Library of Congress | Chamblee54

Dietary Pros & Cons

Posted in Library of Congress, Weekly Notes by chamblee54 on July 17, 2023

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Buddhist Diet: How It Works and What to Eat Dietary practices Pros & cons
Five-Alarm Fire Caused By Voodoo Sex Ritual Gone Wrong
A lying tongue hateth those that are afflicted by it; and a flattering mouth worketh ruin.
Voices of the X-iled Paperback – August 1, 1994 by Michael Wexler
Girl With Curious Hair by David Foster Wallace: “a permanent migraine”?
David Foster Wallace on What’s Wrong with Postmodernism: A Video Essay
Noahpinion California needs real math education, not gimmicks Armand Domalewski.
International Norms Get Messy On decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine.
Military briefing: cluster bombs offer Ukraine swifter end to war Ammunition shunned …
Civilian Deaths from Cluster Munitions – Ukrainian Use of Widely Banned Weapon
Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you are going to conceal faults by concealing …
A BUDDHIST monk teaches you the FIRST 3 BREATHING TECHNIQUES of mindfulness
How to Turn the Sound on Your Phone Off: A Self-Help Guide for Fuckwits
guy sharpe ~ repost ~ brandon keeler ~ stambolian ~ tm
pow ~ alijah ~ repost ~ jimmie dodd ~ the truth
you only live twice ~ citibike ~ repost ~ dfw audio ~ irony
incel ~ bobby carlson ~ tom waits ~ racket news ~ censors
fishwrapper ~ lost pig ~ hp lovecraft ~ 1001 short stories ~ podcasts
habibi bros ~ fellirium ~ andre watts ~ curious ~ whoopi goldberg
tm ~ jarrett ~ jimmie dodd ~ restaurant story ~ duane moody ~ mary s. little
@chamblee54 Is .@kittypurrzog REALLY a Muslim? If she is, then she should provide details on the show. When was she converted? What branch of Islam does she practice? What is the name of the mosque where she attends services? @tracewoodgrains .@jessesingal – If .@kittypurrzog is NOT a Muslim, then she needs to quit saying that she is. This joke was NEVER funny. It is possibly *racist*, or anti-Islamic. – In the context of this particular show, the “as a Muslim” joke is especially tacky. A young man, with an Islamic background, was mercilessly grilled by a lawyer for using the term “raghead” in a comedy routine. For Katie to make her “as a Muslim” joke in this context is wrong. ~ This is a repost from 2011. The link in the story has gone bye bye, but does lead to this: Five-Alarm Fire Caused By Voodoo Sex Ritual Gone Wrong. The comments below are timeless. Fishwrapper comments used to be fun to read. ~ If you take an “intense chocolate” product, you must miss Georgia ~ have i talked to you since monday? I decided to go to that party i spoke of last week, but take marta instead of parking. As i approched the dunwoody station, a man a few seats ahead of me started crouching in the aisle, and looking under a seat. then he took something out of his bag. he was holding a utility knife, WITH THE BLADE EXPOSED. I very quickly got off the train at the next stop, which fortunately was my intended stop. … ty i have ridden the doraville line hundreds of times, and nothing like this ever happened. this was the first time i went on the north springs line … outside of getting on the wrong northbound train, and going to the first station to turn around ~ so i listened to this podcast today. a lady has 2 rings stuck on her fingers. someone says you can go to a fire station and have them cut it off. she goes to a san francisco firehouse, and they cut one ring off, and use industrial strength lube to get the other off. the fireman say that usually when someone comes to them, to remove a stuck object, that the object is stuck on a penis. ~ Will0090: “So tell me more about yourself. Most importantly what you seek on the site” piersgavestonjr: “seeing what ai thinks i will respond to” ~ @chamblee54 .@googlefiber PLEASE quit showing that ad of the Asian lady shopping for fruit. Every time I see a @YouTube video, I see that ad I TOLD YOU, quit showing that ad of the Asian lady shopping for fruit. ~ president Eisenhower made this comment during a commencement address at Dartmouth College, on June 14, 1953. However, the full quote is troubling. “… Don’t be afraid to go in your library and read every book, as long as that document does not offend our own ideas of decency. That should be the only censorship.”Our existence as Gay men is offensive to the “ideas of decency” held by many. ~ In today’s flashback, an outtake from Episode 107, my conversation with D.T. Max, New Yorker staff writer and author of Every Love Story is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace, which was published by Viking in 2012. ~ monday i rode on marta. it was the first time on the red line, after thousands of trips on the gold line. as the train pulled innto dunwoody, a man crouched in the aisle, and took something out of a bag … a utility knife, with the blade exposed … tuesday was another day. i ate at waffle house. the cook, who is a hot young man with a dozen tattoos, talked to me more than the last time i was in there … wednesday was the news that someone i knew had died. while i did not especially appreciate this person, i had no conflicts … on thursday, i had to get some polite leather shoes,. after striking out at target, shoe supply, tj maxx, and burlingtons, i found something i liked at shoe carnival … friday i went to the gym. i tried to meditate in the sauna, but a man played his radio on the external speaker. the other guys agreed that he was an asshole … saturday was the big day for life my mothers best friend died at 104. i was told there would be a visitation at 10, and the service at 11. the plan was to take my brother, who would stay for the service. services make my skin crawl, but i wanted to support the family by going to the visitation. i put my new shoes, and long pants on. i went to the first baptist church. they told me to go in the decision room at the end of a long lobby. i went in the door, and got in line. the line did not move for a half hour. finally, the man came and told us to go to the sanctuary. it struck me as a very baptist thing to have happen … sunday, i told my friend about the incident on marta. he told me what i should have done ~ @LindseyGrahamSC I support and appreciate the Biden Administration sending cluster munitions to Ukraine ~ @seanmdavWhat do you think is the most egregious example of government corruption in your lifetime? – @martyrmade The RussiaGate hoax and related spying scandal. It required so many people and institutions to cooperate in the corruption that no individual bribe or coverup even comes close. And in addition to destroying the credibility of the media, DOJ, FBI, intel community, and more, the Russia collusion lie resulted in half the country transferring their violent hatred of Trump & his supporters onto a nuclear superpower. ~ pictures for this festering midsummer morticia are from The Library of Congress ~ selah

