.9% of the vote. Brad Clark won, with 54.1% ~ Claire Hummel @shoomlah Apropos of nothing, Twitter now lets you download an archive of your account on desktop (found under Settings > Your Account > Download an archive of your data) and it’s pretty robust! Gives you a fully searchable/filterable archive of your tweets, complete with images: ~ @chamblee54 Replying to @ggreenwald @staceyabrams started a lot with her 2018 campaign based on voter suppression, followed by a performative refusal to concede ~ yesterday’s problem you can’t grab your dreams with closed hands ~ pictures for this post election celebration are from The Library of Congress. ~ selah
November 11
Veterans day was originally Armistice Day. On November 11, 1918, at 11 am, Paris time (the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month) a cease fire went into effect for “The great war”. Officials of the major armies agreed to the ceasefire at 5 am (European time). There were an estimated 11,000 casualties in the last six hours of the war.
At 11:59 am, U.S. army private Henry Gunther became the last soldier to die in World War I. “According to the Globe and Mail this is the story of the last soldier killed in WW1: On Nov.11, 1918, U.S. army private Henry Gunther stood up during a lull in the machine gun fire and charged the enemy. “The Germans stared in disbelief,” says the Daily Express. “They had been told that morning that the fighting was about to stop; in a few minutes they would stop firing and go home. So why was this American charging at them with his bayonet drawn? They shouted at him to stop and frantically tried to wave him back but… he hadn’t heard anything of the ceasefire.” A German gunner released a five-round burst and the soldier lay dead, at 10:59 a.m. In his recently published Eleventh Month, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Hour, U.S. Military Historian Joseph Persico notes that Private Gunther had previously been a sergeant but was demoted after an Army censor read his letter to a friend back home, urging him to steer clear of the war at all costs. Gunther, who was in no-man’s land when the ceasefire news arrived, had been trying to prove himself worthy of his original rank.”
This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Veteran’s Day is a bad day for a cynic. I appreciate living in The United States. Even with all of her flaws, I have a good life here. The role that Veterans have played should be honored. On the other hand, those who profit from war often exploit Veterans, for political mojo. Many of these people did not serve. Those who profit from war, without serving, deserve our scorn.
Veterans are often not treated well after their service. It is estimated that a quarter of the homeless are veterans. The services offered to wounded veterans are shamefully lacking.
Hugh Pharr Quin CSA was my great grandfather. He served with the Georgia State Troops, in the War Between the States. I prefer the USA to the CSA, or whatever would have followed a Confederate victory. The Union army had to prevail, over the various Confederate Armies, for this to happen. Do I dishonor my great grandfather by saying, we are better off that the other side won?
Veterans Day was originally Armistice Day. This was the day, 104 years ago, when the War to End All Wars ended. World War I was a ghastly bloodbath, in which millions died. It affected many of the problems that plague us today. I would be willing to bet that not one person, in ten thousand, knows what World War I was about. And yet, the men who fought in that conflict (I don’t think they had women soldiers then) deserve the same gratitude as those who fought in any other conflict.
The soldier…many of whom are drafted…doesn’t get to choose which war to fight in. The sacrifice of the World War II soldier was just as great as the Vietnam fighter, but the appreciation given was much greater. I grew up during Vietnam, and saw the national mood go from patriotic fight, to dismayed resistance. By the time I was old enough to get drafted, the Paris accords had been signed. For better or worse, there went my chance.
Politico Goes To Johnstown
This is a repost from 2017. Politico is still in business. Two weeks ago, they posted an item about Paul Pelosi, which made me take an interest in that story. “Paul Pelosi was able to dial 911 himself after telling the intruder he had to go use the bathroom and then calling from there, where his phone had been charging, according to a person familiar with the situation.”
A facebook friend kicked off today’s game with this comment: “CW: Blatant explicit racist language to the end. I don’t know how many stories we need to write about deplorables who know trump is and always has been lying but follow him anyway because they are RACIST. But at least we SHOWED them this week!” There is a link to a story, Johnstown Never Believed Trump Would Help.
PG read the story after he saw another story about it, The Politico Goes On A Cletus Safari, Finds Two Angry NFL Fans Willing To Say What They Mean The second story, like the fbf, is concerned about the last paragraph of the Politico story. The preceding 90% is passed over, in the rush to racism at the end. This might have been the intention of Politico.
