Nat Hentoff
PG saw a talk with Nat Hentoff on Booknotes. A series of stories about jazz musicians was expected. That is not what the talk was about. The first topic of the conversation was abortion.
LAMB: (Brian Lamb, host of Booknotes) “When has a liberal been the most upset with you to your face?”
Mr. HENTOFF: “Oh, well, the most controversial subject-issue I’ve ever gotten involved in to this day was when I became pro-life. And liberals are very–many liberals are very angry at me because of that. In part, because–they could understand it, they say, if I came to it from a religious kin–a Catholic perspective. But I’m still a Jewish atheist, and that really bothers them.”
Later in the interview, Mr. Hentoff commented on atheism.
LAMB: “What does it mean to you to be an atheist?”
Mr. HENTOFF: “It means that I was never able–I mean, I really envy, in some respects, some of the people of faith I’ve known–A.J., for example.”
LAMB: “What was his religion?”
Mr. HENTOFF: “He was–he–I don’t know what he finally came out believing in, but it was some kind of higher being. But Kierkegaard said it for me a long time ago. He said, `You can’t really think yourself into a faith, into a religion. It’s something you have to make a leap into faith.’ And I’ve never been able to do that. I wish I could. Then maybe I could believe in an afterlife.”
Being an atheist did not keep Mr. Hentoff from befriending religious bigshots.
“My favorite story about O’Connor (John Cardinal O’Connor) –one of them–is I was in Toronto at a pro-life conference. And I was … explaining … that the best way to not have unwanted abortions was to have much more research on contraception. And two very large, true-faith people came out of the audience, wrested the microphone out of my hand and said, `That is inappropriate, improper. Pro-lifers do not believe in contraception.’ And O’Connor’s watching this. I get up again and introduce him, and O’Connor said, `I want to tell you I’m delighted that Nat is not a member of the Catholic Church. We have enough trouble as it is.'”
Mr. Hentoff may be the one “pro life” advocate who is also opposed to war and capital punishment. The interview was broadcast October 19, 1997, when his political passion was a distaste for Bill Clinton.
Mr. HENTOFF: “Oh, I think–I don’t think he does anything–I don’t think it’s ill will. I don’t think he’s evil in the sense that he hates the Bill of Rights. He does what he figures will help him politically. It’s like when he was running for president. I’ll never forget this one. He was running in New Hampshire. He was not doing well. And he suddenly, over a weekend, rushed back to Little Rock to execute a guy who had killed a cop, but in the process, the policeman had shot him in the head and he was out of it. He didn’t know today from tomorrow, good, evil, whatever. His lawyer begged–his lawyer was an old friend of Clinton. He begged Clinton not to have this guy executed. It was absurd. But he did it anyway.”
When you say anti war to people of a certain age, they mean Vietnam.
Mr. HENTOFF: … “I got fired from The Reporter. Max Askeli was a very courageous, principled man up to a point. He had left Italy before he was thrown in jail by Mussolini. And he started this very good magazine…. I was in the back of the book doing music. I once did a–the first piece on Malcolm X that anyone had ever seen in the– white press.
But I was very much against the Vietnam War, and Max Askeli was visiting Lyndon Johnson in the White House cheering him on, writing editorials. And in The Voice one day I once referred to him as Commander Askeli. And I called in to The Reporter to go over the galleys of a music piece I had written, and the editor whispered to me, `It’s not gonna run. You’re not gonna run. Max Askeli has fired you because of what you said about him.’ You see, the person who has the strong ownership of free speech is the one who owns the press.”
Some of these opinions got the FBI interested in Mr. Hentoff. Years later, Mr. Hentoff filed a FOIA suit, and got to see his FBI files.
LAMB: “You also once decided you wanted to look at your FBI file.”