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The Nanny State

Posted in Library of Congress, Undogegorized by chamblee54 on July 16, 2023

From patriarchy to snowflake: five keywords you need to know Those naughty naysayers at the BBC had a five part series about trendy words. The fabulous five are Snowflake, The Nanny State, Patriarchy, Safe Space, Sovereignty. We learn that snowflake used to mean someone in Missouri who was opposed to abolition. Words do not always mean the same thing. This is a repost.
The Nanny State was the segment that sent PG scurrying to google. TNS was coined by Iain Macleod, who seems to have been quite the nuisance. Mr. Macleod wrote an article in The Spectator where he gifted us with the phrase. BBC says the article was about having speed limits on British roadways. Unfortunately, the article is behind a strict paywall, and you cannot tell for yourself. The paywall is a capitalist twist on TNS concept.
BBC also referenced an article by George Orwell. This is a splendid piece, where the former Eric Blair complains about what he calls “Pamphletese.” This is the style of writing used by communists in 1944. What does this have to do with TNS? Maybe the state’s nanny is big brother in drag.
The Orwell column is a splendid bit of writing. There is a list of words he would like to see banned: “Achilles’ heel, jackboot, hydra-headed, ride roughshod over, stab in the back, petty-bourgeois, stinking corpse, liquidate, iron heel, blood-stained oppressor, cynical betrayal, lackey, flunkey, mad dog, jackal, hyena, blood-bath.” Many of these are little used today. English cliches have a Darwinist quality, and only the strong survive. Unfortunately, the language is perpetually littered with questionable phrases. Anybody reading can think of a few dozen. These things too shall pass away.
“Yet they and other equally inappropriate words are dug up for pamphleteering purposes. The result is a style of writing that bears the same relation to writing real English as doing a jigsaw puzzle bears to painting a picture. It is just a question of fitting together a number of ready-made pieces. Just talk about hydra-headed jack-boots riding roughshod over blood-stained hyenas, and you are all right. For confirmation of which, see almost any pamphlet issued by the Communist Party—or by any other political party, for that matter.” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.