The story shows a reporter, Michael Kruse, going to Johnstown PA, to talk to the small town people. Many of the people voted for Donald Trump in 2016. They believed his promise to MAGA, and are now finding ways to rationalize the fact that it is not happening. One of the things that angers people is NFL players not standing for the National Anthem. It is a handy distraction.
Pennsylvania is seeing tough times. The steel mill towns are hit hard. A demagogue running for President said he was going to make everything right again. The people believed the loudmouth. The tough times continue, and the people are trying to figure things out.
This is what the article purports to be about. The first mention of race comes 871 words into the 3890 word article. “For them, it’s evidently not what he’s doing so much as it is the people he’s fighting. Trump is simply and unceasingly angry on their behalf, battling the people who vex them the worst—“obstructionist” Democrats, uncooperative establishment Republicans, the media, Black Lives Matter protesters and NFL players (boy oh boy do they hate kneeling NFL players) whom they see as ungrateful, disrespectful millionaires.”
The article cruises along, with a lot of talk about economic anxiety… the real thing, not a privilege code word for racism. Before the money quote at the end, there is this: “Next to Bala was a gray-haired man who told me he voted for Trump and was happy so far because “he’s kept his promises.” … I asked for his name. “Bill K.,” he said. He wouldn’t give me his last name. “I don’t trust you,” he said.”
In the next paragraph, Mr. Kruse is talking to “catering company owner Joey Del Signore.”Shame on them,” Del Signore said over his alfredo. “These clowns are out there, making millions of dollars a year, and they’re using some stupid excuse that they want equality—so I’ll kneel against the flag and the national anthem?” “You’re not a fan of equality?” I asked. …”
Then we get the money quote. Mr. Kruse, is talking to Pam Schilling, a key part of his story. PG suspects that Mr. Kruse egged on Ms. Schilling, and her husband Dave McCabe. In the end, Mr. McCabe repeated a joke. It was what NFL stood for. You can probably guess what the N means. Politico uses the uncensored, hard-r word.
What Trump Voters Want Now was written by Mr. Kruse after the 2016 election. He speaks to many of the people that are featured in the current article. One of them, Pam Schilling, lost a son to heroin. He had sore knees from playing football, which led to pain killers, which lead to heroin. How many of the N-football players are living in pain today?
One quote from the November story stands out. “But for Kirsch, who’s 53, who’s lived in this area his whole life, who’s hauled coal for three decades, and who voted for Obama in ’08, for nobody in ’12 and for Trump last week, the comment from Clinton that irrevocably did her in wasn’t “deplorables.” It had come six months earlier, actually, during a town hall on CNN. The context was more complicated and less incriminating than the widespread takeaway, but the phrase Kirsch heard, and couldn’t and wouldn’t forget, was this: “We’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.”
“Havener, the retired union carpenter who met me at Missy’s, had said over the summer he would vote, albeit unenthusiastically, for Clinton. In the end, he did not. He voted for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate. “I wanted to see someone who wasn’t another one in the royal, so to speak, progression,” he explained. He saw things, he said, in Clinton’s character that didn’t “sit well” with him: “It’s like win at all costs. I feel like she’d do anything she could to get there.” Trump, though, he said, was even worse.”
The people who voted for Gary Johnson and Jill Stein helped Donald Trump win Pennsylvania. Many of these “racist” voters voted for Barack Obama. These are the people Chuck Schumer was talking about: “For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia.”
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The photographer was Dorothea Lange.
Joni Mitchell
Monday is Joni Mitchell’s 79th birthday. Roberta Joan Anderson was born November 7, 1943, in Fort Macleod, Alberta. For this birthday tribute we will revisit four previous posts. one two three four Pictures are from The Library of Congress. … A facebook friend went on a Joni Mitchell kick. First it was a link to an interview. Then it was a quote from The Last Time I Saw Richard. A lady said Blue was her favorite album all all time, and a man enthusiastically agreed.
Given the apples and oranges quality of her catalog, it would be tough to pick one album as a favorite. PG then realized that fbf was going to be thirty soon. PG is sixty. These are two different perspectives on the craft of Joni Mitchell. One has driven through the storm, not knowing what was next. The other is presented with an almost complete body of recorded work.
