Flag Lapel Pin Upside Down
As you may notice, this blog sometimes puts up collections of quotes. There is usually a document on the desktop, which serves as a recycling bin. This document also serves as a writing station for comments. The idea is to write the comment out, include all the salient links, before you enter your tidbit of wisdom. Often, a moment of discretion will occur, and the comment will not be posted. Comments never die, at least at Chamblee54. Today, we will have a collection of recent thoughts, some of which are smarter than others.
A typical night in Brookhaven sees PG editing pictures, while listening to “something”. When literally hundreds of regular podcasts, PG can only follow so many. One favorite is Bloggingheads.tv. The viewer at BHTV allows you to make a video clip. This device was invented by Greg Dingle, and is sometimes known as a Dinglelink. It is not known if this is connected to Dingleberries. This device allows the listener to illustrate a comment, with a quote from the discussion. PG even wrote a poem … Imagine a world without David Corn, ~ in which he had never been born, ~ Bob said without any scorn, ~ without a beard that is shorn.
This blog post is interrupted to listen to radio. Every Friday morning, porcine radio whiner Mike Gallagher has Chris Wallace on the show. Today, Mike is heartbroken over the election, asking if it is appropriate to wear his american flag lapel pin upside down as a sign of distress. When Mr. Wallace talks about problems with Hispanic voters, Mr. Gallagher says the Hispanics need to reach out to the republicans, not the other way around.
Getting back to dinglelinks, there is one that stands out. Last summer, certain Atlanta communities were having a group hissy fit about racism and white privilege. While this was going on, Glenn Loury said that African Americans were an extremely privileged people. PG nearly fell out of his chair.
Here is the rest of the collection. Some are calling the POTUS wannabe Money Boo Boo. ~ The Buford/Clairmont Kroger has perhaps the worst parking lot ITP ~ An unnamed source says that Fox News is going to be renamed Wolf News Network, in honor of the little boy who cried wolf. ~ After one hour and fifty seconds of chatter, there was a kumbayah moment. The contestants today kept saying “read the transcript”. Has BHTV started to provide transcripts? This would certainly benefit lazy bloggers who like to discuss your show. ~ Without any effort at coordination, here are the three loose dinglelinks that remain. tongue for truth ~ stupidity of wmr strategy ~ good person.
1- This show , with Dr. and Mr. Loury, was great fun to listen to. There were a few sound recording shortcomings, and Mr. Loury could have been better photographed. 2- Religion is a highly individual affair. Dr. Loury chose to attend a church, and it makes him feel good. I have had the church experience shoved in my face, and it made me unhappy. 3- Mr. Loury made a very insightful comment about politicians co opting a narrative politicians co opting a narrative to get elected. I don’t know whether all politicians do this, but the vast majority do. Certainly the chameleon ex Governor of Massachusetts is borrowing a different narrative every day. 4- Dr. Loury has some great comments about the “black identity” that BHO has assumed. Yes, this is the experience of the descendents of slavery, which BHO is emphatically not. (Did the ancestors of Ann Dunham own slaves?) 5- Dr. Loury had a long list of things that Jeremiah Wright is not. I cannot make a clip for everything. I found myself saying, though, that he might not be this or that, but that the public personality that I have seen is one of an asshole. You should not force white people to listen to that style of preaching and react with anything other than disgust. 6- No discussion of religion is complete without the baby and the bathwater. 7- If you disagree with the basic beliefs of a religion, you are unlikely to change your mind because they condemn your sexuality.
1- Another thing to consider is that a lot of things get posted, and sometimes some people miss a few. I honestly don’t have a clue what this discussion is about. I am not sure that I want to know. 2- Many of the race oriented discussions get very heated. There is a lot of people typing first, and maybe thinking later. You take a real chance when you comment in one of these discussions. Life is short, and I am not sure I want to spend part of mine being attacked on facebook. 3- There is an element of supremicism in anti racism. There seems to be a bully element, of people whipping up on others because they don’t like their attitudes about race.
The Chris Stevens who was killed was a diplomat. ~ “And so then I told her, I ain’t eat none of that pork or fish or whatever– all I trust is chicken and Jesus!” ~ Is there anyone who doesn’t want to march, but would like to find a spot to sit down and watch the parade? There is going to be a faerie viewing area in front of the Fox Theater during the parade tomorrow. All are welcome to join, especially those that bring snacks. ~ “A mathematician is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat, which isn’t there.” – Charles Darwin ~ The phrase I heard was “you throw like a girl”. There is an active/passive duality in throwing and catching. ~ E-Mail Filter effective immediately: Dear friends: In order to avoid repeating the last four years of discussion and anxiety please be aware that we have added another filter to our e-mails: Filter name: OBAMA contains OBAMA begins with OBAMA ends with OBAMA Send to: SPAM
After the knee jerk joke in the first comment, I felt obligated to read your feature. It seems that atheism is more closely related to Jesus Worship Religion than many realize. They are both belief based systems. You replace one set of beliefs with another. You seek validation through the conversion of others. I have my experience with the belief/disbelief cycle. To me, the goal is to live a compassionate life, and block out as much noise as possible. Sometimes my body chemistry looks for a reason to be unhappy, and Jesus is always there to remember. I don’t know what the answer is. I have written about this many times at my blog, chamblee54. I find that often when I write about these issues, I feel more unhappy than before I started. At least I can put some pictures up. The theme of chamblee54 is pretty pictures and ugly opinions. At least expressing these opinions in a written form allows the target to skip over the text. It also allows me to finish my sentence without being interrupted. Perhaps the number one problem with Jesus worshipers is the eagerness to interrupt and say things that please themselves. This is another function of the belief paradigm.
