Water Or Coca Cola
There is some text floating around facebook about the various qualities of water and coca cola. It discusses some of the benefits of drinking water, and a few negatives about “soft” drinks. Few will argue that most people need to drink more water, just as almost nobody considers “pop” to be health food. The trouble is, this text doesn’t know when to stop.
The last line was what set the BS detector into overdrive. “3. The distributors of coke have been using it to clean the engines of their trucks for about 20 years!” With the miracle of select-google, the answer was on the screen in less time than it takes the bubbles to stop fizzing. Snopes says to stop worrying, and have a Pepsi.
One thing the text does not mention is water contamination. We take for granted having clean water available at the turn of a spigot. This is one advance of civilization that has not traveled to much of the world. You often have a better chance of getting a clean drinking fluid from a soda that a faucet.
As we said, few doubt that drinking water is good for you. The trouble arises when you go overboard with your claims. Once you set off the BS detector, it is tough to turn it off. If you are trying to educate people, you need to gain their trust. When you tell people things that are not true, they no longer trust you. Pictures today are from Gwinnett county.
Welfare Cup
PG got an email today. It was a chain email, with the tasteful title “TO PEE OR NOT TO PEE”. It has a couple of paragraphs of text, a cute animation repeated seven times, and a disclaimer. If you print it out, it is five pages long. Holy dead trees, Batman. Here is the message:
I thought you’d like this. We’d probably lower our national def. a whole lot if we put this plan into play. TO PEE OR NOT TO PEE . . . I have a job. I work, they pay me. I pay my taxes & the government distributes my taxes as it sees fit. In order to get that paycheck, in my case, I am required to pass a random urine test (with which I have no problem). What I do have a problem with is the distribution of my taxes to people who don’t have to pass a urine test. So, here is my question: Shouldn’t one have to pass a urine test to get a welfare check because I have to pass one to earn it for them? Please understand, I have no problem with helping people get back on their feet. I do have a problem with helping someone sitting on their butt – doing drugs while I work.
Can you imagine how much money each state would save if people had to pass a urine test to get a public assistance check? I guess we could call the program “URINE OR YOU’RE OUT”! Pass this along if you agree or simply delete if you don’t. Hope you all will pass it along, though. Something has to change in this country – AND SOON! P.S. All politicians should have to pass a urine test too!
The information contained in this communication and all accompanying documents from Coilcraft may be confidential and/or legally privileged, and is intended only for the use of the recipient(s) named above. If you are not the intended recipient you are hereby notified that any review, disclosure, copying, distribution or the taking of any action in reliance on the contents of this transmitted information is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please return it to the sender immediately and destroy the original message or accompanying materials and any copy thereof. If you have any questions concerning this message, please contact the sender.
There is soooo much that could be said about this. PG is detoxed from all drugs except Kroger Coffee, but is mightily offended by drug testing. It encourages alcohol use. It does not discriminate between soft and hard drugs. ( Marijuana is stored in fatty tissue, and is the substance most affected by drug testing.) The war on drugs has filled our prisons, cost trillions of dollars, ruined countless lives, and yet is diligently pursued. Bumping people off welfare might make a few people happy, but will probably benefit few people. ( Except for the owners of drug testing companies.)
Maybe we need to criticize the medium, and not worry about the message. Here we have a 245 word message that takes five pages to deliver. This is typical of message emails. People, only show your animated man one time, pack the message into paragraphs, and you can tell your story in one page.
Pass this along if you agree or simply delete if you don’t. Does anyone else think this is RUDE? When you send an email, you invade personal space. You ask a person to look at something, without knowing how busy this person is, how they are feeling, or whether they are interested in your silly little message. It is a shame email is so cheap, if it is going to produce garbage like this.
The icing on the cake is the disclaimer at the bottom. This message is now, in effect, owned by the Coilcraft company. This makes this company look rotten to a lot of people. If you send out message emails at work, please take off the disclaimer. Or, just send the message from home. Or, the best answer of all, don’t send the damn message.
Black and white pictures are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
Brief But Inappropriate
The following feature is a repost, of a previously published feature about Teju Cole. Chamblee 54 had a post yesterday based on something that Mr. Cole said first. The repost is one year old. The pictures are ninety years old, and are neither damaged nor improved by the passage of time.
