Chamblee54

1002-0926 – Military Waste And Corruption, last week’s path journal, is now available wherever you get your nonsense. … The walk today went very well. I did 41:40, with no foot problems. The show was Starring Jean Harlow as Libby Holman (The Bisexuals, Part 3) on You Must Remember This. “While riding a crest of Broadway stardom – and in a serious romance with a woman – Libby is pursued by Zachary Smith Reynolds, the reckless, emotional teenage heir to the Camel tobacco fortune. Just months after their marriage, at the close of a drunken party, Reynolds is dead of a gunshot wound to the head. Was Libby responsible?” The scandal happy press had a good time with this story.
1003-1023 – The walk today was around the block. I went to the end of the street, over one block, and came back. The foot dizziness kicked in at the furthest distance possible from the house. The dizziness went away, and I walked for 1:05:28.
The first show was Colm Tóibín Reads Tobias Wolff on The New Yorker Fiction Podcast. An army lifer keeps having boyfriends, and somehow stays out of trouble. I may go back and try listening again, but this story was not working for me today.
The second story was Quincy Jones: True or False? His Wild Life and the Stories Behind His Wildest Claim on Disgraceland. Quincy Delight Jones Jr. was a talented producer and arranger. He was also a piece of work, with a lot of inconvenient opinions. This episode is mostly based on an interview that QDJ gave to GQ. This post will cut out the middleman, and quote from the source … unless the paywall gets in the way. Another problem is the nagging suspicion that QDJ is full of shit.
“When you’ve been a dog all your life, God gives you beautiful daughters and you have to suffer. … Frank (Sinatra) was always trying to hook me up with Marilyn Monroe, but Marilyn Monroe had a chest that looked like pears, man.” … GQ: “And then in the first proper meeting you had in Hollywood, the producer walked in, saw you, and walked out again?” QDJ: “Yes, he did. And he went back into the other room and said, ‘I didn’t know Quincy Jones was a Negro.’ Truman Capote, that motherfucker, he called [director] Richard Brooks up on In Cold Blood and said, ‘Richard, I don’t understand why you’ve got a Negro doing the music for a film with no people of color in it.’ And Richard Brooks said, ‘Fuck you, he’s doing the music.’ Richard was tough.” (Jake Brennan, the voice of Disgraceland, did a Truman Capote imitation when he told this story.)
“You think racism is bad now, you should try the ’30s, ’40s, ’50s, ’60s. Vegas in ’64 was fucked-up. That was why Frank had Mafia bodyguards for everybody in Basie’s band and me. Lena, Belafonte, Fats Domino, they used to play the main theater for $17,000 a week, used to have to eat in the kitchen. Couldn’t go in the casino. Had to go to a black hotel across town. In ’64! You can’t even imagine that. But if you’re black, that’s what you get used to in America.” … “No, I wouldn’t talk. Talk about what? I’ve seen him shooting in his testicles, man. Because heroin’s a strange drug. Ray (Charles) all of his veins were dried up and black, and he’s shooting himself in the testicles, man.”
“In early 1969, Steve McQueen called Jones and asked him to go and see a rough cut of Bullitt. Jones brought along his hairdresser, a man named Jay Sebring, and after the movie, they made plans for later that evening. “He said, ‘I’ll meet you at Sharon’s, because I’ve got some stuff for your hair,’ I was losing my hair.” But Jones didn’t go. “I forgot about it,” he says.” … Naturally, this was the night when Sebring and Sharon Tate were murdered by the Manson Gang. This is an awful lot of six degrees stuff, and some of it is tough to believe. “They say coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.”
The dgl episode discussed Michael Jackson stealing of songs on the albums QDJ produced. These comments were apparently in Vulture magazine, behind a paywall. “In an interview with Vulture in 2018, Jones stated, “I hate to get into this publicly, but Michael stole a lot of stuff … The notes don’t lie, man. He was as Machiavellian as they come.” … If QDJ was producing the records, wasn’t he a participant in this thievery?
1004-1009 – The walk today was wet. I did 38:00, with no foot dizziness. I was trying to have a headache, and passed on the canned entertainment. The shows will be there later. It was drizzling most of the walk, progressing to light rain on the last lap. My attempted headache felt better when I was through with my walk.
1005-1026 – Today’s walk was spent dodging black walnuts. It is the season for the obnoxious green grenades to fall out of the tree. I gathered a bucketfull before starting the walk. At the end of my first lap, there were three more on the ground. … The walk went smoothly. I did 1.10 miles in 40:50 with nuisance level dizziness.
The entertainment today was #27 Enemy: The Germans’ War, ep. 3 – The Fighting Man on The Martyr Made Podcast. Darryl Cooper is in top form, telling the story of Communist revolution in 1919 Bavaria. Germany, and the rest of Europe, was in bad shape after the end of the war.
The part I listened to today mainly dealt with the Bavarian Soviet Republic. In 1919, a group of Communists took over Bavaria. They were soon kicked out of power. There was a great deal of fighting and bloodshed. Many of the revolutionary leaders were Jewish, which caused its own set of problems. This is a greatly condensed version of what happened.
It was about this time that Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill got into the picture. As you may have heard, Darryl said that WLSC was the “real villain” of WW2. People who don’t like Darryl were quick to repeat this comment as loudly as possible. Ad Hominem attacks are an essential part of Hasbara. You criticize the Israeli war machine at your peril.
To quote from a previous chamblee54 piece: “Just a month before Hitler was discharged from the German Army, in March 1920, Winston Churchill had published that editorial … called ZIONISM versus BOLSHEVISM A STRUGGLE FOR THE SOUL OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE. … “the international Jews were engaged in quote a worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization. There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creation of Bolshevism and in the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution by these International and for the most part atheistical Jews.” … WLSC would go on to be a fervent supporter of Zionism, and opponent of Communism. “… as colonial secretary in the 1920s, Churchill took steps that enabled 300,000 Jews to emigrate to Palestine … As prime minister, in 1941, he proclaimed that “I was one of the authors” of Zionist policy. Indeed, among the lengthy catalogue of criticisms of Churchill was that “He was too fond of Jews.”
1006-1026 – The walk today was picking up. I did 1.72 miles in 55:35. I went one of the routes around the block, with a detour to the railroad tracks. I saw some trash on the road, and picked it up. You can wish into a bag, or you can pick up trash, and put it in another bag. Which bag will get full first?
The show today was more of #27 Enemy: The Germans’ War, ep. 3 – The Fighting Man on The Martyr Made Podcast. Darryl is talking about what is left of the German Army in 1920. They are putting down Communist forces in Bavaria and Latvia. The woman you show mercy to is likely to kill you. After a while, the soldiers respond accordingly.
0930 – The walk today was the first one of the fall where I wore long pants. I am going to miss all those cargo shorts pockets. I walked for 36:00 with no foot dizziness. The show was Episode 326: The Case That’s Shaking Cornell—and the Internet on Blocked and Reported. Jesse and Katie were talking about the Cornell Seven. I soon realized that I was no longer interested in that topic.
1008-1044 – Today’s walk was not as long as it could have been. My feet were working great, but I had to cut the walk short after 37:00 to take my brother to the grocery store. The first podcast was 329: Does Claude Have Charisma? on Conspirituality. Conspirituality is a great name for a show. It turned out to be debunking of alternative ideas. I would like to know who is financing Conspirituality. I only listened to 13 minutes, including the many commercials.
The second show was EP:64 – The Permanent Crisis on Darryl Cooper & Scott Horton – Provoked. Scott and Darryl are just talking shit, which is not their best work.
DC: “One thing that pisses me off about terrorists is they ruin everything good. … I was reading about all the radicals back in the 60s. The first ones who started bombing buildings like the weathermen, you know how they got their dynamite? They went down to a construction supply store and said, “Sir, I’d like a crate of dynamite.” And they’re like, “Oh, sure. Here you go.” And they just drove home with a crate of dynamite. We could have had crates of dynamite like over the counter if it wasn’t for those guys. They just ruin everything.”