To whom it may concern, You are hereby notified that you are strictly prohibited from disclosing, copying, distributing, disseminating, or taking any other action against me with regard to this profile and the contents herein, including, but not limited to my photos, and/or the comments made about my photos or any other “picture” art posted on my profile. The foregoing prohibitions also apply to your employee, agent, student or any personnel under your direction or control. The contents of this profile are private and legally privileged and confidential information, and the violation of my personal privacy is punishable by law. UCC 1-103 1-308 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED WITHOUT PREJUDICE!
For the record, the name is pronounced BAH decker.(spell check suggestion:pecker) Just remember Bah Humbug. ~ I made a comment, regarding this comment. A man says, referring to abortion, that all life is precious. “How can you say all life is precious, but make an exception for someone in Iran, because you say the dictator wants a nuclear weapon.” “Wanhope” replied… “All life is precious … except when the life in question is being lived in a nation that does (or seems to) threaten America. It is then still precious, but must go away. ” ~ This was written like David Foster Wallace. Mr. Wallace should not be used as a role model. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Wolf News Network
There were two discussions recently on BloggingheadsTV which say a great deal about why the recent election turned out the way it did. The first was October 29, with Robert Wright and Ann Althouse. The second was November 2, with Robert Farley and Matthew Duss.
The original headline (the verbatim version is lost) to the Farley-Duss chat was “Why are conservatives hating on Nate Silver”? When a statistician calls the election for BHO, and the repubs scream about the messenger, that tells the observant listener that BHO is going to win.
One of the subjects discussed by Farley-Duss is Benghazi. There was an incident at the US embassy there, and four Americans died. It seems that the Wall Street Journal had a report (behind a paywall) saying that the C.I.A. had been responsible for the security. Apparently, there was confusion, and mistakes were made. However, to try to turn this into an election issue was not appropriate.
The attack on the embassy was a major theme for Ann Althouse. One eye opener was when she said that only Fox news was covering the story. When PG heard that, his first instinct was to consider it a lie. For the last five years, no anti BHO story has been too far fetched for Fox. Maybe the network should be renamed Wolf, featuring the little boy crying.
The talk about Benghazi went on for nearly ten minutes. Ms. Althouse asked how the two SEALS managed to kill sixty attackers. This is a nifty bit of rhetoric. You make a questionable claim, assume it is true, and ask how it happened. As it turns out, there is more than a little bit of confusion about what happened at the embassy.
After a while, Ms. Althouse compared the embassy attack to Watergate. This seems like a stretch, just like so much of the drivel to come out about BHO from Wolf news.
Christian Privilege
There is a lot of chatter about privilege these days. Where people used to talk about racism, today the buzzword is privilege. Chamblee54 has tried to contribute to the dialog (polylog) with recent posts about black privilege and white privilege. This is a repost.
One day recently, PG was exercising his vehicular privilege. The thought occured to him about another form of privilege. This privilege is stronger than race based privilege. In fact, many of the people, who whine about white privilege, benefit from this privilege. The president of privilege in America is Christian Privilege. (CP)
If you ask Mr. Google about CP, you get 3.6 million results. The first few give us plenty of text for this feature. A report about CP from About.com Agnosticism / Atheism has the traditional list of examples. The last few paragraphs tell more about the story.
A nonconscious ideology is analogous to the water fish swim in: fish don’t think of the water as wet because this environment is all they know — it structures their experience of life itself. Water simply is. Members of privileged groups don’t have to think about their environment because, for them, that environment simply is. They don’t have to be concerned about others’ opinions because it’s safe to assume that most think like them.
Those who don’t benefit from such an environment do have to think about it all the time because they are so susceptible to being harmed by it. For members of less privileged groups, what others think matters a great deal because their opinions and actions control access to the larger benefits of society. Fish don’t have to think about the water; mammals must remain conscious of it at all times lest they drown.
In most of the examples here, we can replace Christian/religion with male/gender or white/race and come up with the same results: examples of how our social, political, and cultural environment reinforce the dominance of one group over others. Male privilege and white privilege are closely related to Christian privilege because they have all been undermined by modernity and have all become part of America’s Culture Wars.
Christians realize that many of the above privileges are in decline. They interpret this as persecution because privilege is all they have ever known. The same is true when men complain about the decline of male privilege and whites complain about the decline of white privilege. The defense of privilege is a defense of dominance and discrimination, but for those who benefit it’s a defense of their traditional way of life. They need to become conscious of their privileges and realize that in a free society, such privileges are inappropriate.
A blog called Shakesville weighs in with On “Real” Christians and Christian Privilege . It tells the story of being asked not to identify Ann Coulter as a Christian. PG totally understands being embarassed by Ms. Coulter. There was a radio show once, with Ann Coulter promoting a book and PG listening. Some famous person was mentioned, and Ms. Coulter started to make jokes about what would happen to this famous person when he died. The line was that when he gets to heaven, he is going to wish he had been a Christian. This assumption that your ideas about life after death are correct, and universally practiced, is one especially vile example of CP.
