091120
This is my 911 story. I repeat it every year at this time. Every year I say this will be the last time. This year is a mess. We are destroying the village to save it. The action part of 091101 was over by 11 am. This quagmire drags on and on. Nobody knows how things will turn out.
I was at work, and someone called out that someone had run a plane into the World Trade Center. I didn’t think much of it, until I heard that the second tower had been hit, then the Pentagon, then the towers collapsed, then a plane crashed in Pennsylvania.
I focused on my job most of the day. There was always drama at that facility, and concentrating on my production duties helped to keep me saner. This was roughly the halfway point of my seven year tenure at this place.
One of the other workers was a bully for Jesus. He was a hateful loudmouth. After the extent of the damage became known, he shouted “They are doing this for Allah,” and prayed at his desk. The spectacle of the BFJ praying made me want to puke.
I became alienated from Jesus during these years. Once, I had once been tolerant of Christians and Jesus, as one would be with an eccentric relative. I began to loath the entire affair. I hear of others who found comfort in religion during this difficult time. That option simply was not available for me.
Pictures from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. “This item is part of a collection of images of downtown Atlanta streets that were taken before the viaduct construction of 1927 – 1929. Some of the covered streets became part of Underground Atlanta.”
Nicholas Sandmann
“Good evening everyone, my name is Nick Sandmann, and I’m the teenager who was defamed by the media after an encounter with a group of protesters on the steps of the Lincoln memorial last year.” Mr. Sandmann made a video for the Republican National Convention. Mr. Sandmann cleans up nicely, and can read a script. The chicken-hawk branch of the Grand Old Party was charmed.
Covington Catholic could expel students seen in confrontation with Native American man It is amazing to look back on the story. “Mainstream media” bought the story, and gleefully went into attack mode. It soon became apparent that woke media had been asleep all along. After the lawsuits were settled, Mr. Sandmann gets to live his Catholic life.
The video was convention week entertainment for the MAGA masses. Few doubters will become true believers. Two claims in the video may fire up the base, but will inspire eye-rolling from others.
“I know you’ll agree with me when we say that no one in this country has been a victim of unfair media coverage more than president Donald Trump.” Donald John Trump is not a victim of anybody. POTUS plays the media like a musical instrument. Trolling the “liberal media” is a stepping stone to glory. And yet, his followers feel anger over “unfair media coverage.”
“I bought a make america great again hat because our President, Donald Trump, has distinguished himself as one of the most pro-life presidents in the history of our country, and i wanted to express my support for him.” Abortion is a great issue for a con artist. You cannot prove, or disprove, that Donald J. Trump has been an abortion baby daddy. Many people assume that he has. There is little doubt that Mr. Trump cynically knows a good issue when he smells one. Mr. Trump is going to beat the pro-life drum, with the same gusto as Nathan Phillips at the Lincoln Memorial. His gullible Catholic followers will believe him. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Rhetoric Over History
The symbolic fight today is over Confederate monuments. The high octane rhetoric is heard loud and clear. There is even historic revisionism. “…the real motivation was: to physically symbolize white terror against blacks.” PG finds this reasoning tough to believe. It sounds like another argument, from another symbolic battle. History likes to repeat herself.
In 1993, a movement emerged to change the Georgia state flag. At the time, the Saint Andrews cross, aka the Confederate flag, was on one side of the flag. Many people were offended by this flag, Many people liked this flag, and wanted to keep it. The argument went on for a few years.
In 2001, a new flag was adopted. The 2001 flag was even uglier than the old flag. The 2001 flag was rammed through the legislature. Part of this change was a law, protecting state monuments. “When Georgia took the Confederate battle symbol off the state flag in 2001, part of the compromise lawmakers struck was a new state law that protected Confederate memorials and monuments from being removed, relocated or even altered.” This law did not apply to the state flag, which was changed again in 2003. The current flag is similar to another Confederate flag.
When the flag change movement got started, a bit of historic revision was introduced. The story was that the legislature changed the state flag as a protest against desegregation. The first page of google does not have any of the 1993 rhetoric. The talk was louder, and angrier, in 1993.
PG never did believe the argument that the flag was changed as a protest. PG accepted that the flag was offensive to many, and did not object to changing it. However, he does not like to be lied to. If the flag was offensive to a large part of the state, why would you need to rewrite history? The 1956 legislature was a gnarly bunch… crooked, alcoholic, racist, and overwhelmingly Democratic. If anything else, they were not smart enough to change the flag as a protest. In 1956, protest was not the national pastime. Not everything had a hidden meaning.
Microfilm may wear out, but it does not lie. PG found an article announcing the change in the Atlanta Constitution. There was no mention of protesting integration. The fishwrapper, and the politicians, spoke about honoring the Confederacy.
