Cleaning Up Graffiti
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Women Cleaning Up Graffiti Told They’re Showing ‘White Privilege’
Celebrities Show Solidarity With Protesters By Burning Own Homes To Ground
Prince Andrew may be quizzed over Jeffrey Epstein in weeks as US officially …
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REVOLUTION MEDICS ATLANTA Helping Those Who Challenge Injustice
SR 151 – Lester & Virginia Maddox Bridge – designate
Fauci changes tune, now says second COVID-19 wave may never happen
The Revenge of Jeb Bush In 2016, the former Florida governor and Bush dynasty …
Candace Owens Says George Floyd IS NOT A Hero (VIDEO)
Removal of McDonough Confederate Statue subject of online petition
LA Galaxy release Aleksander Katai over wife’s racist social media posts
The madness of censoring shows like Little Britain
TPD Major: Police Shoot Black Americans ‘Less Than We Probably Ought To’
The Viruses | Glenn Loury & John McWhorter [The Glenn Show]
NASCAR driver quits after Confederate flag ban: ‘All you are doing is f—ing one group’
Why I’m a Burkean conservative from the developing world.
Woman found dead in clothing donation bin in Midtown
“Pasaquoyan Man with Ritual Headdress and Levitation Suit” by St. EOM
Racism Is An Empty Thesis An African-American professor says …
@anne_theriault putting the hag in hagiographer
Queens of Infamy: Lucrezia Borgia … time we give the Duchess of Ferrara a closer look.
Orange County rescinds coronavirus mask mandate amid pushback, resignation
Man killed after being shot by Atlanta Police during traffic stop
Truck Drivers Say They Won’t Deliver To Cities with Defunded Police Departments
Major Jonathan Letterman: The Father of Battlefield Medicine
Woman charged with felony for tagging statue with chalk
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Blues artist Lady A blasts Lady Antebellum for stealing her name
When You Say “I Would Never Date A Trans Person,” It’s Transphobic. Here’s Why.
Woman Wishes Death on Black People, Quickly Loses Job at Party City
Atlanta police chief resigns after fatal police shooting
Incredible New Security Device Goes Viral For 2020. Here’s What You Should Know…
Atlanta officer who fatally shot Rayshard Brooks has been terminated
Rayshard Brooks: APD releases body camera footage from deadly Wendy’s shooting
Black Lives Matter: Hundreds gather in Japan to protest George Floyd killing
Rayshard Brooks shooting: Atlanta police bodycam and dashcam footage released
How did the encounter between Brooks and police turn so deadly?
Shooting of Rayshard Brooks ~ precinct workers ~ n hatin’ hat ~ @anne_theriault
@Phil_Johnson_ I’ve been wondering about the Minneapolis City Council’s plan for “community-based safety” once they have dismantled the police department. The answer came on the news this morning: “Call a neighbor.” OK, but that didn’t work out so well in the Ahmaud Arbery case, did it? ~ This is why twitter has the like button. You can click on it, and let the person know you saw their tweet. Comments are optional, and you don’t get go down the rabbit hole of discussion. ~ There are some interesting thoughts there. The phrase “necrotic neighbor” has a nice sound, despite the nasty meaning behind it. As for faith in Mr. Dammit … I suppose it can’t hurt. Faith is not a substitute for other material based remedies. – A friend once hung out with some nutcase Xtians. They believed in faith healing. There was this nifty Catch 22. If you got better, praise G-d. If you did not get better, it was your fault because you did not have enough faith. – I appreciate your not using the G-word with me. It is not a big deal either way, but your not using *that word* tells me that you know you are talking to, and paying attention. If you forget, and say that sacred name, it is not a deal breaker. ~ Pictures from The Library of Congress. ~ selah
The Death Of Pedro Ramirez
People are talking a lot about police these days. There have been some horrible killings of citizens, with a resulting outrage. Some say we should de-fund the police, which seems like a bad idea. Many others talk about reform, with few details offered. This feature will not explore these events, and ideas. There is not a whole lot that I can add to the conversation.
For 29 weeks, I ran a series about police killings of citizens. This is the final post, which gives a few statistics, and draws a few conclusions. There was one case that I stumbled onto which stands out . It had a video of a search, with a horror movie ending. I cannot say what a LEO’s job is like. That said, it is clear that something like this could happen every time an officer answers a call.
“On June 20, 2017, (Las Vegas Police) officers responded to a domestic disturbance call. The caller reported hearing screaming and crying coming from an apartment. When officers arrived, they made contact with the victim in her apartment, and she initially told them everything was fine. The officers insisted that she open the security screen so they could confirm she was unharmed. As the victim and her four-year-old son exited the apartment, she told officers there was nobody else in the apartment, and she gave them permission to enter the apartment to confirm this.”
“As the officers searched the apartment, they discovered Pedro Ramirez hiding in the walk-in closet in the master bedroom. He was holding a large butcher knife. Officers gave commands for Mr. Ramirez to drop the knife. He ignored the commands and advanced toward the officers. Two officers discharged their Tasers, but they had little effect on Mr. Ramirez. He then charged toward the officers with the knife still in his hand. One officer fired his handgun, striking Mr. Ramirez three times. He fell to the ground and the officer kicked away the knife and attempted to handcuff Mr. Ramirez.”
The video is tough to watch, knowing how this is going to turn out. The officers go into one room, then another, then another. The tension builds with every step. Finally, they go to the final stop, and a man jumps out with a large knife. If the officers had waited half a second to fire, one of them could have been cut. Is this what an officer knows could happen, every time they go into a building? Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Lose The Ability To Remember
PG heard a nifty quote once. “When we begin to write, we will lost the ability to remember.” It was credited to Homer, the Greek poet. The only problem is, PG could never find a source.
Katherine Mangu-Ward is a lady writer. She appeared on a podcast recently, and talked about the symbiotic relationship between conservative trolling, and liberal smugness. PG stumbled onto her twitter account, @kmanguward, and found this: 370 BC: Is Writing Making Us Stupid?
Plato, Phaedrus was the link attached to the tweet. Here is what it said: “Now the king of all Egypt at that time was the god Thamus, who lived in the great city of the upper region, which the Greeks call the Egyptian Thebes, and they call the god himself Ammon. To him came Theuth to show his inventions, saying that they ought to be imparted to the other Egyptians. But Thamus asked what use there was in each, and as Theuth enumerated their uses, expressed praise or blame, according as he approved or disapproved. The story goes that Thamus said many things to Theuth in praise or blame of the various arts, which it would take too long to repeat; but when they came to the letters, “This invention, O king,” said Theuth, “will make the Egyptians wiser and will improve their memories; for it is an elixir of memory and wisdom that I have discovered.”