The feature at Shakesville (which is easier to pronounce than Shakespearessister) is about how many people deflect complaints about bad behavior by saying “He is not really a Christian”. This is unsatisfactory on a number of levels. Many of the “good” Christians support “bad” Christians in their evil work. This excuse is one reason why PG prefers to say Jesus Worshiper to describe the members of this tribe. Shakes addresses this issue: “Frankly, it’s hurtful to me when Christians address what happened to me by saying, “Those aren’t real Christians,” expecting me to salve their discomfort about the baggage of privilege by not disagreeing. People who would never in a million years think to try to console a victim of a hate crime with “All [white/straight/cis/abled] people aren’t like that!” nonetheless responded that way to me when I was targeted and threatened by droves of self-identified Christians.”
Shakes is a good writer. She says things much better than this slack blogger. Maybe we should just let her explain a few things.
Christianity has a 2,000-year history that has seen countless iterations of the religion based on countless interpretation of the text and shaped to fit countless times and spaces and needs in disparate cultures all around the world. Christians have done great things, and not-so-great things—and anyone who makes the personal choice to carry the Christian mantle associates themselves with a history that includes all the good stuff and all the shitty stuff, too. One can’t say, “I only associate with the good Christianity—not the inquisitions and the genocides and the warmongering and the colonialism and the institutional misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, racism, anti-Semitism…”
That’s all part of Christianity’s legacy, too—and it just isn’t intellectually honest to say, “Well, those weren’t real Christians.” Yes, they were. And so are the Christians who do shitty stuff today. They might not be the same kind of Christian as you are, but they are nonetheless Christians.
Christianity, at least (and especially) in America, is a privilege—and, like any privilege, it can be uncomfortable to face the ugly reality of what other members of a privileged class can do to non-privileged folks, even if you don’t do it yourself. I’m white, I’m straight, I’m cisgender: I understand the impulse to distance oneself. But as a white person, I am obliged to acknowledge that the history of white supremacy in America is one of slavery, of lynchings, of segregation, of sundown towns, of internment camps, of genocide, and of all manner of institutionalized racism. I don’t get to say (nor do I want to) that the KKK aren’t “real” white people. They sure as hell are.
That Christianity is a chosen privilege does not mean its members can claim a lower standard of rigorous self-examination. And it doesn’t mean that less privileged Christians, i.e. progressive Christians, can claim a lower standard, either, just because the more privileged Christians marginalize them. Poor whites don’t get to disclaim their white privilege just because they are further marginalized by their lack of wealth.
In fact, chosen privileges demand, if anything, a higher standard of self-examination, because one has a choice whether to participate in the privilege. But so often, the fact that Christianity is a choice is instead used to deny the effects of that privilege altogether—”I’m not one of those Christians; I’m one of the good ones!”
Letter To Seventy Eight Year Old PG
There was a suggestion at WordPress to write a letter to yourself as a fourteen year old, and another letter to yourself in twenty years. PG thought this was a cool idea. If the trackback went up on the WordPress site, then it might generate some traffic for this blog. It might even get the attention of Freshly Pressed , which has never featured Chamblee54.
It is like General Halftrack and the Pentagon. The Daily Post did not post a link to friday’s letter. The traffic went below one hundred hits on saturday. Now it is sunday, the clocks are set back an hour, and it is trying to rain. The letter to a seventy eight year old PG is a good idea, so here it goes. Once again, it is in first person. Pictures are from The Library of Congress
Ok, so you are twenty years older. Or maybe you are not. The three main older people in this life were Mom, Dad, and Gran. They all died when they were seventy five, except for Mom, who made it to seventy six. Seventy eight might be pushing things a bit, considering the way things sometimes feel at fifty eight. The idea is to write this letter, and not worry about whether the destination will have an internet connection.
This is the sunday before the Presidential election, aka the day when a dictatorship doesn’t sound so bad. People in Georgia have their votes stolen from them by the electoral college, so we don’t have to choose between a war criminal and a liar. Or is this choice between a liar and a war criminal wannabe?
There is a saying about holding your nose when you vote. The neighborhood precinct is the cafetorium of a school. Unless you are blocking the memory, you might recall going to classes in that building. Tuesday will not be the first time I have held my nose in that cafetorium.
This is the first year of the City of Brookhaven. I find myself choosing people on the basis of personalities, rather than issues. When it comes to the so called issues, the candidates seem to say the same things. This is true for the State House race, which is the other choice I will have. The repub is just plain gross. Mr. Bahhumbug has a bright future if he doesn’t get caught again.
There is no telling what the election choices will be in 2032. Assuming that the electoral college continues to facilitate the two party duopoly, you probably won’t have much of a choice. The takeover by the moneylenders should be complete by that point.
Since we are doing this in twenty year cycles, lets look back to some other elections. The first time I got to vote was 1972. Tricky Dick was a thief, and a war criminal, but George McGovern was a dummy. The problem for Tricky Dick was the second term syndrome. Most Presidents who are reelected for a second full term have horrible problems. While Mr. Nixon’s second term was not as bad as those of Abraham Lincoln or William McKinley, he did have his problems.
In 1992, it looked like Daddy Bush was sailing to victory. He won a war, and the Democratic candidate was Slick Willie Clinton. (From Tricky Dick to Slick Willie, Bebe Rebozo to Monica Lewinsky.) Ross Perot threw a monkey wrench in the electoral works by running as a third party candidate. This is a feature of the duopoly… when one party wins the Presidency too many times, something strange happens.
It happened in 1912, when Theodore Roosevelt ran as a third party candidate, and Woodrow Wilson got elected. Within a year, the Federal Reserve Bank was set up. After the re-election of Mr. Wilson, we got mixed up in World War One. There is nothing good to say about the elections of 1932 and 1952.