The argument over changing the state flag was totally symbolic. The issues that affect communities of color, and communities without color, were not affected. Economic opportunity, equitable justice, access to housing and education… none of these life or death issues were affected by having the Saint Andrews cross on the state flag. The squabbling over the state flag was a proxy fight over black vs white. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. Most of today’s photos are from 1954 – 1956.
UPDATE This is a repost. The 1993 state flag debate was brought up during the 2018 Governor’s election from hell. The rhetoric was just as foolish as ever. PG took another look at the matter, found some new material, and came to the same conclusions.
Michael Donald
PG was looking at facebook, minding his own business. Then he saw something he could not unsee.(TRIGGER WARNING) The NSFW image showed a dead black man hanging in a tree. You can see his face. The caption: “Fox News commentator and Trump sycophant Tucker Carlson said yesterday that “white supremacy is a hoax.” I wonder if this poor man would agree? (I apologize if the image offends but sometimes right-wing idiots have to have reality stare them in the face.)”
The gut level reaction was that of being violated. What gives a facebook “friend” the right to shove a gruesome image in the viewers face? A lot more than “right-wing idiots” will see this picture. We understand that a Fox-boi said something you don’t like. That does not give you the right to disturb the community peace of mind.
There are plenty of arguments you can make. You can post your two-wrongs-make-a-right all day long. No doubt _______ did something terrible last week. That does not give you the right to post an obscene picture on facebook. UPDATE: The image has been *hidden* by facebook.
White Supremacy® is an expression that grows by leaps and bounds. It used to mean the kkk, and other hard-core racists. Now, it means whatever you want it to mean. The definition of WS has expanded to the point where the term is meaningless. It is tough to say what, if anything, Tarlson Cucker meant. We would be better off using the phrase White Supremacy® a lot less frequently.
When you are collateral damage on facebook, you have a few options. You can unfriend the perp, and say rude things about them behind their back. This has always seemed petty and childish. Another thing you can do is research the picture. PG did a google images search of the picture. It turns out to be a powerful story. Is it proper to appropriate this image to shame Tarlson Cucker? As if he would know it happened, or care.
Michael Donald is the man hanging in the tree. Here is the story of how he got there. “That week, a jury had been struggling to reach a verdict in the case of a black man accused of murdering a white policeman. The killing had occurred in Birmingham, but the trial had been moved to Mobile. To (Bennie) Hays — the second-highest Klan official in Alabama — and his fellow members of Unit 900 of the United Klans, the presence of blacks on the jury meant that a guilty man would go free. … Hays had said that Wednesday, ”If a black man can get away with killing a white man, we ought to be able to get away with killing a black man.””
“On Friday night, after the jurors announced they couldn’t reach a verdict, the Klansmen got together in a house Bennie Hays owned on Herndon Avenue. According to later testimony from James (Tiger) Knowles, then 17 years old, Tiger produced a borrowed pistol. Henry Francis Hays, Bennie’s 26-year-old son, took out a rope. Then the two got in Henry’s car and went hunting for a black man.”
“Michael Donald was alone, walking home, when Knowles and Hays spotted him. They pulled over, asked him for directions to a nightclub, then pointed the gun at him and ordered him to get in. They drove to the next county. When they stopped, Michael begged them not to kill him, then tried to escape. Henry Hays and Knowles chased him, caught him, hit him with a tree limb more than a hundred times, and, when he was no longer moving, wrapped the rope around his neck. Henry Hays shoved his boot in Michael’s face and pulled on the rope. For good measure, they cut his throat. … Henry Hays and Knowles returned to the party at Bennie Hays’s house, where they showed off their handiwork, and, looping the rope over a camphor tree, raised Michael’s body just high enough so it would swing.” For a while, it looked like the case would go unsolved.
Some people kept looking. “After hearing a lot of lies and following many unproductive leads, (Thomas H.) Figures and (James) Bodman uncovered one key fact: On the night of the murder, Tiger Knowles had returned to Bennie Hays’s house with blood on his shirt. With this new evidence, the Justice Department convened an investigative grand jury in Mobile. Incredibly, the Klansmen called to testify did not bring lawyers with them. In short order, one witness told the grand jury that young Henry Hays had admitted everything to him. This got back to Tiger Knowles, who began to worry that Henry Hays would confess — and, by trading testimony against Knowles for a reduced sentence, leave him bearing the greater burden of guilt.”
“In June of 1983, Knowles confessed to F.B.I. agent Bodman. After pleading guilty to violating Michael Donald’s civil rights, he was placed in the Federal witness protection program — a fairly standard accommodation for Klan informers — and sentenced to life in prison. In December, when Henry Hays was tried for capital murder, Knowles appeared as a prosecution witness.”
Henry Hays was found guilty. “Hays was executed in Alabama electric chair Yellow Mama after Governor Fob James refused to commute his sentence. He was the first white person executed for murder of a black in Alabama since 1913.” Mr. Hays died June 6, 1997.