But Thamus replied, “Most ingenious Theuth, one man has the ability to beget arts, but the ability to judge of their usefulness or harmfulness to their users belongs to another; and now you, who are the father of letters, have been led by your affection to ascribe to them a power the opposite of that which they really possess. For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise.”
Don’t be afraid of a block of text. We will break this down in a minute. The text is from Phaedrus, by Plato. As the ierrant wikipedia says, “The Phaedrus (/ˈfiːdrəs/; Ancient Greek: Φαῖδρος, lit. ‘Phaidros’), written by Plato, is a dialogue between Plato’s protagonist, Socrates, and Phaedrus, an interlocutor in several dialogues. The Phaedrus was presumably composed around 370 BC. “According to this timeline, 370 B.C. is 3200 years after man started to write, and 400 years after the invention of the Greek alphabet. So much for Homer’s word of caution.
We don’t know how widespread writing was in Plato’s time. Presumably, many of the old tales were transmitted by word of mouth, from one generation to the next. This involves memory. “For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory.”
There is one more quote worth musing over. Since the invention of the first mediums, new methods have been denounced by traditionalists. Today, we live in an era of constant change. This feature will appear in a blog… state of the art in 2004, and considered obsolete in 2018. Every new medium is greeted with hand wringing over the bad effects it will have on society. Some of these misgivings have been proven false. This *text* goes into more detail about this.
Homer may, or may not, have existed. Since this was 2800 years ago, we may never know. The stories of “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey” may have been told from one generation, to the next. Maybe Homer really did say that, and was merely afraid of competition.
“You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise.” . In todays culture, the display of apparent wisdom is more impressive than actual knowledge. These things too shall pass away. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
The 1954 Deferment
As the reader(s) of this blog might notice, there is material posted every day at chamblee54. On many days, PG is too lazy to write new material, and goes into the archive. Today, there are two pieces. 1954 Deferment is from the blogspot version of chamblee54. In 2007, PG had a job making local deliveries, and listened to talk radio. Neal Boortz was in his glory. One day, PG heard enough about Vietnam, and decided to tell his own story. It is below. This post is written in first person.
A prominent radio whiner has been urged to come clean on his military record. In the spirit of not being a hypocrite, and with the optimistic thought that someone is interested, I have decided to do the same. I have what I call a 1954 deferment. I didn’t get a lottery number until the winter of 1973, after the Paris accords had been signed. My number was 337. The minimum age to sign up in those days was 17. If I had been gung ho to stop communism , I could have signed up in 1971.
By 1971 the war was over for America. We were trying something called “Vietnamization”, which meant we were bringing the combat troops home. Mr. Kissinger was working day and night to secure an acceptable treaty, which Mr. Nixon called Peace with Honor. A few weeks before the 1972 election, the announcement was made that “Peace is at hand”. What this treaty meant was that we got our P.O.W.s back, and withdrew the last of the combat troops. The North Vietnamese troops were not required to withdraw. After a while, with Mr. Nixon distracted by Watergate and the American Public in no mood to help, “Charlie” finished the conquest of South Vietnam. Whether we got all the P.O.W.s back is a subject of controversy. There is speculation that some P.O.W.’s were kept in Asia.
I graduated from High School in June 1972. This was in between the death of J. Edgar Hoover and the arrest of the Watergate Burglars. Jane Fonda”s trip to Hanoi was in July of 1972. Anti-war protests hit a peak during the Moratorium, in Autumn 1969. There was a last surge in May 1970, after the incursion into Cambodia. During this time we had the killings at Kent State, and suddenly protest didn’t seem like as much fun. That, combined with Vietnamization, served to quiet the antiwar movement. The Kent State killings were two days before my 16th birthday. The spell check suggestions for Vietnamization are Victimization, and Minimization.
I didn’t go to Vietnam. What if I had been a few years older? The truth is, I don’t know. You really don’t know what you would do until you have to. Probably, I would have gone the student deferment route, or something else non confrontational, to stay in North America. In the early stages of the War I supported it. In the winter of 1966, I attended a rally at Atlanta Stadium called “Affirmation Vietnam”. At that time, the war protesters were seen as weirdos. It wasn’t for a few more years that people realized their government was lying, and got tired of the pointless bloodshed.
In 1965, some people still believed the government when they heard we needed to stop communism. There was a draft, or legally enforced recruiting. The spirit of patriotism from World War II was still strong. When a young man got a draft notice, many assumed it was their duty to go. Many of the fatalities in Vietnam were conscripted troops.
Offends You. is based on a long forgotten facebook page, “If-the-American-Flag-offends-you-Ill-be-happy-to-help-you-pack.” In 2010, PG would see a prompt like that, and spit out a few hundred words before you could say media bias. And almost nobody would read it. The only function this text has is to go between the pictures.
There is a facebook page now, “If-the-American-Flag-offends-you-Ill-be-happy-to-help-you-pack.” This rubs PG the wrong way. PG has had a good life in The USA, and cannot imagine living anywhere else. He pays taxes without complaint. PG compares his thoughts about America with his thoughts about his hometown, of Atlanta GA. He has had a good life in both places, and does not want to live anywhere else. And yet, no one is ever asked to “die for Atlanta”. That duty is reserved for the national political unit. If PG had been 110 years older, he would have had to opportunity to die for Georgia.
The Stars and Stripes should not be used for jewelry, or as a gimmick. The flag should be respected, not left out in direct sunlight for years at a time, until the red, white, and blue is pink, gray, and lavender. A few years ago, after a Supreme Court ruling about flag burning, PG worked with someone who drove a van. There was a bumper sticker on that van, with the American Flag, and the message “Try burning this one”. That van was parked in direct sunlight every day, and the sun burned those colors off that van. Most people don’t consider this.
No, the American Flag does not offend PG. However, Facebook groups that would try to bully people who don’t have the “correct” opinion about this symbol…that would seek to create conflict between citizens…that does offend PG. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The photographer was Dorothea Lange, working in 1939 California.
The Six G-ds of Christianity
There is a discussion brewing in the Jesus Worship blogosphere on the question of “Is Christianity really monotheistic ”. This is in response to a post, on the subject of the unquestioning Christian .