There is one more election that should be discussed here, even though it is not part of the twenty year cycle. I was listening to a chat before the 2000 election. One person thought it was important to vote for Al Gore. This had been a dull election. George W. Bush was sort of an unknown quality, while Al Gore was not a terribly inspiring figure.
That is not how things turned out. W was allowed to serve, after Mr. Gore won the popular vote. Seven months after the inauguration, 911 kick started the twenty first century. The response of W was to start two self destructive wars. With the help of the demoze, there was a tax cut before the start of the second war. The economy may never recover.
So, it is good form to write a last paragraph to these things. It is an act of optimism to assume you will be here in twenty years. Living in the WMD age, the idea of thermonuclear catastrophe has always been present. The possibility of man making the planet unlivable is also very real. Maybe a dependable source of non destructive energy will be found in the next twenty years, to go with a dependable source of water for Atlanta. The future has always been dim, but somehow it continues to happen.
Horse Hight Pig Tight Bull Strong
There was a link at Peach Pundit yesterday, Lee Anderson Website Issue Quiz! It is supposed to be off the website of Lee Anderson, who is running for Congress in the redneck triangle. PG couldn’t find it, but is confident that it is somewhere.
The quiz has four questions. There is a saying, and the idea is to find a current issue to go with the phrase. This ought to be a good excuse to spin out some text to go between the pictures. These images are from The Library of Congress. The answers are below the questions, and looking ahead is considered cheating. Anyone cheating on a meaningless internet quiz has got problems.
Question 1. There is an old saying, “G-d gives every bird a worm, but he doesn’t throw it in the nest.”
Tax Policy ~ Abortion ~ Wildlife Management ~ Job Creators ~ I’ve never heard anyone say this.
This is sort of a strange quote. Rumors of a pundit named Jerome Old turn out to not be true. If you ask Mr. Google, he says it is a Swedish folk saying, or that P.D. James said it. There is also a quote by Ogden Nash. “I am a conscientious man, when I throw rocks at seabirds I leave no tern unstoned.” If marijuana regulation were on the Georgia ballot, then this might be germane.
That site says the Question 1 phrase is a “Swedish Saying”. It has a quote by Anonymous: “Test-tube babies shouldn’t throw stones.” There is a quote from Brink Lindsey: “But in the terrible, simplifying clarity of war, it is apparent who is on one side and who is on the other. In the struggle between civilization and barbarism, those who throw rocks through McDonald’s and those who ram airplanes into buildings are expending their destructive energies in a common cause.”
Question 2. On the farm, keeping what you want in and what you don’t want out is important. Your fences need to be horse-high, pig-tight and bull-strong in order to do their job.
Birth Control ~ Wildlife Management ~ Illegal Immigration ~ Job Creators ~ Illegal Aliens are essentially livestock, no wait, the aliens are to like vermin or something, so our citizens are the livestock, and they shouldn’t be able to leave. Right? No?
Did someone say horse high? They might be talking about Latawnya, the Naughty Horse, Learns to Say “No” to Drugs. “This is the tale of three African American horses (Latawnya, Latoya and Daisy), who leave the stable and get drugs from four white horses (Connie, Chrystal, Jackie and Angie). It is a timely and poignant tale that will leave you laughing, crying, and making scary noises. It starkly and accurately presents the real dangers horses in black neighborhoods face from Caucasian equine drug pushers; when one of the horses died of a drug overdose, this reviewer wept openly. This is a lesson all children, foals, calves, chicks and cubs must learn before it is too late. A classic of our time. “
Question 3.Mark Twain once said that politicians are like diapers: they must be changed often and for the same reason. [Hint, he goes on to say: “In my view, 8-12 years is enough for anyone, and I will work to make term limits in Congress a reality.”]
Birth Control ~ Term Limits ~ Tax Policy ~ Diapers should probably be changed more often than politicians ~ We should vote out Barrow in Four Years?
Term limits is one of those things. When the Contract on America was foisted upon the Clintonized landscape of America, term limits was part of the deal. The fact that Newt Gingrich had been in Congress for sixteen years was not considered important.
Question 4. A teacher once told me that as long as the federal government is involved in education, it will always be mediocre for the same reason that in large kitchens, the cooking is usually bad.
Immigration Policy ~ Tax Policy ~ Federal Education Policy ~ Support of the Federal Cafeteria Awareness Act ~ Lee Anderson hates restaurants.
This does not indicate what subject the teacher taught. If he/she was a science teacher, this might be worth listening to. If he/she was a math teacher, then this doesn’t add up. If he/she taught English as a Second Language, then most Chinese restaurants have small kitchens.
1. Either Tax Policy or Job Creators would be correct. Lee Anderson thinks there is too much regulation and that’s like weeds in a garden. He then trumpets his rating from the National Federation of Independent Businesses, which endorsed John Barrow, so maybe he got a higher rating?
2. Illegal Immigration. Great line here: “Somehow the greatest country on earth, who put a man on the moon, can’t build a fence along the border with Mexico?”
3. Term Limits. And Mark Twain didn’t say this.
4. This is part of what appears to be a long diatribe about Emeril Legasse not accepting American culture, but if you said Federal Education Policy, I suppose you can count it as correct. But seriously, what is so bad about restaurants? Are they not job creators? If you eat at home, aren’t you costing American jobs?
Trash Politics In Brookhaven District 2
On election day, the Mayor and City Council of Brookhaven will be elected. The new city was approved after a toxic referendum in July. After the vote, PG was disgusted by the gutter tactics of the supporters of the new city. A mailer received today brings those same repulsive tactics into the District 2 City Council race.