“Donald’s mother, Beulah Mae Donald, in assistance of SPLC, sued United Klans of America in a civil suit. An all White jury found the Klan responsible for the lynching of Michael Donald and ordered it to pay 7 million dollars. This resulted in the Klan having to hand over all its assets including its national headquarters in Tuscaloosa.”
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
Is Facial Recognition Technology Racist?
Wrongfully Arrested Because Face Recognition Can’t Tell Black People Apart This headline. posted on facebook, led to a discussion of Facial Recognition Technology (FRT). The headline pushed all kinds of buttons for PG. People are aroused, to the breaking point, about racism. The person who posted the story disagrees. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
The reply posted by person #1 featured some other links. One was for a video, Wrongfully Arrested Because of Flawed Face Recognition Technology. To PG, this is more reasonable, and less inflammatory, than “… Can’t Tell Black People Apart.” It is also easier to believe. PG can accept that FRT has more problems with POC, than with PWOC. To make a blanket claim like “… Can’t Tell Black People Apart” seems like an dangerous exaggeration.
The conversation sat still for the rest of the day. Person #1 is an attorney, who used to live in Atlanta. This is where PG met him. Person #1 is an intelligent, thoughtful person, someone you should listen to. PG might disagree with person #1 on this issue, while still having respect for him.
Then person #2 entered the conversation. PG has never met person #2. All he knows is what he sees on her facebook page. It shows pictures of a vacation in Havana. Person #2 is clearly white. The fact that she took a vacation in Havana indicates that person #2 enjoys a certain amount of privilege. Here is what person #2 added to the conversation:
“”…flawed face recognition technology” sounds like there was a glitch, not like the entire technology was designed in a way that supports white, male normativity (aka white supremacy). Your suggestion that this is the same message is false and suggests we should avoid being more upset by avoiding the actual issue here—because we should frame matters in ways that obfuscate the real problem. We can’t begin to solve these problems if we are afraid to actually say what they are. Yeah, people are going to be upset. THEY SHOULD BE.” … “If you are following the protests and the recent changes that have happened, you know exactly what the anger has led to. If Black anger makes you uncomfortable, address your white fragility. Try to let go of your tone policing and actually engage with the issues. That’s work you have to do on your own.”
University Avenue cleared of barricades near property where Rayshard Brooks was killed. This was the story PG posted in response to “you know exactly what the anger has led to.” In the aftermath of the Rayshard Brooks killing, an armed gang took over the burned out Wendy’s on University Avenue, where the incident occurred. “Residents of the south Atlanta neighborhood in the area had grown frustrated by the blockade that formed – guarded by what they described as armed citizens who they said were not protesting but using the space for their own gain. Residents said that the people would block the street and sometimes not allow them to get in or out of their neighborhood.”
This is one of many examples of where the anger caused by current events has spilled over to harm people. Often, the “collateral damage” did nothing to deserve the abuse they are getting. In many cases, it is POC who are suffering the brunt of the damage. When a privileged white person, like #2, rabble rouses people into action, this is what can happen. University Avenue is the first exit on i75/i85 south of downtown, and is an important access point for many neighborhoods. Many of the people affected by the turmoil on University Avenue are white.
After hearing talk about “white fragility” and “tone policing,” PG is inclined to dismiss person #2 as a cliche spouting idiot. Unfortunately, that seems to be the approach many people have to complex issues. The idea that FRT is designed to reinforce white supremacy would be very amusing to the Chinese government. They are major players in FRT, using it to enable Asian hegenomy.
Lets examine the notion that FRT is racist by design. If this were the case, the developers would go the extra mile to make fewer mistakes with POC. If the goal of FRT is to keep the lawless POC masses under control, then it would help if the system actually worked on POC.
One of the articles cited by person #1 mentioned announcements by some major tech industry players that they were not going to sell FRT services to police. The article linked above mentions concerns about race/gender bias. However, the greater focus here is the overall privacy concerns about FRT.
Is it really a good idea to focus on the racial problems with FRT? There have long been overall privacy concerns about Big Brother. Unfortunately, many people will see an headline about racism and either tune it out, or think that it does not affect them. (“If you are tired of talking about racism, how would you like to live with it”) The human rights concerns about FRT affect everyone. To dismiss these concerns as “white fragility” is counterproductive, insulting, and insane.
This feature is approaching the attention limit of many readers. The facebook thread, and the identity of persons #1 and #2, were hidden out of respect for the privacy of the people involved. Even a cliche-spouting SJW deserves privacy.
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.