When I am on the path, I use Samsung notes to dictate comments. It turns out that my dollar store earbuds have a lousy microphone. The device had another problem, which I noticed today. If you click on a button, you get a spanish keyboard, instead of the english one. It turns out that if the device is set for spanish typing, your dictated notes will be in the spanish alphabet, which is really weird. “The Horn of Africa is ready to explode” came out as “The horno de África se ve tu explode.”
For more information about my morning walk, please read The Path Journal. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the social media pictures in November 1941. “ Boyd Jones eating his breakfast, Greene County, Georgia” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah

0918-1036 – Cultural Revolution, the path journal from last week, is up. The walk today was a new week. I did 50:05, with no foot dizziness. The first show was the rest of Vicki Lawrence on The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan. … WPC: “Well, thank you so much. Hope you had a good time.” VL: “Thank you. That was quick and easy. Its not like going to the dentist at all.”
The second show was Who Gets to Tell the Story? on What’s Ray Saying. Dr. Ray Christian is a Black man, with a lot of stories to tell. Ray discussed the question, who decides how Black people’s stories are told? Ultimately, it comes down to money and power. The people who have capital, and want a return on their investment, decide what stories are told.
0919-1109 – The walk today was perfunctory. It was another blah day, where I did 38:20 because I was supposed to. I did feel better when it was over, and my feet performed well. The first show was Why’s everybody going to Japan? on Search Engine. Tourists are going to Japan on vacation, and this show talked about it. After that got boring, I listened to Ed Asner on Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast. Eddie Asner (wikipedia verified birth name) is a Jewish man who played Santa Claus. Gilbert cackled a lot. We learned that Santa has jock itch.
0920-1035 – The walk today was overcast. I did 51:15, with no foot problems. The story was Sarah Anderson Reads “Dark Horse” on The New Yorker: The Writer’s Voice. The first line of the story: “In my mind, my father is fucking the horse again.” The tale goes downhill from that point. To be fair to Daddy, the story is told by the Daughter, who has a few screws loose herself. Whether Daddy and Claudia … the horse, named for Claudia Schiffer … ever actually did the deed is not known.
0921-1027 – The walk today was linear. I did 1.51 miles in 49:12, with no foot problems. The show today was Episode 324: Free Speech, Free Palestine, Free Macklemore, Free Ed Sheeran, Free Hobo Johnson, Free Podcast on Blocked and Reported. Catherine Ronan Herzog and Jesse Richard Singal were talking about current events, and said some stupid things. JRS: “I just think that makes it sort of difficult to allow for harsh criticism of Israel and people should be allowed to criticize Israel harshly.” RCH: “This is even if you don’t think that Israel has committed genocide, which I don’t. That’s not a word that I use. It’s a war, a war that was started by the other side.”
One of the major problems in these conflicts is rhetoric and propaganda. You can make an argument for anything. Whether it is true, or relevant, does not matter. The ongoing argument about the g-word (Genocide, not God) is just one more distraction. For the record, I don’t like the g-word either. I prefer war crimes, terrorism, atrocity, industrial scale homicide … the list is a thesaurus away.
Recent revelations about the Lavender program make this point even clearer. Israel is collecting data on Gaza residents, and scoring them on the likelihood of Hamas involvement. Israel then bombs the residences of suspected Hamas members, and kills the women and children at the same time. Maybe you can add moral abomination to the list of crimes perpetrated by Israel. … If Israel is so good at monitoring the lives of Gaza residents, why were they surprised on October 7?
CRH: “And I think that in liberal circles, the kind of circles that you’re in …” Nitpickers will say that she meant you’re in, but since Katie is an apologist for the atrocity-happy Netanyahu regime, I am going to go with urine. … CRH: “One thing that I do appreciate about what he did in addition to taking his million dollars and putting it towards building more Hamas tunnels …”
0922-1036 The walk today was an equinox. Summer is FINALLY over, at least on the calendar. I did 48:00 with no foot dizziness. The show today was EP:62 – Special Guest: Bill Buppert, on Iran on Darryl Cooper & Scott Horton – Provoked. Darryl and Scott sometimes have guests to relieve the repetition. Mr. Buppert talks about how having too much oil money spoiled Saudi Arabia, resulting in a lousy army. … Darryl talks about this one ship that everyone praised, until their air defenses went kaput. It turns out that nobody knew how to maintain the equipment, but told superiors that they did. Meanwhile, SH adds “I think we’re all probably better off if I butt out of this conversation.”
0923-0811 The walk this morning was a level playing field. I had to take Mac to the marta station, and decided to walk in that neighborhood. This first order of business was the men’s room at walmart. After that, I took a level path for a couple of blocks. A level surface of wood and concrete is dramatically different from my normal rough path on a hill. As a result, I did 1.62 miles in 48:24.
The first show today was the last part of EP:62 – Special Guest: Bill Buppert, on Iran on Darryl Cooper & Scott Horton – Provoked. Stories of military waste and corruption never grow old.
BB: “Darryl, every year that general officer would come to Kabul to take over Afghanistan. He’d stand there with his hands on his hips and say, “I’ve got this.” And the only thing he’s got is his dick in his hand and he’s going to slam it into the cash register at the end of the year.” DC: “Let’s leave everybody with that image. I gotta go feed my chickens, and do some harvesting before it gets dark.”
The second show was Who Killed Roxanne? How a podcast helped solve a 44-year-old Louisiana murder on Gone South. A team of detectives and journalists were trying to solve a 40 year old case in Covington LA. As one segment came to a halt, the announcer said everyone involved was trying to get justice for Roxanne Sharp. The next thing you heard was an ad for Chumba Casino.
0928-1032 I was at a spirituality retreat from Wednesday to Sunday last week, and am getting acclimated to Georgia again. I was uncertain how the walk would go, but did 43:41 with no foot dizziness. There were no foot problems over the weekend, but my right knee got wound up in some positions that made me worry. The knee is doing fine today. Maybe I just need to let go, and quit worrying so much … famous last words.
The first podcast today was The Back Row on The Truth. You never know what to expect with a short story. The Truth has actors playing parts, instead of the omniscient author voice reading the script. This story was fun before the commercials, and became less interesting after the first lap.
The second show today was Episode 325: What’s The Matter With Seattle? on Blocked and Reported.” Jesse was absent, and Katie talked to two men from the Seattle media world. Katie refrained from saying things that piss me off. (see 0921 above) The show was fun to listen to.
0929-1119 – It was a great day for walking. I did 1.79 miles in 55:08, with no foot problems. My car is in the shop for routine maintenance, and I walked up to the old location of the garage. The show today was EP:63 – AQ at the UN on Darryl Cooper & Scott Horton – Provoked. It was just SH and DC, and they really didn’t say much new. DC just released a new episode, #27 Enemy: The Germans’ War, pt. 3 – The Fighting Man. I am morally obligated to listen. Just what I need … a five hour show, while the other shows I follow pile up. … The only problem with my walk was the reading glasses, in my pants pocket, breaking in half. Dollar store reading glasses are the best part of cataract surgery.
SH: “I’m really a bircher at heart on this stuff. I’m perfectly fine with getting out of the UN altogether.” Part of the hasbara process is demonizing anyone who does not support Israel slaughtering her neighbors. This is what is behind the trash talk about “amateur historian” Darryl Cooper. But then you hear quotes like this, and realize that Scott and Darryl might be, at least partially, serious right wingers. … The stuff SH and DC are putting out about the USA/IDF war machine is terrific. That does not change the fact there are a lot of things I disagree with them on. I probably would have hated SH and DC forty years ago.