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Voodoo Sex Ritual

Posted in Library of Congress, Politics, Religion by chamblee54 on July 11, 2023

This is a repost from 2011. The link in the story has gone bye bye, but does lead to this: Five-Alarm Fire Caused By Voodoo Sex Ritual Gone Wrong. The comments below are timeless. Fishwrapper comments used to be fun to read.
In it’s never ending struggle to keep the Cox family in business, the fishwrapper reports what is probably the most important story so far in 2011. (The video about the lost pig is a close second). It seems as though two anonymous sinners in New York decided to fool around, after a voodoo ritual. A candle got knocked over, and the building caught on fire. A 62 year old neighbor died in the fire.
The fun starts in the comments. Some readers got the impression that the 62yo was a participant in the candle burning whoopee. Other readers felt obliged to speculate about the eternal soul of the departed lady, while others commented on the pre mortem condition of her lady parts. A good time was had by all. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress
outspoken1…February 25th, 2011 5:17 pm appears to me that she had it coming. People that do the voodoo will burn in hell anyways. She just got a jump start on her eternal life. Happy ever after, Mary
George… 5:20 pm Ummmm … I clarified the story to let everyone know the deceased was not a voodoo ritual participant.
Peachy… 5:49 pm This is sad … evil was all in that room. Ms. Feagin may have stamped her ticket to hell watching this mess.
justineb… 7:12 pm And we know where their Souls End Up, in HELL. So Sad.
ewwwwww… 7:50 pm “It’s better at 62 than ever!! No swell, no tell, and greatful as hell!!!!!!!” Dont forget that it smells, grandma va j j’s must smell so bad
Dawghuff… 7:52 pm You silly Christians can say that’s someone’s soul is hell, a very offensive thing to say, but then your feelings get hurt when someone says how stupid your religion is as well…
Real man, not a baby boy… 8:56 pm ewwwww: you’re a pathetic fool. Hotness increases with age. The great thing about getting older is that you realize that young people don’t know or have squat when it comes to hotness. I’m 50. We laugh at twenty somethings! You don’t even BEGIN to approach hotness until you’re thirty five. Forties is prime time, 50 and beyond is just damn awesome! You can’t know these things, but if you’re lucky enough to find a b*tch that’ll put out for your baby bit, more power to you. And that smell you’re talkin about? It’s called stank, and it’s coming from your own crotch.
ewwwwww… 9:31 pm Real Man, Thanks grandpa, while your banging the golden girls and remembering the good ol’ days. I will continue to bang women in there 20’s. Just because your balls reach your knees doesn’t make you a real man. So get out that AARP card and hit up the early bird special at Golden Coral. Have a great night and dont forget to take your pills in the F container.
Real man, not a baby boy… 9:54 pm LOL! You couldn’t hope to know what it means to be a man. You go ahead and do your little twenty year-olds. You can HAVE them! I’ve had sex with women my whoe like and I can tell you 20 year old chicks are nothing! Real men aren’t intimidated by your bs talk. These ARE the good days boy, and someday you’ll know that you mouth off knowing nothing. HAHAHAHAHA! Stupid little loser boy.
ewwwwww… 10:22 pm Well Im glad you have had sex with women “your whoe like” (lol). Just because you have a weird fettish for swollen up, dried out rasin Vay J J doesn’t make you any more of a man then I am. I am proud to say I have served my country for 5 years. Was able to go to college and provide a nice life for myself. To call me a loser boy and say I dont know what it means to be a man is sad and just wrong. The fact is your old (Really old), and you can only have what you can get. If your game is women with one foot in the grave then tap it son. But I dont care what you say given the option you would choose a 21 year old over a 62 year old any day. If you choose the 62 year old your just a granny chasser and their is nothing wrong with that. But say it with me “ewwwwwwwwwwwww” Its obvious you cant take humor. Since my first post was a play on words. So grease up with Ben-gay and start popping those magic blue pills. Slip on some solid gold and start tapping grandma in the ballon knot.Im not stupid to not know that women hit there prime when they are older but come on we were talking about 62 here. Thats just awful to think about.
Candles suck… 10:35 pm Don’t mix candles with ANYTHING. I’ve been in a fire because of candles. THEY ARE DANGEROUS. DON’T BUY OR USE THEM UNLESS IT’S AN EMERGENCY.
HENRY… February 26th, 2011 9:13 am YOU’D BE SURPRISED WHAT WE OLD FARTS DO BEHIND CLOSED DOORS, WITH OR WITHOUT CANDLES, VOODOO DOCTORS, GOATS OR SHEEP.
grandson… 12:36 pm Poor old woman, living in a one room sleezbag hotel,on Soc.Sec.& food stamps ( probably had a secret one burner hot plate,that Code Enforcement didn’t know about !!) Just try’n to survive.How many people got out & no one helped? No one cared ? Now 65% of you got nothing to do but talk about but your “pissy ass” sex !!! What a pathetic bunch of humans; some strugeling family lost thier Mom-Grandma:: May GOD forgive you ^999^…