Anglo Persian Oil Company
This is a repost from 2010. People are saying more and more about the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. TomDispatch has a fascinating paragraph about one of the key players, British Petroleum (BP): “Originally known as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (later the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, still later British Petroleum), BP got its start in southwestern Iran, where it once enjoyed a monopoly on the production of crude petroleum. In 1951, its Iranian holdings were nationalized by the government of Mohammed Mossadeq. The company returned to Iran in 1953, following a coup that put the Shah in power. It was finally expelled again in 1979, following the Islamic Revolution.”
If you look at the problems of the world in the last forty years, so many are affected by Iran. The 1953 revolution left great resentment, which became manifest in the 1979 revolution. Soon Iraq…whose border with Iran was clumsily drawn by the British…decides to attack Iran. A gruesome eight year war is the result, with the USA supporting both sides (as well as possibly encouraging Iraq to attack Iran). The idea was, if they are fighting each other, they will leave Israel alone.
After this war is over, Iraq has a problem with Kuwait over it’s war debt. Another war is the result, with the USA involved. Iraq is vanquished, but some in the USA are not satisfied, and after a few years the USA invades Iraq again. That war is still raging.
The biggest winner of the US-Iraq war (aka World War W) is Iran. This new influence in Persia is very troubling to Israel, which is loudly rattling it’s nuclear saber. While Israel is making noise about Iran, it takes attention away from the Palestinian tragedy.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. TomDispatch is still open. The feature today, Beating the War Drums… Again, is about Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Carrie Prejean Boller
Most Of This Is Real appeared on chamblee54 on May 1, 2009. It is about Carrie Prejean, Miss California in the 2009 Miss USA beauty pageant. There was a fuss, after she said marriage should be between a man, and a woman. Public nuisance Perez Hilton was a judge, and had a disruptive hissy fit. Miss Prejean made some noise of her own. The mini-scandal got fifteen minutes of attention.
Finally, Miss Prejean was fired as Miss California. The Miss USA pageant was owned by Donald Trump, and the headlines were predictable: Donald Trump to Miss California: You’re Fired! There were some zesty pictures taken. Miss Prejean filed a lawsuit, settled, and wrote a book: “Still Standing: The Untold Story of My Fight Against Gossip, Hate, and Political Attacks.”
After seeing the 2009 post, PG wondered what happened to Carrie Prejean. A quick Google search turned up an Instagram spot, carrieprejeanboller. “Carrie Prejean Boller Miss CA USA 2009 👸 1RU Miss USA 2009 Author: Still Standing Mother❤💙 Wife of NFL QB Kyle Boller🏈 Trump Campaign Advisory Board Member @womenfortrump20 maga-mamas-moms-night-in-nc-april-30.”
@BethanyHudsonNC Calling all you MAGA MAMAS! @susantillis will be joining @heytana, @carrieprejean1, and me tonight! #WomenForTrump #NCBoots #LeadRight RSVP now to reserve your spot @carrieprejean1 “Can’t wait!!!!”
Kissed and made up! Runner-up Miss USA Carrie Prejean swoons over Trump at rally after she accused the New York Times of ‘twisting’ quotes for ‘hit piece’ on The Donald Fast forward to 2016. Mrs. Boller makes a splashy appearance at a Trump rally. This is despite some unflattering things she said about “The Donald” in her book. ‘They took a little tiny thing from my book and they twisted it. … And if they would have actually read on, I talk very highly of Mr. Trump. I don’t say anything negative about him. … Just below what they quoted, on page 68 [of her book], I said that most of us respect Donald Trump and he’s an amazing businessman and leader. Why didn’t they put that in the piece?”
The NYT piece has some juicy quotes. “His level of involvement in the pageants was unexpected, and his judgments, the contestants said, could be harsh. Carrie Prejean, who was 21 when she participated in the Miss USA contest in 2009 as Miss California, was surprised to find Mr. Trump personally evaluating the women at rehearsal. “We were told to put on our opening number outfits — they were nearly as revealing as our swimsuits — and line up for him onstage.”
“Donald Trump walked out with his entourage and inspected us closer than any general ever inspected a platoon. He would stop in front of a girl, look her up and down, and say, “Hmmm.” Then he would go on and do the same thing to the next girl. He took notes on a little pad as he went along. After he did this, Trump said: “O.K. I want all the girls to come forward.” … It became clear that the point of the whole exercise was for him to divide the room between girls he personally found attractive and those he did not. Many of the girls found the exercise humiliating. Some of the girls were sobbing backstage after he left, devastated to have failed even before the competition really began to impress “The Donald.”
While promoting her book, Miss Prejean appeared on the Larry King show. She did not make a good impression. Miss California USA Executive director Keith Lewis released a statement. “The public is finally getting a glimpse of the real Carrie Prejean who lives in her own delusional world. The childish behavior, her negative attitude, the sarcasm and condescending tone, the disrespect and continual lying she is demonstrating now is only a fraction of what we endured during her reign and after. Anyone who buys her book is supporting a woman who is actually the opposite of everything she claims to be. I sincerely hope she is able to get the psychological help I believe she has shown to clearly need.” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Was The Election Really Stolen?