The mailer that offended PG was sent by “Start Brookhaven Right, Inc”. The group uses the UPS Store on Ashford Dunwoody Road as a return address. It is produced in the visual style of Rosetta Stone Communications, and looks a great deal like a mailer from Russell Mitchell. 
One side of the mailer is the words “Brookhaven is a “Cancer”, in Olde English letters, on a firetruck red background. The quote is credited to Jim Eyre Mr. Eyre is an opponent of Russell Mitchell in the District 2 City Council race. (Larry Hurst is the third candidate.) No context is given for the headline quote. The other side of the mailer says that Jim Eyre is an ally of DeKalb County CEO Burrell Ellis. Mr. Eyre is the only City Council candidate mentioned in the flyer.
This is similar to the tactics Brookhaven Yes/Brookhaven Ballot Committee used in support of the new city. There was a hint of race baiting, with subtle reminders that a majority white community was trying to break away from a majority black county government. This sort of mudslinging personal attack politics alienated PG during the campaign leading up to the referendum. It makes Mr. Mitchell look bad. If you are going to attack someone, you should sign your name.
PG sent an email to Russell Mitchell. (russellmitchell4brookhaven@hotmail.com) 
I received today a mailer from “Start Brookhaven Right”. The ad was very similar to a mailer I received from “Friends of Russell Mitchell”. The mailer received today has a quote from your opponent…”Brookhaven is a cancer”. The other side says that Mr. Eyre is an ally of Burrell Ellis.
This is objectionable for several reasons.
1- The mailer was sent by an anonymous committee. This plausible deniability might convince some people, but I am not fooled.
2- This is similar to the toxic tactics used by Brookhaven Yes/Brookhaven Ballot committee in their effort to get the new city approved. This campaign alienated me, and made me want no part of this current campaign. The new city is getting off to a rotten start.
3- Both my parents died of cancer.
You left a post it note on my door saying “Please let me know how I can earn your vote” It is easy. Repudiate “Start Brookhaven Right”. Have a clean campaign. Quit sending trash mailers.
This was written like David Foster Wallace. Historic pictures are from The Library of Congress.
The AP Race Study
The first link was from the Washington Post. The AP story is coming to a media outlet near you. The headline is AP poll: A slight majority of Americans are now expressing negative view of Blacks.
There are so many windows in that glass house. This is a 3-S problem: sampling, semantics, statistics. It is said that people will believe anything you say, if you can trot out a study that agrees with you. This *matter* requires a bit of examination.
AP reports “The explicit racism measures asked respondents whether they agreed or disagreed with a series of statements about Black and Hispanic people. In addition, the surveys asked how well respondents thought certain words, such as “friendly,” ‘’hardworking,” ‘’violent” and “lazy,” described Blacks, whites and Hispanics.
The same respondents were also administered a survey designed to measure implicit racism, in which a photo of a Black, Hispanic or white male flashed on the screen before a neutral image of a Chinese character. The respondents were then asked to rate their feelings toward the Chinese character. Previous research has shown that people transfer their feelings about the photo onto the character, allowing researchers to measure racist feelings even if a respondent does not acknowledge them.”
The AP article has a link to a 34 page report about the study. The “implicit” questions using Chinese characters were not discussed in this report. The first 12 pages are mostly about the November election.
Page 13 has a bizarre bit of data. The 2010 answers will be on the left, followed by a dash, with the 2012 percentage on the right. For Mitt Romney, only 2012 results are available. This is weird, and it calls the overall accuracy of the study into question.
IMG4. Do you happen to know the religion of each of the following people? If you don’t know, you can mark that too. Barack Obama Protestant 26-28, Catholic 4-5, Mormon 0-0, Jewish 0-18, Muslim 17-10, Some other religion 8-2, No religion 2-35, Don’t Know 41-2, Refused/not answered 1-28 Mitt Romney Protestant 2, Catholic 2, Mormon 67, Jewish 0, Muslim 0, Some other religion 1, No religion 0, Don’t Know 26, Refused/not answered 2.
There are two more pages of questions about the election, and then the race questions start. RAC7. How much do you like or dislike each of the following groups? The possible answers are Like a great deal, Like a moderate amount, Like a little, Neither like nor dislike, Dislike a little, Dislike a moderate amount, Dislike a great deal, Refused/Not answered. Whites went first, followed by Blacks and Hispanics. (The term African Americans was not seen by this reporter.)
After some more election questions, we get another race question. RAC8. When it comes to politics, would you say that each of the groups listed below has too much influence, just about the right amount of influence, or to little influence? The question was repeated for, in this order, Whites, Blacks, Elderly people, Wealthy people, Hispanics, and Immigrants.
The next question is RAC11, one of the “explicit” questions. It was asked first about Blacks, then Whites, then Hispanics. How well does each of these words describe most _____? The words were friendly, determined to succeed, law abiding, hard working, intelligent at school, smart at everyday things, good neighbors, dependable, keep up their property, violent, boastful, complaining, lazy, irresponsible.
Lets take a time out, and say a couple of things. This is a long article, and may get your blood pressure upset. If you want to skip the rest of the text, and look at the pictures, that is all right. If you want to see the results for these questions, look at this report. If you have read this far, you might agree with the author that this survey was not exactly fair, and should not be taken very seriously. Take another look at how many people think Barack Obama is a Jew.
RAC12. Please indicate how much you agree or disagree with the following statements. The choices are: Strongly disagree, Somewhat disagree, Neither agree nor disagree, Somewhat agree, Strongly agree, Refused/Not answered. The statements are:
* Irish, Italians, Jewish, and other minorities overcame prejudice and worked their way up.