Mr. Cole does not tweet as many fait divers as he once did. His latest comment was @tejucole Biden Apologizes For “Brief But Inappropriate” Wink At Self in Mirror 3:34 PM – 6 Apr 13. This is not to say there is no new product. A splendid piece appeared at the New Yorker. It is about our well read POTUS, who holds serious books with his bloody hands.
PG was collecting the best, and the worst, from facebook and twitter. The mass of sentences will be published in a day or so, with Selah at the end. One of the best places to visit on twitter is Teju Cole. A specialty of the house are “small fates”… the essence of a news story in 140 characters.
Not far from the Surulere workshop where spray-painter Alawiye worked,
a policeman fired into the air. Gravity did the rest.
With a leap in front of the northbound local,
Philip Joseph, of Heary Street, canceled his wedding plans.
Harvey had an eventful trip on the Olympic. Swindled on the first day,
he quarreled on the second, and drank himself to death on the third.
Envious of the White Star Line’s Titanic, which is on its maiden voyage,
Cunard announced plans for Aquitania, which shall be even larger.
Merely because his surgeon, Dr Fischer, left two sponges in his abdomen,
Jacob Weiss, of East 87th Street, is making a legal fuss.
Death had been ignoring 82-year-old Mrs Levy,
so she jumped from the fifth floor of the Ansonia Hotel and got his attention.
It turns out that there is a French custom, fait divers. That outlet turned out to be a form of writing for which there is no exact English term: fait divers. This is a French expression, in common use for centuries, for a certain kind of newspaper piece: a compressed report of an unusual happening. What fait divers means literally is “incidents,” or “various things.” The nearest English equivalent is “news briefs” or, more recently, “news of the weird.” The fait divers has a long and important history in French literature. Sensationalistic though it is, it has influenced the writing of Flaubert, Gide, Camus, Le Clézio and Barthes. In Francophone literature, it crossed the line from low to high culture.
Raoul G., of Ivry, an untactful husband, came home unexpectedly,
and stuck his blade in his wife, who was frolicking in the arms of a friend.
A dishwasher from Nancy, Vital Frérotte, who had just come back from Lourdes,
cured forever of tuberculosis, died Sunday by mistake.
In today’s twitter feed, there was this: A link on not linking: http://inkdroid.org/journal/2012/04/11/on-not-linking/. In the story, there was a link to an interview on NPR. We learn that Mr. Cole finds many of his small fates in 100 year old newspapers.
In the NPR talk, Mr. Cole says that the old newspaper stories always had the address. This adds a touch a connection, for you can go to that same location today. In a touch of irony, Mr. Cole refuses to add links to his tweets about these stories. A link is the digital version of the address.
In the linked story in today’s twitterfeed, the author asks Mr. Cole to include a link to specific stories. The reply: “I can’t include links directly in my tweets for three reasons. The first is aesthetic: I like the way the tweets look as clean sentences. One wouldn’t wish to hyperlink a poem. The second is artistic: I want people to stay here, not go off somewhere else and crosscheck the story. Why go through all the trouble of compression if they’re just going to go off and read more about it? What’s omitted from a story is, to me, an important part of a writer’s storytelling strategy. And the third is practical: though I seldom use up all 140 characters, rarely do I have enough room left for a url string. “
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Hunter S. Thompson Tribute
There is a “tribute page” dedicated to glorifying the grooviness of Hunter S Thompson.There are some very old pictures, dating back to a time before photography was proven to exist. There are also quotes, which may or may not be correctly attributed. Not that anybody cares.
PG has long been a fan of Mr. Thompson. In the past few years, a few books have been published, resulting in one, two, three blog posts at Chamblee54. Towards the end of the second book, PG just felt tired. Towards the end of his life, HST was a hopeless alcoholic, confined to a wheelchair. His best writing was thirty years behind him. We have the fear and loathing books, and they are still tons of fun, but excessive veneration of the dude is simply not appropriate.
Some of the commenters feel the same way. “Who is the person here claiming to be Hunter S Thompson? He died by his own hand over ten years ago. NOT HAPPY WITH IMPOSTERS SAYING THEY ARE DR GONZO. WTF IS GOING ON !!!!!! ” “Mate if you want to live in a fantasy world thats up to you. Lets not embrace the fact that someone is saying they are someone they are not. That is lying !!!!! And lets not embrace impostors Thats deception And so people start believing anything they want and taking someone elses name and talent and reputation. Ok i think next week ill become micheal jackson. Your taking too many or the wrong sort if drugs ” “This page has never claimed to be that of Hunter S. Thompson. As the description now has been adjusted to say, consider this page a tribute.” Some people don’t get the joke.