One misty four twenty morning, PG was looking for something to post. He looked to 042018, one year ago. He found Stacey And Stacey. The story is repeated below. It was the first time PG paid attention to Stacey Abrams. It would not be the last, unfortunately. This is a repost.
Since that nightmare election, PG has wanted to assemble his thoughts about Ms. Abrams. Many people see her as a hero. PG does not. Stacey Abrams has a talent for publicity. Certain parts of the media adore her, and report her antics uncritically. Would Ms. Abrams would be a competent Governor/Senator? That is a good question.
PG wrote about Ms. Abrams, and the nightmare election, several times.
Stacey and Stacey ~ The battle of fair street bottom
Politically Relevant ~ Georgia voter registration
Why Did The 1956 Legislature Change The Flag? ~ Brian and Stacey
We were lied to ~ Rally At The Capitol Turns Nasty
The Problem With Stacey 2015 Edition ~ The Problem With Greg Palast
Brian Kemp was the worst Republican Gubernatorial candidate in many years. Ms. Abrams was much more appealing. Mr. Kemp made a political mistake when he did not resign as Secretary of State, after he won the Republican primary. If he had done so, the voter suppression uproar would have been much less potent.
The truth is that the counties register voters, and count the votes. The SOS office plays a limited role. Unfortunately, the truth does not make a good campaign issue. Voter Suppession™ was demagogued into submission by Stacey Abrams, and the clickbait media.
Ms. Abrams screamed Voter Suppession™ every chance she got. It was her main campaign issue. The clickbait media knows a good story when they smell one. Racist Republican Rascal Steals Election In Honey Boo Boo Land!!! If you are not as outraged as your neighbor, then you must be a racist. Threatening to call someone the r-word is a powerful campaign tactic.
After the election, PG was looking for something. He stumbled onto The New Georgia Problem. It was a 2015 article about The New Georgia Project, a voter registration organization that Stacey Abrams fronted. NGP had a lot of problems. Ms. Abrams did not look good.
Among other things, NGP workers were poorly trained. A lot of their registrations were thrown out for being illegible and incomplete. This was also a problem with many voter registrations in the 2018 election. While the “exact match” law got all the attention, many of the registrations were thrown out for being illegible and incomplete.
The infamous AP story about 53,000 rejected registrations came out a month before election day. PG saw this, and realized that whatever was said could not be believed. The AP story was quoted as gospel. Few challenged the findings, even though the only documentation offered was “An analysis of the records obtained by The Associated Press.” Soon, Greg Palast put his hat on, and contributed to the noise and confusion. Discerning voters like PG just wanted it to be over.
Did Brian Kemp steal the election? It is possible. Mr. Kemp is no paragon of virtue. Georgia’s election machines are notoriously insecure. However, many of the wild-eyed charges leveled by Ms. Abrams have never been proven. Nobody has ever said how deleting voters-who-do-not-vote targets people of color. In the end, Brian Kemp will serve a term as Governor, and Stacey Abrams will make noise about it. As someone said about the New Georgia Project, “It’s a glaring example of what makes people sick about politics.”
Until Thursday, PG had been in blissful denial of the Georgia Governor’s election. Except, that is, for the clown car antics of the republicans. The Democrats had Stacey Abrams, aka black Stacey, opposing Stacey Evans, aka white Stacey. The Republicans are almost certain to win in November, even with a certified idiot like Casey Cagle.
The happy ignorance was interrupted by facebook on thursday. A FBF posted a link to this article, Statement by the Metro Atlanta Chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America on the vulgar hit piece against member Anoa Changa. The vhp, posted by the notorious white supremacists at WABE, was titled Atlanta Activist Uses Russian-Backed Media To Spread Message. It seems as though a local activist, Anoa Changa, utilized a Russian owned broadcast outlet to spread her message. This was news to PG, as well as the 99.9% of the population that never listens to Sputnik.
PG did not see what was so horrible about the WABE piece, and was prepared to ignore it. Then he saw something in the article. “Changa helped lead a protest last year at the progressive Netroots Nation convention drowning out the speech of Stacey Evans, a Democratic candidate for governor in Georgia. Changa and the other protesters chanted “trust black women.” Evans is white, while her Democratic primary opponent Stacey Abrams is black. Changa supports Abrams.” A bit of research turned up a video, Protesters Harass Stacey Evans Candidate Gov. Georgia Aug 12, 2017.
This incident was noted on facebook. “Yup, don’t see what the problem is. Was Evans run out of town? Silenced? Is she still in the race?” “I fully support activists of color disrupting any centrist white person running for office. Stop ignoring the fundamental power dynamic in play because of white supremacist patriarchy.” “Good luck winning the election”
Others are grossed out by this type of behavior. Is this what happens to people running for public office? To be shouted down in public forums, and say “this is what democracy looks like.” Maybe smells like is more appropriate. Maybe we are not mature enough to allow the luxury of free speech. Maybe an election campaign is a time to shout down your opponent … and call those who do not applaud your playground-bully tactics a racist.
