Edward Snowden
Edward Snowden is in the public eye now. He told some journalists about a sleazy government-business connection. The former model is being attacked in the media. Could this be the plan?
One of his sources, Glenn Greenwald said on CNN “One of his big concerns with coming out, really his only one, was that he knows political media loves to dramatize and personalize things, and he was concerned that the focus would distract away from the revelations of about what our government was doing on to him personally …. The other problem is that whenever there’s whistleblower, someone who dissents from our political institutions, the favorite tactic is to try to demonize him and highlight his alleged bad personality traits. ”
Lets assume for a minute that few people are surprised that the government is spying on them. Perhaps the plan was to get this information out, and do so in a way that the focus is on the whistleblower rather than the message. This could take several forms. Mr. Snowden could be on the payroll, and will spend a well paid life in exile. Or, Mr. Snowden might be sincere, but was egged on by government personnel who wanted to get this story out in the open.
It should be noted that Chamblee54 does not know what he is talking about. This is rank speculation. Pictures today are from Gwinnett County. Mr. Snowden will probably not spend time in this facility. The spell check suggestion for Snowden is Snowmen. This is similar to straw man.
Pink Pony
About this time last year, PG was following the effort to create a city of Brookhaven. It was a nasty affair, with racially charged mailers, legal complaints, and enough mud slung to cover the Capital City Club . The effort passed, the city was created, and J. Max Davis elected mayor. PG was disgusted, and quit paying attention.
It turns out one of the first moves by the new city was a prohibition on “the serving of alcoholic beverages at a nude dancing establishment.” The intended victim of this move was a large dancing emporium known as the Pink Pony. The PP is one of the larger adult venues in the Atlanta area. The club can afford lawyers, and has filed suit against the city. The ban on alcohol sales will not be enforced until courts rule on the suit.
This lawsuit is going to be expensive to defend. While considering whether, or not, to create the new city, there was much speculation regarding finances. Some said the city was going to have enough money to operate. Some were renaming it Broke-haven. The studies that showed the new city could function used the revenue from the Pink Pony as part of the tax base. These studies probably did not consider the double whammy of losing that revenue, and fighting an expensive legal battle.
The Pink Pony is on Buford Hiway, at the southern fringe of the new city. Some say the boundaries were drawn to include this establishment. PP is in a business district, far away from the mansions of historic Brookhaven, and the mcmansions of Ashford Park. PP is down the hill from Cross Keys High School, which should enable teachers to get part time jobs as exotic dancers.
Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
Metadata Only
During the discussion about the US government collecting “metadata only”, a quote has come up. The facebook comment read “The only comment I have on government spying on its own citizens is from Ben Franklin: “Those who can give up essential liberties to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety.” Apparently metadata only does not include checking on the veracity of eighteenth century quotes. Fortunately, the internet can be helpful.
Before we move onto that, lets check the more current record. These days, when a public figure says anything, it is quoted verbatim. This does not stop mistakes, but it helps. The Washington Post printed a transcript of a press conference from those bouncing bipartisans Dianne Feinstein and Saxby Chambliss. The following two comments are from the Georgia lame duck.
“That’s been very clear all along through the years of this program. It is proved meritorious, because we have gathered significant information on bad guys, but only on bad guys, over the years. … The information that they’re really looking for is on the other end of the call. It’s: Are they in contact, is somebody in contact with somebody that we know to be a known terrorist? And that’s why it’s metadata only and it’s what we call minimized. All these numbers are basically ferreted out by computer, but if there’s a number that matches a terrorist number that has been dialed by a U.S. number or dialed from a terrorist to a U.S. number, then that may be flagged. And they may or may not seek a court order to go further on that particular instance. But that’s the only time that this information is ever used in any kind of substantive way.”
It should be noted that this is not a surprise to many of us. PG gave up during the Reagan administration. On the one hand, the government was conducting a war on drugs, with rights of citizens taken away to reduce demand for substances less dangerous than alcohol. On the other hand, drug importers were used to transport weapons to terrorists in Central America. It was really strange on the other side of the looking glass. It has only gotten worse in the last twenty six years.