There is a “motivational” poster, with the headline “Ten signs you are an unquestioning Christian”. One of these (either number one or ten) deals with monotheism. To wit: “You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of G-ds claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of your G-d.” Some writers are promising/threatening to write about all ten of these arguments, and the feature on monotheism is the first.
PG is a recovering Baptist, who is severely alienated from Jesus. He does suspect that there is a G-d, and is in no way an “atheist”. The tracts linked to above tend to break down the discussion to atheists vs. christians, which is highly misleading.
PG has been knocking around for some time the idea of a post about the six G-ds of Jesus Worshipers. The appearance of this series…at blogs that ban PG from commenting…has spurred him into action. Whether or not there will be more comments (from PG) remains to be seen.
Christianity claims to be a monotheistic religion. This means, there is only one G-d. In contrast, the Romans and Greeks had G-ds and G-ddesses galore, and the Hindus have literally millions of deities. In what was claimed by some as an advancement, the Jews worshiped one G-d. (Zoraroastrians are said to be monotheistic, and did it before the Jews. There may be others.)
One of the sacred tracts of Judaism and Christianity is the ten commandments . The first three relate to the concept of monotheism, and the proper way to talk about G-d.
1-Thou shalt have no other G-ds before me.
2-Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy G-d am a jealous G-d, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
3-Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy G-d in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
As a side note, PG has heard something about the use of Lord as a name for G-d. The riff is that “Lord” was an expression for an English nobleman. When the Bible was translated by James I, his workers used the L word as a synonym for G-d. The words for G-d in the Greek and Hebrew texts that comprised the Bible do not translate as Lord…that word was inserted by the anglocentric workers of James I. This is something that PG read in a book by Tom Robbins, and has no other source for. It may, or may not be true. If it is, then it just might be a violation of the third commandment.
Getting back to monotheism, does Christianity live up to the first commandment? This may seem to be a silly question when you consider the concept of the trinity. At some point in the early days of Jesus Worship, a decision was made to split G-d into three parts. We now had the father, the son, and the holy ghost. (Which makes for a neat blessing…the father the son the holy ghost, whoever eats fastest gets the most) The first commandment is still in effect, but, well, you just have to understand. The Jews continued to worship one G-d, and when Mohammed started his franchise, he changed the name to Allah. In that version, there is no G-d but Allah, and Mohammed is his messenger.
Meanwhile, the Jesus Worshipers were good at converting and reproducing, and soon had a very popular religion. But was it one G-d only? The faith had a book of ancient texts that they call “the word of G-d”. The fact that it was written, copied, edited and translated by man did not stop folks. The first commandment would seem to prohibit this custom, but, you just have to believe.
PG is willing to concede the point that he doesn’t understand the concept of the Trinity. He thinks it is a concoction of the Council of Nicea, and a violation of the first commandment. This is something that seems to happen a lot with Christianity…to proclaim one thing as a rule, to apparently violate that rule, but have a clever explanation that few seem to understand.
This does not explain the other G-ds of Christianity. For this discussion, we will focus on three…the Bible, Satan, and Salvation.
The Catholic Church had a conference to establish a consistent canon for their church. This conference became known as the Council of Nicea. (This conference is where the concept of the Triune G-d was formulated.) The texts in use by the church at the time were collected in one book. Some texts were not used, and there is a good possibility that the texts that were used were edited. This committee effort became known as the Bible.
PG got into a twitter discussion recently. It turns out that PG does not know much about the Council of Nicea. There were other meetings at this time, and after a while a standardized canon was established for the Christian religion. Few doubt that the Bible was curated by man.
During the protestant reformation, the new churches needed a source for their authority over the people. It was during this time that the concept of the Bible as the “Word of G-d” became known. This in effect made a G-d out of a book. This is in direct defiance of the First Commandment, which teaches to have no other G-d before you.
The book has been interpreted into many languages, and the interpretations have been interpreted. The star of the New Testament, Jesus, spoke Aramaic. His words were recorded, in Greek, many years after he *died*. Any quote from Jesus has been translated at least twice. This is from texts that were written many years after he lived. And yet, people talk about what Jesus taught, and have confidence, that they know what they are talking about. (The only things we know about Jesus is what the Council of Nicea chose to tell us.)
At some point, the idea began to float around that the Bible was not only the word of G-d, but that it was inerrant…that is, without errors. This would presume that no body in the chain of production made a mistake. This includes a scribe copying a text, and a Catholic editor assembling a canon. Nobody translating ancient languages, from ragged source materials, made a mistake. The people who make this claim seem to assume that they have a perfect understanding of this text. Is it a coincidence that the spell check suggestion for inerrant is ignorant?
This one is too blatant to let slide. When you declare a text to be the “word of G-d”, you are making a G-d out of a book. There is a semantic argument to be made… you can say that this isn’t worship. Lets say it out loud… calling the Bible the “word of G-d” makes a G-d out of a book, in violation of the First Commandment. This is not monotheism.
A quick look at the way Satan is treated by the church shows a curious similarity to worship. Yes, it is backhanded worship, and lots of negative things are said about Beelzebub. He with the horns and tail is given credit for all kinds of powers, and needs to be fought (with human collateral damage). Yes, Jesus Worshipers give the Devil his due, and then some.
The last “G-d” that we will look at today is Salvation, or the Christian scheme for life after death. Anyone living in the USA has heard this plan a thousand times, and many agree with it. Some do not agree with it. It is none of your business how PG feels. (Your guess is probably correct.)
What is undeniable is the importance placed on salvation in Christianity. It is discussed in every church meeting, often at top volume, and with dramatics that would shame a ham actor. Salvation is said to justify all the rudeness and verbal abuse that Jesus Worshiper inflict on their neighbors. If you do not agree with the concept of Salvation, you have no business belonging to a Christian Church.
Does this hysterical emphasis on Salvation make a G-d out of the concept? As with the Bible and Satan, it is a matter of perspective. A good argument could be made that Jesus Worshipers treat these three items with G-d like devotion, and make G-ds out of them.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
Dorothy Parker
PG first heard of Dorothy Parker in tenth grade. His friend Bob Gibson cut the poem Resume out of the literature text book, and carried it in his wallet. Mrs. Parker had been dead for two years at the time, with her ashes resting in her attorney’s filing cabinet. As the years rolled on, there were stories about the round table at the Algonquin hotel, and a poem about W.R. Hearst … “Upon my honor, I saw the madonna, by the door, in a niche, of a well known whore, and a prominent son of a bitch.” There was another famous comment: Re “The Cardinal’s Mistress” by Benito Mussolini, Dorothy Parker wrote one of my favorite bon mots: “This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.” Wikiquotes lists both of these items as “misattributed.”
It is now 2019, several years after the first DP post. Born Dorothy Rothschild, on August 22, 1893, Miss Parker did nicely without a middle name. Chamblee54 has featured Miss Parker several times (one, two, three, four.) Today, these four posts will be combined into one. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library” and The Library of Congress. If you want a list of clever sayings, google is your friend. The quote investigator has five pages of the alleged sayings of Miss Parker.
It was 5:25 pm. PG had not heard from either person who was supposed to be at his house at 5:30. While muttering things about unreliable people, he started to look at a writing contest. The idea was to write 100 words or less. The challenge was to produce a “a quick, honest and heartfelt response” to an image. The meme is seen below the fold.
The image has a quote. “I hate writing. I love having written. Dorothy Parker.” When PG sees words of wisdom, with a famous name at the end, his impulse is to check it out. When you search the wikiquote page on Miss Parker, and look for hate, love, and writing, you will not see the quote. 
There was one item in wikiquotes that made PG laugh. It was in the “Misattributed” section. “Upon my honor, I saw a Madonna. Standing in a niche, Over the door, Of the glamorous whore, Of a prominent son of a bitch.” Said to have been written in the guest-book of Hearst Castle, referring to the room occupied by Hearst’s mistress, Marion Davies. Parker always denied it, pointing out that she would never have rhymed “honor” with “Madonna”.” Nor would the entertainer.
When PG saw that quote, he knew that this piece would be longer than 100 words. Inserting quotes into a piece will bloat the word count every time. About this time the phone rang. His friends were in the front yard, being eaten by mosquitoes. PG put on a white shirt, and left.
Later that night, 99 sick well chosen words fell out of the fingers, and into the ether.
The quote is suspect. Wikiquotes does not show it, after a search for love, hate, and written. The image is probably manufactured. The image is a piece of paper, coming out of a vintage manual typewriter. The main text is one size. The author credit is another size. Vintage manual typewriters only produced one size of product. This one size is considerably smaller than either size in this image. The text in this image was produced elsewhere. This rendering of a bogus quote is then pasted onto a blank sheet of paper, seen merging from a vintage manual typewriter.
The other day there was a post here on the dotty subject of Dorothy Parker quotes. The departed dipsomaniac would seem to be a quote magnet.
One quote, that appears to be genuine, is about another quote magnet, Oscar Wilde. “A Pig’s-Eye View of Literature: Oscar Wilde If with the literate I am, Impelled to try an epigram, I never seek to take the credit, We all assume that Oscar said it.” (First printed in Life, (2 June 1927) p. 13 When you can give a source for a quote, the chances of it’s legitimacy go up tremendously.)
The original plan for this post was to do a wikiquotes search of the quotes in this post. This concept very quickly turned out to be too much work. The first paragraph of the original post has a clue.
PG first heard of Dorothy Parker in tenth grade. His friend, Bob Gibson, cut the poem Resume out of the literature text book, and carried it in his wallet. Mrs. Parker had been dead for two years at the time, with the ashes resting in her attorney’s filing cabinet. … there was another comment : Re “The Cardinal’s Mistress” by Benito Mussolini, Dorothy Parker wrote one of my favorite bon mots: “This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.”
In the post the other day, it was discovered that the poem about W.R. Hearst was written by someone else. Which brings us to “The Cardinal”s Mistress”. Yes, that was written by Hitler’s BFF, Benito Mussolini. When he wasn’t making the trains run on time, he wrote a sappy novel. And the comment by Miss Parker is great. But did she really say it?
A blogspot facility called Heavens to Mergatroyd has the text from a New Yorker review of TCM. It is a delightful read. However, the landmark quote is not there. The spell check suggestion for mergatroyd is derogatory.
Wikiquotes calls the comment “misattributed”. “Quoted in The Algonquin Wits (1968) edited by Robert E. Drennan, and Try and Stop Me. As noted at Snopes, Drennan’s source seems to be a Parker review which does not seem to contain this quote. If Parker wrote this statement anywhere the primary source seems to have gone missing.”
Try and Stop Me is a newspaper column by Bennett Cerf. The link is to The Dispatch, Lexington N.C., October 12, 1962. Next to the column is The Dispatch Religious Activities, Directory of Churches. The pastor of First Baptist is David Hoke Coon, Jr.
While preparing this commentary, an effort was made to find the text for “Resume”. It is a bona fide quote, first printed in New York World August 16, 1925. While looking for the text, Google suggested a search for “resume dorothy parker analysis.” One result was sponsored by a politician, Michelle Nunn. Another had this to say. “We know that we’re being a bit obvious here. But check it out: almost every single line in this poem offers an idea for a different way to die. When it comes to wordplay, Parker’s not messi…” Maybe she meant to say messy.
BigO is a site with mp3 downloads. Most of them are concerts. PG found one exception. It was a 1960 interview, STUDS TERKEL WITH DOROTHY PARKER/BOB NEWHART – CHICAGO 1959/1960. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
Dorothy Parker is somewhat of a legend. There were the funny sayings, a few poems and stories, and her life. Mrs. Parker was well known as a witty person during the twenties. She drank, a lot, and talked often of suicide. It was surprising to find a 1960 interview.
In fact, Dorothy Parker died in 1967, at the age of 73. By 1960, she was in decline, living at the Manhattan’s Volney Hotel. “Edmund Wilson … paid occasional painful visits to her at the Volney. (“She lives with a small and nervous bad-smelling poodle bitch, drinks a lot, and does not care to go out.”) … She was still revered, a legend, but she had also become a pathetic relic. Yes, “you might as well live,” but for what? And on what? Not only was she running out of old friends, she was running out of money, though uncashed checks, some quite large, were strewn around her apartment (along with the empty bottles), not helping with unpaid bills.”
There were some zesty quotes in the interview with Mr. Terkel. “I can’t call myself a critic. Honestly. I can only put down what I think and pray there isn’t a libel suit.” “I’m not a poet, you know, I just write verse” “The beat boys aren’t saying anything except look at us aren’t we great … I don’t think the beat generation is much worth worrying about. Very soon, in the very near future, they will be as forgotten as mah jongg.”