Stacey Abrams And Stacey Evans had a discussion of the incident. Stacey Evans condemned the protest. Stacey Abrams did not. “I do not believe that you silence those who feel they are voiceless, because the minute we do that we are no better than those who tell people they can’t kneel in protest.”
Anoa Changa is far from voiceless. She is not going to be silenced by waiting until someone else is through speaking. To compare this abusive protest, to pro football players and the national anthem, is ridiculous. Stacy Abrams has no business being Governor of Georgia. This is a repost. Pictures for this paranormal panorama are from The Library of Congress.
The Democratic Party 2020
Throughout the democrat presidential reality show, I put off making a choice. I said I would wait until the Georgia primary, and see how things looked. This primary was scheduled for March 24. This was 12 days after the Atlanta kicked off covid-19 lockdown with a snowjam shopping spree. Soon, all public events were cancelled. The primary is scheduled for June 9.
Joe Biden is presumably going to be the nominee. The last challenger, Bernie Sanders, dropped out the other day. Sleepy Joe is looking like another “it’s his turn” candidate. These IHT candidates seldom win. Donald Trump has not done a good job as President, and deserves to lose. It remains to be seen if Sleepy Joe is the man for the job.
Tulsi Gabbard made a good impression. She makes opposition to regime change wars the focus of her campaign. The ferocious opposition that greeted Tulsi indicates that many establishment Democrats feel threatened. The good news is that Tulsi is 38 years old. This is less than half the age of Joe Biden, or Bernie Sanders. Tulsi, and Pete Buttigieg, will be around for a while.
There were 7 candidates when this post started. This compares to the 7 dwarfs, or the 7 husbands of Elizabeth Taylor. The silly 7, in first name order: Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Mike Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg, Tulsi Gabbard.
@amyklobuchar “U.S. Senator from Minnesota and candidate for President. Text AMY to 91990 to join our homegrown campaign” Amy Jean Klobuchar, the wife of John Bessler, did not make much of an impression. She was the only candidate to wear a dress in the Las Vegas debate.
@BernieSanders “U.S. Senator from Vermont and candidate for President of the United States.” Bernie Sanders is one of two candidates with no middle name, resulting in descriptive initials. BS had some good ideas for spending money, and equally bad ideas about how to pay for it. BS has awesomely obnoxious fanboys, the Bernie Bros. One of the worst was Nina Turner, a paid staffer.
@EliLake “I know there is a lot handwringing in the pro-Israel community about Bernie’s decision to BDS AIPAC. Why? His absence is clarifying. If you’re under any illusions that a Sanders presidency would not be hostile to Israel, now you know.” This commentary at Bloomberg.com was a signal that the BS campaign was doomed. If AIPAC is opposed to your candidacy, you are not going to win. This suggests that the Mike Bloomberg candidacy was not just a vanity endeavor.
@ewarren “U.S. Senator, former teacher, and candidate for president. Wife, mom (Amelia, Alex, Bailey, @CFPB), grandmother, and Okie. She/her. Official campaign account.” Bless her 0.1% Cherokee heart. The former Elizabeth Ann Herring married, and divorced, Jim Warren. She kept the Warren name after she married Bruce H. Mann.
Sen. Warren displays preferred pronouns in her twitter bio, which is grounds for automatic disqualification. She has a few good ideas, and just enough onstage charisma to keep her interesting. Sen. Warren is mentioned as a possible VPOTUS candidate, despite being 99.9% white.
@JoeBiden “Senator, Vice President, 2020 candidate for President of the United States, husband to @DrBiden, proud father & grandfather. Loves ice cream, aviators & @Amtrak” Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. is married to Jill Tracy Jacobs Biden. Mr. Biden is 77 years old, and in obvious mental decline. He should not be running for President. We are stuck with him.
I foolishly gave the Biden campaign my email address. Between May 7, and June 26, I received 88 emails asking for money. Every time one of these messages came in, Windows put a popup message on my desktop. “I’m Joe Biden, and I approved this message.”
@MikeBloomberg “Entrepreneur, philanthropist, and mayor of NYC. Running for president to defeat Donald Trump & rebuild America. Tell me your thoughts on America: 859-695-6453.” Michael Rubens Bloomberg tried to buy the Presidency, and failed. There is speculation about his true motives. “In 1975, Bloomberg married Susan Elizabeth Barbara Brown … divorced Brown in 1993 … Since 2000, Bloomberg has lived with … Diana Taylor.”