DC: “A while back I was blasting on my noise cancelling headphones as I was doing something around the house. And I like to sing. I’m a terrible singer, but I like to do it. And I didn’t know my wife was standing right behind me doing something. And I’m singing this song in like a low guttural growl. I say “ he preaches salvation in the loins of women.” And she’s like, “What is going on here?” Singing with headphones on is a bad idea.
0930-1214 The walk went well. We are getting into the season where the late mornings are not as horribly hot. I walked for 48:56, with nuisance level dizziness on early laps. The show today was The Pet Cemetery Murders: Part 1 on Gone South. Dorothy Thompson owned a pet cemetery. She was also a piece of work, who was rumored to have killed several of her husbands. When it came Dorothy’s time to die, the body was found in Plaquemines Parish, the southernmost point of the Mississippi River. Corpses routinely turn up in the River there.
1001-1027 The walk today was cloudy. I did 44:00, with nuisance level dizziness. The show was The Pet Cemetery Murders: Part 2 on Gone South. The story of the Louisiana pet cemetery came to its homicidal conclusion. During a commercial break, a lady said “I only met Rick once, and he totally changed my life.” We were then invited to vote for Rick Jackson for Governor.
For more information on my walking habit, read The Path Journal. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Marion Post Wolcott took the social media picture in March 1940. “Hired helpresting after day’s work on Upwey horse farm, South Woodstock, Vermont”
©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah

0911 – Canned Entertainment Product the 911 edition of the path journal, is now available. … The walk today happened before the heat set in. I went out Thursday night, drank a cup of coffee, ate a big mac, and stayed up past midnight. This is a wild night for me. When my feet felt dizzy early on today, I realized that there might be some payback. Fortunately, the dizziness never got worse, and I finished 43 minutes without too much drama.
The audio content today was How Did Tom Freston Turn MTV Into a Cultural Revolution? on Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin. Thomas E. Freston has a lot of stories to tell, some of which are true. TEF talked to the right people at the right time, and helped create MTV.
I saw some pioneer MTV. In early 1982, I shared an apartment with three people, five snakes, a cat, and a ferret. MTV was on the rent-by-the-week tv a lot. One of the humans was a Journey fan, who would scream “turn it up” every time one of their videos came on.
TEF: “They gave me all this research one weekend to read. It divided America into three categories of toilet paper users. Rollers, folders, and crumplers. And all this analytic stuff about the cycle was crazy. And of course, we’re going after the crumplers because they use the most. They use the most, and they go more often. And those people live in cities. I’m thinking my neighbors in this building are probably all crumplers.” … TEF: “We had the worst dressed group of people going in and out of any Manhattan office building you could imagine. People saying, “What’s going on?” No suits. No suits. The only dress code rule we had was no frontal nudity.”
TEF: “The idea that we would be experimental is not something you would see at a broadcast network. In fairness to them, they had a big legacy business and they couldn’t just operate sort of like we did, off-the-cuff and improvise so much. Because they had to keep their business growing year by year. If they had things that work they had to continue to build on those, and very strategically build another one. So they were a lot more deliberate. I’d say we had more of a Bebop culture and they were more like a classical orchestra.”
0912-0828 – The walk today was strange. I did 12 minutes, and may do more later. It was raining. My rain gear was inadequate. I was listening to She Killed the Man Who Almost Killed Her: The Jema Heffernan Story, Part 2 on Gone South. I was getting into the story, when the phone switched to a man talking about woodworking. I don’t know if it was the phone, or the earbuds, but I couldn’t look at it right away because I was holding an umbrella. In a synchronistic turn, a similar mishap occurred September 12, 2024. In those days, 3 laps on the “outdoor treadmill” was a good workout.
0912-1746 – Later in the day, the sun turned the morning rain into humidity. I did 42 minutes on the path, with nuisance level dizziness on early laps. The podcast was Introducing Death of an Artist Season 3: Petra Mathers and Her Michael. These two artists in Astoria OR decide to commit suicide at the same time. I made an effort to listen to the entire show … thank satan for the ability to fast-forward through commercials. At the end, I found out there was a series devoted to Petra Mathers.
I found a piece of trash on the path, and decided to go put it in the school dumpster. I found a wooden meter stick while I was there. It was 39.37” long, with 100 centimeters marked off. A meter stick is a cool thing to have, and almost completely useless.
0913-1005 – The walk today did not take place in a church. I did 39:00, with minimal foot dizziness. The entertainment today was Queen: Will the Real Freddie Mercury Please Stand Up? on Disgraceland. The line between fantasy and reality is intentionally blurry. This was especially true for Queen, who started one of their hits by saying “Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality.”
0914-1038 – The walk today was detergent. I did laundry today, and after I got through hanging it out to dry the heat was kicking in. I managed to finish 36 minutes with no dizziness. The show today was Episode 323: The Social Justice Mayor Vs The Social Justice Non-Profit on Blocked and Reported.
Jesse and Katie were reading comments about a problematic bar in Massachusetts. “Read this> … Other Yankee yak from Hampshire College. Played a gig there and got 100% racially profiled by a lesbian who looked like the Twinkie from Sausage Park. … I don’t know what that is, but I like it … because Sausage Party was, I believe, a Seth Rogan vehicle involving Pixar style animation of the contents of a fridge.”
0915-0901 – The walk today was the early bird getting the worm. I did 44 minutes, with no foot problems. The entertainment was EP:61 The Terror Wars Rage On on Darryl Cooper & Scott Horton – Provoked. The Bibi wars have always been discouraging. I only want to hear about them so much.
0916-0941 – The walk today was neo military. Instead of walking on the path, I walked up to The 57th Fighter Group, a neighborhood landmark. I walked back through the Ashford Forest Preserve. My score was 2.41 miles in 1:23:18, with no foot dizziness.
There were 3 shows today. The first was David Crosby: The Folk Singer Who Became an FBI Fugitive on Disgraceland. David Van Cortlandt Crosby was one of the wildest rock and roll animals. Unfortunately, the show was a bit disappointing. It covered some hairy stories, most of which I had heard before. The show finishes as DVCC is going to prison. I have written about DVCC. 102909 082114 080215 101115 012023 010226
The second show was How I “Failed” at OnlyFans on Death, Sex & Money. It kicked in while I was in the parking lot at The 57th, near a magnolia tree fighting kudzu. The show was about “Anna Blake.” She had a difficult childhood, and started an onlyfans account to get a step ahead. The show was not very interesting. I left when DSM was starting one of their notorious seven minute commercial breaks.
“So you’re thinking about starting an OF. Don’t. You will fail. I’ve had an OF for almost five years now. I’m pushing 30 and very much still broke. Please listen to me. I’m a mattress actress and a part of my job is commodifying my sexuality.” … Commodify is a strange word. Is commodify pronounced kuh-MOD-uh-fahy, to make something a commodity? Or is commodify kuh-MOWD-uh-fahy, where you make something a commode? With commercial sexuality, both meanings could apply.
The third show was Tristan Harris on the Anthropic Whistleblower, Elon Musk, and Avoiding AI Catastrophe on Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso. The topic was the ethics of AI, which might be an oxymoron. Several things were explained in a way I had never heard before.
TH: “The large language models which basically was learning to treat everything as a language.” … SF: “You’ve also described AI as basically like taking steroids if the steroids gave you organ failure. TH: “Yeah, this is an important metaphor.”
TH: “The cancer drugs don’t prevent the biological weapons, but the biological weapons can undermine the world that can sustain and reproduce the cancer drugs.” SF: “You often say that you can’t separate the promise from the peril of AI. What does that mean?” TH: “Well, a lot of people they hear all this and they’re just like, “Okay, why can’t we just not do the bad AI? Let’s just do the good AI and just focus on that.” But the promise and the peril are inextricably linked.”