PG has known about Joni since high school, and been a devoted fan since 1976. Joni’s most popular album, Court And Spark, came out in 1974, eleven years before fbf was born. Who would be the equivalent female musical force from 1943, when PG was minus eleven? The answer is nobody. (Coincidentally Roberta Joan Anderson was born on November 7, 1943.)
After the comment about Blue, PG listened to For The Roses. Joni’s craft is like a cluster bomb… there are lines that you never fully felt, bomblets waiting to explode in your gut. Let The Wind Carry Me has one of those hidden threats. Mama thinks she spoilt me, Papa knows somehow he set me free, Mama thinks she spoilt me rotten, She blames herself, But papa he blesses me.
The first thing PG heard by Joni was Big Yellow Taxi. It was on The Big Ball, a 1970 mail order sampler from Warner Brothers. This was when Joni shacked up with Graham Nash. The next year saw Blue, followed by For The Roses, and Court And Spark. PG always thought Joni was someone he should like, but somehow didn’t. It wasn’t until 1976 that PG broke through the barrier, and became a Joni Mitchell fan. Seeing her in concert did not hurt.
On February 3, 1976, PG took a study break. (He scored 100 on the test the next day) Joni Mitchell was playing at the UGA coliseum a few blocks away, and the door was not watched after the show started. PG found a place to stand, on the first level of the stands. The LA express was her band that night, and created a tight, jazzy sound, even in the UGA coliseum. Tom Scott pointed at Joni, said she was crazy, and drew circles around his left ear. The one line PG remembers is “chicken scratching my way to immortality” from Hejira.
The Hissing of Summer Lawns might not be her best album, but it is certainly her bravest. Court And Spark was a commercial success. Instead of producing a bestselling followup, Joni took a ninety degree turn. Summer Lawns, for all its eccentric sparkle, confused the record buying public. The gravy train took off in another direction.
In those days, 96rock played a new album at midnight, which people were known to tape. On the night of the Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash, the album was Hejira. This was followed by Mingus, another curve ball. Finally, Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter appeared, and did not make a good impression.
The eighties, nineties, and aughts appeared. PG, and Joni, lived their lives. 1996 saw a frightening interview in Details magazine. It was startling to see that for all her granola glory, Joni Mitchell might not be a very nice person. In a pot and kettle moment, David Crosby said “Joni’s about as humble as Mussolini.” Music is a tough way to make easy money.
More recently, there was a long interview on Canadian television. She is not mellowing with age. The cigarettes have not killed her, even if her voice is not what it once was. The recent albums that PG heard are strong. There seem to be more on the way. Maybe the facebook friend will have have the “what is she going to do next” experience after all.
A few weeks ago, PG was at the library. He had a story to take home, before going over to the biography section. There he found Reckless Daughter: A Portrait of Joni Mitchell. At least with fiction, you know you are dealing with a made up story. With biography, you have to use judgment.
It is a familiar story. Joni was born in the frozen north, was a rebellious girl, and got pregnant. She gave up the daughter for adoption, only to be reunited many years later. Joan Anderson gets married to, and divorces, Chuck Mitchell. Joni sings, writes, tunes her guitar funny, becomes a star, gets too weird to be popular, makes and loses money, smokes millions of cigarettes, and becomes an angry old lady. There is a bit more to the story than that. Reckless Daughter fills in a few of the blank spots.
Millions of cigarettes might be an exaggeration. Joni started smoking when she was nine. When she was a star, she was almost as well known for her constant puffing as her pretty songs. When Joni was in a Reagan era slump, she was going through four packs a day. Just for the sake of statistics, lets call it two packs, or forty fags, a day. Multiply forty by 365 and you get 14,600. If she started at 9, and had her aneurysm at 72, that gives you 63 years of nicotine abuse. If you assume that there were forty fags a day for 63 years, that gives you 919,800 smokes. IOW, while seven figures is not out of reach, it is rather unlikely that Joni smoked more than 2,000,000 cancer sticks.
The author of Reckless Daughter, David Yaffe, is a problem. He talks about the mood of America in 1969, four years before he was born. Mr. Yaffe goes to great lengths to show us that he knows about making music. Some readers will be impressed. There are mini-essays on Joni songs from her golden years, the time between “Ladies of the Canyon” and “Hejira.” And gossip, gossip, and more gossip. Joni is well known for her celebrity lovers.