Getting back to Ben Franklin, it seems that the quote may be, sort of, legitimate. This is more than can be said for some of Mr. Franklin’s children. Wikiquotes says: They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. This was written by Franklin, within quotation marks but is generally accepted as his original thought, sometime shortly before February 17, 1775 as part of his notes for a proposition at the Pennsylvania Assembly, as published in Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin.
The quote is on page 270 of the memoirs. There was a discussion in the Pennsylvania Assembly on ways to solve the problems with England without a war. The quote is, indeed, a quote. While it is possible that Mr. Franklin said it, it does not appear to be in his writings. The line before the famous quote: “The Massachusetts must suffer all the hazards and mischiefs of war, rather than admit the alteration of their charters and laws by parliament”.
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
The Eleven Rules
You have probably heard about “The speech Bill Gates gave at a High School”. PG saw an image on facebook, and the BS detector went off. When did he make the speech? What high school, in what location? Was this the same speech we heard about a few years ago, when Microsoft was being sued for antitrust violations? Are these questions fair? Rule 1: Life is not fair – get used to it!
These days, the answer is easy to find. Snopes is a friend of Mr. Google. The authoritative word is “misappropriated”. Bill Gates did not make a speech to a high school. Nor did Kurt Vonnegut. The eleven rules came from a newspaper column written by Charles J. Sykes. The column was published in the San Diego Union Tribune on September 19, 1996. The fourteen rules in that column were taken from a book, 50 Rules Kids Won’t Learn in School: Real-World Antidotes to Feel-Good Education.
“Charles J. Sykes is senior fellow at the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute and a talk show host at WTMJ radio in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.” “The Institute is guided by a belief that competitive free markets, limited government, private initiative, and personal responsibility are essential to our democratic way of life.” Mr. Sykes is probably not a liberal.
The eleven rules have been floating from one email address to another since the Clinton administration. Ann Landers has printed them several times. They have been the rest of the story for Paul Harvey. “The prize for misattribution, however, has to go to the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, which published the list twice in the space of three weeks in mid-2000, the first time crediting it to “Duluth state Rep. Brooks Coleman of Duluth,” and the second time to Bill Gates.” The footnotes say “Brack, Elliott. “Legislator Offers Teens No-Nonsense Advice.” The Atlanta Journal and Constitution. 14 June 2000 (p. J3).” and ” “Advice from the Experts.” The Atlanta Journal and Constitution. 2 July 2000 (p. R1).”
The book has fifty rules. The column has fourteen. These are the three rules left out of the emails.
Rule No. 12: Smoking does not make you look cool. It makes you look moronic. Next time you’re out cruising, watch an 11-year-old with a butt in his mouth. That’s what you look like to anyone over 20. Ditto for “expressing yourself” with purple hair and/or pierced body parts.
Rule No. 13: You are not immortal. (See Rule No. 12.) If you are under the impression that living fast, dying young and leaving a beautiful corpse is romantic, you obviously haven’t seen one of your peers at room temperature lately.
Rule No. 14: Enjoy this while you can. Sure parents are a pain, school’s a bother, and life is depressing. But someday you’ll realize how wonderful it was to be a kid. Maybe you should start now.
Maybe someone should take a critical look at these rules. If you get tired, and think this is negative, then you are free to skip ahead and look at the pictures, from The Library of Congress. The LOC is part of the big government in Washington. It is an very valuable resource. 
Rule No. 1: Life is not fair. Get used to it. The average teen-ager uses the phrase “It’s not fair” 8.6 times a day. You got it from your parents, who said it so often you decided they must be the most idealistic generation ever.
No argument here. This is a catch 22 whenever you find a contradiction in the rest of the rules.