* Blacks should do the same without special favors
* It’s really a matter of some people just not trying hard enough; if Blacks would only try harder, they could just be as well off as whites
* Generations of slavery have created conditions that make it difficult for Blacks to work their way out of the lower class
* Blacks are demanding too much from the rest of society
* Over the past few years, Blacks have gotten LESS than they deserve
* Most Blacks who receive money from welfare programs could get along without it if they tried
Government officials usually pay less attention to a request or complaint from a Black person than from a white person
* Over the past few years, Blacks have gotten more ECONOMICALLY than they deserve
RAC13. Some people say that Black leaders have been trying to push too fast. Others feel that they haven’t pushed fast enough. What do you think?
RAC14. How much of the racial tension that exists in the United States today do you think ______ are responsible for creating? This was asked first about Blacks, then Whites, then Hispanics.
RAC15. How much discrimination against ______ do you feel there is in the United States today, limiting their chances to get ahead? The possible answers were A lot, Some, Just a little, None at all, Refused/Not answered. This was asked about, in this order, Blacks, Whites, Hispanics, Asians, Men, Women, Evangelical Christians, and Immigrants.
The questions shift back to Barack Obama at this point. BKS1. How similar do you think Barack Obama is to most Black Americans? BTH1. Where was Barack Obama born, as far as you know? On page 29, the demographic information section starts. Special emphasis is given to the religion of the respondent. On page 33, the traditional demographics are covered: age, gender, education, race, census region, and marital status. The respondents were not asked about income.
The poll was taken by GFK. 1,071 adults were interviewed, August 30 – September 11, 2012. The survey was conducted online. “METHODOLOGY The survey was conducted using the web-enabled KnowledgePanel®, a probability-based panel designed to be representative of the U.S. population. Initially, participants are chosen scientifically by a random selection of telephone numbers and residential addresses. Persons in selected households are then invited by telephone or by mail to participate in the web-enabled KnowledgePanel®. For those who agree to participate, but do not already have Internet access, GfK provides at no cost a laptop and ISP connection. People who already have computers and Internet service are permitted to participate using their own equipment. Panelists then receive unique log-in information for accessing surveys online, and then are sent emails throughout each month inviting them to participate in research.”
People have been linking to the WP story on facebook, with a variety of comments. These comments probably say more about the commenter, than it does about race relations in America. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
UPDATE Page thirteen of the report has been updated. Apparently, the correct results show that 18% of respondents think BHO is a Muslim, with 0% thinking he is Jewish. HT to xdog.
Send This To All Of Your Friends
The following is chain email. The message has been altered slightly. This reply was not sent out in less than an hour, so the beneficial effects may not kick in on schedule. It is hoped that the voluminous traffic at Chamblee54 will make up the difference. The pictures are from a variety of sources. Many are from an appearance by Sarah Palin in Atlanta. The speech was a rally for Karen Handel, who was running for Governor. Mrs. Handel became notorious later as a bungling executive at the Susan G. Komen Foundation. For the Buckhead rally, Mrs. Handel wore a pink suit.
AN IRISH FRIENDSHIP WISH
May there always be work for your hands to do;
May your purse always hold a coin or two;
May the sun always shine on your windowpane;
May a rainbow be certain to follow each rain;
May the hand of a friend always be near you;
May God fill your heart with gladness to cheer you..
OK, this is what you have to do…Send this to all of your friends! But – you HAVE to send this within 1 hour From when you open it! Now…………..Make A wish!!!!! I hope you made your wish! Now then, if you send to: 1 person — your wish will be granted in 1 year ~ 3 people — 6 months ~ 5 people — 3 months ~ 6 people — 1 month ~ 7 people — 2 weeks ~ 8 people — 1 week ~ 9 people — 5 days ~ 10 people — 3 days ~ 12 people – — 2 days ~ 15 people — 1 day ~ 20 people — 3 hours ~ If you delete this after you read it . You will have 1 year of bad luck! But .. If you send it to 2 of your friends you will automatically have 3 years of good luck!!! )
I had to forward this, my mom swears it works. The day after she sent it, they got an offer on their land on the Swannee river, they haven’t even seen that land since 1987. It came out of the blue. So you know that I’m going to try it. Love Kim ~ Not sure if this had anything to do with it but it was shortly after I sent this out – I got a call to say our bond was approved – against all odds. ~ I don’t know if it works but I won a new fridge full of various cool drinks from Beyer and Beyer last week. ~ I do not know if it works, but I won a microwave yesterday Seems like it Hey !! ~ I hope this works my son could use a really good job!!!!!!! ~ Good luck to everyone! And may all your dreams come true!! ~ This may sound nuts, but my husband got this the other day and sent it off. About 10 minutes later a really good financial windfall happened for his son Sean who he had sent it too as well. One of the people he sent it to was responsible for the windfall. ~ “Do or Do not. There is no try.” Yoda ~ “I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn’t, than live my life as if there isn’t and die to find out there is.” Albert Camus
No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG – http://www.avg.com/ Version: 9.0.930 / Virus Database: 2441.1.1/5296 – Release Date: 09/28/12 04:22:00 This message cannot be displayed because of the way it is formatted. Ask the sender to send it again using a different format or email program. multipart/mixed. This message cannot be displayed because of the way it is formatted. Ask the sender to send it again using a different format or email program. multipart/alternative. This was written like James Joyce.
You Must Give Up
There was a tasteful graphic on facebook, 10 things you must give up to move forward. PG wanted the list in text form. Mr. Google was consulted, and a text source of the list appeared.