FakeHunterSThompson is a twitter account, based in Hightstown NJ. @HunterSThompson 27 Oct World rotation wobble major cause of climate change. Fat AGore asked to move to Thailand to balance everything out. @HunterSThompson 26 Oct Obama to reduce budget deficit by taxing welfare payments and benefits. “Some peeps making more than workers. Family of four netting $120k.” @HunterSThompson 22 Apr 11 When Hollywood promotes interracial, and gay relationships do you cheer the enlightenment or say Ehwwww in disgust?
Here is another commenter to the FB facility. “Yeah, the people turning Hunter’s life into one giant drug reference shits me. He was an amazing writer, he had insight that few others could even approach and could cut to the bloody bones on the seedy underside of politics as easily as he could name the betrayal of an american generation. Stop cheapening his legacy by posting pictures of drugs and pretending to be in some special club because you took acid too – it wasn’t the drugs that made him who it he was, it was the fucking balls to live what he believed, and mind to write about it. “
The pictures today were originally posted with book reports about Mr. Thompson’s life. They were taken in Atlanta’s Little Five Points. (The Christian 12 step program is in Marietta.) This is a neighborhood which was once run down, and became a hipster paradise. Like someone said about the sixties, they were too beautiful to live, and too profitable to die. The good news is that some people in this district are creating new artproduct, instead of recycling the old. There is nothing really wrong with a tribute page to Hunter S. Thompson. Just don’t stop there, but continue down the dayglo path to create something of your own. Don’t get caught.
Mean As Jesus
A few weeks ago, in the post Oscar backwash, Pure Film Creative posted a piece, Enough with the Snarky, Already. On top of the text is a quote, “Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but the highest form of intelligence.” The comment is sometimes blamed on Oscar Wilde. The Academy Awards were named for another Oscar, reliable sources tell.
The quote is of unknown origin. Sarcasm Society explains “The line clearly lacks the sparkling wit and worldliness typical of Wilde’s best quips. More importantly, the quote is not found anywhere in Wilde’s writings.” Going down the page, SS describes research into sarcasm. “Katherine P. Rankin,… assistant professor … at the University of California, San Francisco … found that people suffering from a progressive brain disease known as semantic dementia failed to perceive sarcasm.
Enough research. Too much information gets in the way of a good epiphany. When PG saw the comment about sarcasm, he was reminded of an internet Jesusmonger who does not appreciate people with different beliefs. The man has digital anger management issues, and is given to boasting about the use of sarcasm. The epiphany was that the man is just plain mean. Furthermore, many of the most visible Jesus worshipers are, at the core, mean people.
Whatever message the historic Jesus may have delivered has long ago been obscured by the meanness of his believers. People do not become kinder when the are “saved”. They find a different way to inflict pain on their neighbor. And Jesus is an excellent weapon when you want to hurt someone.
This is beginning to careen out of control. Maybe it is time to break, and let people look at pictures. There is one more quote, and it sort of fits in with this. It is from Easter Is Not Named After Ishtar, And Other Truths I Have To Tell You. If you read the post, you can get the full story.
“Look, go ahead and debate religion. Go ahead and tell Christians why what they believe is wrong. That’s totally fine and, in fact, I encourage it. A little debate and critical thinking are good for everyone. But do it intelligently. Get to know the Bible, so you actually know what you’re disagreeing with when you form an argument. Brush up on your theology so that you can explain why it’s so wrong. And have some compassion, for Christ’s sake – be polite and respectful when you enter into a debate, even when the person you’re debating with loses their cool. You want to prove that you’re better, more enlightened than Christians? Great, do it by remaining rational and level-headed in the face of someone who’s willing to stoop to personal attacks. To behave otherwise is to be just as bad as the people you’re debating.’
C.S. Lewis
There was a facebook link to a feature, Ayn Rand Really, Really Hated C.S. Lewis. It turns out to be verbatim droppings from Ayn Rand’s Marginalia : Her Critical Comments on the Writings of over Twenty Authors. If you are interested in details, there are the links.
Miss Rand has read more C.S. Lewis than PG. There was a copy of a CSL work at a yard sale once, which PG invested a quarter in. He read as far as the appearance of a pig named trufflehunter. Maybe it was a bad day for books, but PG put CSL down, never to make another attempt.