Rule No. 2: The real world won’t care as much about your self-esteem as much as your school does. It’ll expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself. This may come as a shock. Usually, when inflated self-esteem meets reality, kids complain that it’s not fair. (See Rule No. 1)
If you start to feel good about yourself, don’t worry. Between the church, radio talk shows, and back stabbing co workers, someone is sure to bring you down.
Rule No. 3: Sorry, you won’t make $40,000 a year right out of high school. And you won’t be a vice president or have a car phone either. You may even have to wear a uniform that doesn’t have a Gap label.
Conservative rules for living do not age well. Today, everybody eating solid food has a cell phone.
Rule No. 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait ’til you get a boss. He doesn’t have tenure, so he tends to be a bit edgier. When you screw up, he’s not going to ask you how you feel about it.
This is the rule that set off the BS detector. In the “real world”, it is not what you produce that counts. It is how well you kiss ass. If the boss is impressed by you, you can screw up from now until bankruptcy. Ditto if you are a minority, and the company is recovering from a lawsuit. LINF
Rule No. 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping. They called it opportunity. They weren’t embarrassed making minimum wage either. They would have been embarrassed to sit around talking about Kurt Cobain all weekend.
Your grandparents had a different word for your dark skinned co worker.
Rule No. 6: It’s not your parents’ fault. If you screw up, you are responsible. This is the flip side of “It’s my life,” and “You’re not the boss of me,” and other eloquent proclamations of your generation. When you turn 18, it’s on your dime. Don’t whine about it, or you’ll sound like a baby boomer.
Fifty years ago, the parents of baby boomers said things like this. The younger generation is always going to hell, and somehow they manage to get it together. The baby boomers are the generation who was ordered to go to Vietnam and kill Asians. They said “hell no we won’t go”.
Rule No. 7: Before you were born your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way paying your bills, cleaning up your room and listening to you tell them how idealistic you are. And by the way, before you save the rain forest from the blood-sucking parasites of your parents’ generation, try delousing the closet in your bedroom.
Your parents got to be boring by listening to motivational speeches.
Rule No. 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers. Life hasn’t. In some schools, they’ll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. Failing grades have been abolished and class valedictorians scrapped, lest anyone’s feelings be hurt. Effort is as important as results. This, of course, bears not the slightest resemblance to anything in real life. (See Rules 1, 2 and 4.)
Teachers have a tough job. They are an easy target for criticism. Some of this whining is fair, even if life isn’t. Mr. Sykes has written several books lambasting the education system. There is a saying, those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. Maybe this could be amended to say: those who can’t teach, whine about education.
Rule No. 9: Life is not divided into semesters, and you don’t get summers off. Not even Easter break. They expect you to show up every day. For eight hours. And you don’t get a new life every 10 weeks. It just goes on and on. While we’re at it, very few jobs are interested in fostering your self-expression or helping you find yourself. Fewer still lead to self-realization. (See Rule No. 1 and Rule No. 2.)
If you are the buddy of management, you sometimes take the afternoon off to play golf with a client. You go to conventions, while someone else works to produce. LINF
Rule No. 10: Television is not real life. Your life is not a sitcom. Your problems will not all be solved in 30 minutes, minus time for commercials. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop to go to jobs. Your friends will not be as perky or pliable as Jennifer Aniston.
Life is not a motivational speech. Those after dinner platitudes are entertaining, and make you feel good about yourself. They have little to do with real life.
Rule No. 11: Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We all could.
One more time, LINF. Regarding Rule No. 14:, this sounds like privilege speaking. If parents are human, they are possibly doing some very dirty things to their kids. This includes abusive religion, alcoholism, drug abuse, and conservative politics. The other kids can be pretty rough. Your preacher says you are going to hell. Since the real world does not care about your self esteem, you may be tempted to end your life. A smarmy list of rules is probably not going to help. This is a repost.
Fascism Test
After World War II, people wondered why so many other people agreed with the fascist dictators. Some “research” was done, and a book came out, The Authoritarian Personality (Studies in Prejudice). It was influential at the time, but is somewhat discredited today. The concept is that some people are more authoritarian than others. This mindset is also known as dogmatism and facsism.
A test was devised to determine a person’s tendency to authoritarianism. The most popular version on google is at the Anesi website. It is named for Chuck Anesi, who apparently is the blog perpetrator. He focuses on fascism, and has a helpful companion page, What is Fascism? Seventy years after the Third Reich, fascist has become a meaningless insult. Terms like Islamo-fascist are tossed around, without much thought as to whether or not they make sense.
The F scale test here is 30 statements. You choose from six answers to each. They are 1-Disagree Strongly, 2-Disagree Mostly, 3-Disagree Somewhat, 4-,Agree Somewhat, 5-Agree Mostly, 6-Agree Strongly. The more that you agree, the more fascist you are.
When PG took the test, his score was 2.6. This means “you are a liberal airhead”. The other possible scores were: Less than 2 – A whining rotter. 2 to 3 – A liberal airhead. 3 to 4.5 – Within normal limits; an appropriate score for an American. 4.5 to 5.5 – You may want to practice doing things with your left hand. 5.5 or higher – Have trouble keeping the lint off your black shirts?
Here are the thirty statements: [1] Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues children should learn.[2] A person who has bad manners, habits, and breeding can hardly expect to get along with decent people. [3] If people would talk less and work more, everybody would be better off. [4] The business man and the manufacturer are much more important to society than the artist and the professor. [5] Science has its place, but there are many important things that can never be understood by the human mind. [6] Every person should have complete faith in some supernatural power whose decisions he obeys without question. [7] Young people sometimes get rebellious ideas, but as they grow up they ought to get over them and settle down. [8] What this country needs most, more than laws and political programs, is a few courageous, tireless, devoted leaders in whom the people can put their faith. [9] No sane, normal, decent person could ever think of hurting a close friend or relative. [10] Nobody ever learned anything really important except through suffering. [11] What the youth needs most is strict discipline, rugged determination, and the will to work and fight for family and country. [12] An insult to our honor should always be punished. [13] Sex crimes, such as rape and attacks on children, deserve more than mere imprisonment; such criminals ought to be publicly whipped, or worse. [14] There is hardly anything lower than a person who does not feel a great love, gratitude, and respect for his parents. [15] Most of our social problems would be solved if we could somehow get rid of the immoral, crooked, and feebleminded people. [16] Homosexuals are hardly better than criminals and ought to be severely punished. [17] When a person has a problem or worry, it is best for him not to think about it, but to keep busy with more cheerful things. [18] Nowadays more and more people are prying into matters that should remain personal and private. [19] Some people are born with an urge to jump from high places. [20] People can be divided into two distinct classes: the weak and the strong. [21] Some day it will probably be shown that astrology can explain a lot of things. [22] Wars and social troubles may someday be ended by an earthquake or flood that will destroy the whole world. [23] No weakness or difficulty can hold us back if we have enough will power. [24] It is best to use some prewar authorities in Germany to keep order and prevent chaos. [25] Most people don’t realize how much our lives are controlled by plots hatched in secret places. [26] Human nature being what it is, there will always be war and conflict. [27] Familiarity breeds contempt. [28] Nowadays when so many different kinds of people move around and mix together so much, a person has to protect himself especially carefully against catching an infection or disease from them. [29] The wild sex life of the old Greeks and Romans was tame compared to some of the goings-on in this country, even in places where people might least expect it. [30] The true American way of life is disappearing so fast that force may be necessary to preserve it. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”. HT to Backstory Radio. This is written like Mario Puzo.
Summertime And The Riding Is Easy
During the time between Memorial Day, and the day Elvis died, the sky is light enough to ride long after suppertime. Around the Summer solstice, daytime heat is such that most sane people stay in the air conditioned shade. It is only during twilight that the outdoors is fit for man and beast.
A bicycle is a great companion for these times. When you go uphill, your muscles clench and relax, your lungs hoover the magnolia scented air, and your heart goes plump plump plump. Many bystanders only see the face of the rider, which may appear to be in pain. Often, the face is playing the martyr, while the heart is delirious with joy. Once you reach the top, you get to ride downhill.
On this day, PG rode past a house that was closed for repair. In a trashcan was the sun bleached remains of an American flag. The flag had been placed in the yard, by a realtor, as an advertising gimmick. PG was offended by the shabby treatment of this flag. He pulled it off the pole, put it in his bike box, and rode on. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
War President
To this day, there is confusion about why the United States fought a war in Vietnam. There is talk about communism. There was a dominoes theory. (The delivery took more than thirty minutes.) The one which aroused PG’s curiosity was the urge to “nail that coonskin to the wall.”
According to the History News Network , President Lyndon B. Johnson made three trips to Vietnam. “In 1961 Johnson, then vice president, visited Saigon. He assured the South Vietnamese the United States would stand by them … LBJ called South Vietnamese leader Diem the “Churchill of Asia.”
On October 26, 1966 Johnson visited Vietnam on his first trip as president. The week before anti-war protests had been held in 40 cities in the United States. At the end of December 1967 LBJ worked in another trip to Vietnam while traveling to Australia for the funeral of Prime Minister Harold Holt, who had died in a drowning accident. Visiting Cam Ranh Bay, LBJ urged the soldiers to”nail that coonskin to the wall.”
While researching this post, PG found a feature comparing BHO in Afghanistan to LBJ in Vietnam. (Lebron James is not taking his talents to Hanoi.) The story is that LBJ had serious doubts about whether we could win in Vietnam, but did not want to appear weak. (He may also have been influenced by the fate of JFK, who had started to withdraw troops from Vietnam.) There is a pungent paragraph: “In this narrative, Johnson sent up to 1,000 Americans a month to their deaths because he didn’t “want the political fallout that would come from not fighting” Vietnam. Others have argued that, contrary to Blankney’s assertion, LBJ really wanted “to nail that coonskin to the wall” in Southeast Asia; that he fought it from strategic principle not political expediency. But many will concede that whether LBJ wanted to win it or not, he fought it with one eye to the public relations polls and the reactions of his own left wing. He imposed so many restrictions, introduced so many rules that perhaps whether LBJ ‘wanted to win’ or not, his objective strategic behavior was in the end indistinguishable from someone who wanted to lose. And he lost.”
Many of the soldiers in Vietnam were drafted. This means that the government told you that you were going into the service, or going to jail. (Young readers might be unfamiliar with the concept. When you ask your elders about communism, you can ask them about Selective Service.) While the government was dithering in it’s approach to the war, the men who were sent to fight were ordered to make a total commitment. Many did not come home alive.
Another online feature about Obama’s challenging war options shows up a difference in attitudes about war today. “Publicly, Johnson said it was a war we had to fight and that we would win it. Now, of course, we know that he believed we couldn’t win even before he sent the first of those 57,992 American boys over there to die.”
Whether you agree or disagree with a war, it is preposterous to say that the soldiers are boys. If anyone deserves to be called a man, it is those troops. Today, we have more women in our armed forces than we did in Vietnam. (This page of statistics lists, by name, eight American service women who died in Vietnam.) It simply isn’t said, of this war, that the soldiers are our boys and girls. While the dirty business of war goes on, it is an improvement to not call our soldiers boys.
At the seven minute mark of his speech on Afghanistan , BHO starts a paragraph with the phrase “my fellow americans”. Those of a certain age will remember another democratic warpotus, Lyndon Johnson, who was fond of saying MFA. Whatever rude things were said about lightbulb Lyndon, no one ever asked to see his birth certificate. Perhaps that is what BHO meant by that phrase.
The paragraph that BHO starts with this bit of sixties nostalgia (four year old Barry probably did not see the SOU message linked above) caught PG’s eye when reading the transcript . “My fellow Americans, this has been a difficult decade for our country. We have learned anew the profound cost of war — a cost that has been paid by the nearly 4,500 Americans who have given their lives in Iraq, and the over 1,500 who have done so in Afghanistan — men and women who will not live to enjoy the freedom that they defended.”
Are you sure, Barry? Over a million Iraqis live in exile in Syria as we speak. They may have jumped out of the frying pan, and into the fire. The reason they left was to escape the civil war that our “liberation” of Babylon set off. They have paid a price for our “mission accomplished”.
Are you sure Sean Hannity? Every day, you say to make the Bush tax cuts permanent. ( At least you were the last time PG was brave enough to listen to your show.) Historically, the profound cost of war has been paid, at least partially, by higher taxes. In world war two, people sold war bonds, and encouraged each other to invest in the defeat of the Nazis. In this war, the right wing wants to pay for it by lowering taxes. The result is a national debt that is going to burden our economy for decades.
Getting back to the message by BHO (It was made in an empty hall, with gilt edged chairs replacing the Seal of the Presidency. Not to worry, BHO was wearing a flag pin on his lapel.) … there was another Vietnam flashback at 7:53. “And even as there will be dark days ahead in Afghanistan, the light of a secure peace can be seen in the distance.” Is this light at the end of a tunnel?
At 8:58 comes this gem:“When innocents are being slaughtered and global security endangered, we don’t have to choose between standing idly by or acting on our own.” Since BHO has taken over as warpotus, the drone strikes over the third world have dramatically increased. This is air slaughter, against a helpless population, directed by remote control from a cave in Nevada. Many of the people killed in these raids are women and children, who are not members of Al Qaeda. (To be fair, some of the children would have been terrorists if they had been able to grow up.) We don’t have to choose, because the decision was made by warpotus BHO…we will use our high tech weapons to KILL, KILL, KILL.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This is a double repost
Town Hall Meeting Prayer
The issue of public prayer at secular events has been fussed over many times. The Supreme Court is going to hear Town of Greece v. Galloway soon. It deals with whether, or not, Greece NY should open town meetings with a prayer.
Once, a man saw his child get excited when there was a prayer on TV. The kid said that the prayer meant the cartoons would start soon. There was a religious program, before the cartoons. The prayer was at the end of the show, meaning the cartoons were about to start.
That is about what prayers before a public event are worth. Prayer is reduced to a meaningless gesture, when used in this manner. This does not speak well for the custom of prayer.
One superhero is reported to feel the same way. “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
Pictures are from Gwinnett County.
Cheezy Poofs
Perennial candidate Karen Handel wants to be the U.S. Senator from Georgia. PG didn’t have anything good to say, so he made a comment at Peach Pundit. “I typed Karen Handel into google. The suggested search that came up was “is an idiot” Bless her heart, Karen Handel has the charisma of a doorknob. When she appeared on the same show as Sarah Palin, this became obvious. Even with the expensive endorsement of Mama Grizzly, Mrs. Handel lost to a politician with a reputation for corruption.”
This was the edited version. The original comment included “During the Komen meltdown, I put up a post with that title. I put the link up on Red State, and got a 601 Database redigestation error. I had to take the machine to the shop, and get the hard drive scrubbed.” Sometimes, it is best to pull your punches. Having to take the machine to the shop is a lot of trouble for discussing a white trash politician. She tells on herself anyway.
Chamblee54 has written about Karen Handel one, two, three, four, five times. More posts were written about Troy Davis. We all know how that one turned out. Maybe a future Occupy camp will rename a city facility “Handel Park”.
The required website is up and running. Once again, Mrs. Handel does not mention her maiden name (Walker) in her biography. Conservatives like to talk about family values. It is curious to see a woman, who screams conservative every chance she gets, not mention the name of her birth family.
Getting back to Peach Pundit, there was a reaction to the comment. TheEiger May 17, 2013 at 5:51 pm You post this same comment every time a Karen Handel post comes up. Please go back to eating cheesy poofs in your mom’s basement.
Ghost of William F Buckley May 18, 2013 at 8:20 am “Please go back to eating cheesy poofs in your mom’s basement.” You say that like it is a bad thing…. Like it or not, chamblee54 makes an valid point – The lady obviously performs a quick pol calculation of who you are and how you might help her somewhere between “Hi, I’m ….” and “Glad to meet you.” Karen is a walking dust-up and will spend her days trying to right windmills, drain swamps, etc. instead of effectively developing sound policy.
UpHere May 18, 2013 at 9:45 am Best description of her I have read and spot on.
Just for the record, the house PG lives in does not have a basement. It does have a crawl space, where PG has spent quality time making various repairs. Pictures today are from Gwinnett County.
Tax Political Organizations
PG was listening to a podcast about the scandalette involving the IRS. There was talk about a 501(c)(3) organization. Listening to this alphanumeric chatter can cause brain damage. The suspicion here is that these things are made complicated so the average person will run away in horror. This way, the crooks get to run their political organization TAX FREE.
There was talk about how the organizations needed to do the majority of their work in non political causes. The law, apparently, is not well written. The IRS says “it may not be an action organization, i.e., it may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities and it may not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates.” It makes you wonder why the Tea Party would want to have a group like this. Evidently, with Citizens United in effect, corporations can funnel money into campaigns, and this is one way this is facilitated.
As you may have guessed by now, this is very confusing to PG. There is a big question here. Why does an organization that lobbies Congress, or gets involved in politics, get to operate tax free? The government is broke, and getting broker every day. Maybe we should charge these fat cat political organizations taxes. Then, whether or not Tea Party groups get tax exempt status would be a non issue. Just to be fair, we can charge liberal groups taxes.
Topple The Paradigm
the simple life poster had nerve
they used all caps
some letters were bold
the thing was a mess
to topple the paradigm
use one font only
pictures from the library of congress.
Jackson Katz
There was a link to a TED talk that promised to “Turn Every Man Who Watches It Into A Feminist.” PG gave it a try, and was not impressed.
The speaker was Jackson Katz. He likes to put the letters Ph.D. after his name. You have to dig into his biography to see that his doctorate is “in cultural studies and education from UCLA.”
The speech was given at a gathering called TEDxFiDiWomen. (Spell check suggestion: Committeewomen) It is an “independently organized TED event. The speech was about what men can do to reduce violence, mostly against women. The choir Dr. Katz preached to enjoyed the sermon. Did anyone who needs to change his behavior hear this talk?
Dr. Katz is an entertaining speaker. He spoke fast and loud, and the intensity of his rhetoric grew as he went along. He seemed to get his crowd fired up. How this emotion will be channeled is a good question. It would not surprise this viewer if some of these fired up women went home, and took the frustration out on a significant other. Verbal abuse is violence.
The first part of the lecture is wondering why this is considered a men’s issue. There were a few exercises in semantic mumbo jumbo, which might prove something. The idea that this is a human problem… that bullying and aggression are not good ways to treat people … is hinted at. Then, the focus goes back on the men, and how they need a “paradigm change”.
The moment when PG almost gave up on Dr. Katz involved racism. Yes, he had to throw that boogeyman in there. He gave the example of a bunch of white men having a conversation, and someone making a “racist remark.” The enlightened man is supposed to speak up, and say that this is not acceptable.
What PG wonders is why this was assumed to be a group of white men. Are you saying that only white people say rude things about other races? Or, maybe it is alright for black men to say rude things about white men. Until saying so called racist comments is considered wrong for all people, we are going to have a problem. At the very least, Dr. Katz is not as inclusive as he wants you to believe. Or maybe he just said something the “liberal” TED audience would find acceptable.
Some people find this sort of thing entertaining. It is possible that a man listening will hear this “leadership training” and learn to treat his neighbors better. PG suspects that the former is much more likely. The link is above if you want to hear it yourself.
Chamblee54 
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