0917-0942 The walk today was fabulous. The weather was cooler, I walked for 50:06 with no foot dizziness. The first podcast was The Four Mrs Wilsons: The Spy Thriller Author with a Real Life to Match on Chameleon. It got boring after a couple of laps, and I switched to Vicki Lawrence on The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan. This show was so much fun. The former Vicki Ann Axelrad has stories about working with Carol Burnett, who always stopped working at 3 pm so she could have dinner at home with her kids. … VL “Doing the show was so much fun. I mean, we really never I don’t remember ever having a stressful day. … We just had a good time cuz that’s what Carol was about. … I really think it really does trickle down from the top. However that person behaves, that’s the way the company runs. … Harvey used to tell me all the time, this doesn’t happen in real showbiz, Vic.”
For more information about my walking problem, please see The Path Journal. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the social media picture in September 1937. Children of Olaf Fugelberg waiting for dinner. Williams County, North Dakota.
©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah

0904-0904 – 1473 words about last weeks walking, Truth Greater Than Reality, is now available wherever you get your reading material. … The walk today was on time. It lasted 38 minutes, with no foot dizziness. I was joined by a friend, who surprised me by showing up at 8 am. She had to “take the better part of valor” after 20 minutes, leaving me to do the last three laps by myself. It was nice to enjoy the path without the canned entertainment funnelling through my ears.
0905-1044 – This was not a good day. I got a late start, and the heat caught up with me. The two podcasts I listened to were boring. I wound up listening to music, and did my 36 minutes.
0906-0934 – The walk today was a return to form. I got out early enough to beat the heat. The feet were not dizzy, even if the right knee was objecting. The two podcasts were nourishing. Sometimes God/Allah/Satan/FSM is good to me.
The first show was Hisham Matar Reads ”New Shoes” on The New Yorker: The Writer’s Voice. TNY has been on a roll lately. It is only a matter of time before they have a story that stinks. Today’s episode was about a man from Cairo who lives in London. He misses his family, and goes home once a year to see them, always dressing to kill. The man … I don’t think we ever hear his name … buys a pair of shoes for £800, and feels guilty about it.
Sometimes a story allows you to peek into another life. Suddenly, Cairo is more than a spot on a map with an eight digit population. Meanwhile, I am walking back and forth on the path, watching the sunshine dripping through the leaves.
The second show was EP:60 – Soviet America on Darryl Cooper & Scott Horton – Provoked. DC & SH discussed the recent debate between Dave Smith and Alan Morton Dershowitz. Octogenarian AMD was talking about ww2, which is like me talking about Vietnam. Both conflicts were over before Darryl was born in 1981. We might as well be talking about the Napoleonic wars.
DC: “I don’t do debates, because I know I am not good at them. …. I’m just not built for debates. I’m coming off the top of my head. … I avoid them. I just don’t like doing them because I’m afraid that I won’t adequately represent an issue that I care about.”
There is a difference between wisdom and clever bullshit. So much of today’s discourse is duelling rhetoric, with both sides preaching to the choir. Darryl’s strength is thoroughly researched history. If you do history correctly, you will see both good and bad things on both sides.
DC: “He needs to thank Dershowitz for waiting, until everybody knows this war has been a complete and total disaster, to debate you on it.” Actually, Bibi’s dream war is only a 30% disaster at this point. I shudder to think what the complete version will look like.
0907-1009 – The walk today was overcast. The cloud cover is a welcome change from sun bombing. I did 1.88 miles in 1:00:35, with no foot dizziness. The show was the rest of EP:60 – Soviet America on Darryl Cooper & Scott Horton – Provoked. Part two was not as entertaining as yesterday. Scott was talking about the Oklahoma City bombing. You can only be interested in so many things.
The utter insanity of sending a million US troops into Iran was discussed. Especially for a war where the “Secretary of State says we only got into because Israel was about to attack, and Israel peaced out months ago. Like they peaced out and we’re still fighting their war for them.”
Scott sells bumper stickers. “I got all these great stickers and they’re for sale. Just go to libertystickers dot com. Like for example this great one, Lockheed Martin. Every time Israel kills a child, we make 50 bucks. Then you could drive around, and show people that in traffic, and make them mad at you.” The Lockheed plant in Marietta is a large employer in Georgia. That’s a lot of people to have mad at you.
0908-0915 – The lawn was cut today. There was no walk.
0909-0900 – The walk today was retroactive. I felt mild dizziness at the start of the first lap, and thought this might be a bad day. As it happened, there was mild dizziness for a couple of laps, and a sense of general unwellness. It never got any worse, and I finished the 36 minutes.
On the day after labor day 2024, I had a horrible walk. The night before, I walked around Little 5 Points, and felt great. On Tuesday, I had felt brain fog all day. The foot dizziness had been very bad in spring and early summer, but seemed to be getting better. On this day, the dizziness got very bad after about .4 miles. I decided to cross a road, but my legs gave out under me and I fell. I made it back home, fell again in the front yard, and realized that I had a problem.
The first show was A View To Deceive: An Artist Goes Undercover To Expose The Uber Rich on Chameleon. “While posing as an apartment-hunting Hungarian billionaire, Andi Schmied accessed and documented Manhattan’s most exclusive high-rise properties.” Once the agent left for a minute, she would take pictures of the view for an art book.
Chameleon ran an ad today for Crimes Of Reddit with Sabrina Deana-Roga & Alexis Linkletter. I downloaded an episode, and will see how it goes. I don’t really need to be following another podcast, but free content exists. The scarce commodity in this equation is my listening time. … I listened to CORWSD&AL Thursday night. I am unlikely to download any more episodes.
The second show was Nick Offerman on Talk Easy. I had about 10 minutes when the first show ended. I decided to listen to Nicholas David Offerman, an actor I didn’t know, talking to Sam Fragoso, a podcaster with no middle name. The conversation was fun to listen to, with two intelligent men speaking in an atmosphere of friendliness and respect.
NDO “That’s why libertarianism can never work. Like on paper, the ideas are great, but it’s going to just lead to anarchy, because everyone is then open to interpret things. and whoever has the most guns ends up winning. And that’s a dumb idea.”
NDO: “If you’re wearing that (MAGA) hat, we think you’re announcing that you’re racist. Like, the world thinks you’re evil. Like, you’re announcing that you’re down with the Nazis.” … SF: “You saying, “I bet you are a good person to the people who don a MAGA hat.” I can hear them going, “Who are you to determine that I’m a good person?”
NDO: “It was really weird to wear a MAGA hat for a role. It was really upsetting. I was in Savannah, Georgia, and when I would step outside between takes, I would put a Cubs hat on over the MAGA hat. I didn’t even want to imagine somebody across the street getting a picture of me.”
0910 – Today’s walk was 44:26 of the escalation/de-escalation cycle. The feet were well behaved. The entertainment was the rest of Nick Offerman on Talk Easy.
NDO admired Wendell Erdman Berry, who died between the taping of this show, and the broadcast. NDO read “Questionnaire,” a poem WEB wrote. NDO read the second verse twice.
NDO: “I was going to preface it by saying, I was going to write a joke about this, but Ben Shapiro questioned my masculinity, and I can’t write a better joke than that.” … SF: “I was thinking about Shapiro’s comment about masculinity in the bathroom.”
NDO: “It brings to mind Leonard Cohen’s wonderful lyric, the rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor. Because I’m very aware that I am wealthy, and on those channels, and also infuriated by those channels at the moment. At the moment I have to subscribe to five [ __ ] channels to watch the Cubs. If I want to see every Cubs game, I need to subscribe to at least three or four channels.” This is a first world problem.
For more information about my walking problem, please read The Path Journal. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the social media photograph in November 1941. The image shown today is a detail. “Mr. and Mrs. W.T. Hembry, he is a worker at the Mary Leila textile mill in their company house in Greensboro, Greene County, Georgia”
©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah

0821-0914 – The path journal from last week is available. … The walk today was perineal. I did the standard 36 minutes, with nuisance level dizziness. The show today was EP-24 Manifesting the Muse with Rick on aHardcore History Addendum episode released February 14, 2023. Frederick Jay Rubin was talking to Daniel L. Carlin, who said “I have some weird interests like you do.”