@PeteButtigieg “Afghanistan veteran, South Bend’s Mayor Pete, husband. Running for president to rally Americans together to meet our urgent challenges. Boot-Edge-Edge. (he/him)” Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg is married to Chasten Buttigieg (Glezman). “Mayor Pete” was an interesting figure, inspiring unlikely support and intense opposition.
Pete did not handle the race issue well. After The Root called Pete “Lying MF”, the Mayor called back to chat. In that interview, he said “systemic racism, and white supremacy in particular, I believe, is the force that is most likely to destroy the United States of America.”
The current health crisis has put medical workers under the gun, working long hours under dangerous conditions. Mayor Pete wanted to punish Doctors with non-compliant racial values. “we also need … removal from their jobs if you are racist. If you’re nakedly racist, then you have no business being in charge, of being in care of anybody.”
@TulsiGabbard “US Presidential candidate standing for a better America. Wife, Sister, Veteran, Surfer, Friend. #StandWithTulsi #EndWastefulWars” Tulsi is married to Abraham Williams. Rep. Gabbard has shortcomings, and might not be able to win a national election. However, she is the first conspicuously anti-war candidate since George McGovern. Given America’s profitable passion for killing Muslims, it is not surprising that the Gabbard candidacy ran into such emotional opposition. Pictures today from The Library of Congress.
Mike Pence And Lester Maddox
This is a repost from 2015. In the five years after, Mike Pence has served as Vice President of the United States. In the post was this sentence: “It is highly unlikely that anyone will know who this Pence person is in forty four years.” Political predictions are risky.
Salon posted a festive piece the other day. The headline: “Indiana’s Mike Pence is starting to look like Lester Maddox — without the spine.” What about the Governor’s breast, thigh, and wing?
Mr. Pence is the media punching bag of the moment. In a few days, someone else will screw up, and the nabbering classes can pick on someone else. The riffraff law will be lawyered out in the courts.
The question here is the connection to the former Georgia Governor. It turns out to be a rhetorical gimmick. In the first paragraph, author Joan Walsh essentially repeats the headline. “… even before Pence began to look like a 21st century Lester Maddox — without the spine.” This is the last time Lester is mentioned. He is used as a bald headed Honey Boo Boo.
It is ironic that Lester is this famous, forty four years after his term in office ended. There are many bad things you can say about Mr. Maddox. However, Georgia survived both him, and smiling Jimmy, as Governor. It is highly unlikely that anyone will know who this Pence person is in forty four years.
The second part of this feature is a previously published piece about Lester Maddox. PG was twelve when Lester was elected, and has many memories of the four years that followed. The post goes into some of the mixed feelings, and tells a couple of stories. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
There has never been a politician like Lester Garfield Maddox. He was elected Governor of Georgia (with help of a quirk in the state constitution) in 1966. PG was 12 at the time, and saw the spectacle of the next four years with amazement.
Before we get started on this, we should remember a couple of things. Lester Maddox became notorious when he shut down his restaurant, The Pickrick, rather than serve a black customer. He was a segregationist, which means he did not want black people to have the same rights as white people. Looking back from 2020, it seems incredible that civil rights legislation was needed, 56 years ago, so that 30% of Georgia could eat in a restaurant. PG does not condone the actions, and attitudes, of Lester Maddox, or the people who supported him.
There is style, and there is substance. While the substance of Lester may have been horrible, the style was a sight to behold. He could ride a bicycle backwards, and did so whenever a crowd was there to watch. (PG saw this at halftime of the Peach Bowl.) Lester was on The Joe Pyne Show and The Dick Cavett Show, and walked off of both.
This section from a previous post tells one story. The Governor was speaking to a group of reporters. He was announcing the appointment of a Black man to a Selective Service Board.. The reporter said it was the first Black man to serve on a draft board since reconstruction. What did the Governor think about this? The Governor said “Gee”
The screen returned to the Channel Five newsroom. The men at the desks were all laughing. The weatherman looked up at the camera and said “That’s a tough act to follow”
Whatever you might say about Lester Maddox…and there is no shortage of bad things to say…there has never been a public official that entertaining. As for being a tough act to follow, the next Governor was Jimmy Carter. As for the weatherman, PG saw him in a parking lot once. It was raining heavily. The “Gray Ghost” looked at PG with an ironic smile, as if to say “I am sorry”. The weatherman, Guy Sharpe, is on the right in the picture below this post. He is signing a book.
In 1970, the Governor of Georgia could not succeed himself. Lester ran for Lt. Governor, and spent the next four years feuding with Governor Jimmy Carter. Lester ran for a second term in 1974, and was trounced by George Busbee. (The slogan: “Elect a work horse, not a show horse.”) When Jimmy ran for President in 1976, Lester made a point of badmouthing Jimmy. In his own way, Lester Maddox helped Jimmy Carter get elected President.