There was a sixth grade english teacher at Ashford Park named Mrs. Ruff. Lots of people talked about how sweet she was, but PG was not impressed. One day, between handing out mimeographed copies of poems to be memorized, Mrs. Ruff started to talk about Narnia. It was a fantastic and amazing story. With a hint of primness, she told the class that Narnia was really about Jesus.
More Skepticism About Facebook Graphics
A facebook entity called Skeptics; Atheists; Realists; Agnostics; Humanists recently blessed the digital world with a graphic. The image features a purported quote from Henry Louis Mencken, to the effect that “Morality is doing right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right?” A group with skeptic in it’s name shouldn’t object to a bit of fact checking.
Mr. Mencken was not a religious person. The Baltimore scribe was famous for his cynical sayings. He made up the story of Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub, and watched in horror as people refused to believe that it was a hoax. (Those who enjoy stories about bathtubs might enjoy this radio show, The Bathtubs or the Boiler Room.)
Mr. Mencken may indeed have said it. Wikiquotes does not have the quote, but they are not the last word. It would seem that as much of his written work survives, that, if the quote is genuine, there is a paper trail. PG does not have the inclination to search for this quote.
There is the sense that the poster quote may be a bit on the trite side, for the learned Mr. Mencken. It is a common rhetorical device, which some english teacher has a name for. The writing of Mr. Mencken that this reporter has seen has a bit more subtlety. As the Saturday Evening Post. wrote once, “Too many present-day Americans know Mencken solely through the occasional printed sound-bite which political writers pilfer in an attempt to appear erudite.”
One of the quotes that Wikiquotes turned up was “We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.” This is credited to “Minority Report : H.L. Mencken’s Notebooks (1956)” This says much the same thing as the poster, but with more style.
Mr. Mencken continues to be controversial, years after his death in 1956. Some of his letters have unflattering things to say about Jews, Blacks, Southerners, and a few other groups. On the one hand he said very rude things about Jews; on the other, he denounced the Nazi persecution of Jews years before it was fashionable. Perhaps this “premature anti fascism” was the reason for the FBI keeping a file on him. While he might not have said the poster quote in so many words, many of his writings showed the thought in action. Mr. Mencken might also look down at the vulgarity of facebook graphics, and bumper sticker wisdom. He might not want to be blamed for the words appearing on that poster. UPDATE QuoteFail says they can find no evidence that this is a valid quote.
The Correct Spelling Of Friedrich Nietzsche
In late 1968, Georgia Governor Lester Maddox faced a question about prison reform. He gave what many feel is a common sense answer. “We’re doing the best we can, and before we do much better, we’re going to have to get a better grade of prisoners.”
Before we break down that gubernatorial wisdom, a note on google is appropriate. The only source on the front result page, with the verbatim quote, was Art Buchwald. He is a humor columnist. The piece was in the Toledo Blade, December 2, 1968. The column above is from Drew Pearson, and employs the phrase President Johnson and President elect Nixon. Those were scary times.
Moving along on this wet sunday, someone made an all caps comment on facebook: “NOW HOW REAL IS THAT!!!!” The quote displyed a graphic, based on an alleged saying of Friedrich Nietzsche. “People don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed.” Readers of this blog should know what comes next. Posting a quote, and saying it is real, is begging for an investigation.
Wikiquotes does not show that quote. The search words used were truth, and illusions. Mr. Nietzsche wrote in German, which PG does not read. He did write some things similar to the poster.
Are designations congruent with things? Is language the adequate expression of all realities? It is only by means of forgetfulness that man can ever reach the point of fancying himself to possess a “truth” of the grade just indicated. If he will not be satisfied with truth in the form of tautology, that is to say, if he will not be content with empty husks, then he will always exchange truths for illusions.
Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions — they are metaphors that have become worn out and have been drained of sensuous force, coins which have lost their embossing and are now considered as metal and no longer as coins.
It should be noted that the wikis sometimes contain mistakes. Since Mr. Nietzsche wrote books, it would seem that a source could be found for this quote, if it is indeed accurate. When you type the phrase “Did Friedrich Nietzsche…” into google, the automated search possibilities are believe in G-d, have children, how did Friedrich Nietzsche die, what did Friedrich Nietzsche believe.
Quote Fail says “This quote appears to have been created within the Tumblr-verse.” They don’t think it is genuine. QF has a coupon for endless enchiladas at a restaurant called on the border.