We should make the point that PG enjoyed Reckless Daughter. The inside stories are fun, and pages turn over without too much head scratching. Maybe this is a statement about the career of Joni Mitchell. You enjoy the music for many years, and then complain about the details. Reckless Daughter follows the trajectory of other celebrity biographies. The star is born, takes up a craft, gets a break, becomes successful, goes over the mountaintop into a long decline. With Joni, nothing after “Mingus” was well received. The chanteuse was broker, and angrier, by the minute.
On page 13, Joni hears Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini by Sergei Rachmaninoff. This is the piece that makes her want to be a musician. One page 129, we learn the story of A&M studios in Hollywood. At one time, The Carpenters were in studio A, while Carole King was recording “Tapestry” in studio B. Joni was recording “Blue” in studio C, which had a magic piano. One time, Carole King learned of a break in the studio C booking, and ran in. Three hours later, “I feel the earth move” was recorded.
A few years later, Joni was on the Rolling Thunder tour with Bob Dylan. One of the concepts was support for Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, whose story can be found elsewhere. Joni became disillusioned with Mr. Carter. When Joan Baez asked Joni to speak at a benefit concert, Joni said she would say that Mr. Carter was a jive ass N-person, who never would have been champion of the world. Joni later got in SJW trouble for posing in blackface, for the cover to “Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter.”
On page 251, we learn that Bob Dylan does not dance. Other items include “Free man in Paris” being written about David Geffen, and Jackson Browne writing “Fountain of Sorrow” about Joni. Mr. Brown is a not-well-thought-of ex of Joni. As for Mr. Geffen…. Joni stayed at his house for a while, at a time when Mr. Geffen was in, and out, of the closet. Did they make sweet music together?
So this book report comes to an end. Joni is recovering from a brain aneurysm, and will probably not produce anything else. The book is going back to the library, and PG will move on.
Joni Mitchell has product to promote. She gave an interview to New York magazine, where she smoked a few cigarettes and expressed a few opinions. There were enough attention getting comments to make the news.
“When I see black men sitting, I have a tendency to go — like I nod like I’m a brother. I really feel an affinity because I have experienced being a black guy on several occasions.” She proceeds to tell a story about dressing like a down and out black man as a way of dealing with an obnoxious photographer. “I just stood there till they noticed me. I walked really showily, going, Heh heh heh. It was a great revenge. That was all to get his ass. To freak him out. I had to keep him on the defensive.”
Gay-mafia-made-man David Geffen was a target. “I ask her about a painting, visible in a vestibule, on the way to her laundry room, of a curly-haired man with a banana lodged vertically in his mouth; turns out it’s Geffen, and she painted it. “Before he came out. He’s never seen it,” she says, before explaining: “He was using me as a beard. We were living together, and he’d go cruising at night. He was very ambitious to be big and powerful, and he didn’t think he would be [if he was openly gay].” By 1994, the two had fallen out over her insistence that he didn’t pay her enough in royalties.”
The product is a four cd boxed set, Love Has Many Faces: A Quartet, A Ballet, Waiting To Be Danced. There was a single one star comment about the joniproduct. Al Norman Seems like a collection of Joni’s forgettable tunes February 3, 2015 ~ “My wife loves Joni Mitchell, and never listens to this set. Seems like a collection of Joni’s forgettable tunes.” This comment was sponsored by Head and Shoulders. “100% flake free hair & A GREAT SCENT”
You just can’t get away from capitalism. Ms. Mitchell heard “… on the radio, a record executive “saying quite confidently, ‘We’re no longer looking for talent. We’re looking for a look and a willingness to cooperate.” As interviewer Carl Swanson notes, “For now, she’s hoping that people buy her boxed set, with her self-portrait on the cover. To that end, she gives me a Joni Mitchell tote bag with one of her paintings on it to carry my things home in. Get the word out.”
Joni Mitchell gave am interview recently to a Canadian Broadcaster. She is famously Canadian. The chat was in her California living room, which is littered with her paintings. Many of the paintings are things like Saskatchewan at forty below. Mrs. Mitchell alternates between painting and music, which tend to balance her cigarette fueled mind.