Lester appeared on the Joe Pyne show. Lester was later on the Dick Cavett show. Another Cavett guest was Truman Capote. After Lester walked off the show, Mr. Capote said, in his own inimitable way, “I ate at his restaurant one time, and all I have to say is, it was not finger licking good”.
Anthony Stephen Fauci Part Two
Q&A with Dr. Anthony Fauci ran on C-SPAN January 8, 2015. Anthony S. Fauci M.D., Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, spoke with Brian Lamb. This interview was a primary source for Anthony Stephen Fauci. Today, we will look at other quotes from that interview. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Many people criticize George H.W. Bush for his performance during the AIDS horror. Dr. Fauci takes a different view. “Yes. I’ve had the great privilege of getting to know President George H.W. Bush from the time that he was vice president. And when he was getting ready to run for president, he sincerely wanted to know more about this strange disease called AIDS, because quite frankly and disappointingly … President Reagan, who was a good man, did not, I believe, use the bully pulpit enough about calling attention to AIDS. … George H.W. Bush felt that this was important. So while he was still vice president, he came to the NIH and wanted to meet me. He said, “I want to meet this person, Fauci, who I see around doing all this with AIDS, to show me around.” … And I spent considerable amount of time with him, introducing him to my patients, talking to him about what HIV is, and we struck up a friendship. … And then when he became president, it was wonderful because I had a direct input to him. … He’s a wonderful human being.”
Lamb “And what happened to SARS ?” Fauci “SARS essentially disappeared. SARS came, we isolated the virus, we started to make a vaccine, which was successful. It looked pretty good in an animal model. And then all of a sudden, pure public health measures suppressed it, and it went away. … It was one of those diseases that are very common, which is a disease that’s fundamentally an animal disease, and it jumps species from the animal to the human. And sometimes it’s trivial and nothing happens and one person gets infected, but sometimes it adapts itself to the human, and it spreads from human to human. That’s what SARS did. .. But once you suppressed it, it essentially stopped. Because the next one that jumped into human didn’t have the capability of spreading easily from person to person. So we dodged the bullet with SARS. We did.”
Lamb “Ebola. How does that look now?” Fauci “Well, from the United States’ standpoint, it looks very good. We had a situation where a person came over inadvertently, not knowing they were infected, was infected, went to a hospital, infected two nurses. That created a tremendous degree of concern and panic. … And what we try to do … was say, “We’re taking this very seriously for sure. But given our health care structure here and the ability to suppress the spread by identification, isolation, and contact tracing, this is not going to happen in the United States the way it’s happening in West Africa. We may get a case or two,” which we did, “but we’re not going to have this out of control outbreak.” And if you say it enough and give the good scientific evidence for why that’s the case, people believe it, and as it turned out, that’s exactly what happened. There’s no Ebola right now. We may get a case that might come in, but we’ll be able to handle it.”
Lamb “Lots and lots of money was spent on the flu vaccine, and it isn’t working.” Fauci “Right. Well, it’s not working optimally. That’s for sure. Because each year, you make a calculated guess based on information that you gather of what’s circulating towards the end of the season of your season and what’s going on in the southern hemisphere.”
Lamb “Who makes that guess?” Fauci “World Health Organization. And they have to make that decision in February of the prior season, because in order to start manufacturing the influenza vaccine, it takes about six months, so that by the middle to end of the summer, it’s ready. You start distributing it into fall, and then it’s ready for the winter season. .. At the time the decision was made for this 2014-2015 season, they thought that this particular strain of H3N2, which is a designation of certain types of influenza, would be one type. As soon as they started manufacturing the vaccine, about a month and a half later, it became clear that the virus was drifting, and that means mutations and drifting, so that by the time you got to the flu season, the majority of the strains didn’t match what was in the vaccine.”
Fauci “Now that’s the bad news. The somewhat comforting news is that you still can get good benefit from vaccination even though there is not a perfect match, because there’s what’s called cross protection. So if I get vaccinated against an H3N2 that’s not the exact one that’s circulating in the community, I could still get a certain degree of protection. I might not be protected against getting infected, but I might be protected against getting serious disease or hospitalization.”
Lamb “What is your number one concern way out there?” Fauci “Well, my one- number one concern way out there is the idea of emerging and re-emerging infections that we haven’t been exposed to before that’s spread by a respiratory route. So pandemic influenza that’s really serious is something that bothers me, and that’s one of the reasons why one of the real priorities that we’re working on right now in my institute is to develop what’s called a universal influenza vaccine.”
Fauci “A universal influenza vaccine is one that you can take once or a couple of times in your lifetime, and it would cover all the strains of influenza. So you don’t have to play this guessing game each year where you have to change your vaccine … and keep getting vaccinated every year. If you can get a universal flu vaccine, where you give it a few times the way you would give a measles vaccine and forever be protected, or a polio vaccine and forever be protected, that’s the thing we need to do.”
Chamblee54 
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