If you are not too picky, quote factory has posters, available for sale, in eleven different designs. This is a responsible site. “Add corrections to the Quote – Is the Quote wrong? Or the author? Help us making this the most accurate and complete Quote site on the planet!
Today’s exercise is the story of a quote about truth. The quote was presented, with the phrase “NOW HOW REAL IS THAT!!!!” The quote, about truth and illusion, is essentially the truth. However, it is credited to Friedrich Nietzsche, without any more information. There is no comment about context, the original language used, or where this quote is to be found. As it turns out, Mr. Nietzsche probably did not include this quote in his books. This does not make the quote less accurate. The concept of mythos over logos is “real”. However, this does give a twist to this pretzel…if a quote about truth is erroneously credited, is the quote less “real”? Whether the reality of the question is affected by the use of all caps is a question for mighty minds to ponder. Pictures are courtesy of Gwinnett County.
Don’t Have To Call Me Darlin’
Ten Questions For Phoblography
The Daily Post is a WordPress facility, dedicated to “The Art and Craft of Blogging.” Recently they had a feature, Ten Questions (plus one!) for Phoblography. I decided to copy the feature, delete the published answers, and supply my own. Someone might be interested in reading this. If nothing else, this is a good excuse write some text to go between a collection of pictures. That is what text does at Chamblee54.
The extra question is about telephones with built in cameras, which PG thinks is a cool idea. When the current stupid phone wears out, a camera enabled phone might be a good idea. For the time being, the 12 button wonder phone works just fine. It was purchased at a yard sale for four dollars, and has been worth every penny. As for phoblography, it sounds like a Vietnamese Soup Magazine.
1. What’s your typical process for developing, creating, and publishing a post? There is no typical process. Text ideas come from everywhere… twitter, facebook, dead tree books, the real world. Often, I will hear something, and start thinking about it, and before long a post is on the way. I also keep a list of what I posted at this time each of the last five years, and have frequent reruns. Some posts just need to be repeated. At other times, a repost is the answer for writer’s tackle.
The pictures usually have nothing to do with the text. There are three groups of pictures. There are color photographs that I take, and edit. There are historic pictures from The Library of Congress, and “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”. I am usually working on editing pictures from one of these groups, and often the most recently edited pictures are chosen for the post.
So I write the text, and include links for the sources and quotes. The first draft is written in a separate wordpad document. The text is marked up with HTML. I like to use colored fonts, typically alternating shades of green for each paragraph. The pictures are selected, and moved into a folder for that date. A new post is started, and given a title. The pictures, and text, are moved into the window. The post is saved, and a preview is opened in a separate window. The text is reviewed for typos, misspelled words, and what are known as widows. A widow is a single word, in a line by itself, at the end of a paragraph. These are ugly, and can almost always be corrected. Often there is a useless phrase in the last sentence, which can be painlessly deleted. The writing is usually improved.
When the post is up to the standards of Chamblee54, it is published. The code is copied, and pasted into the word document. The link is posted on facebook, and anywhere else that is appropriate.
2. What does your blogging setup look like? What do you need to be comfortable publishing? The setup is an old desktop, on top of a butcher block table. The computer is a storebought desktop. The desk is in front of a window, overlooking the street. There is a mirror behind the monitor, so I can see the TV set on the other side of the room. I usually have a beverage, usually coffee, tea, or water. Sometimes there is background music playing. If I am writing text, the music needs to be instrumental, with no vocals.
3. Do you do much processing to your photos? Are there photo tools, apps, or software you’d recommend? I edit the hell out of pictures. I use a program called GIMP. Even if I use a self taken picture, without cropping or adjustments, I need to reduce it to 720 pixels wide. This reduces the file size. I started out with a dial up, and learned the value of having small file sizes.
4. What are your top three tips for new/amateur photobloggers? Link to your sources, don’t spill your beverage, have fun.
5. What photo equipment do you use? What would you recommend for someone who’s ready to move on from a cameraphone or a point-and-shoot camera? On the historic pictures, I have a solid internet connection. For my own pictures, I use a Nikon coolpix L24. It was on sale at Walmart.
6. How many photos do you think you take for each photo you decide to feature on the site? What’s your process for trying to capture the “perfect” shot? I take as many pictures as the occasion demands. I edit them, and put them away. There is a list of folders to be used, and I go through that list folder by folder. I also repeat good collections of pictures, often when I repeat the post.