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XXX On Amsterdam

Posted in Library of Congress, Weekly Notes by chamblee54 on July 10, 2023

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What is the meaning of the XXX on Amsterdam’s flag?
Don’t Pine for ‘the Good Old Days’ … lived in a glorious and more pious era than ours? …
Heir to Cox media empire revealed to be communist, anti-cop activist, claims he’s detached …
University of Chicago’s ‘Problem of Whiteness’ class sparks controversy
Vivek Ramaswamy Talks Presidential Run, Leadership, Civic Duty, Affirmative Action
The earliest use of the F-word …a court case dating to the year 1310
Most Solutions To Internet Harassment Would Do More Harm Than Good
Not Gonna Lie This Shocked Me! Paul Harvey Said This About Trump 1987
UK charity group suggests ‘bonus hole’ as a more inclusive term for vagina
UK cancer trust suggests ‘bonus hole’ as term for ‘vagina’
Language to use when supporting trans men and/or non-binary people
sending cluster munitions to Ukraine was ‘difficult decision,’ but ‘they needed them’
“The Secret” to Success? The Psychology of Belief in Manifestation Lucas J. Dixon
don felder ~ walt ~ Neem Karoli Baba ~ bhagavan das ~ bhagavan das
toward freedom ~ fergie chambers ~ mr lavrov ~ repost ~ lenny
beltline ~ cluster bombs ~ cluster munitions ~ biltmore radio ~ Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust
bonus hole ~ bonus hole ~ phrenologist ~ airbag moments ~ color codes ~ jenin ~ john campbell
rico carty ~ rico carty ~ repost ~ affirmative action ~ johanna hedva ~ fuck
What will it look like after a few years of use? Assuming that it is kept clean … a big if … this particular look might age well. ~ @MrAndyNgo James Chambers, an heir to the Cox Media empire @COXMG & from one of the wealthiest families in Georgia, is revealed to be a communist activist & militant supporter of the #StopCopCity domestic terrorist movement. ~ @jccfergie Fergie Chambers #StopCopCity Our family has maintained full, private control over the company since my great-grandfather bought a paper in Dayton, OH in 1898. We’ve been the wealthiest family in Georgia for a long time, and among the 10-20 most powerful in the US, while maintaining almost total invisibility. ~ I know a man who likes to host sex parties. He is planning to host one soon at the Perimeter Center Marriott. I pointed out to him that this hotel charges $15 to park in the lot. This is his reply: “Understood. My fif is very close to that hotel, and it’s a nice place. That’s why I picked it. There will be other guys who won’t want to pay to park. I always have a ride; I don’t park. Most all decent hotels require payment to park.” ~ @chamblee54 I recommend listening to this conversation. I disagree with @EWErickson on many issues, but recognize a common humanity. Labeling someone a “vile, bellicose Catholic fascist” is a problem ~ “I took a cigarette from an open pack on my husband’s desk. Perhaps I could just hold it for a minute, I thought, pretend that I wanted to smoke and then pretend to change my mind, keep the charade up long enough that Jay (his name was Jay, or maybe J., come to think of it) wouldn’t question my motives for keeping him company.”I was listening to the author read this story. She said “or maybe the initial J” in the spoken version. ~ “A week or so later, I received a call from another former student, John. He wanted to apologize for the way he’d behaved in class years earlier. … “I found God,” he went on, and I heard him unzip something, his hoodie, perhaps, as if God had been under there all along. “I tried to kill myself, and He saved me.” … John had wanted to be wronged back, to be asked to explain himself in a long monologue. Hunting down those he’d wronged (or those he thought he’d wronged) was his last-ditch attempt to not be alone with his shame and regrets, to make it all mean something. No one was asking him for an apology? The steps now gave him an excuse to force one on us, to force us to listen to him again. He was still a bully.” ~ Felipe saw the comment by his fbf, and decided to consider it a writing prompt. One way to approach a prompt is to use the shortest sentence in the group. Of the five paragraphs on display, only one had more than one sentence. The winning sentence was “Monica was a Democrat, anyway.” The long sentence in that paragraph included this ironic phrase: “the deafening explosion caused by a ground to air missile striking the President’s plane over head” “Ground to air missile striking the President’s plane” is a colorful metaphor for the services provided by Monica Lewinsky. And indeed, the “deafening explosion” was “over head.” ~ pictures fromThe Library of Congress ~ selah

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2:07 P.M.

Posted in Book Reports, Library of Congress by chamblee54 on July 9, 2023

PG started to feel the familiar stiffness in his big toe. While it was not painful, it could get worse. PG decided to take the offensive, and get treated before the stiffness turns to pain. This means going to the herbal emporium of Dr. Xu. You go to the office , and sign in. He sees you when he sees you.
When facing quality time in a waiting room, it is best to bring a book. The reading material for PG these days is Skinny Legs and All, by Tom Robbins. PG read SLAA in the early 90’s, when he was working in an office downtown. Like all Robbins stories, a re-do reading will uncover noisy nuggets of knowledge, and forgotten figments of imagination.
While warming up the vehicle, PG saw the word “orchidaceous” on page 197. If something like the o-word gets PG’s attention, his response is to note the page number, and put an inkpen dot on both sides of it. As it so happens, on this day PG was looking at page 198, and saw “then allowed” with a ball point bump on both sides. This was referring to a New York art dealer.
The full sentence was “It was as if Gropius had created her, then allowed Gaudi to add the boobs.” The art-monger in question had an unremarkable face, but a generous mammary allowance. The bosomy business lady was discussing the art of Ellen Cherry Petway. At the same time, a vehicle, crafted by Boomer Petway, was eliciting exclamations of magnifque. The automobile was crafted to look like a giant turkey. It had been delivered to Ellen Cherry Charles as a love offering before the wedding. Now, the sheet metal bird was stealing the thunder of Ellen Cherry, who considers herself to be the artiste. This was not a good development for the recently consummated marriage.
The Petways are soon going to trendy New York parties. Ellen Cherry has this country-girl notion of what an art party should be like, and finds the real thing to be lacking. Boomer has another reaction. “I guess that’s what I like about ’em. … They’re just as petty as everybody else.”
Petty is one of those eye-of-the-beholder concepts. Certainly, the current social justice discourse in America explores new levels of petty every day. The five letters p-e-t-t-y can be retrofitted with all five vowels, with y left to ask why. Patty, petty, pitty, potty, putty. All five work. Even pitty does double duty as an “obsolete spelling of pity,” as well as the stage name of a Brazilian rock and roll lady.
PG stumbled onto the art party comment at 1:24 pm, soon after he got down to some serious waiting. A half hour later, Ellen Cherry tore up an invitation to Boomer’s one man show. The arty paper turned into mutually destructive snowflakes and sparks. Could Tom Robbins have foreseen the contemporary disrespect for snowflakes in 1989, when SLAA was written?
Snowflakes and sparks made their appearance on page 207. At 2:07 pm, PG was consulting with Dr. Xu. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.