The CBC interview is paired with a more formal chat in Toronto. She could not smoke during the Toronto interview. The Toronto interviewer is just a bit smarter than Jian Ghomeshi, who endured the second hand smoke in California. Mr. Ghomeshi said things like “The song “Woodstock” defined a generation.” Mrs. Mitchell was in a New York City hotel room that famous weekend.(Spell check suggestion for Jian Ghomeshi: Joan Shoeshine)
There are some juicy quotes. Art is short for artificial. When listening to Joni songs, you should look at yourself, and not at her. Free love was just a gimmick for the men to get laid. False modesty is pointless. Sylvia Plath was a liar, or maybe it was Anne Sexton. (James Dickey said that Sylvia Plath was the Judy Garland of American letters.)
A fearsome foursome gets in the game. Someone screamed, on a live album. “Joni, you have more flash than Mick Jagger, Richard Nixon, or Gomer Pyle combined!.” Years later, the fan introduced himself to Mrs. Mitchell.
The conversation mentioned Bob Dylan. He is from Northern Minnesota, and not quite Canadian. Apparently, Mrs. Mitchell kicked up a fuss with some comments in 2010. ” Bob is not authentic at all. He’s a plagiarist, and his name and voice are fake. Everything about Bob is a deception. We are like night and day, he and I. … Grace [Slick] and Janis Joplin were [sleeping with] their whole bands and falling down drunk, and nobody came after them!”
Did Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell ever tune up together? Joan Baez, a similarly named contemporary, is well known for dating Mr. Zimmerman. Ms. Baez did sing at Woodstock.
Mrs. Mitchell doesn’t exactly take back her comments about Bob Dylan. ““I like a lot of Bob’s songs, though musically he’s not very gifted. He’s borrowed his voice from old hillbillies. He’s got a lot of borrowed things. He’s not a great guitar player. He’s invented a character to deliver his songs. Sometimes I wish that I could have that character — because you can do things with that character. It’s a mask of sorts.”
In a kill the messenger moment, Mrs. Mitchell lashed out at the interviewer from the 2010 piece. It is odd, since he didn’t ask any trick questions. Black and white transcripts are tough to deny. “The interviewer was an asshole.” (The body part is bleeped.) “I hate doing interviews with stupid people, and this guy’s a moron” “His IQ is somewhere between his shoe size and (unintelligible)”.
The troublesome 2010 interview was conducted with John Kelly, a Joni Mitchell tribute artist. “JK: Drag does have a power, though — that netherworld of a thing you can’t quite know, which makes people nervous. JM: Drag wasn’t always counterculture. In his memoirs, Nixon talked about the Harvard and Yale men in power who would put on these plays where they dress like women, and Milton Berle did a kind of “hairy drag.” Becoming a gay thing made drag go underground.” Did Mick Jagger and Gomer Pyle ever do drag with Richard Nixon?
The Ta-Nehisi Coates Video
There is a video, Ta-Nehisi Coates on words that don’t belong to everyone It is being praised to high heaven. PG has some issues with this entertainment. The transcript is from vox, Ta-Nehisi Coates has an incredibly clear explanation for why white people shouldn’t use the n-word. This is a repost, with pictures from The Library of Congress.
Ta-Nehisi Paul Coates gave an interview once, The Playboy Interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates. “The n$$$$$ thing? I understand if you’re black and you say, “Man, I had white people call me this shit all my life. … But that ain’t everybody’s experience. I’ve never had a white person call me a n$$$$$. I had somebody call me le négre here in France, but I was 38 years old and I couldn’t have cared less. It didn’t mean anything. So not all of us come out of that experience.”
The monolog starts off with a discussion about how some words are appropriate for some people to use, but others should not say them. “My wife, with her girl friend, will use the word bitch. I do not join in. You know what I’m saying? I don’t do that. I don’t do that. And perhaps more importantly, I don’t have a desire to do it.” The question arises: is his wife a four legged dog? Unless she is, then the b-word does not apply to her.
“Coates pointed to another example — of a white friend who used to have a cabin in upstate New York that he called “the white trash cabin.” “I would never refer to that cabin” in that way. I would never tell him, ‘I’m coming to your white trash cabin.’” Of course, a person with an upstate cabin is likely to be far removed from the trailer park. He is using *white trash* with irony, and would not be the least offended if TPC called it “the white trash cabin.”