0822-0936 – The walk today was different. Instead of walking laps on the path, I went to one end of the street, turned around, went to the other end, turned around, and went home. It was a 1.29 mile journey in 41:54. The entertainment was The Rise and Fall of Jacklean Davis, New Orleans’ First Black Female Homicide Detective on Gone South. Jacklean Davis was a police detective in New Orleans. She got in a dispute with a promoter, and wound up in prison. After her release, she said prison wasn’t all that bad.
0823-0922 – The walk today was terminal. I did 51 minutes with no foot problems. My head made up for it by worrying about things that happened 27 years ago. The entertainment was The Continuing Fallout of the Coldplay Kiss Cam on Infamous. A woman was caught kissing her boss on a stadium kiss cam. The woman said it was the first time they kissed.
0824 – The walk today was not interrupted by violence. I did 44:20 with no foot problems. The earbud chatter was Episode 320: Jessica Taylor’s Tattle Battle (Part 1) on Blocked and Reported. @jessesingal is facing a book deadline, and his reaction is to join in as many twitter fights as possible. The one they talked about on this episode was Jason Arday … a controversy that will be forgotten as soon as the next shiny object appears.
Jesse continued … “I don’t know why this activates me so much. I think it’s cuz I love journalism, and I have a lot of respect for actual journalists. We do get [ __ ] on by everyone on all [ __ ] sides, because no one actually likes journalists unless we’re jerking them off, or jerking off their own opinions. But like, go [ __ ] yourself.”
Katie made a comment. I don’t remember who compared Arday to Rachel Dolezal. I think that’s a really apt comparison. I don’t think if Rachel Dolezal had killed herself, people would have been talking about too much media coverage of that story.” … The Arday – Dolezal comparison deserves a bit of thought. Whatever you think about Jason Atta Kwei Arday, you have to admit that his dreadlocks were attractive and well maintained. OTOH, the hair of Rachel Anne Dolezal (now known as Nkechi Amare Diallo) is tonsorial terrorism.
0825-1009 – This commentary is beginning at 10:09:35. This is the standard time for watches in advertising photos. The walk lasted 49:13/1.61 miles. I went by the railroad tracks twice, and there were no rail cars with graffiti either time. The entertainment was Episode 320: Jessica Taylor’s Tattle Battle (Part 1) on Blocked and Reported. Jessica is an English lady who gets in trouble for saying tacky things. “At one point, she got dogpiled for complaining that Mattel’s autistic Barbie was too pretty.”
JRS was talking about Jessica Taylor opinions: “Schizophrenia is one of the most highly and commonly contested quote unquote disorders of them all, and will likely be totally retheorized in coming years. It has a long and complex history with racism and oppression, and I don’t believe it exists. She keeps doing this thing … it has a long and complex history with racism and oppression. Sure. Which mental health condition doesn’t.”
JRS: “One woman in particular was called Amy. She was in her early 20s when she told me that her parents and local priests had raped and abused her for years, deliberately got her pregnant, and then carried out abortions as ritual sacrifices to Satan.” Some people just like to have a good time.
JRS: There’s a controversy with this Substacker who’s like a genuine Nazi now, after sort of flirting at the edges of it for a while. CRH: Oh, Darryl Cooper. … your other hyper focus of the week.” … JRS has a problem with Darryl Cooper. I have no idea how this surfaced, but it came up shortly after JRS quit whining about Hasan Piker. Both Cooper and Piker are critics of Israel’s war crimes. The Singal/Cooper love fest probably will not amount to anything, but it does make me lose respect for JRS.
0826-1116 – The walk today was republican. It lasted 36 minutes, with no foot problems. The entertainment for the first part of the walk was Billy Strings on This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von. They talked about getting in fights. “You know nature’s violent. … Hand to hand combat is like one of the oldest things there is. It’s the most … natural thing you can do sometimes. Even though, you know, I’m not like all about violence or whatever.”
The fisticuffs talk got old, and I switched to Colonel Dixie: The Murder of Liz Leverett on Gone South. A fast food tycoon paid to have his wife killed. He almost got away with it. People got caught doing other things, and ratted him out.
0827-1244 – The walk today was merchandise. Instead of walking on the path, I did two laps around Perimeter Mall. I went counter clockwise on the lower level, clockwise on the upper level. It took 1:00:22 to do 1.54 miles, with a 21’ gain in elevation.
The podcast today was How Did Roger Avary Write Pulp Fiction? on Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin. Roger Roberts Avary is a movie industry player, who enjoyed some success. Then RRA killed someone in an auto accident. The time in prison gave him something to talk about.
On today’s show, RRA began to talk about his spiritual ideas, while I was walking through the temple of mammon. As someone wiser than myself said, “The average persons speculation about consciousness…has “the stink but not the weight of his turd.” About this time, I walked by a business selling G1FTED BY GOD t-shirts. The third commandment might have something to say about this.
For more information about my walking problem, read The Path Journal. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Arthur Rothstein took the social media picture in September 1942. “Cass Lake, near Pontiac, Michigan. Mrs. Westerberg lighting a match for her husband’s pipe as he relaxes after a day at the Johansson gauge division of the Ford Motor Company where he is foreman of the rough stock department” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah

0814-0951 – Last week’s path journal, The Tyranny Of Words, is now available. Today’s walk was respectable. After a few days with no foot problems, there was some mild dizziness. I did the standard 36 minutes, with heat increasing by the minute. The commentary today was Peter Asher on The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan. PA (no middle name) was part of Peter and Gordon, onetime bf-inlaw of Paul McCartney, and an all purpose music industry actor. He had some good stories.
“PA: “It took me a while to like Bob Dylan because I thought, who is this guy who wants to sound like Woody Guthrie? Cuz I was a big Woody Guthrie fan. I first saw Dylan in that light and later it dawned on me that songs he was writing were of a different caliber. But his singing put me off for a while.”
WPC: “Uh, how does that work when your sister goes to your mom and your dad and says, “Hey, by the way, the the Beatle wants to move in.” PA: “Well, my mother actually offered him the guest room, because he was hanging around a lot. I mean, he would come to dinner” … WPC: “This is early like 63, 64. …They’re getting there, but they’re not like what they became.” PA: “It’s sort of love me do time.”
Paul McCartney was staying in a spare bedroom at the Asher house. Mrs. Asher had a music room in the basement. And she said to Paul, “If you ever needed a piano, he could use the piano in that room, which was a small upright piano.” And he did quite often. And on this particular day, John Lennon came over. … They went down to this basement room and after a couple of hours, I guess, called upstairs to see who was around, and asked if I wanted to come hear the song they had just finished.” The song was “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”
PA: “We played the World’s Fair in New York. We played the Unisphere, or whatever they called it. … We had a moat filled with water around the stage. And the police were going, “Oh, don’t worry, we got this all under control. … The minute we came on, all the screaming girls jumped in the moat and swam across to the stage and jumped out on the stage. So, it was incredibly exciting. It was like an early version of a wet t-shirt contest.”
0815-0855 – Today’s walk was without adjectival description. There was mild dizziness, which wore off completely. I walked 1.47 miles in 49:26. I went by the place where I noted an ATT wire on the sidewalk. The wire has been removed.
The entertainment was What Is There To Say About Ariana Grande? on Infamous. Ariana Grande-Butera is an entertainer I have not followed. That said, the show today kept my interest for a half hour. It turns out there have been incidents. There was the donut licking incident, and the suicide bomber at a concert. The two incidents were not connected.