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Do You Feel Safer?

Posted in Library of Congress, Politics by chamblee54 on July 6, 2023

No, there is no evidence that the F.B.I. organized the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Of course, the NYT is going to say that. Others disagree, and point to a plot to kidnap the Governor of Michigan. If the FBI was involved in planning the January 6 incident, it will not be the first time. Here is a story from 2012 about the role federal agents played in the arrest of four elderly men in North Georgia.
A recent episode of Radiolab, Grumpy Old Terrorists, spotlights Georgia. It is about four elderly men, arrested in North Georgia for terrorist activity. The episode features Tom Junod, who wrote an article for Esquire Magazine, Counter-Terrorism Is Getting Complicated. The article has much more information than a twenty minute radio show.
The story focuses on Fred Thomas. A retired Navy man, he worked for Lockheed in Virginia, and moved to Georgia when he retired. He began to hang out on the internet, focusing on a militia forum. After BHO was inaugurated, Mr. Thomas felt that America was going downhill. He met some men online who agreed. The men started to meet. One of the players was a government agent.
The informer was named Joe Sims. (PG does not know if this is his birth name.) According to Esquire, Mr. Sims is a slimy character. He got in trouble, and then got out of jail to work as a snitch.
It is interesting to note that two of wives, of the accused, did not like Mr. Sims. Charlotte Thomas, the wife of Fred, only met him once. Mrs. Thomas was a Frank Sinatra fanatic. When Mr. Sims was in their home, he saw the Sinatra shrine. Joe said, “The trouble with Frank Sinatra is that he can’t sing”.
As the story went down, the old men, and Joe the snitch, had many meetings where they said that something violent needed to be done. Joe the snitch encouraged them, and set up a meeting with an “arms dealer”. Joe handed over his money, and the old man handed over some money. The federal swat team moved in, threw flash grenades, and arrested the old men. The conspirators were so scared they wet their pants. At the same time, the Frank Sinatra shrine was raided. The carpets have burn marks from the flash grenades.
A question was raised on radiolab, do you feel safer now? The feds encouraged the scheme, and helped drive it forward. One person speculated that the sheriff should have had a talk with the old men. Let them know that the law was wise to their game, and the activity would have stopped. Is it a good role for the government to encourage people to commit crimes? In at least one case, government agents recruited and paid people to take part in the “terrorism”. Is this a good use of taxpayer money, and, indeed, does it make us safer?
UPDATE There was a similar incident recently in Forsyth Counth. This is a repost. There are some crucial details left out of this post. Readers are encouraged to read the Esquire magazine article, Counter-Terrorism Is Getting Complicated. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.

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Never Doubt

Posted in Library of Congress, Quotes by chamblee54 on July 5, 2023

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” This chestnut appeared in an email, promoting an event. PG heard a podcast last year, about another Margaret Mead story. Readers of this blog know where this is going.
@anthroreviewed “Did Margaret Mead really say that thing about broken femurs and civilization that is (once again) making the rounds online? Also, are healed femurs a marker of civilization? No. And no. As explore in the second half of this episode… “ A blog post, That Margaret Mead quote, goes into more detail about both stories.
“It’s interesting the quotes that are attributed to Margaret Mead – another is “Never doubt that a small group of people can change the world – indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” … Both are things she could have said, given her personality, but neither is fully attributed – the first instance of the story above is in Dr. Ira Byock’s 2012 book on palliative care, and the above quote only attributed to her, four years after her death, by the author of a fairly hippie-ish book on paths to world peace.”
“This quote (about the femur) has been going around Facebook since mid-March, probably encouraged by this Twitter thread, this FB post, and this article in Forbes, none of which are by archaeologists/anthropologists.”
When the bs detector started dinging, results are just a few clicks away. Highlight the suspicious quote. Right click, choose “Search Google for …,” and wait 0.51 seconds. When one of the results is a story at Quote Investigator®, you have a winner.
When people get caught peddling bogus quotes, they often say that even if the attribution is false, the words are true. What about the featured quote today? It sounds good, and is great for promoting attendance at an event. But is it the truth?
Look at the 9/11 attacks. They did change the world. While it is true that nineteen men pulled off the caper, they had a lot of help. Somebody financed the operation. Other people built the airliners, and the airports where they took off. Somebody dug an oil well, pumped the crude oil, shipped the crude oil to a refinery, and produced the explosive jet fuel that propelled the attacks. In fact, it was the profits from pumping that oil that financed the attacks. “A small group of thoughtful, committed citizens” flew a plane, that someone else built, into the World Trade Center. They were not “the only thing that ever has.” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.

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Life Is Not A Journey

Posted in Library of Congress, Weekly Notes by chamblee54 on July 3, 2023

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I repeat myself under stress, I repeat myself under stress, I repeat myself under stress
Life Is Not a Journey To the Grave With the Intention of Arriving Safely
Linkage to Identify Deaths Among Persons with AIDS — District of Columbia, 2000–2005
overdose deaths soar to record numbers— over 100,000 in each of the past two years …
What Happens After the End of Affirmative Action? scotus is expected to rule …
A Baker Refused to Make Your Wedding Cake? Dan Savage
mutiny ~ elivis ~ control ~ ray harrell ~ enshittification
repost ~ Biblical Critical Theory. ~ Biblical Critical Theory. ~ twiiter ~ officer don
officer don ~ scotus ~ blog ~ 22 words ~ phyllis browne
shenpa ~ Upādāna ~ baba ram dass ~ scotus ~ candler park
gsu pics 062923 ~ madonna ~ blond office ~ Peggy Caserta ~ john martyn
solid air ~ nick drake ~ paul verhoevan ~ elizabeth morton ~ elton
hstS ~ christopher bostwick ~ george heery ~ pre-morbid intelligence ~ lesbians
sea raven press ~ baba ram dass ~ putin ~ haring ~ birdsong ~ careful
i get this past due invoice in the us mail … i call the people, and they tell me i signed up for electronic billing … surprise number one … and that they sent the original invoice by email … i asked them to send me a copy … i did not see it, so i checked the spam folder … there was a past due notice in the spam folder from a few days ago … what do companies treat people like this? ~ “I was stark naked, stoned out of my mind on heroin, and between my legs giving me head was Janis Joplin.” This is the gold standard of opening sentences. ~ When you are revisiting a post from 2011, it can be fun to click on the links. Many of these domains are now for sale. This link has an especially amusing afterlife: “ChristWire is reloading. In the year 2016, the unthinkable happened: the reign of Barack Obama I and the potential reign of Hillary Clinton came to a complete halt Through what could only be described as a miracle from the heavens (if you look East when praying), a man first mocked by everyone ascended to lead the country into what was supposed to be a Golden Age of Morality. But alas, things are not going as expected. The world is again in peril. Americans fight over every possible thing, at the behest of divisive radicals who have invested and invaded every nook and cranny of culture. Logic is defied for saving the face of politics. Churches full of decent people think and post memes of reprehenisble nature. Political leaders invoke the very populism and divisive rhetoric that lead humanity to global wars. Science is ridiculed. Decent moral people are mocked. Wild-eyed outliers believe every word that they have been told to disagree with, no matter how logical, is a reason to grab a weapon and protest the advice to wear a mask. In times of such calamity and chaos, helpers must arise. That is where the community of ChristWire has again heard the call to arise.” ~ this is a 2011 post, about an event called “Howl-A-Than. The facebook links to the pictures work today. Theresa Davis Rupert Fike Karen Garrab ~ I have a question. I recently wrote about an event at the E-church in Candler Park. As you may know, Candler Park was a black neighborhood when that church was built. At some point, the Candler family bought/stole the land, and built the neighborhood was see today. The church building on Candler Park drive is very similar to the chapel at Oglethorpe Presbyterian. Do you know anything about when the OPC chapel was built? Also, considering the fact that Lynwood Park is nearby, is it possible that the OPC chapel was originally a black church? ~ Formicophilia, a form of zoophilia, is the sexual interest in being crawled upon or nibbled by insects, such as ants, or other small creatures. This paraphilia often involves the application of insects to the genitals, but other areas of the body may also be the focus. The desired effect may be a tickling, stinging, or in the case of slugs, slimy sensation, or the infliction of psychological distress on another person. ~ It has been a lovely friday. I took Mac to the grocery store, and went inside myself. I was checking out, and the lady said she had been waiting on us for years, but never knew we were brothers. We got to talking about the Winn Dixie across buford hiway, and how we did not like the international food store that is there now. The lady told me something she heard. These international stores would take a piece of meat that was spoiled, spray disinfectant on it, re-wrap it, and put it back on the shelf. ~ baba ram dass was on a call-in radio show in 1973. At about 30 minutes in, he discusses what kind of music he likes. “I can’t listen to entertainers anymore because they’re playing to the world. I can only listen to musicians who are playing inward.” Three minutes later, he plays a record that he likes. ~ he wishes the dog across the street would quit parking, he saw the trash cart at the street, and was happy that he emptied his bedroom can this morning, he typed most of the story, and remembered to switch the speakers on the laptop to the tacky little speakers in the foldup box. he was afraid that he had missed the end of the prompt, but was relieved to hear that he had three minutes more, he got his reaading glasses, and went on the porch, he took the laptop on the porch, and put it on the table, and remembered he left his glasses inside, he took his water bottle on the porch, and went back to get his laptop, he put his laptop, mouse, and water bottle on the marbletop table by the door, but left his glasses on the table this will complicate the conclusion of the story, he decided that the lighting was better on the porch, and the reading would be more fun out there, he finjished his korean rice bowl. this was the first time going to the kbop shop over by the walmart. he does not know if there will be a second time, he listened to a segment of killer mike on the joe rogan show. km is from atlanta, and his last name is Render. he wonders if km is kin to a mr render that he used to work with, saturday morning he saw a deer nibbling on the flower in his neighbors front yard. this is an everyday thing in some neighborhoods, but a novelty in brookhaven ~ pictures today are from The Library of Congress ~ selah

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Smash Cut

Posted in Book Reports, Library of Congress by chamblee54 on July 2, 2023

Smash Cut by Brad Gooch, turned up at the Chamblee library. The subtitle is “A Memoir of Howard & Art & the ’70s & the ’80s.” The cover has a picture of Brad Gooch and Howard Eric Brookner. The 1979 picture shows BG (google does not know his middle name) and HEB is a small, well used kitchen. Someone wrote, and then scratched out, “at the Chelsea Hotel.” In the notes, we see that BG and HEB were boyfriends in 70s and 80s Manhattan. At some point, HEB got AIDS.
April 27, 1989, was HEB’s last day on the planet. I was 16 weeks into not drinking. HEB was seven days older than me. There are many other parallels between my life, and the concurrent Brad/Howard story. Their story has a lot more famous people involved.
HEB was a filmmaker, with wealthy Jewish parents. He met BG at a bar in Lower Manhattan in 1978. They go back to Howard’s place, drink vodka, and crash. They quickly become boyfriends, and have a terrific time together when they aren’t quarreling about who is fucking who. Howard is working on a movie about William S. Burroughs. When you hang out with Mr. Burroughs, it is considered good manners to take heroin. This becomes a problem for HEB.
Meanwhile, BG was in grad school at Columbia, finishing a PhD in English. He wound up as an English professor at some college. You kind of wonder how BG had time to write a PhD dissertation, while diving into the full tilt sex and drugs of pre-aids Manhattan. Nor do we ever find out how they paid for all this high octane living.
BG becomes a model, hanging out in Europe for a while. HEB decides he doesn’t want to be BG’s boyfriend anymore. That continues off and on for a few years, until that day in 1987 when HEB finds out he is HIV positive.The first year it doesn’t really cause that many problems, but then it does. The last 40 pages of this book are incredibly tough to read. HEB goes into the hospital, it seems like he’s never going to come home. BG gets a job as a professor, and publishes a novel, in addition to being there for HEB. Eventually, HEB got another o.i., and moved on.
Smash Cut is the third book by BG I have started. The Flannery O’Connor book is excellent. The Rumi book has too many unpronounceable names. SC is an fun read, full of gossipy stories about people like Andy Warhol, Madonna, and Keith Haring. The publicity machine is already cranking up for book that BG wrote about Mr. Haring. If the last 40 pages of SC are too difficult, you can skip over it. You already know how it is going to turn out. Pictures today are by The Library of Congress

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Dark And Stormy Night

Posted in Book Reports, Georgia History, Library of Congress by chamblee54 on June 28, 2023

“I was stark naked, stoned out of my mind on heroin, and between my legs giving me head was Janis Joplin.” These 21 words open Going Down With Janis. Peggy Caserta was allegedly the gf, and definitely the heroin buddy, of the chanteuse.
There isn’t anywhere to go from there but up. As it turns out, the intercom is full of people who supply good opening lines from literature. It saves you the trouble of reading the rest of the book.
Here are Top 10 Most Outrageous Opening Lines in Literature, in reverse order. Three quotes are included from the comments. Ten are from opening sentences, which advertises Filipino Cupid. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is an edited repost from 2012. Most of the links in this paragraph no longer work.
THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY Douglas Adams 1979 “Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.”
NEUROMANCER William Gibson 1984 “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”
NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND Fyodor Dostoyevsky 1864 “I am a sick man . . . I am a wicked man. An unattractive man, I think my liver hurts.”
ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST Ken Kesey 1962 “They’re out there. Black boys in white suits up before me to commit sex acts in the hall and get it mopped up before I can catch them.”
TRAINSPOTTING Irvine Welsh 1993 “The sweat was lashing oafay Sick Boy; he wis trembling.”
FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS Hunter S. Thompson 1971 “We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like ‘I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive . . .’ And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming, ‘Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'”
THE METAMORPHOSIS Franz Kafka 1915 “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.”
Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen, 1813 “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”
The Catcher in the Rye JD Salinger, 1951 “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”
Moby Dick Herman Melville, 1850 “Call me Ishmael.”
Peter Pan JM Barrie, 1911 “All children, except one, grow up.”
Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy, 1873-7 “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
Women Charles Bukowski “I was 50 years old and hadn’t been to bed with a woman for four years. I had no women friends. I looked at them as I passed them on the streets or wherever I saw them, but I looked at them without yearning and with a sense of futility. I masturbated regularly, but the idea of having a relationship with a woman—even on non-sexual terms—was beyond my imagination.”
The Bible author unknown Genesis 1: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the Earth”
Naked Lunch William S. Burroughs “I can feel the heat closing in, feel them out there making their moves, setting up their devil doll stool pigeons, crooning over my spoon and dropper I throw away at Washington Square Station, vault a turnstile and two flights down the iron stairs, catch an uptown A train… Young, good looking, crew cut, Ivy League, advertising exec type fruit holds the door back.”

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Implicit Association Test

Posted in Library of Congress, Undogegorized by chamblee54 on June 27, 2023

PG came across a link. The post was: What comes to mind when you see her headscarf? Let’s look at what your mind is seeing. (This post is no longer available online.) Technically, this is about the hijab, pronounced eeJOB. If you google hijab, you will have the opportunity to buy one.
The article talked about the unspoken assumptions people have about a woman with a hijab. For PG, these are going to be mostly positive. Most of the Muslims PG has known are great people. The turmoil caused by aggressive Jesus worshipers is absent when dealing with Muslims.
Much of the article deals with “unconscious bias.” You are given the chance to take a “test your unconscious bias and find the areas of your perspective that need a little extra TLC.” PG is not sure that he trusts “Psychologists from Harvard, UW, and UVA.” Still, the only cost for taking this test will probably be damage to his mental health.
Before you start, there is a disclaimer. “IP addresses are routinely recorded, but are completely confidential.” There is a difference between confidential and anonymous. Big brother knows about PG anyway, so this test probably won’t make much difference. You are asked to agree to the following statement: “I am aware of the possibility of encountering interpretations of my IAT test performance with which I may not agree. Knowing this, I wish to proceed.” Fasten your digital seat belt.
Next, you choose a test. The first page has 15 options: Sexuality, Native American, Weapons, Arab-Muslim, etc. PG chooses “Weapons (‘Weapons – Harmless Objects’ IAT). This IAT requires the ability to recognize White and Black faces, and images of weapons or harmless objects.)
The first thing to do is answer a questionnaire. You are asked how warm or cold you feel towards white people, and black people. There is a list of statements that you agree or disagree, slightly, moderately, or strongly. Some of these statements are: I think of myself as someone who has an assertive personality, I have considered being an entertainer.
The heart of the test uses photographs. There are pictures of black people, and pictures of white people. There are pictures of weapons, like a bayonet, a historic pistol, a hand grenade, and a battle ax. There are pictures of harmless objects, like a water bottle, tape recorder, camera, and can of Coca Cola. Many of these could be used a weapons; a can of Coca Cola could be thrown at someone. Many Police consider a camera a weapon.
The pictures are flashed on the screen. You hit the e key for the left side, and the i key for the right side. At first the two choices are kept separate, i.e. you choose black or white, weapon or harmless. Then the two groups are combined. The choice is left side black weapons, and right side white harmless. Then they shift sides, to black harmless and white weapons. You are shown a picture, and choose which category to put it in.
The last questionnaire is the demographics. Annual family income is not considered. Ethnicity refers to hispanic/latin, or non hispanic/latin. Religion, age, “political identity,” gender (only male or female,) and education are considered, among other factors.
The result: “Your data suggest a strong association of Black Americans with Weapons compared to White Americans. … The interpretation is described as ‘automatic association between weapons and White Americans’ if you responded faster when weapons and White American images were classified with the same key than when weapons and Black Americans were classified with the same key.”
Whatever. Maybe PG should take another test for comparison. Maybe this time, choose a subject where hateful judgement is not in your face everyday. Since the seminal article is about the hijab, maybe … “You have opted to complete the Arab Muslim – Other People IAT.”
The opening questionnaire is different.”I attempt to appear nonprejudiced toward Arab Muslims in order to avoid disapproval from others, NO spontaneous prejudiced thoughts come into my mind when I encounter an unfamiliar Arab Muslim.”

This test is different from the race test. Instead of photographs, words were used. For the two groups of people, we have names (seemingly all male.) Examples: Arab Muslim – Akbar, Ashraf, Habib – – Other People – Benoit, Philippe, Guillame. The other categories are Good and Bad. Examples: Good – Joy, Love, Peace – – Bad – Agony, Terrible, Horrible.
PG made more mistakes in the fancy part of the Arab test. He took a couple of breaks to take screen shots, one of which is included in this report. At times, he felt himself automatically blaming the Arabs for bad things. This did not happen, consciously, in the race/weapons test.
The result: Your data suggest little to no automatic preference between Other People and Arab Muslims. … This new test was prompted by the events of September 11, 2001. Suicide pilots, identified as Arab Muslims, crashed airplanes into the World Trade Center towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. killing about 4,000 people.
While this may have some value to the ivory tower crowd, it does not tell PG much about himself. Arguably, IAT says more about the researchers than it does the respondents. It is doubtful that these tests will “find the areas of your perspective that need a little extra TLC.” This is a repost. Pictures from The Library of Congress. These pictures were not used in the IAT studied today.