“The question one must ask is why so many white people have difficulty extending things that are basic laws of how human beings interact to black people.” (Is TPC saying that black people are not human beings?) … “When you’re white in this country, you’re taught that everything belongs to you. You think you have a right to everything. … You’re conditioned this way. … the laws and the culture tell you this. You have a right to go where you want to go, do what you want to do, be however — and people just got to accommodate themselves to you.”
At this point, PG turned off the video in anger. He has never been taught that everything belongs to him. Nobody that PG knows has been taught that. PG does not know anyone who teaches that message. This is a lie. It makes PG not want to believe anything else that TPC says. Maybe there is some privilege/culture mumbo-jumbo that explains this concept.
Lets go back a minute to the white trash cabin. TPC does not want to use this phrase. And yet, he feels entitled to make a sweeping generalization like “When you’re white in this country, you’re taught that everything belongs to you.” It is wrong to say white trash, but ok to slander white people.
“So here comes this word that you feel like you invented, And now somebody will tell you how to use the word that you invented. ‘Why can’t I use it? Everyone else gets to use it. You know what? That’s racism that I don’t get to use it. You know, that’s racist against me. You know, I have to inconvenience myself and hear this song and I can’t sing along. How come I can’t sing along?’”
“The experience of being a hip-hop fan and not being able to use the word ‘n$$$$$’ is actually very, very insightful.” To begin with, why do you assume that PG is a hip hop fan? Many people think hip hop is garbage. If you are forced to listen to music that you do not enjoy, why would that make you want to use a forbidden word? The logic of TPC is falling apart, faster than the Falcons pass defense in the Super Bowl.
“It will give you just a little peek into the world of what it means to be black. Because to be black is to walk through the world and watch people doing things that you cannot do, that you can’t join in and do. So I think there’s actually a lot to be learned from refraining.”
If you are in the mood to get yelled at for a half hour, you can ask someone about “things that you cannot do, that you can’t join in and do.” There might be some. If you go along with the rhetoric so far, you will probably believe what you hear. You might even understand why not using a nasty word will give you “a little peek into the world of what it means to be black.” As for PG, he seriously doubts this. He is not someone who says that this video is “an incredibly clear explanation for why white people shouldn’t use the n-word.”
Once upon a time, cigarettes were advertised on television. One new brand was a cigarette for women, Virginia Slims. The ability to kill yourself with tobacco was presented as being a privilege. Some wondered why women would want to take up this filthy habit. Today, African Americans have the privilege of using the n-word. What a deal. A nasty word, which degrades both the speaker, and the spoken of. Why would anyone want to use that word?
If you don’t have anything good to say, you can talk about the n-word. This *trigger* word is an aphrodisiac for the american body politic. Recently Ta-Nehisi Coates performed in a video, Ta-Nehisi Coates on words that don’t belong to everyone There is much praise for this entertainment, like this: @SneakerWonk “#TaNehisiCoates has an incredibly clear #explanation for why #whitepeople shouldnt use the #nword.” PG has a few paragraphs, about this video, in the text above.
PG has written about racism, anti-racism, and racial attitudes on many occasions. People get angry, and call PG rude names. He must be doing something right. Later, there was a double feature about James Baldwin. In the first half, Mr. Baldwin expresses a few opinions about that word. In the second half, PG substituted racist for the magic word, with interesting results.
One item that keeps coming up is speculation about who invented the n-word. Negro means black in Spanish, and is derived from a latin word. The Oxford English Dictionary has some usages going back to 1577. “1577 E. Hellowes tr. A. de Guevara Familiar Epist. (new ed.) 389 The Massagetes bordering vpon the Indians, and the Nigers of Aethiop [Sp. los negros en Ethiopia], bearing witnesse. ~ 1584 R. Scot Discouerie Witchcraft vii. xv. 153 A skin like a Niger. ~ 1608 A. Marlowe Let. 22 June in E. India Co. Factory Rec. (1896) I. 10 The King and People [of ‘Serro Leona’] N$$$$$$, simple and harmless.
The TPC video is based on the concept that white people want to use the magic word, but should not. This assumes a great deal. Chamblee54 published a piece about the n-word, that spelled out why he does not like to use this noun/verb/adjective/adverb/interjection. Here are four reasons for a white person to refrain from saying america’s favorite dirty word.