0816-0913 – The walk today was ideologically successful. I did 44 minutes with mild dizziness on the first couple of laps. The show today was EP-01 Imperial Germany vs Nazi Germany on Hardcore History Addendum. Daniel L. Carlin compared the German Army of WW1 to the Wehrmacht of WW2. To DLC, the problem with Hitler’s armies was putting ideology over competence. Many people see this problem today with the military industrial complex. This episode was released October 19, 2017. It may have been intentional when DLC said “ideology trumps merit” for the Wehrmacht.
“The military dictatorship of Germany was able to isolate and quarantine the Kaiser himself, the imperial warlord of Germany. Sit in the corner, play with your maps and your ships, we have a war to conduct. Who’s gonna do that in the Second World War? Who’s gonna cordon off Hitler, and quarantine Hitler from his bad decisions being transmitted to the military? Nobody, because it’s an ideological state. The ideology plays as large a role, or a larger role in everything. Ideology by the way is absolutely key for understanding the second world war at all.”
0817-1030 The walk today was muggy. The dog days of summer are barking. It is hot, with no rain to moderate the carnage. The wind forgot to blow. This might be a problem today. I am doing laundry, and drying the clothes outside. Wind is what dries laundry. Fortunately, I can leave the clothes up as long as I like, which may be tomorrow morning.
The first show today was Madhuri Vijay Reads “Hidden Life” on The New Yorker: The Writer’s Voice. The story was set in India. A young lady is sent to live with an elderly aunt. A cousin, and an old friend of the aunt, play co-starring roles. It should be boring, but was actually fun to listen to.
The second show was Episode 319: If You Haven’t Seen Woke 1, This Episode Won’t Make Much Sense To You on Blocked and Reported. The episode was being recorded when news arrived about Jason Atta Kwei Arday’s death. His demise is assumed to be suicide. This video presents another scenario for the dreadlock toting JAKA. A man, with enormous unkempt dreadlocks, goes to a barber to have them cut off. Soon, the man screams in pain, goes home, and dies. There were black widow spiders living in the dreadlocks, which did not like having their home disturbed.
Later, during a discussion about Woke 1.0, we had this exchange between Catherine Ronan Herzog and Jesse Richard Singal. JRC: “I just think if you were very loudly proclaiming a certain belief not long ago, you should defend your original belief, or explain why you changed your mind, or basically do anything but what a lot of these folks are doing.” CRH: “It shows very little commitment to a value.” JRC: “You’re saying politicians don’t always have strong principles.” CRH: “I think I think maybe I’m saying that. Am I the first person to come up with that?” JRC: “Possibly.”
0818-0913 – The walk today was soporific. The heat is on the way, but I got done early. I did 48:00, with no foot dizziness. The entertainment was EP:58 – Netanyahu Jerks Trump’s Chain on Provoked. This was a good show. Darryl is a former DOD contractor specializing in air defense, so he knows a thing or two. One theme of the show was how screwed we are in Iran, part 420.
0819-0919 – Today was lawn cutting day. The summer is winding down, and this will not need to be done too much more. In December, the lawn will be cut, and the fallen leaves ground up. As usual with the lawn, there was no dizziness.
0820 – The walk today was tubular. I did 47:30 with no foot trouble. I cut out an exposed root. It was on the ground, waiting for someone to trip over it. The show today was EP-24 Manifesting the Muse with Rick on a Hardcore History Addendum episode released February 14, 2023. Frederick Jay “Rick” Rubin was talking to Daniel L. Carlin. FJR is a joy to listen to, with his soothing voice and insights into the human condition. There are tons of quotes, each one of which I could write a term paper about. It will be a problem to sort out the thoughts inspired by this show, and write a few hundred coherent words. Easy writing makes tough reading, and I want people to enjoy reading this.
FJR: “The record that really changed the world in many ways was I Feel Love. That was done by Giorgio Moroder, and the music was completely generated. It wasn’t played by people, although Giorgio did control the parameters of the machine that was making the sounds. It was the first big record that was all generated through a machine.”
Recorded music is a theater of change. Before 1924, recordings were made by playing into a recording horn, which cut a groove into a disc. There have been many upgrades in the technology since then. Some time in the sixties, the technology of the studio became part of the music. Today, it is tough to tell where the medium ends, and the message begins.
DLC: “Tucker Carlson is a deliberate provocateur for money and that drives me crazy. It especially drives me crazy when people consider themselves, and I’m using air quotes here, Patriots.” Tucker Carlson was fired by Fox News in April 2023, two months after this show was released.
FJR: “I was listening to the local public radio station in Hawaii. There was an old Hawaiian man, who maybe was 100 years old. He was out on a boat looking back at his Island. He said, all of the things over the last hundred years that man has built on these islands, none of them were more beautiful than what was here before.” … I have had this thought myself. The thing is, I live in an area that is in the second phase of development. Many of the buildings from the fifties and sixties are being replaced by newer structures. Some of these newer buildings are nicer than the buildings that they replaced.
FJR: “Some people have read it and said, this inspires me to want to make things. That feels really good because it’s fulfilling its promise.” DLC: “ This is your frozen in amber moment.” At this point, the buzzer went off, telling me I could quit walking if I wanted to. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the social media picture in July 1937. “Packing filled cans into cooking basket. Sun Prairie, Wisconsin” For more information about my morning walks, see The Path Journal. ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah

0807-1015 – The path journal for last week,Inter-City Beauties, is now playing at your favorite browser. Today’s walk was terrific. 39 minutes, no dizziness. The amusement was Ambient Summer, by Daniel Hawkins at Low Light Mixes. This was an ambient music mix, instead of a podcast. It is always a happy moment when I see that LLM has a new mix up. We will be back to the tyranny of words soon enough. Reading text is overrated.
0808 – The walk today was free of dizziness. I did 1.77 miles in 55:41. The entertainment was EP:57 – Cooper Escapes Wildfires! on Provoked. Darryl and Scott were saying basically the same things as before … the wars are stupid, we are running out of munitions, the defense budget is giving us little protection for a lot of money.
“The example I always give people is when we hit that Syrian airfield, after Assad supposedly gassed people during the first Trump administration. We shot like 80 something tomahawk missiles at this airfield. It was back up and running a week and a half later. They’ll blow up your building that you’re in, but they’re not things you’re going to go level a city with. We would need a thousand times more standoff munitions than we actually have to pull something like that off. That’s just not what they’re built for. It’s kind of in the name, you know, precision strike missiles, and precision munitions.”
“It’s very hard to get them to to look inward at their own behavior because … like all paranoiacs they have this built-in mechanism that the minute you criticize them then you’re part of the conspiracy.”
One of the things I do is keep my eyes open. This is a good thing when you see old ATT land line wire on a sidewalk. This wire is a safety hazard waiting to happen. I also know, from past experience, that asking ATT to fix it will be a pain in the butt. ATT repairs is another bureaucracy providing jobs for lazy people. I called to report the downed line, and was surprised at how smoothly the bot menu worked. Then I found out the office was closed for the weekend. … The repairman is scheduled to come Friday, August 14. As with all things ATT, I have received dozens of texts about this.
The second thing I saw was an amazon package in the street. I picked it up, intending to throw it away. The package had not been opened, and had the merchandise inside. I walked over to the address, a quarter mile away, and left it on the front porch.
0809-0941 There was no walk today. It was time to cut the lawn. Summer is … finally … winding down a bit, and the lawn will not need much more cutting. Hopefully, the mower and the mower pusher will be up to the task.
0810-1039 The walk today was terrific. I did 47:45, and my feet did not give me any problems. My head compensated for this by exploding, because of the podcast.
The show was Episode 318: Tick Talk on Blocked and Reported. At 11:03, Katie started talking about Henry Hay Jr, better known as Harry. HH was a key figure in 20th century Gay history. Katie started talking about HH because of the term “two spirit.” HH was one of the founders of the radical faeries, which provided some amusing quotes.