Mr. HENTOFF: “Yeah. I was writing–at least beginning to write Boston Boy and there were a lot of holes in my so-called research. I didn’t know the towns my mother and father came from in Russia. I didn’t know the name of the clothing store I went to work for when I was 11 years old. I didn’t know a lot of things. So I called for my FBI files, not expecting to have that stuff there, but I wanted to know what they had on me. And–but they did have the towns my mother and father lived in in Russia. They had the grocery store I worked in when I was 11 years old.
Then they had a lot of clippings, a lot of articles I’d written. And to me the–the funniest one was–I had done a piece for Playboy about J. Edgar Hoover. I had not been very kind to J. Edgar Hoover. And the field agent had written on –it was sent directly to Hoover–that–the director should see this–`And, besides, Hentoff is a lousy writer.’ And I thought that went a bit far.”
The Booknotes talk aired October 19, 1997. Mr. Hentoff was promoting a book, Speaking Freely: A Memoir. He is still alive. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”. This was written like James Joyce.
Definition Of Racist
The unpronounceable one, Carl Hiassen, had a feature recently, “Another boondoggle in the works.” Someone wants to government to contribute eight, or nine digits to the renovation of a football stadium. A lot of people don’t think this is a good idea, but their opinions don’t matter. The role of the taxpayer is to pay the bills, and keep quiet.
Eight degrees north, a similar discussion is going on. The forces of evil want the taxpayers to help pay for the Blank Bowl. Jim Galloway noted a few days ago that this affair has gone through a subtle shift. The talks have gone to the Atlanta City Council, away from the Georgia Lesterslature. When a deal is too odious for the gold dome bandits, the public should be concerned.
The affair has also moved away from the attention of the press. This is where the players want the deal to be done. Arthur Blank is on the board of directors of Cox enterprises. He can turn the publicity spigot off when he wants to. Stadium deals are like mushrooms: they flourish in the dark, and live on a diet of animal waste.
The second part of this double feature is borrowed from WTF Japan Seriously. HT to World Class Stupid. The facility has a picture of a woman in a mask shop, holding up some product. This is a white woman, holding up a mask with POC features. People in the comments are buzzing. Most of these thoughts are from AnonymousFebruary. It is not noted where AF lives.
One of the comments has a super sentence. The definition of racist does not encapsulate the entirety of what racism is. It is not known if the commenter is a POC. Some say that only POC are qualified to render judgements on the racisisicity of a entity, so this is an important distinction. 
yes you are a racist if you think this is racist, like the chick in the picture holding it up, ignoring the other types of masks of the the types of races
Its a Bobby Ologun Mask. He is kind of famous in Japan. So i wouldn´t call it racist.
Look up the definition of “racist” and explain how it pertains to this photo. Some people are just way too uptight and would probably crap a diamond if you shoved coal up their bums.
I don’t understand what people see racist in these things, its just a caricature. It simply exaggerates the obvious visual charakteristics of somebody, here of a black person. Yes, some are just stereotypes, like the hooknose in caricatures of jews, but so what? Is somebody less of a human being because he or she has prominent lips, epicanthic folds or freckles? It’s just comedy, these are carnival masks, if somebody finds that racist they are either oversensitive or closet racists, I can’t think of any other reason why one would find offense in these.
100% racist. The japanese barely tolerate the “white devil”, so it is no surprise they do stuff like this with the “black shit”.
Yes, this is a mask of Bobby Ologun. Can’t make somebody’s mask? Aren’t there lots of Obama’s in US?
In the eyes of some sort of bleeding-heart, liberal, vegan, pro-life, white american softee then, yes, unfortunately this is probably seen as terrible and racist. To the rest of us, its funny, harmless and the last thing in our minds is skin color. (This comment got a reply.) “pro-life” is not like the others
i want a mask of her face. its hilarious and just as ‘offensive.’
yeah, let’s go to a country with a completely different culture and a different view on lot of things like humor and racism, and complain that it’s not the same like ours… i don’t see a problem, stop being oversensitive PC wussies…
After reading these replies, I wonder if the people crying “racist” even know what that word means or are they just the overly-sensitive, politically correct fools who are ruining society?