1- The n-word hurts people’s feelings. PG has known many fine Black people. He does not want to say anything that will hurt these people.
2- Being heard saying the n-word can cause all sorts of problems. This can include physical retribution, loss of employment, lawsuits, and having to listen to enough loud angry words to make you wish you had never learned how to talk.
3- It is not a fair fight. There is no equivalent phrase for a Black Person to say to a White person. Why give that power to another group of people … to turn you into a mass of incoherent rage, just for hearing a six letter word. The closest thing is “Cracker”, which PG only recently found out was an insult. There used to be a minor league baseball team, the Atlanta Crackers.
4- The use of the n-word demeans the user. When you say an insulting word about another human being, you make yourself look bad. For a Black person, using the n-word degrades them as the object, as well as the speaker. Why would a person would want to do that?
The Deadliest Interstate In America
This is a repost from 2015. Someone has put together an internet feature, The 10 deadliest interstates in America, mapped. To the surprise of nobody, either ITP or OTP, the winner is I-285. “Stretching a little under 75 miles in Georgia, I-285 had 26 fatal accidents in 2013.” Actually, the Perimeter Highway runs 62 miles, so the margin of victory may be even greater.
The study was based on fatal accidents in 2013. 32,719 people met their maker in automobile accidents that year. The majority was on surface roads. For the sake of handy analysis, Interstates were chosen for this study. The rankings were based on the number of accidents per mile. Most of the roads in the top ten were “beltways” and spur roads. I-4 in Florida is the only state wide freeway to make the honor roll. The report is based on information from Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS.) Statistic geeks should exercise caution when accessing this site.
Here is the top ten. 1. I-285, Georgia, 2. I-710, California, 3. I-240, Oklahoma, 4. I-495, Delaware, 5. I-240, Tennessee, 6. I-295, Florida, 7. I-410, Texas, 8. I-610, Texas, 9. I-4, Florida, 10. I-215, California. Texas, California, and Florida were the three bloodiest states.
There is a graphic, showing where the I-285 accidents occurred. Some hot spots include the areas around I-20 west, Hwy 400, and Hartsfield-Jackson Airport. Despite the bad reputation of Cobb County drivers, relatively few fatal Perimeter accidents occurred in the Big Chicken county.
The award winning performance by I-285 comes as little surprise to many in the metro area. It was originally intended to be a low traffic bypass for people going to Florida. As the metro area has grown, the Perimeter highway has become a heavily used thoroughfare. Interstate trucks are required to use the Perimeter when they go through the area. Several of the interchanges have been upgraded, with the infamous Spaghetti Junction taking a prize. You are known to be taking your life in your hands when you travel on I-285. However, it is essentially the only way to navigate many journeys.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Deadnaming
Joe Rogan went on a “woke culture” rant the other day, and said this: “you know what else you banned for … you know what will get you banned for life … dead naming … do you know a deadnaming is … if you call Caitlyn Jenner Bruce … banned for life … for life damn ridiculous this is what we’re living in” This set off the bs detector in PG’s fevered mind. As soon as you could say George Jorgenson, PG went to google. This is a repost from 2019.
Does twitter permanently ban people for deadnaming? (Deadnaming is using a trans person’s per-transition name.) As they say at snopes, the result is a mixture, half true, half false. Yes, twitter has changed its rules, and deadnaming is no longer permitted. However, it is not clear how strictly it is being enforced. The one case people like to talk about is Meghan Murphy. Ms. Murphy seems to be a nasty piece of work, who went out of her way to make trouble. She is not a typical case. There are no statistics on how many people have been “banned for life for deadnaming.” G-d is in the details.
Twitter has indeed changed its rules. They will be quoted in the next four paragraphs. If you want to skip over, you will be excused. “Hateful conduct: You may not promote violence against or directly attack or threaten other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease.”
“We recognise that if people experience abuse on Twitter, it can jeopardize their ability to express themselves. Research has shown that some groups of people are disproportionately targeted with abuse online. This includes; women, people of color, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual individuals, marginalized and historically underrepresented communities.” (Women are an estimated 50.8% of the population. If you add the other groups, you wind up with a sizeable majority of the population. You create a situation where white, cis, straight males are the marginalized underrepresented community.)