I really don’t go for the perfect shot. The pictures I take are just fodder for the desktop. Often at events, I just shoot, shoot, shoot, and take as much garbage as I do usuable images.
7. Why did you choose WordPress.com for your site? I used blogspot until google wouldn’t let me into my account. I registered with WordPress to make a comment at a blog, and decided to try writing there. I have been very happy with WordPress .
8. Tell us five of your daily reads / favorite photography blogs. The Fishwrapper, Peach Pundit, Bloggingheads, Trifecta, Yo is this racist, and Facebook. Podcasts include 99 percent invisible, backstory, radiolab. I would rather listen to something, while I work on pictures, than read.
9. Which of your posts has had the most influence on your readers, and why? I wrote Shock And Awe Day 2013 on Monday, and it is getting a good response. None of the posts really influences anyone. A few people enjoy them, which is all I have a right to expect.
10. What are your favorite things/locations/people to photograph? Is there something you’d never feature on your blog? I like dogs, graffiti, mannequins, and ethnic diversity. In history, I like group photographs broken into individuals. Public domain is a magic phrase. I would never print the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. G-d is too busy to help me.
Dick Van Dyke
The guest of this week’s WTF podcast is Dick Van Dyke. After World War Two, Mr. Van Dyke was recruited by Phil Erickson to form a comedy duo, the Merry Mutes. In 1949, they got a long term engagement at the Henry Grady Hotel, and moved to Atlanta.
Mr. Van Dyke enjoyed Atlanta so much that he bought a house here. Two of his children were born in Atlanta. Neighborhood legend says that the house was on Ashford Road.
After parting ways with Mr. Van Dyke, Phil Erickson opened the Wit’s End nightclub, with the Wit’s End Players. The performances were in a bar building on Fifth Street, next to the expressway. The club had a large sign in front, with an asterisk next to the words Wits End. The asterisk stood for “bring money”.
Dick Van Dyke has performed with, and gotten to know, many famous people. He looked up Stan Laurel in the phone book, and invited himself for a visit. (Oliver Hardy was from Harlem GA.)
One person the Mr. Van Dyke did not work with was Spencer Tracy. Mr. Tracy said there were two rules for acting … know your lines, and don’t trip over the props. Dick Van Dyke knew the first one.
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
Six Pack Of Post This
It has been two and a half weeks since this blog declared war on passive aggressive facebook graphics. This means most signs that tell you to repost this if you agree. The first six days saw one, two, three, four such posts. In the next eleven days, PG copied six offending signs. The trend shows no sign of slowing down, so there will probably be more of these posts.
There is a synchronicity of sorts in this collection. There is moms against guns, paired with a joke about a hitman. There is a fluffy piece about how people would rate you. Number four was about supporting a small business. This is a cause that gets lip service, until there is a chance to save money at Walmart.
The last two were about cancer.This is where it gets personal. PG lost both parents to cancer. While these graphics may bring hope and happiness to some, they bring pain to Brookhaven. And yes, the opinion at chamblee54 is a valid one. The feelings are just as real here as anywhere. You don’t want to be a buzzkill to the well meaning people, but sometimes you just wish they would shut up and go away.
People love to have influence over others. You are bombarded with messages, about what you should buy, how you should feel, how to be a better person, and what cause to support. It can be a drain on the soul. Some build up walls against the onslaught of messages. Some fight back, and get caught in a spiral of negativity. Others judge their neighbor on opinions, and shun those who do not measure up to a mysterious standard. Sometimes, you wish you had never learned how to read.
When the text was combined with the posters, the words only went as far as the fourth sign. The rest of the space will be filled in with random quotes.
@aurosan Perez Hilton now has a child. Please respect my privacy at this time.
@merseytart I was pro gay parenting. Then I discovered Perez Hilton had spawned
@FakeCommish I would rather be adopted by Hitler than Perez Hilton. Somebody go on a rescue mission.
@laurenpippa Perez Hilton is a dad. I am disgusted. No, not because he’s gay, but because he is a bully.
“Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.” William Safire
Every situation is different. Without the specific circumstances of the event in question, it is tough to make a meaningful comment. Sometimes what you see as a stand based on principle is to someone else a selfish stunt.
He who does not understand your silence will never understand your words. -Elbert Hubbard
Other pictures are from The Library of Congress.
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