The hosting site had an ad for Romney-Ryan. “Obamacare is wrong and I’ll repeal it” – Mitt Romney
A CLEAR CHOICE CONTRIBUTE Paid for by Romney Victory, Inc.
The google query got 90 million results. There are a lot of people who want to tell you how to live your life. This particular motivator then gives us, as his number one disposable. “1. Letting the opinions
of others control your life.”
The top result at Google was by the apparent author of the list, Marc Chernoff. He is a partner at a blog, Marc and Angel Hack Life. The motto is Practical Tips for Productive Living. There is a menu at the bottom of the page: Ads by Google, Positive Quotes, Quotes on Happiness, Life Quotes, Positive Thinking.
Marc and Angel are purveyors of commodity wisdom. The last five posts are 12 Things You Should Know for Sure, 30 Simple Ways to Simplify Your Life, 9 Habits of Super Positive People, 10 Things Winners Do Differently, and 10 Ways to Break Your Own Heart. That is a total of 71 items. If you apply all of them today, you get a volume discount.
The home page today has the Romney Ryan ad below the first post. Other ads include “The November 14 day kindness challenge,” Trans Union credit monitoring, and a small business seminar. The most productive/conductive ad is a link to a facebook page, Charmin Vote 2012. Consumers are invited to cast a vote for either Charmin Ultra Soft, or Charmin Ultra Strong.
For those who came to Chamblee 54 looking for advice on how to run your life, So that nobody thinks their time has been wasted, here are 10 Things You Must Give Up to Move Forward
1. Letting the opinions of others control your life.
2. The shame of past failures.
3. Being indecisive about what you want.
4. Procrastinating on the goals that matter to you.
5. Choosing to do nothing.
6. Your need to be right.
7. Running from problems that should be fixed.
8. Making excuses rather than decisions.
9. Overlooking the positive points in your life.
10. Not appreciating the present moment.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Something G-d Intended To Happen
In truckdriver code, ten twenty four means you don’t have any more stops to make. It is time to return to the base. What that means to a slack blogger, sitting in an outdoor office with nothing to say, is a good question. Maybe you just need to narrow your focus a bit.
There is a story in the first part of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. A writing teacher is trying to get a class to write, and he asks them to write about the coins in their pocket. This got no response, so he asked them to write about a penny. This got nowhere, so he asked them to write about the letters on the head side of the penny. This is what got the class into action. (This is close to the story in the book, but not an exact copy.)
There is no penny handy at the moment, but there is a nickel. Once, PG was in the kitchen of the Sea Haven Hostel, in Seattle WA. A gentleman, whose primary language was not english, asked PG “do you have a nig ga, a five cent piece?” PG did not have the requested coin, but he did tell the gentleman to be very, very careful how he said those two syllables.
The nickel is fatter than the other coins, and has a smooth edge. On the head side, there is a man with a ponytail, who we are led to believe is Thomas Jefferson. The third POTUS enjoys a good reputation in history, which would be rather surprising to some of the other “Founding Fathers”.
Arguably, Mr. Jefferson is not an FF. While he did transcribe the Declaration of Independence, he was in Europe during the Constitutional Convention. This is about the time when Mr. Jefferson first hooked up with Sally Hemings.
On the left side of the coin is the phrase IN G-D WE TRUST. It is in all caps, and the G word is spelled out. The ponytail man is looking at these words. The mouth is beside the space between G-D and WE. His nose is pointing at WE. (How typical of government to have it’s nose in the middle of WE.) The eye looks at the first T of trust.
On the wig side is the word LIBERTY, a five pointed star, 1998, and a capital D. The four digits are the date the coin was produced, and the D means it was coined in Denver. The star is in the middle, parallel to where the ear is covered by hair. The middle on the left side is the upper right serif of W. Perhaps the third POTUS is looking down his nose at W.
Having the innertubes on your writing machine is both a blessing and a curse. In the last few paragraphs, the browser corrected the spelling of Hemings, and confirmed the whereabouts of Mr. Jefferson during the Constitutional Convention. The down side is the loss of concentration. Facebook is a constant temptation. Today’s sensation is a Repub with the curious name of Mourdock.
The gentleman was pandering to the Repub obsession with abortion. The lips were moving, which is never a good sign for Republicansduring an election. “The only exception I have to have an abortion is in that case of the life of the mother,I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God and I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape that it is something God intended to happen.”
The sun is moving into a place where the light bouncing off the background is making the screen tough to see. Perhaps the work should go inside. Before it does, there should be a review of the Zen Motorcycle book. Don’t waste your money October 6, 2012 RichP I’ve been wanting to read this for years. I’m both a MC rider and a “child” of the 60’s and early 70’s. A harder reading bunch of crap I’ve never seen. Either write a true MC manual or true “this is my philosophy” book.
PG actually had his eyes on every word in “Zen” at some time in the early nineties. The story of the book is fairly easy to follow. When Mr. Pirsig starts to talk about Aristotle, Plato, and quality, it becomes incomprehensible. Maybe someday another try will be made. There is a library full of books that are more fun to read.
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
This was written like Gertrude Stein.
Rescue Michele Bachmann
PG looked in his spam folder, and was amazed. Someone at Conservative Strikeforce thought a slack blogger was going to give money to Michele Bachmann. It is highly unlikely that PG will be giving money to the woman known affectionately as “Crazy Eyes”. However, some readers of this facility may be inclined to help out the much maligned congresswoman. Spelling was not corrected. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This was written like James Joyce.
Dear Patriot, Below please find a special message from one of our sponsors, Conservative Strikeforce. They have important information to share with you. Thank you. Please note that the following message reflects the opinion and representations of our sponsor alone, and not necessarily the opinion of Conservative Insider. Michele Bachmann’s race is uncomfortably close. So, last week we decided to launch an emergency effort to save this superstar conservative Congresswoman. Unfortunately, we came up $16,750 short of what we need to raise in order to pay for this rescue effort. Michele desperately needs our help. NOW. Please make an emergency donation of $25, $50, $100, $250 or whatever you can afford to help Conservative Strike Force PAC pay for last minute mailings for Michele Bachmann.
We absolutely must raise this $16,750 today! Michele’s opponent is spending his huge personal fortune on thousands of scandalous attack ads. He’s blasting her day and night. Michele Bachmann is under siege. And, according to the polling, these waves of negative commercials are taking their toll. Michelle Bachmann is in serious trouble. Despite the fact that she’s an incredible campaigner, she could lose. Please make the most generous contribution you possibly can right now. We have to make up for this $16,750 shortfall and get into this fight immediately.
CSF’s mission is to identify and turn out conservative voters and counter the massive left-wing smear operation that’s been unleashed on Michele Bachmann. We need to remind Minnesota voters that Michele led the fight against ObamaCare (spell check suggestion:Macabre,) Obama’s failed stimulus plan and the Administration’s weak foreign policy that is getting Americans killed overseas. The conservative grassroots needs to get behind this pro-freedom superstar right now. Please donate what you can. We need to pay for this first round of calls and mailings right away, and we are already desperately behind schedule. Please, this is urgent. Nancy Pelosi’s Democrats are openly bragging about all the money they are spending to smear our Congressional candidates. And many conservative activists are paying more attention to the Presidential race and the fight for control over the Senate than to what’s happening in the House. I certainly understand that. However, we can’t overlook races like Michele Bachmann’s. This is a clash between a national conservative leader who is despised by the liberal media and a super-wealthy leftist who will say and do anything to grab a seat in Congress. And it’s being waged in a militantly blue state that Barack Obama will win by a huge margin! Additionally, Michele Bachmann is practically fighting this battle all by herself. Very few groups outside of Minnesota are helping her. Michele Bachman is battling all alone, behind enemy lines, and against an opponent with practically unlimited resources and who has no scruples whatsoever.
Frankly, it’s amazing that she isn’t five or ten points behind right now. She is being PUMMELED by the liberals. However, Michele is hanging in there and fighting like crazy. She just needs some help. That’s why Conservative Strike Force PAC must get into this fight. And to do that I need your help. Right now. Please make an online contribution to help Michele Bachmann. I absolutely must raise this $16,750 today. If I can’t raise this money, we can’t help Michele. It’s just that simple. After all Michele Bachman has done for the conservative movement, we can’t leave her behind and simply hope she finds a way to survive this onslaught. We just can’t. She deserves our help. Please donate whatever you can. Thank you. For America, Dennis Whitfield Chairman, Conservative StrikeForce PAC
Paid for by the Conservative Strikeforce PAC. Scott Mackenzie, Treasurer. Not authorized by any candidate or candidates committee. Contributions are not deductable as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes. Strike Force is a federally registered Political Action Committee created to assist conservatives in their campaigns across the country. We are not raising funds in conjunction with any campaign. All contributions will be used by Strike Force for direct candidate contributions, independent expenditures and Get Out The Vote activities in strict compliance with any and all campaign finance laws. Our mission is to assist conservative candidates who are under assault by the liberal attack machine.
District 81 Meet And Greet
PG used a warm Sunday afternoon to walk to a neighbor’s house and meet Scott Holcomb. He is the Democratic candidate for the Georgia House of Representatives, district 81. The districts have been redrawn, with Mr. Holcomb in the same district as the 81st incumbent, Elena Parent. With a new job as Executive Director of Georgia Watch, Ms. Parent decided to leave the legislature. She was the hostess of the meet and greet.
There were only a handful of people at the event. PG got to talk to the candidate right away. Georgia is falling behind the rest of the south because we are not spending enough on education. There are no easy solutions to the water crisis.
After a few minutes with the candidate, PG headed to the snack table. Mr. Holcomb’s chief of staff, Ann Abramowitz, was standing there. Campaign mailers were discussed. It seems as though a company called Rosetta Stone Communications is producing cookie cutter mailers for the bad guys. “Rosetta Stone’s auto-calling programs are the most cost-effective way to reach your voters. The cost is minimal compared to other forms of communication, and the effectiveness is total.”
There was a bit of controversy about a video from Mr. Holcomb’s opponent, involving being able to perform on drug screens. PG took a bottle of water, and asked Mr. Holcomb if he wanted this. Mr. Holcomb eagerly accepted. PG observed that you never knew when you were going get drug tested. Mr. Holcomb then got the joke.
After a few minutes, the crowd went onto the back porch. Ms. Parent introduced the candidate. Supposedly, Mr. Holcomb reads every bill that is introduced before the legislature. No signs of brain damage were evident Sunday.
After the intro, Mr. Holcomb spoke for a few minutes, and took a few questions. Among the points that were raised were: The Republicans would like to get a super majority in the legislature. This will not be good for the state. ~ Private school vouchers are not a very good idea, and probably will not happen. ~ Climate change is probably real. We need to support alternative sources of energy. ~ More attention needs to be paid to ethics in the legislature. ~ The attack video made by the opponent went too far.
Chamblee54 
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