It’s racist. The definition of racist does not encapsulate the entirety of what racism is. This mask is an example of what’s known as blackface.
It’s Racist. The character that is well known is also a racist depiction. A hooked nose depiction of jews is also racist. Just because it maybe done for comedic effect, or its a carnival mask doesn’t make it not racist. It’s essential a mask of character done up like an American minstrel show.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Hate Our Freedom
Angry Arab said this. “A friend wrote that on Facebook: “”Dear US government: We don’t hate you because we hate your freedom; we hate you because you hate our freedom.”
If you have a few minutes, here is the long version. Pictures of Egyptians are here. Pictures of Americans are from The Library of Congress.
This was first posted as TKS Lina on February 6, 2011. At the time, Egypt was in turmoil. Within a week, Mr. Mubarek would be out of power.
Today, the transition in Egypt continues. The battle against the Arab establishment has moved to Syria. The government there is less squeamish about killing it’s citizens. No one really knows for sure how that will turn out, except that more will die.
Most readers will not follow the link to the “long version”. Here is one key paragraph. “The tail has long wagged the dog in American Middle East policy. The rotten order of the modern Middle East has been based on wily local elites stealing their way to billions while they took all the aid they could from the United States, even as they bit the hand that fed them. First the justification was the putative threat of International Communism … More recently the cover story has been the supposed threat of radical Islam, which is a tiny fringe phenomenon in most of the Middle East that in some large part was sowed by US support for the extremists in the Cold War as a foil to the phantom of International Communism. And then there is the set of myths around Israel, that it is necessary for the well-being of the world’s Jews, that it is an asset to US security, that it is a great ethical enterprise– all of which are false.”
The long version was posted in Informed Comment. This is an excellent source of information about the Middle East. Today’s headline is about a Palestinian prisoner who died in Israeli custody.
There was another story. “Meanwhile, militant, armed Jewish supremacists on Saturday attacked the Palestinian village of Kusra shooting two residents with live ammunition and chopping down olive trees and causing other property damage.”
In the two years since this post first appeared, BHO has been reelected POTUS. This is despite right ring criticism that he did not support Israel sufficiently. How he will deal with the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East remains to be seen.
Friends Of Hamas
There is a tasteful trending topic in Twitterland, #FriendsofHamas. If you have a life, and don’t follow all the news, you might have missed this. There is a story that a politician recieved an honorarium from a group called “Friends of Hamas”. The story was widely repeated. The fact that FOH does not exist is not a problem to many in Twitterland.
@ChuckCJohnson Naw, #Hagel’s just friends with the Jew-hating, suicide bombing Iranian regime.
@Rightwingpolok #FriendsofHamas: Hezbollah, Islam, Barry Obama, Chuck Hagel, Iran, N. Korea, Russia, China, Hillary, John Kerry, The entire Dem party.
@AlecMacGillis And here I was wasting a lot of time trying to figure out if my end-of-year donation to #FriendsofHamas was tax-deductible.
@Xultar I’ve dated all the #friendsofHamas
For a while, there was a promoted tweet, at the top of the heap, when you looked up Friends of Hamas. It is not there now, but you don’t want to miss out. Wendy’sVerified account @Wendys Which taste from the Right Price Right Size Menu is the perfect sidekick for Dave’s Hot ‘N Juicy? pic.twitter.com/Y7XxO54x
Currently of top of the heap at #FriendsofHamas is ‘Friends of Hamas’: My role in the birth of a rumor. This is a confession from a writer who set the wheels of rumor and intrigue spinning.
This is featured at the New York Daily News, an intellectual organ. One of the “editors picks” leads to an uplifting story, New York mom charged with child endangerment after hiring strippers to perform lap dances at her 16-year-old son’s birthday party. Judy Viger, 33, faces up to a year in jail after the party, which had guests as young as 13. A 15-year-old’s mother saw photos of the lap dances by Tops in Bottoms strippers on Facebook and alerted South Glens Falls authorities.
In the Daily News story, it is repeatedly mentioned that FOH is not a real organization. The person who wrote the seminal piece about FOH is quoted: “Reached Tuesday, Shapiro acknowledged “Friends of Hamas” might not exist… his story used “very, very specific language” to avoid flatly claiming it did.”
The story of FOH brings to mind an old story about Lyndon Baines Johnson. “And his sense of the bizarre knows no bounds, as in this ‘ancient and honourable’ story of how Lyndon Johnson first got elected to Congress in 1948 when his opponent was a wealthy and politically favoured pig farmer: ‘Lyndon was running about 10 points behind, with only nine days to go… He was sunk in despair. He was desperate… he called his equally depressed campaign manager and instructed him to call a press conference at two or two-thirty (just after lunch on a slow news day) and accuse his high-riding opponent (the pig farmer) of having routine carnal knowledge of his barnyard sows, despite the pleas of his wife and children… His campaign manager was shocked. ‘We can’t say that, Lyndon,’ he said. ‘It’s not true.’ ‘Of course it’s not,’ Johnson barked at him, ‘but let’s make the bastard deny it.’
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This is written like Stephen King.
The Boston Tea Party Story
For better or worse (it’s ok to curse), the tea party is a part of the scene. The seminal event was the Boston Tea Party in 1775. The first post below is a look at what really happened in Boston harbor. It is tough to discern truth from fable at a distance of 236 years, but we will try. The tea party metaphor gets worked over in another post, would you like a refill?
The second part is a look at the phrase “founding fathers”. This phrase is “liberally” sprinkled into rhetoric of all persuasions. This author sees a square peg being forced into round holes.
In the first year of the Obama regime, America has seen the rise of the “Tea Party”. These affairs are usually right wing, and have lots of clever signs. The general idea is that taxes are too high, government is too big, and that the people need to do something.
The namesake event was the Boston Tea Party. On December 16, 1773, crowds of people (some dressed as Mohawks) went on board the Dartmouth, the Eleanor, and the Beaver. The crowds threw overboard 342 chests, containing 90,000 pounds of tea. The crowds were unhappy because the East India Company was importing the tea into America, with a 3 pence per pound tax.
A website called listverse plays the contrarian. (spell check suggestions: contraction, contraption) According to them : “American colonists did not protest the Tea Tax with the Boston Tea Party because it raised the price of tea. The American colonists preferred Dutch tea to English tea. The English Parliament placed an embargo on Dutch tea in the colonies, so a huge smuggling profession developed. To combat this, the English government LOWERED the tax on tea so that the English tea would be price competitive with Dutch teas. The colonists (actually some colonists led by the chief smugglers) protested by dumping the tea into Boston Harbor.”
According to Wikipedia, the Dutch tea had been smuggled into the colonies for some time. The Dutch government had given their companies a tax advantage, which allowed them to sell their product cheaper. Finally, the British government cut their taxes, but kept a tax in place. The “Townsend Tax” was to be used to pay governing colonial officials, and make them less dependent on the colonists.
In Charleston, New York, and Philadelphia, the tea boats were turned around, and returned to England with their merchandise. In Massachusetts, Governor Thomas Hutchinson insisted that the tea be unloaded. Two of the Governor’s sons were tea dealers, and stood to make a profit from the taxed tea. There are also reports that the smugglers were in the crowd dumping tea into the harbor.
The photogenic tea party movement seems to be destined to stay a while. The question remains, how much does it have to do with the namesake event?
People often try to justify their opinions by saying that the “founding fathers” agree with them. They often are guilty of selective use of history. A good place to start would be to define what we mean by the phrase founding fathers.
The FF word was not used before 1916. A senator from Ohio named Warren Harding used the phrase in the keynote address of the 1916 Republican convention. Mr. Harding was elected President in 1920, and is regarded as perhaps the most corrupt man to ever hold the office.
There are two groups of men who could be considered the founding fathers. (The fathers part is correct. Both groups are 100% male.) The Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Independence, which cut the ties to England. Eleven years later, the Constitutional Convention wrote the Constitution that governs America today. While the Continental Congress was braver than the Constitution writers (We must hang together, or we will hang separately), the Constitution is the document that tells our government how to function. For the purposes of this feature, the men of the Constitutional Convention are the founding fathers.
Before moving on, we should remember eight men who signed the Declaration of Independence, and later attended the Constitutional Convention. Both documents were signed by George Clymer, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Morris, George Read, Roger Sherman, and James Wilson. George Wythe left the Constitutional Convention without signing the new document. (He needed to take care of his sick wife. Mr. Wythe later supported ratification.) Elbridge Gerry (the namesake of gerrymandering) refused to sign the Constitution because it did not have a Bill of Rights. Both Mr. Wythe, and Mr. Gerry signed the Declaration of Independence.
The original topic of this discussion was about whether the founding fathers owned slaves. Apparently, PG is not the only person to wonder about this. If you go to google, and type in “did the founding fathers”, the first four answers are owned slaves, believed in G-d, have a death wish, and smoke weed.
The answer, to the obvious question, is an obvious answer. Yes, many of the founding fathers owned slaves. A name by name rundown of the 39 signatories of the Constitution was not done for this blogpost. There is this revealing comment at wiki answers about the prevalence of slave ownership. “John Adams, his second cousin Samuel Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Paine were the only men who are traditionally known as founding fathers who did not own slaves. Benjamin Franklin was indeed a founder of the Abolitionist Society, but he owned two slaves, named King and George. Franklin’s newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette routinely ran ads for sale or purchase of slaves.
Patrick Henry is another founding father who owned slaves, although his speeches would make one think otherwise. Despite his “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” speech, he had up to 70 slaves at a time, apologizing a few times along the way, saying he knew it was wrong, that he was accountable to his God, and citing the “general inconvenience of living without them.”
Patrick Henry was a star of the Revolution, but not present at the Constitutional Convention. The author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, was in Europe during the convention. Mr. Jefferson not only owned slaves, he took one to be his mistress and kidsmama.
One of the more controversial features of the Constitution is the 3/5 rule. Here are the original words “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.” In other words, a slave was only considered to be 60% of a person.
That seems rather harsh. The truth is, it was a compromise. The agricultural southern states did not want to give up their slaves. The northern states did not want to give up Congressional representation. This was the first of many compromises made about slavery, ending with the War between the States. This webpage goes into more detail about the nature of slavery at the start of the U.S.A.
The research for this feature turned up a rather cynical document called The myth of the “Founding Fathers” . It is written by Adolph Nixon. He asks : “most rational persons realize that such political mythology is sheer nonsense, but it begs the question, who were the Founding Fathers and what makes them so great that they’re wiser than you are?”
Mr. Nixon reviews the 39 white men who signed the Constitution. He does not follow the rule, if you can’t say anything nice about someone, then don’t say anything at all. Of the 39, 12 were specified as slave owners, with many tagged as “slave breeders”.
The Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, have served America well. However it was intended, it was written so that it could be amended, and to grow with the young republic. It has on occasion been ignored (when was the last time Congress declared war?). However fine a document it is, it was created by men. These were men of their time, who could not have foreseen the changes that America has gone through. Those who talk the most about the founding fathers often know the least about them.
A big thank you goes to wikipedia Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”. This repost was written like H. P. Lovecraft.
Sports Tax
There was a facebook link to What’s your take on President Obama’s second term? This is a poll about BHO, apparently without a fund raising subplot. PG declined to take the survey, because “It doesn’t matter what I think” was not an option.
There is another story at the website with the BHO poll. The headline was Didn’t Watch the Super Bowl? You Still Got Charged. It was about the “sports tax”. Some of the examples were goofy, but the concept is worth looking at. Especially in Georgia, where taxpayers are being asked to help build the Blank Bowl for the Falcons.
The pretty new stadiums cherished by the NFL are usually built with taxpayer help. Bloomberg has more information.
Taxpayers have committed $18.6 billion since 1992 to subsidies for the NFL’s 32 teams, counting the expense of building stadiums, forgone real estate taxes, land and infrastructure improvements, and interest costs on public bonds, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Eighteen of the teams are owned by billionaires. Even clubs using privately financed buildings such as New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, where the New York Giants and Jets play, receive tens of millions of dollars in subsidies in the form of land and infrastructure spending.
Publicly financed stadiums for all U.S. major-league sports, including soccer, cost taxpayers about $10 billion more than forecast when accounting for the costs of land, infrastructure, operations and lost property taxes, according to a study of all 121 facilities in use during 2010 by Judith Grant Long, who teaches urban planning at Harvard University. The NFL has the highest public price tag, with taxpayers putting up about 87 percent of the expenses for NFL stadiums, she writes in her 2012 book, “Public/Private Partnerships for Major League Sports Facilities.”
This spending on sports facilities comes at a time when most governments are broke. Basic services are being cut back, and taxpayers are in revolt. Many say professional sports is a luxury we can no longer afford. The subsidies of events like the Super Bowl make them less profitable for the host city.
The second sports tax is a bit more esoteric. The sports industry gets tax breaks. They can make campaign contributions, and get cool deals from lawmakers. The one percent has it’s privileges. The rest of the population makes up the difference.
The third tax is a bit flakey. The word here is that sports channels are expensive, and included in most basic cable packages. If you don’t watch ESPN, you still have to pay for it. Unless you don’t pay for TV, which is still an option.
The fourth sports tax involves institutions of higher learning. If you attend a football factory, there are athletic fees. Resources that could be used for education are used to pay for athletic programs. While some athletic programs are cash cows, many are not.
The article does not mention higher health care costs because of sports injuries. When you operate under the insurance paradigm, everyone’s burden is spread out. When there are more expenses, there is more for the pool to pay for. Football is notorious for it’s injuries, but other sports contribute to the problem. This does not consider the resources directed to glamorous sports medicine, instead of others.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This is written like David Foster Wallace.
House Bill 39
There is a proposed law at the Lesterslature to outlaw naughty photoshopping. Crusading blogger Andre Walker gives some examples. The page sometimes has a fundraising ad for Paul Broun, US Senate 2014.
The helpful illustration shows the lawmaker’s face, pasted on the body of an adult actor. The face, and body, are the same race. The naughty parts on the picture are pixillated, or so it is hoped. If the actor’s prop really looks like that, then he has worse problems than being involved in Georgia politics.
A Savannah newspaper has the 411 on this threat to our freedom, Nude photo spurs action on Georgia House bill. “An Augusta legislator has found himself the victim of the type of photo manipulation that he is working to outlaw. Rep. Earnest Smith is cosponsoring House Bill 39 that would make it a misdemeanor with a $1,000 fine. It is authored by fellow Democrat Pam Dickerson of Conyers who first introduced it last year in response to online attacks of a teenaged girl. “We need to do something.”
Smith said Monday that he learned last week that someone had digitally pasted his head on the body of a nude man, but he doesn’t know who did it. “I could not venture to give you an answer,” he said. The bill received no action last year, but Smith hopes this year will be different, perhaps because the picture targeting him illustrates how vulnerable all politicians are. “It can be done to anyone at any time.”
So far, he has heard no objections from free-speech advocates defending the Constitution’s First Amendment. “No one has a right to make fun of anyone. You have a right to speak, but no one has a right to disparage another person. It’s not a First Amendment right,” he said.”
It is not certain if Mr. Smith’s bill is even in consideration this year. If you google “georgia house bill 39,” you get this: “… declarations of intent and attendance records for home study programs are submitted to the Department of Education rather than local school superintendents; to provide that notice by local school systems to parents relating to unexcused absences may be made by United States mail;”
In Virginia, HB 39 has a different meaning. “Causing telephone to ring with intent to annoy. Provides that a second or subsequent conviction of the Class 3 misdemeanor of causing a telephone or digital pager to ring with intent to annoy is a Class 2 misdemeanor.”
This is written like David Foster Wallace.
Pictures are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”
Candygate
There is a curious story today,Atlanta Hates Republicans: Political Correctness Bans Candy. It seems some members of Atlanta Young Republicans went to fire houses, giving candy to firemen for Valentine’s Day. It was intended as a gesture of appreciation, and was well received by some.
“That was, until, we were turned away because of political affiliation. Apparently one of the chiefs was concerned about accepting candy from a Republican group because they did not want to appear partisan. This prompted an email to a supervisor that resulted in a city-wide candy delivery shut down. I’m sorry, sir, but when did accepting candy from young professionals who wanted to solely express gratitude become a political statement? Would you have done the same thing from the Young Democrats? How about if we had been handing out steak dinners with baked potatoes and pecan pie? I’m calling you out, because I don’t think you would. It’s interesting that the further south we went into the city, the less receptive people became. (I thought liberals liked free stuff???) I could understand if we were bringing around voter registration information or pushing a certain candidate, asking for donations or had something to gain from our actions…but delivering candy? What the heck has the world come to?”
The part that gets the bells ringing here is “It’s interesting that the further south we went into the city, the less receptive people became. (I thought liberals liked free stuff???) “. Is the candypasser trying to use code words here? Does “liberal” really mean “black”? Inquiring minds want to know.
The blog that tells this story is a grammar challenged facility The Perspicacious Conservative. The conservative movement seems to have degenerated to making jokes about anyone they consider “liberal”. Evidently, not being bought off with VD candy is a liberal trait.
HT to Peach Pundit. Pictures are from big government liberals The Library of Congress. The spell check suggestion for candypasser is canvasser. This is written like Raymond Chandler.
Ventriloquism for Dummies
We had to have the garage door repaired. The &%&%&% repairman told us that one of our problems was that we did not have a ‘large’ enough motor on the opener. I thought for a minute, and said that we had the largest one &%&%&% made at that time, a 1/2 horsepower. He shook his head and said, ‘Lady, you need a 1/4 horsepower.’ I responded that 1/2 was larger than 1/4. He said, ‘NO, it’s not.’ Four is larger than two.”
My daughter and I went through the #$#$#$’s take-out window and I gave the clerk a $5 bill. Our total was $4.25, so I also handed her a quarter. She said, ‘you gave me too much money.’ I said, ‘Yes I know, but this way you can just give me a dollar bill back.’ She sighed and went to get the manager who asked me to repeat my request. I did so, and he handed me back the quarter, and said “We’re sorry but they could not do that kind of thing.’ The clerk then proceeded to give me back$1 and 75 cents in change.
The stoplight on the corner buzzes when it’s safe to cross the street. I was crossing with an intellectually challenged coworker of mine. She asked if I knew what the buzzer was for. I explained that it signals blind people when the light is red. Appalled, she responded, ‘What are blind people doing driving?!
My daughter went to a local @#@#@#@ and ordered a taco. She asked the person behind the counter for ‘minimal lettuce.’ He said he was sorry, but they only had iceburg lettuce.
I was at the airport, checking in at the gate when an airport employee asked, ‘Has anyone put anything in your baggage without your knowledge?’ To which I replied, ‘If it was without my knowledge, how would I know?’ He smiled knowingly and nodded, ‘That’s why we ask.’
I work with an individual who plugged her power strip back into itself and for the sake of her life, couldn’t understand why her system would not turn on.
At a good-bye luncheon for an old and dear coworker. She was leaving the company due to ‘downsizing.’ Our manager commented cheerfully, ‘This is fun. We should do this more often.’ Not another word was spoken. We all just looked at each other with that deer-in-the-headlights stare.
When my husband and I arrived at an automobile dealer shop to pick up our car, we were told the keys had been locked in it. We went to the service department and found a mechanic working feverishly to unlock the driver’s side door. As I watched from the passenger side, I instinctively tried the door handle and discovered that it was unlocked. ‘Hey,’ I announced to the technician, ‘its open!’ His reply, ‘I know. I already got that side.’
I live in a semi rural area. We recently had a new neighbor call the local township administrative office to request the removal of the DEER CROSSING sign on our road. The reason: ‘Too many deer are being hit by cars out here! I don’t think this is a good place for them to be crossing anymore.’ This is a repost.
Hastings
Jimmy Breslin is a New York journalist. He was on BookNotes, promoting something he had written about Damon Runyan. At some point, he had a few things to say about handguns.
BRESLIN: I was thinking of that with the guns. We’ve got an enormous amount of empty hands in the city of New York — poor people with empty hands — and there is a whole lot of guns coming in and those empty hands pick them up. Now, we’ve been saying just a tiny, stupid, little thing. I never understood the argument. How can you have a semi-automatic weapon, period. I mean, what are they for? … Now, I’m thinking of that this morning when they hear this gun they used in Killeen, Texas. What did he kill — 22 — with a gun?
… What reason is there for a gun — a handgun? I mean, he gets it to kill somebody with, that’s all. There’s no other reason. I don’t know why they make them. They make them to kill people with.
We just lost that guy Hastings. There was bartender, a fellow by the name of Hastings, in the city of New York. He fought at Guadalcanal and Okinawa as a Marine. Pretty good. Been around a little action, I’d say, right? He did 20 years as a New York City policeman and a detective. The day he left the job he turned in all his guns and said, “I never want to look at one of them again. I know exactly what they are. I don’t like them. Goodbye.” He was tending bar the other night in the Garden Grove, which is one of those neighborhood places that generations of working people have known in the Woodside neighborhood of Queens, and he walks out at 3 in the morning carrying some Chinese food, no gun — gave those things up, hates them — and a guy thought it was the receipts from the bar and shot him in the head with a gun. Now, if Hastings, who was around guns at Guadalcanal, doesn’t like them, what are we doing making them today so somebody can walk up and shoot him in the head? We lost a magnificent human being that way. I think that that’s politics, and I think that’s where I would write quite a bit of politics. For anybody that doesn’t vote to stop the manufacture of guns, well, he’s just contributing to murder. That’s all there is to it. I think that’s political now.
Later in the chat, there was this exchange with interviewer Brian Lamb. LAMB: When are you absolutely the happiest? BRESLIN: You’re not put on this earth to be happy. You’re really not. Now you laugh — you’ll find that’s true before we’re through. The pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”. The spell check suggestion for Breslin is Breadline.
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Cluster Bombs
During the 2008 campaign, there was a little bit of discussion of cluster bombs. Supposedly, BHO wants to ban the use of such weapons.
WHAT ARE CLUSTER BOMBS? Cluster bombs or cluster munitions are large weapons which are deployed from the air and from the ground and release dozens or hundreds of smaller submunitions. Submunitions released by air-dropped cluster bombs are most often called “bomblets,” while those delivered from the ground by artillery or rockets are usually referred to as “grenades.”
Evidence that BHO is opposed to the use of these weapons is here: “In the autumn of 2006, Diane Feinstein (D-CA) submitted an amendment (No. 4882) to a Pentagon appropriations bill to the Senate. It banned neither the manufacturing, stockpiling nor the use of cluster bombs. It merely forbade their use in “any concentrated population of civilians, whether permanent or temporary, including inhabited parts of cities or villages, camps or columns of refugees or evacuees, or camps or groups of nomads.” Senator Feinstein couldn’t have made voting for the bill more pain-free. Senator Obama voted yea, McCain, predictably, nay.
These reports are five years old. Is the United States still using cluster bombs? That is a silly question. “Cluster munitions have demonstrated military utility. Their elimination from U.S. stockpiles would put the lives of its soldiers and those of its coalition partners at risk. Moreover, cluster munitions can often result in much less collateral damage than unitary weapons, such as a larger bomb or larger artillery shell would cause, if used for the same mission.”
Pictures are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
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