“The radical faeries, this was a group founded in the late ’70s by Harry Hay. It still exists today all over the world. I’m sure it’s more gender- inclusive than it was in the beginning. · “The first radical fairy gathering has 200 men doing workshops on “such varied subjects as massage, nutrition, local botany, healing energy, the politics of gay and spirit, English country dancing, and auto fellatio.” · “He would have these radical faerie gatherings in the woods or in the desert. They would get naked, do rituals, and wear beads and feathers. It’s all quite problematic by today’s standards. I do wonder how they’ve dealt with the Great Awakening.”
Eventually, Katie got tired of the titillating details, and moved onto “Two Spirit.” Basically, Katie thinks TS is cultural appropriation. The white man wants to justify his foolishness, and so he talks about “Native American Tradition.” I am going to remain neutral in this debate. A blog post was cited, “The Origin of ‘Two-Spirit’ & The Gay Rights Movement … The Strange Story of Harry Hay and Will Roscoe.” The article described an early faerie gathering: “The Dionysian frenzy which took hold of the participants at the first gathering would be savagely condemned today as denigrating Native culture and role-playing of the highest order. … Many would come to adopt pseudo-native monikers, like Crazy Owl and Morning Star.”
“I want to skip forward to the point where Harry Haye becomes truly problematic. I’m not talking about feather headdresses. I’m talking about Nambla. … Yes. That Nambla. So starting in the late ’70s and continuing until his death, Harry Haye was an unapologetic supporter of Nambla.”
0811-0925 – The walk today was splendid. I did 52:19, with undetectable foot dizziness. The show was The Utah Entrepreneur Trying to Remake Pine Bluff, Arkansas on Gone South. John Fenley decided to buy a warehouse in Pine Bluff AR. Things did not go as planned. At one point, Mr. Fenley bought a competing company named Murfie. Mr. Fenley might have considered Murphy’s Law at this point. … At one point somebody said “this is where the s*** hits the fan.” Immediately after that scatological landmark, there was a commercial for Chumba Casino.
0812 – The walk today went well, with 36 minutes of no dizziness. I would have enjoyed walking more, but I had a chore to do. The show was J.J.: The Undercover FBI Agent Who Took Down Len Davis and New Orleans’ Dirtiest Cops on Gone South. JJ told his story to GS host Jed Lipinski. Considering that this is an admitted undercover agent, a certain amount of skepticism is in order.
0813-0926 – The walk today was hot. Soon we will wait until mid morning so it will be warmer, but today you are sweating at 9am. The feet were behaving, which is appreciated. The canned entertainment today was Red Hot Chili Peppers’ John Frusciante and the Death of River Phoenix on Disgraceland. Whenever drugs kill a famous person, there is speculation galore. Some say that John Frusciante gave River Phoenix the drugs that killed him. This episode respectfully disagrees. … For more information about why I do these walks, see The Path Journal. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. John Vachon took the social media picture in July 1940. “Family of migrant fruit workers. Berrien County, Michigan” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah

On Friday morning, I post the path journal. These are the notes from my morning walk. This post is a commentary on this habit. It will be listed as a page on my blog.
A couple of years ago, I noticed my feet becoming numb when I stand. Sometimes it was a nuisance, and sometimes it was debilitating. Sometimes it is just the feet. Sometimes the dysfunction spreads into my calves, and even thighs. The cause has not been determined. I began to call it dizziness, and say that my feet were dizzy.
After a while, I noticed that if I go walking in the morning, there is less dizziness. In November of 2024, I started walking in the morning. At first, it was two laps on the path. (We will discuss the path in a minute.) I kept a log of these walks, noting how long I walked, and how my feet felt.
Soon, the walk went from two laps, to three, four, five. Soon, I got tired of counting laps. I set the timer on my phone to a half hour. Eventually this expanded to 36:00, which became the standard setting. I start walking, and go until the alarm sounds. If I my feet feel good, I might do more.
Since my feet were still going bad, I did not want to get far from the house. This is why I started walking on the path. The path is a cut through leading to a school. It is .08 mile, or 245 steps. There is a 26 foot rise in elevation. The path is not paved, which can make walking a bit tricky. You do not want to fall down here. Here is the view from the west end (across from the school), and the east end.
At first, I tried to meditate, or let my thoughts wander. Soon, I began to listen to podcasts and music. I was always hearing things that got my attention. I began dictating notes on the phone, which led to writing these thoughts into the path journal. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. These are details of a panorama shot, “Inter-city beauties, Atlantic City, 1926”
©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah

0731-1052 – There was no walk on the path today. I cut the lawn. This is prime time for the weeds to grow, with abundant sunshine and rain. Combine that with an aging machine, pushed by an aging cracker, and you have a chore. As usual for lawn day, there were zero problems with the feet. … The path journal for last week, An Unusually Heavy Fog, is up. I sold it thusly: Another seven days of walking back and forth on the path. Some days are more fun than others.
0801 – Today’s walk was a banger. 1.92 miles, 1:08:48, 6169 steps, 96 foot elevation gain. There was a bit of dizziness about a quarter mile away from the house. I had the frightening thought that this might be the start of debilitating dizziness. Fortunately, the dizziness quickly wore off.
The destination was an estate sale on a nearby street. I had driven by there yesterday, and noticed signs everywhere saying not to park on the north side of the street. The signs were furnished by the estate sale perpetrators. I talked to one of them. We agreed that both sides parking is trouble.
The show today was “Man-Eating Cats” on The New Yorker Fiction Podcast. An old lady lives alone with three cats. The old lady died suddenly, and was not found for a couple of weeks. The cats got hungry, and ate her remains. … The story got better. A married man meets a married woman at work. Soon, they left their spouses, and moved from Japan, to a Greek Island.
Meanwhile, I was stuck .61 mile away from the house, and seriously needed to pee. The estate sale lady firmly told me the house bathrooms were off limits. I walked to a nearby nature preserve, and found some weeds to water.
After 51 minutes, the story ran out. The second show of the day was EP:56 – Wars & Rumors of Wars on Provoked. Darryl told us about his getting food poisoning, and throwing up all over the place. The first part of the show was about COVID and the devil incarnate, Anthony Fauci. Once again, I agree with a lot of what they were saying, but find the umpteenth retelling to be a touch boring.
0802 – The walk today was fine. Overcast, threatening to rain, the air was bursting with humidity. Fortunately, the cloud cover moderated the temperature. The feet had nuisance level dizziness. The show was Big Man on Campus: The Hoops Phenom Who Tried High School Twice on Chameleon. Rashun Richardson shows up at a North Texas high school. He has no id, but claims to be a Hurricane Harvey refugee. The young man is a phenomenal basketball player, which smooths his acceptance into the community. Of course, the story is BS.
There was another animal on the path. A turtle was resting about twenty feet from the west end. On the second lap, I put a stick behind him. Two laps later, they had moved into the ivy, and did not move the rest of my walk. The rabbit was off in the weeds, doing what rabbits do.
0803 – Today’s walk was 36 minutes, with mild dizziness fading after a few laps. Today is the first day of school, which means the path will be full of schoolpeople from 0715 to 0745, and from 1415 to 1445. I will have to schedule my walks accordingly.
There were two podcasts, neither of which was especially amusing. Rachel Yoder Reads “The Promise” on The New Yorker: The Writer’s Voice was about a young girl getting used to farm life. The next show was The Finnish Baby Box on 99% Invisible. TFBB is about a box of baby care products that new parents receive from the Finnish government. The baby box is a beloved institution in Finland, and an introduction to socialism and regulation. The box does not include a bottle, because the government wants to encourage breast feeding.
0804 – The walk today went well. 49:20, 1.38 miles, no foot dizziness. The entertainment was “COVERUP!” – Charlie Kirk Investigator UNLOADS on Rigged Case | Baron Coleman • 458 on Julian Dorey Podcast. George Baron Coleman has produced tons of content about the Charlie Kirk killing. In many instances, 2+2=√-1. … I wear hoodies and t-shirts. If you catch me in a Little Bo Peep outfit, something’s gone terribly wrong.”