Towards the end of the interview, Mr. Terkel said “i know some people would want me to ask, did she really say all those things that she was quoted as saying” “… no, no, and it was a curse on me, it was simply awful the things that were attributed to me. I wouldn’t have minded if they had been good. I was, in effect, the shaggy dog of my time.”
Another quote magnet for the meme generation is Thomas Jefferson. PG saw yet another inspiring quote on facebook today. Mr. Google was consulted. It turns out the quote is real.
Thomas Jefferson to William Hamilton, 22 April 1800 is the source. Vice President Jefferson was going to be elected President later that year. It is not known what effect that had on the quote in the meme. “I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.” It is not known whether a twenty first century Jefferson would unfriends anyone who says anything unappealing.
Judy & Liza & RFDS & Me
Judy & Liza & Robert & Freddie & David & Sue & Me…: A Memoir is a book written by Stevie Phillips, the Me in the title. One way to introduce the book is to catalog the six famous names on the cover. Judy and Liza are obvious. Stevie was the road manager/babysitter to Judy Garland. Stevie later managed Judy’s daughter, Liza Minelli, during her glory years. Stevie’s business associations with both Judy, and Liza, ended badly.
Robert is Robert Redford, who Stevie also managed. Freddie Fields and David Begelman founded Creative Management Associates (CMA), with Stevie as an original employee. David was a terrible person, who had destructive affairs with both Judy Garland and Stevie Phillips. Sue was uber-agent Sue Mengers. Stevie and Sue were good buddies for a while, until they were not.
The book is a fun read, but should be taken with a grain of salt. While not as self-serving as other show biz autobiographies, JLRFDS&M definitenly tells the story from Me’s point of view. You don’t get to be a successfull talent peddler without a fierce layer of ego, so this should be no surprise.
Chapter Eight, “Boston”, is one of the most dramatic Judy stories. The star was dressing in her hotel room before a show. Judy looked at Stevie, smiling, and cut her wrist with a razor. Stevie made a tourniquet out of a towel, and a hairbrush. She then called David Begelman. He was having an affair with Judy at this time, and was the possible motivation for the wrist-cutting. David gave Stevie a hundred dollar bill, and told her to go buy enough bracelets to cover the bandges. Stevie soon returned with a bag full of bracelets, and Judy made it to her show.
An Amazon one star review has a different take on the October 28, 1961. “I read the excerpt in VANITY FAIR and Phillips describes how before Garland’s 1961 Boston concert, Garland “slit her left wrist with a razor, cutting deeply into an artery” and that Phillips was subsequently dispatched to “buy enough bracelets to cover the bandages.” OK–except I saw a photo of Garland at this concert: where no bandages (or bracelets) are visible.
Towards the end of the story, Stevie starts going to Al-Anon meetings. On page 268: “Sometimes I imaginined Judy sitting next to me in those rooms. Of course, that would have been impossible because of her celebrity…”
I took a road trip once, with a man who used to manage a local AA meeting hall. Liza was in town, and decided that she needed to go to a meeting. The Triangle club hosted her. My traveling companion had lunch with Liza the next day.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Balboa Beach Bathing Beauty Parade, 1925 “” Picture #06662 is from “Second International Pageant of Pulchritude and Eighth Annual Bathing Girl Revue, May 21, 22, 23, 1927, Galveston TX.”
Hank Chinaski Lives Part Two
An internet facility (IF) called Mind Openerz recently posted a feature, Charles Bukowski’s Top 10 Tips for Living a Kick-Ass Life. Hank writes enjoyable stories and poems. This does not make him a role model. Even if the tales of degenerate lifestyle were exageratted for public consumption, as many suspect, the butt ugly drunkard is nothing to aspire to.
One thing to admire about Hank (a publisher thought that Charles would be a better selling pen name) was the volume of product. He would write dozens of poems, with the lines popping out “like hot turds the morning after a good beer drunk.” Keep the quantity up, quality takes care of itself.
Many of the rules for living were taken from his short stories. PG recently stumbled through Tales of Ordinary Madness, and recognized a few. Hank would toss words of wisdom into stories about being arrested. One time, it was for threatening to rape a lady with a codfish. You can’t beat fun at the old ballpark. Of course, Hank hated baseball, and hated poetry that rhymes. PG writes rhyming poems, with pictures of dogs in the background. Hank is dead, and his opinion doesn’t count.
The fun starts with rule number eight. “8. Have confidence in yourself. “The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts.” You are awesome, and all you have to do to let your true talents shine is believe that fact. Have complete confidence in yourself and you might be surprised with all you can achieve.”
Several of the stories of ordinary madness involve people who think they are poets, show work to Hank, and are insulted for the lousy ouput. The line in number eight was familiar, but PG was too slack to go looking through ordinary madness to find it. This is where you ask Mr. Google for help. The full quote: “The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”
PG sat in the workplace cafeteria and read the last line of Tales of Ordinary Madness. TOOM is a book of short stories and underground press columns, allegedly written by Charles Bukowski. This collection was published by City Lights Books, the facility of Lawrence Ferlinghetti. The poet-businessman was not admired by Mr. Bukowski.
The author was born Heinrich Karl Bukowski, on August 16, 1920, in Andernach, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. His Catholic parents moved to America in 1923. The name was americanized to Henry Charles Bukowski. Friends called him Hank, and his literary alter ego was Hank Chinaski. Somebody decided that Charles would look better in print.
Hank Chinaski was a hard boiled character, or so he would have you believe. He was not a teetotaler. In spite of his many excesses, Hank lived to be 74, when leukemia sent him to the likkastow in the sky. This was March 9, 1994. Eleven days later, Lewis Grizzard met his maker. Lewis was 47, the same age as Hank in much of TOOM.
You should always separate the creator from the creation. Enjoy the product, and don’t worry about the ingredients. That is the case with TOOM. The stories are reputed to be little autobiographies. (An Amazon one star commenter thinks the stories are the result of “some kind of posthumous ghost writer, and not a very good one.”)
Hank, if nothing else, was productive. He wrote thousands of poems. It is not known if they have all been published, or if anyone is drunk enough to read them. Here is a quote from a previous Chamblee54 feature, The On Time Charles Bukowski.
The writer/drunk had always been a bit of a fascination to PG. Out of the millions of useless drunks feeding the urinals of planet earth, at least one will turn out to have had literary merit… this leads to a newyorker piece about the gentleman. After nine paragraphs, and two poems, there is the phrase that set off PG…graphomaniacal fecundity. (spell check suggestion:nymphomaniac)
As best as we can figure, g.f. means that Hank wrote a lot of stuff. This is a good thing. PG operates on the notion that if you keep your quantity up, the quality will take care of itself. Hank seems to agree, spitting out product “like hot turds the morning after a good beer drunk.” He seemed to take pride in doing what Truman Capote said about Jack Kerouac…he doesn’t write, he types.
Holy drunken author synchronicity. Last summer, PG was working third shift in a midtown sweatshop. He would read a couple of stories of TOOM, then shift gears and read a bit of The Dharma Bums. At some point in the procedure, there was a collection of output from Truman Capote.
Hank Chinaski might not like PG. There is the rhyming poetry. There is buying a book of repackaged prose at a yard sale. There is the twenty five year retirement from alcohol use. This is beside the point. You have to live for what is important to you, not what a deceased barfly might think.
Pictures for the last part are from The Library of Congress. After publishing Hank Chinaski Lives on Tuesday, PG decided to repost two other pieces about Hank Bukowski.
91 Word Sentence
This is a repost from 2016. There was a tasteful meme on the facebook thingie today. It was about BHO, who may go down in history as the Meme President. The block of JPG text began When a faithfully married black president who was the son of a single mother…
Some people quote the first sentence in a situation like this. In this rant, the first sentence has 91 words. It has more grammar mistakes than a sportscaster seminar. It boils down to: when A is considered B by C who D. And what does D do next? Those 91 words are an insult to the Queen’s English. (91 is the product of 7, a lucky number, multiplied by 13, an unlucky number.)
There are eight more words at the end. “This is white supremacy folks. Plain and simple.” A comma might help in the sentence. Does he mean that the two players in the 91 word sentence are “white supremacy folks.”? Or is the author calling the attitude described “white supremacy”.? In any event, “Plain and simple” is not a complete sentence, nor does it describe the 91 word sentence.
This is a case where the medium is as important to the story as the message. When looking for information about the meme, PG typed “When a faithfully married black president who was the son of a single mother” into the wonder window. The algorithm replied: “Did you mean: When a faithful married black president who was the son of a single mother.”
The first reply was from the dependable PuffHo, This Is Not White Supremacy. It made some good points. A few spots down the google page, we see THIS IS NOT WHITE SUPREMACY. That is the original posting of the commentary. PuffHo aggregated it, without paying the original author.
So mush much for the medium. Lets look at the message. BHO, as you may know, is mixed race. The “single mother” of the piece was white. To our racially obsessed culture, this means black. America has had nine years to get over the ethnicity of BHO. It has failed miserably. To some, any criticism of BHO is racist. They mindlessly defend anything BHO does, and say that the critics are members of the KKK. Others are upset because a dark skinned man is in the White House. To these people BHO can do nothing right, because he has dark skin.
Either way, the people who see the skin, and not the man, are doing America a disservice. After January 20, 2017, we will find some other mindless excuse to trash our leaders. (UPDATE: It is so, so easy to find fault with DJT.) This is how politics works. You say whatever you can think of that is negative about the opposition. You gloss over the negativity of your own side. After a while, a lot of people don’t believe a word that either side is saying. When everyone is shouting, nobody is heard. This is politics. The generalizations are plain, and the minds are so, so simple.
There is an attitude among some that “racism” is a metaphysical evil. The R monster must be defeated. Collateral damage is not a problem. If you are going to make an omelet, you need to break eggs. When PG hears talk like this, he feels like an egg.
One problem is that everyone has their own idea of what “racism” is. They are correct, and you are mistaken. To some, it is systemic institutional oppression. To others, it is cultural appropriation and microaggressions. Some cynics say that “racism” is anything that rubs you the wrong way. Agree or disagree, you need to check your privilege.
PG saw a video last week, A Rant Against an Anti-Millennial Rant. “And we use words like “racist” to describe someone who thinks that the word “bae” isn’t real because it didn’t originate from a white, Eurocentric vernacular.” These are strange times.
If you are getting itchy, this is almost over. If you like, you can skip over the rest, and look at the pictures. They are from The Library of Congress. Image #06663: “Fifth International Pageant of Pulchritude and Eleventh Annual Bathing Girl Revue, Galveston, Texas, August 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1930”
UPDATE: This is a repost. While looking over the text, PG saw a paragraph about an obnoxious video. It turns out the video features Dylan Marron, who says “And we understand that surface gestures are totally cool but they do nothing to dismantle systemic patriarchy.”
Alleged comedian Bill Maher got in trouble this week for saying a forbidden word on TV. A national hissy fit resulted. This communal pearl clutching is an example of a surface gesture. Screaming “MOMMY HE SAID THE N-WORD” does nothing to dismantle systemic patriarchy.
I Sing The Body Electric
1
I sing the body electric,
The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.
Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?
And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?
And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul?
And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?
2
The love of the body of man or woman balks account,
the body itself balks account,
That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.
The expression of the face balks account,
But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face,
It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of his hips and wrists,
It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist and knees,
dress does not hide him,
The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth,
To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more,
You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side.
The sprawl and fulness of babes, the bosoms and heads of women,
the folds of their dress, their style as we pass in the street,
the contour of their shape downwards,
The swimmer naked in the swimming-bath, seen as he swims through
the transparent green-shine, or lies with his face up and rolls
silently to and from the heave of the water,
The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-boats,
the horse-man in his saddle,
Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their performances,
The group of laborers seated at noon-time with their open dinner-kettles,
and their wives waiting,
The female soothing a child, the farmer’s daughter in the garden or cow-yard,
The young fellow hosing corn, the sleigh-driver driving his six horses
through the crowd,
The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite grown, lusty,
good-natured, native-born, out on the vacant lot at sundown after work,
The coats and caps thrown down, the embrace of love and resistance,
The upper-hold and under-hold, the hair rumpled over and blinding the eyes;
The march of firemen in their own costumes, the play of masculine muscle
through clean-setting trowsers and waist-straps,
The slow return from the fire, the pause when the bell strikes suddenly again,
and the listening on the alert,
The natural, perfect, varied attitudes, the bent head, the curv’d neck
and the counting;
Such-like I love—I loosen myself, pass freely, am at the mother’s breast
with the little child,
Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line
with the firemen, and pause, listen, count.
3
I knew a man, a common farmer, the father of five sons,
And in them the fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons.
This man was a wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person,
The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and beard,
the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes,
the richness and breadth of his manners,
These I used to go and visit him to see, he was wise also,
He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old, his sons were massive,
clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome,
They and his daughters loved him, all who saw him loved him,
They did not love him by allowance, they loved him with personal love,
He drank water only, the blood show’d like scarlet
through the clear-brown skin of his face,
He was a frequent gunner and fisher, he sail’d his boat himself,
he had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner,
he had fowling-pieces presented to him by men that loved him,
When he went with his five sons and many grand-sons to hunt or fish,
you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of the gang,
You would wish long and long to be with him, you would wish to sit by him
in the boat that you and he might touch each other.
4
I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly
round his or her neck for a moment, what is this then?
I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as in a sea.
There is something in staying close to men and women and looking on them,
and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well,
All things please the soul, but these please the soul well.
5
This is the female form,
A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,
It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,
I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor,
all falls aside but myself and it,
Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth,
and what was expected of heaven or fear’d of hell, are now consumed,
Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it,
the response likewise ungovernable,
Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all diffused,
mine too diffused,
Ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh swelling
and deliciously aching,
Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of love,
white-blow and delirious juice,
Bridegroom night of love working surely and softly into the prostrate dawn,
Undulating into the willing and yielding day,
Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh’d day.
This the nucleus—after the child is born of woman, man is born of woman,
This the bath of birth, this the merge of small and large, and the outlet again.
Be not ashamed women, your privilege encloses the rest,
and is the exit of the rest,
You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.
The female contains all qualities and tempers them,
She is in her place and moves with perfect balance,
She is all things duly veil’d, she is both passive and active,
She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as daughters.
As I see my soul reflected in Nature,
As I see through a mist, One with inexpressible completeness,
sanity, beauty,
See the bent head and arms folded over the breast, the Female I see.
6
The male is not less the soul nor more, he too is in his place,
He too is all qualities, he is action and power,
The flush of the known universe is in him,
Scorn becomes him well, and appetite and defiance become him well,
The wildest largest passions, bliss that is utmost, sorrow that is utmost
become him well, pride is for him,
The full-spread pride of man is calming and excellent to the soul,
Knowledge becomes him, he likes it always, he brings every thing
to the test of himself,
Whatever the survey, whatever the sea and the sail
he strikes soundings at last only here,
(Where else does he strike soundings except here?)
The man’s body is sacred and the woman’s body is sacred,
No matter who it is, it is sacred—is it the meanest one in the laborers’ gang?
Is it one of the dull-faced immigrants just landed on the wharf?
Each belongs here or anywhere just as much as the well-off, just as much as you,
Each has his or her place in the procession.
(All is a procession,
The universe is a procession with measured and perfect motion.)
Do you know so much yourself that you call the meanest ignorant?
Do you suppose you have a right to a good sight,
and he or she has no right to a sight?
Do you think matter has cohered together from its diffuse float,
and the soil is on the surface, and water runs and vegetation sprouts,
For you only, and not for him and her?
7
A man’s body at auction,
(For before the war I often go to the slave-mart and watch the sale,)
I help the auctioneer, the sloven does not half know his business.
Gentlemen look on this wonder,
Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for it,
For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one animal or plant,
For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily roll’d.
In this head the all-baffling brain,
In it and below it the makings of heroes.
Examine these limbs, red, black, or white, they are cunning in tendon and nerve,
They shall be stript that you may see them.
Exquisite senses, life-lit eyes, pluck, volition,
Flakes of breast-muscle, pliant backbone and neck, flesh not flabby,
good-sized arms and legs,
And wonders within there yet.
Within there runs blood,
The same old blood! the same red-running blood!
There swells and jets a heart, there all passions, desires, reachings, aspirations,
(Do you think they are not there because they are not express’d
in parlors and lecture-rooms?)
This is not only one man, this the father of those who shall be fathers
in their turns,
In him the start of populous states and rich republics,
Of him countless immortal lives with countless embodiments and enjoyments.
How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring
through the centuries?
(Who might you find you have come from yourself,
if you could trace back through the centuries?)
8
A woman’s body at auction,
She too is not only herself, she is the teeming mother of mothers,
She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be mates to the mothers.
Have you ever loved the body of a woman?
Have you ever loved the body of a man?
Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all nations
and times all over the earth?
If anything is sacred the human body is sacred,
And the glory and sweet of a man is the token of manhood untainted,
And in man or woman a clean, strong, firm-fibred body, is more beautiful
than the most beautiful face.
Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body?
or the fool that corrupted her own live body?
For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves.
9
O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women,
nor the likes of the parts of you,
I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the soul,
(and that they are the soul,)
I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems,
and that they are my poems,
Man’s, woman’s, child, youth’s, wife’s, husband’s, mother’s, father’s,
young man’s, young woman’s poems,
Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears,
Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eyebrows, and the waking
or sleeping of the lids,
Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the jaw-hinges,
Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition,
Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck-slue,
Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind-shoulders,
and the ample side-round of the chest,
Upper-arm, armpit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm-bones,
Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger,
finger-joints, finger-nails,
Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast-side,
Ribs, belly, backbone, joints of the backbone,
Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and outward round,
man-balls, man-root,
Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above,
Leg-fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under-leg,
Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel;
All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your body
or of any one’s body, male or female,
The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and clean,
The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame,
Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity,
Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes from woman,
The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping,
love-looks, love-perturbations and risings,
The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud,
Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming,
Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and tightening,
The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes,
The skin, the sunburnt shade, freckles, hair,
The curious sympathy one feels when feeling with the hand
the naked meat of the body,
The circling rivers the breath, and breathing it in and out,
The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips,
and thence downward toward the knees,
The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the marrow
in the bones,
The exquisite realization of health;
O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul,
O I say now these are the soul!
Text for this adventure is from the Project Gutenberg.
The text was reformatted by Chamblee54.
“I sing the Body Electric” was written by Walt Whitman.
An audio version of this poem is available from Librivox.
Pictures from The Library of Congress.
Botched Journalism is Troubling
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Wars Are Not Won by Military Genius or Decisive Battles
The Hidden Queer History Behind “A League of Their Own”
New rules released for churches, mosques and synagogues to resume in-person worship
The B.E.E. Podcast – Memorial Day Freebie Episode – Roger Avary – Part 1
Is This the Blueprint for Sanders and AOC to Take Over the Democratic Party?
Police search for killer who gunned down man outside Gwinnett apartment unit
Shaun King Keeps Raising Money, and Questions About Where It Goes
Ronan Farrow’s Botched Journalism is Troubling. The Response to It Has Been Worse
Police arrest biological father after boy disappears from Brookhaven complex
intended to serve as a resource to white people to deepen our anti-racism work.
How New York Suffered Nearly 10 Times the Number of Deaths as California.
15-year-old arrested after man shot, killed during robbery attempt
Family mourns 60-year-old man killed during Baltimore weekend violence
Crews put out raging house fire near DeKalb-Peachtree Airport
Derek Chauvin, the man who killed George Floyd. Sickening.
Here is a video of Larry Kramer giving Anthony Fauci a piece of his mind.
Security Video Shows Events Leading Up To George Floyd’s Arrest
Atlanta couple followed home and shot in case of road rage, police say
Masks, testing are necessary to combat asymptomatic spread in aerosols, droplets
viral video shows him calling police on black entrepreneurs using building’s gym
Officer-involved Shooting Leaves Tallahassee Resident Dead
Lemon: Imagine how inaction impacts your friends of color
Police Kill Too Many People—White and Black
State guidelines ignored by prosecutors in Arbery death probe
Man killed in shootout with police in Gwinnett County; GBI investigating
Video Sheds Light on Hours Leading Up to Officer-Involved Shooting in Evans County
‘Watchmen’ Actress Frances Fisher: ‘They Want a Race War. We’ll Give Them a Race War’
BRIEF OF AMICI CURIAE FORMER FEDERAL DISTRICT COURT JURISTS …
Read Fine Print When It Comes to NDAs, Strict Confidentiality. Do Not Blindly Trust
Sports Bar Owner Weeps After Looters Destroy Business He Invested Life Savings Into
#MinneapolisRiot This isn’t even protesting anymore. Swear people go too far
KB Balla: Minneapolis Sports Bar Scores Destroyed in Riots
Surveillance video shows looters try to break into Midtown jewelry store after protests
To use a wheelchair without the footrests is bad practice
Atlanta Police chief is ready to ‘lock people up’ | Announces zero tolerance policy
old sayings ~ Derek M. Chauvin ~ 2 Tupelo farm ~ Larry Kramer ~ scofflaw ~ Coming Collapse
@ajvasel If you fall behind in a hotdog-eating contest, there’s only one thing you can do… ketchup. @ChrchCurmudgeon Only if you’ve mustered the strength to carry on. ~ A white woman has apologized after calling police on a black man and saying ‘there’s an African American man threatening my life’ ~ Larry Kramer made a 1993 tv appearance with Anthony Fauci. It is awesome to watch. ~ You must log in to this network before you access the internet ~ Ring of Ire! Johnny Cash’s daughter Rosanne is left outraged after one of her children is called a ‘liberal p****’ for wearing a face mask in Nashville store ~ @chamblee54 @JohnHMcWhorter “these are America’s least racist white people” @GlennLoury “except for subtle racism of their condescension and their soft bigotry of low expectations” #thingsidarenotpostonfacebook ~ Poems are from Leaves of Grass, Book V: Calamus By Walt Whitman, Born May 31, 1819, Text is courtesy of Project Gutenberg. Formatting of text, and pictures, by Chamblee 54 ~ The expression [the shit hits the fan] is related to, and may well derive from, an old joke. A man in a crowded bar needed to defecate but couldn’t find a bathroom, so he went upstairs and used a hole in the floor. Returning, he found everyone had gone except the bartender, who was cowering behind the bar. When the man asked what had happened, the bartender replied, ‘Where were you when the shit hit the fan?’ [Hugh Rawson, “Wicked Words,” 1989] ~ @TichinaSanders They done fucked up Daves Cheesesteak in Atlanta. Thats black owned who constantly gives back to his city they out there twerking in the middle of the streets and breaking into Gucci & Dior, the looters obviously dont have an agenda and just getting what they want. ~ @jasminecrowe Several black owned businesses lost everything last night in Atlanta. Including the amazing Dave’s Cheesesteaks and that just sucks. This man has been feeding a lot of hospital staff and people in general during COVID. I would like to donate to their rebuild fund share the links ~ Can we call a timeout on the word fascist? Most people who use it don’t know what they are talking about. ~ @chamblee54 Replying to @UncleHotep There was an incident at a Georgia high school. The team nickname was the Broncos. The tubas had cloth covers, that spelled out B R O N C O S. The tube players decide it would be fun the rearrange the tubs, so that it spelled COON. The tuba players decide it would be fun the rearrange the tubas, so that it spelled COON. ~ pictures today, on the first day of june,are from The Library of Congress. ~ selah
NFL Kneelers
The football players who won’t stand for the national anthem is the story that won’t go away. Few people have said exactly how this is going to prevent police from killing people. This slack blogger has said little about Kaepernickgate, but has had a thirty part series, Killed By Police. This series, like most factual reporting on police killings, is mostly ignored by the same people who are hysterical about NFL kneelers. It is a strange country we live in.
A theme in the modern meme mania is the notion that the protest is about police brutality, and not about the flag. Or something like that. While the original intent of the kneelers is to protest police killings, the result is to disrespect a display of patriotism. It should not be a surprise that many people feel the NFL protests are an insult to the United States. To say that the protests are about racism, and not the flag, is not right. The result of this well meaning gesture is to insult millions of patriotic Americans. Facebook rubs it in by saying it is your fault.
Blackface used to be a popular form of entertainment. If you were to ask the performers, they probably would have said that this was not intended to insult anybody, but just a way of having fun. That would have been the intent. The minstrels would have to be dumb not to have known that their performances were insulting to black people. Sometimes, your intention is not all that counts. You should consider how other people feel about your entertainment.
It is not known what these protests are going to accomplish. They will probably achieve as much as shutting down a freeway. Others say that the police killings are a symptom, rather than the disease. With millions of weapons in circulation, the police know that anyone they meet might try to kill them. With all that is demanded of police, they are going to make mistakes.
UPDATE The various attorneys worked out a settlement. Money changed hands. One of the attorneys issued a statement: “… The resolution of this matter is subject to a confidentiality agreement so there will be no further comment by any party.” Facebook users are, unfortunately, not bound by this agreement. This is a repost. Pictures today are fromThe Library of Congress.
Chamblee54 
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