“We prohibit targeting individuals with repeated slurs, tropes or other content that intends to dehumanize, degrade or reinforce negative or harmful stereotypes about a protected category. This includes targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals.”
“When determining the penalty for violating this policy, we consider a number of factors including, but not limited to the severity of the violation and an individual’s previous record of rule violations. For example, we may ask someone to remove the violating content and serve a period of time in read-only mode before they can Tweet again. Subsequent violations will lead to longer read-only periods and may eventually result in permanent account suspension. If an account is engaging primarily in abusive behavior, or is deemed to have shared a violent threat, we will permanently suspend the account upon initial review.”
Twitter is a private company, which some say it is a public utility. These rules have inspired many discussions. It is always easy to point out examples of hypocrisy, and uneven treatment. Some of these objections are valid. Has anyone been banned for saying you should “Punch a Nazi”?
This *woke up call* has a New York Times editorial, How Twitter’s Ban on ‘Deadnaming’ Promotes Free Speech. In an ironic touch, this piece about “Free Speech” is hidden behind a pay-wall. For the savvy blogger, a pay-wall is no more effective than a border-wall.
“As a transgender woman, I find it degrading to be constantly reminded that I am trans and that large segments of the population will forever see me as a delusional freak. Things like deadnaming, or purposely referring to a trans person by their former name, and misgendering — calling someone by a pronoun they don’t use — are used to express disagreement with the legitimacy of trans lives and identities. … Kenan Malik argued that banning misgendering will shut down debate on trans issues and strike a blow to free speech. But in fact, the content free-for-all chills speech by allowing the dominant to control the parameters of debate, never letting discussion proceed past the pedantic obsession with names and pronouns.”
The last quote raises more questions than it answers. Who is “the dominant”? Maybe this discussion is about who will be “the dominant” in the next round of the debate. And as for pedantic obsession with names and pronouns… does anyone have a recipe for that can of worms?
The NYT piece had another zesty quote, from certified poopyhead Ben Shapiro. “Is this framework useful? Perhaps Trump is a racist. Perhaps not. Either way, we can have a productive conversation about whether particular Trump statements or actions are racist. But we can’t have a productive conversation that starts from the premise that Trump is a racist overall, and that every action he takes and every statement he makes is therefore covered with the patina of racism. That conversation is about insults, not truth.” Should perceived racial values be a protected category? That is a topic for another discussion. This one has gone on long enough.
To sum things up, Twitter has changed its rules to prohibit transgender trash talk. They probably have good intentions for doing this. It remains to be seen whether these good intentions will lead to hell, or just back into messy everyday life. Twitter is a work in progress, and some well meaning changes run into trouble. It is theoretically possible to get banned for saying Bruce, one time. It does not appear to be happening, yet. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Putting The N Back In Twitter
@JoshuaPHilll “Elon Musk: I love free speech!! The free speech:” “Use of N-word on Twitter jumped by almost 500% after Elon Musk’s takeover as trolls test limits on free speech, report says” This message was dutifully retweeted, and showed up in my feed. The bs detector will not quit buzzing. The Washington Post is the source for Business Insider.
WaPo relies on a tweet by Network Contagion Research Institute. @ncri_io “Evidence suggests that bad actors are trying to test the limits on @Twitter. Several posts on 4chan encourage users to amplify derogatory slurs. For example, over the last 12 hours, the use of the n-word has increased nearly 500% from the previous average.” The only documentation offered is a bar graph.
What to make of this? We don’t know who is using the magic word. It might be #BlackTwitter, which is permitted to use America’s favorite naughty word. Does The Washington Post see twitter as competition for ad revenue? Other people might have a motive for bashing Mr. Musk.
@kevinhoff Replying to @BusinessInsider “I bet anything it is manufactured. Tune the bots to post the word over and over and over again. Write a post about it. Blame @elonmusk Continue to turn a blind eye on all diverse communities. Rinse and repeat. I will also bet this will all change once everyone gets verified.” There are plenty of possibilities to consider.
Who is the NCRI? It appears to be a well funded operation, with plenty of A-list clients. Two of the displayed studies deal with COVID: “Russian disinformation campaigns are trying to sow distrust of COVID vaccines, study finds” (Paywall) “QAnon’s corrosive impact on the U.S.” The CBS article has a header ad for Pfizer. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Chamblee54 
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