0805 – The walk today sucked. The dizziness began as I was walking across the street to the path. I only did 24 minutes. If I absolutely had to, I probably could have finished 36 minutes, but I didn’t see the point of trying. Hopefully, tomorrow will be better. … Yesterday I was worn out by 1730, but took a shower, got dinner, and stayed up until 0100. I got up at 0430, unable to sleep anymore. Maybe this has something to do with the foot dysfunction.
The canned entertainment today was Darryl Cooper Iran Deep Dive: How the War Will Change America Forever, Nukes, Zionism, and Islam on The Tucker Carlson Show. For all I know, Darryl was why my feet were acting up. I started listening to this while going to Stevie B’s pizza on Pleasant Hell Road, the same route I took while listening to episodes of Fear & Loathing in the New Jerusalem.
@martyrmade “Always a great time hanging out with Tucker.” @chamblee54 “Please, no hyperbole about WW2 this time.” The reply was liked by @martyrmade.
DC: “George Kennan, when talking about the Soviet Union, he said something. I won’t be as eloquent as he was … it’s the privilege of every paranoid man to eventually prove himself correct. And it’s because when you believe everybody’s out to get you, you interact with everybody as if they’re out to get you. And then eventually they get tired of it and they’re out to get you.”
DC: “When I made those comments about Churchill, as anodyne as I think they were, afterwards I did wish I hadn’t put it that way.” … This reminds me of a situation I found myself in. An “entertainer” got in trouble for saying the six letter word. The overwhelming majority of the people going into convulsions were privileged white men. After watching a youtube video of the talent in action, I decided that this person was not that important. I made the unfortunate decision to say “Just ignore her, and find something more important to whine about.” Sometimes, bluntness is not a good idea.
0806 – The walk today was something to be grateful for. After the troubles yesterday, the only thing to do is put the shoes on, and try again. Today I did 47 minutes with no foot trouble. The first show was The Archangel Made Me Do It: The French Mayor And The “Fortune Teller” Who Has His Ear on Chameleon. A village in France has a funky mayor, whose actions are directed by a psychic. This got old after a few minutes, so I shifted gears. The second show was What’s Jeff Bridges’ Secret to Creativity? on Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin. Jeffrey Leon Bridges comes across as a warm, friendly person. I would enjoy listening to JLB read the phone book. JLB talks about thespian judo, and how his mother’s advice may have saved his life.
When JLB was a young man, his actress mom told him “Remember, have fun and don’t take it too seriously.” Many years later, JLB got cancer. When the chemotherapy took away his immune system, COVID came for a visit. “I was on deaths door, and what I found sitting at the doorstep, there is where you pull out all your tricks, man. All your spiritual, philosophic, you know, tools that you can. And the one that gave me the most succor was “Remember, have fun and don’t take it too seriously.” … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. These are details of a panorama shot, “Inter-city beauties, Atlantic City, 1926” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah

The path journal from last week, Losing IQ Points, was published this morning. The walk today happened. 36 minutes, some dizziness, and the knowledge that the heat was coming. The show was “Star Witness: Paul Skalnik, the Jailhouse Informant Who Sent Innocent Men to Death Row” on Gone South. Paul Skalnik was a cop, conman, and jailhouse snitch. Pinellas County FL used his services a lot, sending men to death row in questionable cases. At one point, the show mentioned that Mr. Skalnik had been sent to prison for grand theft. Right after that, there was a commercial for Chumba Casino. A story about grand theft, sponsored by grand theft.
0718-0840 – The walk today was different. I walked up to the MARTA underpass on Peachtree Road, and took the long way home. It took 40:00 to do 1.31 miles, with no problems whatsoever from the feet. The first podcast was Drabblecast 510 – Storage Spaces on The Drabblecast. DC is a delight when it appears, and this was one of the good stories. A kid makes friends with a man in his building. Mr. Denison hooks hard drives up to a cut in his arm. The kid proceeds to steal a data card out of his dad’s camera. He bites down hard on the card, and sees pictures from last summer’s vacation. The next show was Manuel’s Tavern (Interview w/ Megan Maloof) on Archive Atlanta. Manuel’s tavern is an Atlanta institution, currently managed by Manuel’s granddaughter. The episode was a tad boring, with few quirky details to remember.
The walk today was hot. I did 44 minutes, with minimal foot problems. The first show was Min Jin Lee Reads “Testing” at The New Yorker: The Writer’s Voice. A young man in Korea is taking scholastic tests, with unsatisfactory results. A girl wants to be his gf. He wants to wait until after they are accepted at the schools they want. After the second test score is bad, he breaks up with her. After a couple of laps, “Testing” became unlistenable. The second story was Riverwalk on Criminal. Zac Brettler is a troubled teenager in London. He makes friends with shady mentors.
Zac’s parents “Rachelle and Matthew check Zac’s bank account. They had saved checks from his grandparents over the years, and money he’d gotten from his bar mitzvah and put it in a savings account. They’d given it all to him after he turned 18. It was about 18,000 pounds. · He had kind of blown through that money, it turns out, pretending that he was the Son of an oligarch, paying for meals, doing this and that kind of here and there to seem credibly like a rich person. And in the days before he died, Zac, in his bank account, had only 4 pounds. He was close to empty.” This is the first indication that Zac is Jewish.
0720-0818 – The walk went well. I started early, and saw the early sunlight floating through the mist in the leaves. The show was Episode 317: Literally Knitler (with Jessica the ’80s Baby) on Blocked and Reported. The guest was Jessica the 80’s Baby, who is a researcher for the show. JT8B lives in a lot of cool (and not so cool) places, out of a London base. “Do they eat dogs in Vietnam? · Uh they do, but only in the north. I was living in the south. And people in the south are quite proud of the fact that they don’t eat dogs.” The show covered wokeness in the knitting community, which is about as interesting as it sounds. The accent did not help.
Today’s walk happened. There was mild dizziness, and I quit soon after the 36 minute buzzer. The show today was Dolly Parton: How the Country Icon Nearly Became the Subject of Her Own Murder Ballad on Disgraceland. Disgraceland is about entertainers who behave badly. In Dolly’s case, they had to rely on outsiders for the dirty deeds.
Did Dolly really write “Jolene” and “I will always love you” on the same day? In an appearance on @BobbyBonesShow, the conversation went like this: “you wrote the song how long ago · in 1972 I think I wrote it at the same time I wrote Jolene. It was a good writing day.” A few years later, Dolly said to TED speaker Adam Grant, “Well I don’t really know if they were written in the same night. When we found an old tape, they were on the same cassette. That could have been a few days apart.”
0722-1059 – There was no walk on the path today. The lawn needed attention. Cutting a white trash lawn is enough exercise for one morning. My feet had no problems at all, which is normal. When the dizziness has been at its worst, the feet never have a problem with cutting the lawn.
0723-0900 – Today’s walk lasted 51:15. On the first lap, some dizziness was noticed, and my intuition told me that this might be a bad day. Fortunately, the voice in my head is often full of shit. The show was Hillbilly Heist: David Ghantt and the $17 Million Loomis Fargo Robbery on Gone South. Another bank robbery goes bad due to human stupidity. At one point, David Scott Ghantt takes two surveillance videos, but leaves a third behind.
This was followed by a break, and a commercial for Chumba Casino. Online gamers have lots of money to spend on podcast advertising. Once, there was a show about Hunter S. Thompson. HST kicked his own bucket in 2005, long before the advent of cell phone clip joints. It is fun to speculate. OTOH, online gambling is the sort of capitalist fuckery that HST despised. OTOH, those digital gangsters have lots of money, and might have been able to buy HST off. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the social media picture in July 1942. “Rupert, Idaho. Former CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) camp now under FSA (Farm Security Administration) management.” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah