Page Fifty Two
As citizens of facebook nation know, it is International Book Week. There is a ritual for observation of this event. “It’s international book week. The rules: grab the closest book to you, turn to page 52, post the 5th sentence as your status. Don’t mention the title. Copy the rules as part of your status.”
PG had been resisting. For one thing, text from dead tree books cannot be copypasted. Posting the fifth sentence would involve typing the words by hand, which is too much work.
And so it is thursday morning of IBW, and 144 fbf have posted the meme. PG looks to his right, and sees no books in the first glance. A turn to the left shows a map book. The meme doesn’t say what kind of book, or how you can determine the fifth sentence of a diagram of residential roads, interstate highways, railroads, and industrial areas. Still, the post for today is on. Most people skip ahead to the pictures anyway. These pictures were not altered. L5P is on page 59.
One thing about map books is a refusal to use conventional page numbering. This is not a romance novel, nor is it going to change your life. The goal of a map book is to help you find your destination, and make money for the map book printer. (There are stories of map publishers inventing roads as a way of protecting their copyright.) This book is the 6th edition of Metro Atlanta, Georgia. It is printed by ADC maps. Their slogan is “The map people”. That inspires appalling visuals involving halloween parties, and the dragon con parade.
Some say that map books are obsolete. To hear these digital fascists, GPS and google have rendered dead tree street guides useless. Such words are heresy to those who have found their way with maps for years. There is a page to page flow with a book that is not available on the tiny backlit screen. You don’t have to plug in a book. If you are stuck in a car with nothing else to read, you can peruse a map, and always make a discovery.
To determine page 52, PG counted the pages by hand. The odds are on top, the evens on the bottom, just like in real life. The magic sheet is page 788. By amazing coincidence, PG lives on sheet 787. He is abundantly familiar with the contents of page 787. What is even more fun is the top of pp. 787-788 being roughly 144 yards north of where PG is typing this feature. While it is not sitting on top of the world, the top of the page can be a lively place.
The NW corner of page 788 is 33°52′30″N 84°18′45″W. This is a wooded area, owned by DeKalb County. The map shows it to be part of Peachtree DeKalb Airport. The woods used to be a part of the airport. There are abandoned light poles, and a section of red clay bulldozed into flatland submission.
This area is fun to look at on maps, because there usually a mistake. Edition 6 is no different. There is a small park, with a former little league ballpark, on Georgian Drive. The map shows this park going all the way to Tobey Road. In reality there is a strip of condos on Tobey, at the Clairmont conjunction. Before the condos were there, a used car lot was on the corner. Next to the used car lot was a house, with a goat in the back yard. The goat would chew kudzu leaves, and leave green stained vines behind.
The SE corner of page 788 is 33°48′45″N 84°15′00″W This is just a whit outside I285, a bit south of the Stone Mountain Freeway. There is a fine view of the highrises downtown on that part of the perimeter. Yes, this is OTP. The NE corner is somebody’s back yard on Henderson Mill Road, just next to I285.
The SW corner is Toco Hill shopping center. This was built in the black and white television era. It is the home of the Department of Labor. Many people have done time in that space. Here is the story of the name. “. It seems like a man was in Brazil, doing construction projects during World War Two. He had a housekeeper, who was a Brazilian Indian. Whenever he would put in a bid on a job, the housekeeper would say “toco”. It seems that toco is a Brazilian Indian word for “more luck than you can imagine.”
The 52 page bit was a bit of work, but easy to figure out. How do you determine the fifth sentence of a page from a map book? The page has letters on the top, and numbers running down the side. The idea is that you look up something in the index, and it gives you a pair of coordinates. An example is “Hardee Ave. W 788 A1 DC. That translates into page 788, coordinates A1, in Dekalb County. This is a lovely little road, with no side streets, that goes up a hill behind the airport. On the north side is the County Health Department. On the south side lie the remains of a neighborhood. It was bought out, and eliminated, due to airport noise.
The best way to determine the fifth sentence is to look for the E5 section of page 788. Technically that is fifth squared. In a biography of W.C. Fields, the fifth sentence of any page is likely to involve a fifth of whiskey. It will probably be empty.
The E5 section of page 788 is the setting of Lakeside HS. PG had a curious relationship with this facility, having gone to neighboring Cross Keys. At the time, Lakeside had the best football team in the state, and Cross Keys one of the worst. It didn’t help that the PG family went to Briarcliff Baptist Church, which was a hotbed of Lakeside attendees. In another bit of mapbook synchronicity, it seems that Briarcliff Baptist is on the right edge of page 787, which makes it due south of the house of PG.
Page 788 is a splendid little chunk of America. Between A1, and K10, dwell two interstate highways, Peachtree DeKalb Airport, Northlake Mall, and the Cecil B. Day campus of Mercer University. The latter facility is located on Mercer University Drive, which yields a terrific set of initials. Across from the mall is the transmitter tower for a 50,000 watt clear channel radio station, whose signal used to seep into neighborhood pay phones. When Simon and Garfunkel went looking for America, they could have gone to the fifty second page, the fifth sentence, of the sixth edition, of ADC (The map people) and their guide to Metro Atlanta Georgia.
Pictures today are by Chamblee54. This was written like David Foster Wallace
The I Word
During a recent facebook deterioration, on social issues, someone posted a 410 word statement. PG noted the promiscuous use of first person singular. A study ensued.
1- I, or verb contractions using I, occurs 27 times in this statement.
2- I was used in the first seven sentences. The eighth sentence did not have I, but did contain me.
3- The tenth sentence does not have I, but does contain my. These are the only two sentences without I.
4- The last sentence has I five times. The first two have I three times each. Six sentences use I two times.
5- There are 410 words in this statement. There are 15 sentences. Six percent of these words are I.
6- I is the shortest word in the English language. It is also possibly the least important.
Many people use the word I too often. The use of this word implies that the listener is interested in what the speaker thinks or does. When someone says I, the lips are usually moving. I is the central letter in both lie and believe. (As another FBF noted, I statements can be useful.)
This does not take away the controversy over what word, in the language, is the shortest. A British facility, the Daily Mail, ran a story,The shortest word in English? Depends on how you measure it
Q. We all know that the longest word in the English language is Floccinaucinihili-pilification,(Spell check suggestion:Oversimplification) meaning inconsiderable or trifling. But what is the shortest word in the English language?
A. This is a controversy that has divided the English-speaking community for more than a century. One faction, headed by Dr Robert Beauchamp from the Oxford English Dictionary, believes that the shortest word in the English language is ‘a’, while another faction, headed by Professor Melanie Kurtz from Chicago University, contends that it is ‘I’.
In his most recent book on the subject, Further Arguments In Favour Of A (OUP, £19.99), Dr Beauchamp claims that, though ‘I’ is arguably the thinnest word in the English language, ‘a’ is the shortest, in the sense that it is not as high.
Professor Kurtz, on the other hand, has argued in a number of pamphlets that, if one unravels the various loops and curls that form a single ‘a’, and stretch it into a single horizontal or perpendicular line, then the letter in question is undoubtedly longer than ‘I’.
Meanwhile, dissident scholars continue to argue the case for ‘o’ and for small ‘i’, though in broader academic circles the first is generally dismissed as not really a word and the second is felt to be questionable: they maintain that the gap between the little dot and the main body of the word/letter is a constituent part of the whole and cannot be discounted when it comes to the full measurement.
One of the comments is highly repeatable. “is it true…..the shortest sentence is ..I am. and the longest sentence…I do.?” – Tommy Atkins Blighty, 02/10/2009 18:45
In the digital age, capital letters are used less and less. If the lower case i is used as a first person singular, then it is both the shortest and the skinniest. The dot on the lower case i is known as the tittle. It is not known what the tittle thinks of the jot, or whether they believe each other.
For those not suffering platitude fatigue, here are the 21 Most Important Words in the English Language. The most important word: We ~ The two most important words: Thank You ~ The three most important words: All is forgiven ~ The four most important words: What is your opinion ~ The Five most important words: You did a good job ~ The six most important words: I want to understand you better ~ The least important word: I.”
A site called vocabula has a feature on the worst words in english. There are two phrases using I.
I mean Meaningless formula (a verbal tic, if you will) used habitually by many to begin nearly every sentence, especially those that are not intended to clarify anything preceding them. I need you to … A completely unacceptable replacement for “please.”
Since we cannot say, for certain, that I is the shortest word in the language, the uncertainty about the longest word should not be surprising. The longest word in German would be a short story by itself. According to Los Angeles Trade-Technical College “The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis. The only other word with the same amount of letters ispneumonoultra-microscopicsilicovolcanoconioses, its plural.” (Spell check suggestion:ultramontane-microscopicsilicovolcanoconioses)
Part two of this feature is a repost. It is about a popular contender for the longest word, which is known here as The S Word. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
There is a feature today on NPR discussing ” “What’s The Longest Word In The English Language?”. The old crowd pleaser antidisestablishmentarianism was dismissed as “Just a bundle of suffixes and prefixes piled up into a little attention-grabbing hummock.” It also has 28 letters, which won’t even get it into the playoffs.
When it comes to big words, there is nothing like science. In 1964, a book called “Chemical Abstracts” published a 1,185 letter word, referring to a protein found in the tobacco mosaic virus. It starts with glu and ends with sine. This word is 8.44 tweets long.
Words like glu…sine are not used often, which brings us to the obvious winner, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. It is the theme song for a dance routine in a movie starring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke , and a few dozen animated characters.
According to the urban dictionary, Miss Andrews was not fond of Rob Petrie. “It’s reported that Ms. Andrews replied, “Fuck you! I hate you!! You’re a ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidouchebag’!!!! And get away from my door!! Why don’t you go eat “A Spoonful of Feces “!!!” (This problem might have been caused by SupercalifragilisticexpiHalitosis )
At 34 letters, the s word is the longest english word that most of us have heard of. While it probably was made up by over-imaginative songwriters, it is defined by a reputed dictionary. It translates as superkalifragilistikexpialigetisch (German), supercalifragilistichespiralidoso(Italian) and supercalifragilisticoespialidoso (Spanish). The French are too cool to use it.
A website called Straightdope has a highly entertaining feature called Is “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” a real word referring to Irish hookers? . “Our research first took us to a lawsuit that was filed after the movie came out by Life Music, Inc., against Wonderland Music, the publisher of the Mary Poppins song. It was a copyright infringement suit brought by Barney Young and Gloria Parker, who had written a song in 1949 entitled “Supercalafajaistickespeealadojus” and shown it to Disney in 1951. They asked for twelve million dollars in damages. The suit was decided in the Shermans’ favor because, among other reasons, affidavits were produced from two New Yorkers, Stanley Eichenbaum and Clara Colclaster, who claimed that “variants of the word were known to and used by them many years prior to 1949.”
The decision makes for fairly humorous reading. Apparently the judge got tired of writing out the whole word, so every time it had to be mentioned it was replaced by the phrase “the word” as if it were some loathsome artifact that had to be held at arm’s length. “
There is another story that has the s word appearing in a humor magazine at Syracuse University. An archivist named Mary O’Brien says that rumor surfaces every ten years or so, and is not true. Another old husbands tale has children in summer camps taught a song super-cadja-flawjalistic-espealedojus. This cannot be confirmed or denied.
As for the tale about Irish entrepreneurs , there is a story in Maxim magazine. It says “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, the word supposedly coined by Mary Poppins to make kids sound “precocious,” was actually invented by turn-of-the-century Scottish coal miners. It was used to request “the works” from prostitutes by men too shy to recite specific acts.” The link supplied by StraightDope does not work.
Infinite Monkey Theorem
This web page at http://www.awkwardboners.com has been reported as an attack page and has been blocked based on your security preferences. ~ I met the Italians at the Townhouse for drinks. Then I took the subway in the wrong direction and found myself in Brooklyn. A bit fuzzy from the Bombay Sapphire Maritinis, I asked the conductor who leaned through the car window of the 7 train, “Does this go to 42nd where I can connect to the #1?” He said yes and I entered with skepticism. In the course of the trip I saw the Chrysler Building more than once. I never take the #7. It was quite fantastic, and the faces were all new. The people of the #7. I got home and took off my shoes: turquoise boaters. I stepped out of them next to the other pairs I have worn today for biking, an interview, gym. I was filled with a desire for a life wherein one wears only one type of shoe all day long and every day. One pair of shoes for the year and if they wear well, for several years. Who lives like that? Do you know anyone who has only one pair of shoes from dawn to dusk and through all four seasons. That’s what I want. I don’t know anyone who has that life. I will be the first. (fb) ~ What kind of person would ever run a blog like this ? Truly disgusting if you ask me. Anonymous ~ But no one asked you ~ Self-pity is easily the most destructive of the nonpharmaceutical narcotics; it is addictive, gives momentary pleasure and separates the victim from reality. – John W. Gardner (fb) ~ Meditation: There’s a truth in every lie, and falsehood in every truth. If you watch the mechanics of how a magic trick works…its means little. If you sit back and enjoy the ride you get a whole show, one that may remind you of what endless possibility felt like. How is showing potential a lie? Deeply our hearts knows the freedom and mobility of spirit…sometimes we need reminders that limitation is yet another fleeting illusion. (Does any one want me to do this for the whole major arcana? I need moral support here!) (fb) ~ A door to door preacher just visited. He asked ” Where can I go to find truth”. I told him that seeing him walk down the driveway would be truth. ~ “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” ― E.E. Cummings (fb) ~ “I was never one to patiently pick up broken fragments and glue them together again and tell myself that the mended whole was as good as new. What is broken is broken – and I’d rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I lived. ” ― Margaret Mitchell (fb) ~ “Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson (fb) ~ Creating only shares some information publicly. If you know Creating, send her a friend request or message her.~ Twitter says that the tweet threatening to hang me is “not actionable.” – “We have investigated the reported account and have found that it’s not in violation of the Twitter Rules at this time. We have a policy against violent threats, but the content of this account lacks the specificity to meet the criteria of an actionable threat.” (fb) ~ When everyone is trying to be something, be nothing. Range with emptiness. Human should be like a pot. As the pot is hold by its emptiness inside, human is hold by the awareness of his nothingness.(fb) ~ Please don’t “thank” me for my patience. Just apologize for your incompetence and the inconvenience. (fb) ~ Religion is for people afraid of going to hell.. Spirituality is for people who have already been there… (fb) ~ “The difference between a GOP convention and Comic-Con is the people at Comic-Con have a much firmer grasp of reality.” — Bill Maher (fb) ~ There was a sign once. It said that G-d handles all problems. My question was, does this refer to the creation of problems, or their solution? ~ What is significant in one’s own existence one is hardly aware, and it certainly should not bother the other fellow. What does a fish know about the water in which he swims all his life? Alber Einstein ~ In urban political geography today, my professor said, “Yeah, I really don’t know why this local pride or local solidarity thing manages to convince urban populations to do things. I suppose someone must have done some work on that, but buggered if I have any idea what it is.” … really? REALLY? This is a well-respected social scientist – a geographer, true – at the end of a long career. I may not be on top of the economic sources of power in urban politics, but it comforts me to know that there are some questions that anthropology speaks well on, and other disciplines do not. /pretentious (fb) ~ I find this whole trend of people re-questing to be “de-friended” based on support of a political party alarming. I also fell that right out “de-friending” someone based on political affiliation is equally as alarming When you do this you become a singular “party of no”. You end the conversation, you move backwards, you create a greater divide. I understand that differing views are personal on many levels but this is not progress or forward momentum. We must keep conversations open and start to bridge the divide not widen it. If I had one major take away from The First Lady’s speech last night it is this. No matter if you’re Democrat, Republican, Moderate, we are all Americans and in this thing together for the long haul. Let’s keep building bridges so that haul is a little less of a burden. (fb) ~ “History is a cyclic poem written by Time upon the memories of man.” ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley (fb) ~ Whats up, yes I am still in need of a man to meetup with. I’m not in need of a committed relationship how ever, there simply are not enough minutes in the day. I’m only in need of a man as a sex buddy, Both of us get what we need with none of the commitments. ~ True story…. before I was born my Mom was discussing baby names with her canasta group gals from St Matthews in the ‘Boro and said she was going to name a boy baby ‘John’. One of the other ladies exclaimed to her, “Oh, don’t name him ‘John’! Every Tom, Dick and Harry’s named ‘John’!’ ” :>) (which was pretty close….the Prez, Pope, our parish priest and our family Dr who delivered me were all ‘John’) (fb) ~ this month october has 5 mondays, 5 tuesdays, and 5 wednesdays. this happens once every 823 years. this is called money bags. So share this on your wall and money will arrive within 4 days. (Based on Chinese Feng Shui) ~ White coral bells upon a slender stalk, Lilies of the valley deck my garden walk. On, don’t you wish that you could hear them ring? That will only happen when the fairies sing. ~ The artist uses the talent he has, wishing he had more talent. The talent uses the artist it has, wishing it had more artist. ~Robert Brault (fb) ~ Somebody listened to Joseph Campbell too long. ~ The blogger who condemns Fr. DeVito is named Mary Griffin. If you’d like to let her know how you feel about her self-righteous and judgmental position, you can email her at brooklyncatholic@yahoo.com. I promised both Fr. DeVito and his cousin that our conversations would be off-the-record but I will say that, years from now, when the next generation of bishops and cardinals and popes will suddenly listen to the Holy Spirit and announce to us that women may be ordained, that married people may be ordained and that gay is a non-issue, we will all be arguing about whether Fr. DeVito’s strategy of remaining within the church while working in subtle ways to usher in these changes was right or wrong. Should he have boldly proclaimed his convictions and been given the boot as have other priests? No matter which side of that argument is yours, you will owe him some degree of thanks for the good he has accomplished. Note to Bishop Man-Sell, if you now want to echo what you personally believe about LGBT equality, you can do it by making DeVito a monsignor, or is that too fearless a gesture for you? (fb) ~ There was a yard sale on the way back. Someone has cleaned out a den, and has ten boxes of VHS movies for sale. For two dollars, PG took home The Treasure of Sierra Madre, North by Northwest, Rear Window, Days of Heaven, Torch Song Trilogy, Carrie, Forbidden Planet, A Hard Days Night, Das Boot, and The Dirty Dozen. Unopened sets of James Bond movies are still available. ~ can we go back to when Facebook was about Farmville and untagging terrible, drunken photos? I’d rather get 10,000 Mafia Wars invites instead of reading desperate pleas of people trying to validate their opinions/thoughts/existences through a screen. (fb) ~ We don’t use logic when we think. We use logic when selling/defending what we have thought. ~ everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid. ~ Don’t believe everything you hear people say. ~ “You can’t convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it’s based on a deep seated need to believe.” – Carl Sagan (fb) ~ I write like says this display of effluent was written like William Shakespeare. Does this support the Infinite monkey theorem? Pictures are from The Library of Congress. ~ Selah
Copy Someone’s Status Word For Word
PG was suffering a bout of writer’s tackle. He had a post about G-d and the Democratic convention, but that involves both politics and religion. A couple of paragraphs should knock it out. Then the important topic can be addressed.
Here is the Christian Science Monitor. Two cents just won’t buy what it used to.
“For your undecided voter in Nevada, North Carolina, in Florida, in Ohio, in Pennsylvania – those key swing states, yeah, of course G-d matters,” says Davis Houck, a communications professor at Florida State University in Tallahassee. “And that’s why Obama basically said, ‘You better put that back in – we can’t be seen as the party taking G-d out of the platform.’
Are you smarter than an atheist? A religious quiz
Support for Mr. Obama among religious voters was high in several key states in 2008 and could be key again in 2012. “In an election as close as this one will be, we can’t ignore something as central to most Americans as faith,” Democratic political consultant Eric Sapp wrote on Huffington Post in June.”
Just for the sake of comparison, lets look at Exodus 20:7, better known as the Third Commandment. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy G-d in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
PG thinks this is about the proper use of a sacred name. Including the G word into a political document, to influence the “undecided voter” in a “key swing state,” is not a proper use for a sacred name.
Now, putting politics and religion in the rear view mirror, where they belong, it is time to talk about facebook. The fundamental facebook deed is posting a “status”. This is a curious word for this act, but that’s what people call it.
PG was staring at the screen, battling sloth and negative attitude, and checked in on facebook. Someone wrote “One day I want to copy someone’s status word for word and see if they notice.” PG pasted it to his wall. A cousin in Connecticut clicked like, A friend commented “How do we know you didn’t just do that?” Another person wrote “One day I want someone to copy my status word for word and see if I notice.” Several people pasted that onto the wall. Good times.
Part of left click land is the option to googlize the phrase you have highlighted. For “One day I want to copy someone’s status word for word and see if they notice,” there are 2.9 million results. The top result was by Know your meme.
“Sometimes I Just Want To Copy Someone Else’s Status, Word For Word, And See If They Notice” is a copypasta that virally spread through Twitter and Facebook in late August 2010. The humorous, self-referential text inspired over 1,500 replicate instances of the identical sentence in less than 12 hours. Due to its self-referential nature (i.e., a tweet on the subject of tweeting), it can be seen as an example of meta-discussion.
The earliest known instance of the copypasta tweet was posted by Twitter user @BtoColorado August 18, 2010. On August 24th, Twitter user @DazWolf retweeted the message. It largely went unnoticed. On August 26th, @tim_waters, from Leeds, UK, retweeted the same message at 10:42 a.m. (EST). (Spell Check suggestion for retweeted: regretted) Water’s tweet brought the copypasta into spotlight in the United Kingdom. The trend continued to spread through Facebook status updates.
At 10:52 a.m. (EST), @elspethjane of New York City tweeted the message to her 3,100 followers, quickly picking up coverage from several internet culture blogs like Huffington Post, Urlesque, and TechCrunch among others. The meme was also cited as an example in the article “What Defines a Meme?” published in May 2011 issue of Smithsonian Magazine.”
If you ask Mr. Google for results on the phrase “copy my status”, the top result is a yahoo forum. The question is How do I cut copy and paste into my status on facebook.? This thread was started by terry v (A Top Contributor is someone who is knowledgeable in a particular category.) “I can not do this”.
There is a facebook community, One day i wanna copy someones status word for word and see if they notice. It is liked sixteen times. The only posting is from a spamspinner … “A few guru marketing friends have released a product teaching people how to make money on Facebook.”
There is a Christian website, People I Want to Punch in the Throat On Wednesday, April 27, 2011, the winner was “People Who Post Annoying Things on Facebook.” Unsubscribing is just as effective as resorting to violence. This person did have an amusing commentary on the putrid concept of reposting popular slogans.
There are a lot of annoying posts on Facebook. Let’s see if I can cover the basics: 1. Anything to do with vomit and/or diarrhea. WTH? Who shares this stuff? Why did you think we needed to know this? At least it’s usually it’s kid-centered – I can handle that a lot better than I can hearing about YOUR diarrhea! “Guess who woke up early from his nap and spread his poo poo all over the wall? Uh oh. Silly, King! I’ll post pictures later! ;)”
3. Challenges to repost stuff. You know those ones. They’re about moms, husbands, brothers, sisters special needs kids, cancer survivors, idiots, etc. My mom is the best mom, blah, blah, blah if you love your mom repost this. My kids are the best kids in the world, blah, blah, blah, repost if you agree.
There’s always that one that says something like “let’s see who reposts this” like it’s some kind of gauntlet they’ve thrown down. Psht! If you know me at all, you’ll know a challenge is the worst way to motivate me. I live to break chain letters and this is just another stupid chain letter.
5. People who announce they’re leaving FB. Have you seen any of these? I’d never seen one until a few weeks ago. Now I’ve seen a couple more. They say something like, Life has become too busy and I can’t keep up with Facebook so I’ve decided to leave. Farewell friends and keep in touch!
I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with this info. Am I supposed to beg them to stay? “No, Joanne, please don’t leave, I love reading your creepy foreplay posts!” Am I supposed to post less so they have less to read on Facebook and then won’t feel so overwhelmed? And what’s with the “keep in touch?” I keep in touch through Facebook, I don’t even know your phone number and I’m never gonna write you a damn letter – so you’re right, I guess this is farewell!
8. Boring posts. These are some actual posts over the last several weeks: … Before you think I’m all high and mighty and NEVER post anything boring and/or annoying on Facebook, I’ll have you know, 2 of the above posts are mine. I’m just as boring as the next guy.
As you can see, this has been edited. This post is going to be too long as it is. Only posts which annoy or amuse PG were included. Perhaps the worst are the challenges to repost. Yes, cancer is terrible, but reposting a dreary status will not make the metastasizing cease and desist.
When PG finished this post, he decided to go to the grocery store. Friday afternoons there can be intense, and it is best to go before the crowds hit. When he turned onto Clairmont Road, there was a red car dangerously close to his bumper. The Lexus swerved into the left lane to pass, with the white male driver talking on his phone. It quickly cut back in front of PG, then slowed down for a red light. The license plate said Cobb.
The pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”. This was written like Cory Doctorow.
Bob Dylan Brookhaven Bleeding Lambs
Google has a better memory than PG. This can be helpful when you have 2000 plus posts in your archive. When PG sees something on facebook that he has written about, he thinks it is cool to give a link to the post. To find this post, he uses Google Advanced Search.
When you go to GAS, you have a bunch of blank lines. The one on top of the page is for the thing you are searching for. Yesterday, PG looked for something that started with B. It was probably Brookhaven, since the vote on creating a new city has become a car crash … tough to look at, but impossible to look away. When PG started his search, he typed B in the top line. The automemory suggestible piped in with Bob Dylan, Brookhaven, bleeding lambs.
PG has written about all three subjects, usually more than once. Once, PG came out of the bathroom, in a mentally unhealthy state. He heard a person praying for entertainment on a radio. “The blood of the lamb has cleansed my heart“. PG freaked out over the visual of the bleeding lambs. After asking the owner of the radio to turn the noise down, there was seven years of righteous anger.
This wound up on Facebook today: “I don’t know where “normalcy” came from, but I loathe it. Normal, normality. We do not say “realcy” or “functionalcy” or “dualcy” or “trivialcy”. Curse you, Warren G. Harding.” When PG looked up Warren Harding, the suggested options were water, Walt Whitman, and war between the states. At this time, the decision was made to look up the other 24 letters.
Synchronicity abounds. About halfway through writing about Eat, Pray. Love, PG was embarrassed. The first letter to draw a blank is K, which symbolizes strikeout on a baseball scorecard. Hüsker Dü, hip hop, hot and busted, Healy building and heroin came before “is life sacred”.
Last night, PG was talking about an early job he had, as a caddy at a golf course. One day, a man missed a putt, and shouted “shit, piss, and corruption”. PG has an appreciation for creative profanity, and remembers that turn of words forty four years later. Today, that phrase is listed ahead of Santorum, and Santorum weird.
Christopher Isherwood represents an internet holy grail. At some time in the last thirty years, PG read a magazine story about Mr. Isherwood. He said that religion is about people, not doctrine. The key to the religion you adopt is the person who introduces you to that religion. If anyone reading this can direct PG to the source for that quote, it would be greatly appreciated.
Here are the results of this survey. If nothing was found, the letter is not shown. Like a telephone dial, there is no Q. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
a- adventitious, anti racist faq, atlanta water crisis, Abraham Lincoln
b- Bob Dylan, Brookhaven, Bleeding lambs
c- camel going through eye of the needle, coonskin, Cynthia Mckinney, Christopher Isherwood
d- Donna Summer, Durand Line
e- Eat Pray Love, embarrassed
f- friday the thirteenth, Fred Thomas
g- Gary Johnson
h- Hüsker Dü, hip hop, homonyms, hot and busted, Healy building, heroin
i- is life sacred
j- Jane Fonda, Jane Svoboda
l- Lester Maddox
n- n word
o- Og Mandino, opening lines of books, old times not forgotten
p- privilege, poppers, prose is better than poetry, Pope Pius XII and Cardinal Spellman
r- racism, rotary club four way test, rudolph the red nosed reindeer, Raymond Carver
s- seven, statement issued by Georgia Department of Correction, shit piss and corruption, Santorum, Santorum weird
t- T-SPLOST, trocadero, Tom Waits storyteller, the saint, the day I helped kill a baby, Truman Capote
w- Warren Harding, water, Walt Whitman, war between the states
Jessica Ghawi
A few weeks ago, Jessica Ghawi went to a food court in Toronto. She got a hamburger, instead of the sushi she had planned to get. For some reason, she felt uneasy, and went outside for fresh air. While she was gone, a gun owner opened fire in the food court. .
The twitter handle for Jessica Ghawi is Jessica Redfield. The profile says “You can find me in the TV studio, NHL arena/ locker room, on a plane, or writing. Southern. Sarcastic. Sass.Class.Crass. Grammar snob Denver by way of Texas.” Friday morning, she attended a midnight showing of “The Dark Knight Rises,” in Aurora, CO.
@JessicaRedfield @BurkieYCP @puckbuddys @jessespector @stefmara @peterhassett YES!!!! I thought I was the only one with love for the Oxford Comma 7:38 PM – 19 Jul 12
@JessicaRedfield Never thought I’d have to coerce a guy into seeing the midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises with me. 9:27 PM – 19 Jul 12
@JessicaRedfield @darrelrubin actually won the argument. he’s going! WIN!!! 9:32 PM – 19 Jul 12
@JessicaRedfield @darrelrubin the “im going to be too tired tomorrow” argument never wins
9:33 PM – 19 Jul 12
@JessicaRedfield Of course we’re seeing Dark Knight. Redheaded Texan spitfire, people should never argue with me.Maybe I should get in on those NHL talks… 2:22 AM – 20 Jul 12
@JessicaRedfield @jessespector you aren’t seeing it tonight?! 2:30 AM – 20 Jul 12
@jessespector @JessicaRedfield Nope.2:32 AM – 20 Jul 12
@JessicaRedfield @jessespector psh. Loser! 2:33 AM – 20 Jul 12
@jessespector @JessicaRedfield Which is why you’re tweeting now and not at the movie?
2:35 AM – 20 Jul 12
@JessicaRedfield @jessespector MOVIE DOESN’T START FOR 20 MINUTES 2:37 AM – 20 Jul 12
@jessespector @JessicaRedfield A real fan would be in a better time zone. 2:39 AM – 20 Jul 12
During the showing of the movie, a man entered the theater and started to shoot. Jessica Ghawi died.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. HT to Andrew Sullivan.
Clean Up My Facebook Friends List
There is a facebook fad, Time to purge my FB friends list again. Let me know if you’re still interested in following my exploits. People who don’t respond risk being deleted. A post here on this subject is getting a lot of traffic today. Maybe it is time for another post on this subject. You start by selecting “Time to purge my FB friends list again. Let me know if you’re still interested in following my exploits. People who don’t respond risk being deleted.”, right click, search Google for… Only the first page of the results will be considered.
The top result at google is often paid for. Why I Tearfully Deleted My Pinterest Inspiration Boards was from a lawyer, who forbids copying any of his material. Maybe he will get some business out of it.
My guy friend; is he playing me? is an advice column. “Sophie” is talking about a man she knows. At first, they are just friends, then she allows that “We’re purely physical”. In other words, they are having fun. The advice is to find another hobbyhorse.
Most of the rest on the first page of results are boring. They have little to do with facebook friends. The exception is STFU Parents: The Great Breastfeeding Photo Debate. There is a picture of a baby feeding on naked mama, who is standing on her head. There is a comment… actually a lot of comments, but there is only so much time … “I’m sorry but the picture at the top is sick for the same reason the Time magazine cover was (actually more so), it is sexualizing breastfeeding instead of making it an intimate experience. The girl looks like in the middle of some type of BDSM session with her significant other, the baby got hungry and had to nurse. Then her SO took a picture of it and THEN shared it publicly. UGH. I just want to get that image out of my head now. BTW, I breastfed my child and I love sex, just don’t think it’s right to put the two together. GROSS.”
So this post was out of control, and a clarification of the search was needed. The search term was reduced to “purge my FB friends list”. The top two results were facebook apps, which this blog avoids like Mitt Romney avoids telling the truth. The third request was from the Catholic Media Guild, “How to purge your Facebook friends list”. Related posts include “Twitter, Thanksgiving and Turkey: 5 tips for a Eucharistic Online Spirituality,” “The Media Message of the Immaculate Conception,” and “7 Papal Points for better Catholic Communication.” Several acts are seen as reason to unfriend someone.
How To Find Out Who Unfriended You On Facebook has an ad from AirTran. This tells you how to tweak your facebook account settings, to see who has unfriended you. “It’s the easiest tool to know who unfriended you on Facebook but personally I don’t suggest anyone to know those persons who don’t want you in their life. If you feel depressed after seeing the friends who unfriended you, go n uninstall the extension right away.”
This is getting sort of boring. If you want to go ahead, and look at the pictures (from The Library of Congress,) no one will think any the less of you. The last item on the agenda is on a site from the wedding industrial complex, Why you shouldn’t be FB friends with someone you don’t like…NWR.
“So, this is an obvious one. I totally forgot I was “facebook friends” with my friend’s ex. He’s never on, he never talks to me, NEVER posts to me (and vice versa) and got lost in the sea of old college facebook friends so I forgot i was even friends with the guy. I don’t even like the guy after what he did to my friend (dumped her in a Steak n Shake amongst treating her crappy). Oh, and openly telling us a woman’s place is at home, having babies, not in the workplace =]
Saturday I did homework while DH was at a bachelor party. All night I cranked on it so I could relax with him Sunday. I FB posted “It took me 6 hours, but I managed to prove the Brinell hardness equation. Turns out it was a simple geometric equation of a sphere. Sigh!” Yeah it really did take me 6 hours to prove it. It shouldn’t have, but it did.
This dude responded: “FYI in industry Brinell hardness is a field test (estimated hardness measurement) and no operator should be using it as a realistic measurement of material hardness. Vickers and then Rockwell Hardness is more accurate. When in doubt, contact a materials/metallurgical engineer”
HELLOOO, I was doing homework! And i am a materials engineer, you don’t really think i sit around proving equations all day, do you? On a SATURDAY night?!
So yeah, I sent my friend a message and said “omg your ex posted on my wall! Random!” and she replied back “wow…he’s even more condescending than he used to be. Funny how his idea of being helpful is really just him being rude”. DH said “wow, what a douche. You should have told him, “no sh*t Sherlock, it’s called homework””
Maybe it’s time to clean up the FB friends =]
Something To Think About
In the wake of 911, the following email wormed its way around the internet. It is a classic of the genre. PG will add comments.This is a repost.
This letter references an appearance by Anne Graham Lotz. on “The Early Show”. Thank you, Angel Ministries, for the transcript. Mrs. Lotz is the daughter of Billy Graham. They also say, regarding the Early Show comments and the following email, “Any mutation of it on the Internet would have occurred without Mrs. Lotz’s involvement.”
Subject: SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT i recently got this email from a close relative and i was left in awe about what Billy Grahams daughter says on TV. also the things that she says is shockinly true. i hope you read through this medium sized email and have a little food for mind in whatever you say in the future. G-d Bless. Javi
In light of the many perversions and jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke, it’s not funny, it’s intended to get you thinking.
Billy Graham’s daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her “How could G-d let something like this happen?” (regarding the attacks on Sept. 11).
Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said “I believe G-d is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we’ve been telling G-d to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect G-d to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?”
In light of recent events…terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O’Hare (she was murdered, her body found recently) complained she didn’t want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. It was the Supreme Court which ruled that Public School Prayer was unconstitutional. It was a controversial decision.
Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school ….. the Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK. The Bible says a lot of other things as well.
Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn’t spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock’s son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he’s talking about. And we said OK. Then someone said teachers and principals better not discipline our children when they misbehave. The school administrators said no faculty member in this school better touch a student when they misbehave because we don’t want any bad publicity, and we surely don’t want to be sued (there’s a big difference between disciplining, touching, beating, smacking, humiliating, kicking, etc.). And we said OK. Maybe this is a good time to ask who this WE person is. A lot of parents disagree with this concept. Many of the people who don’t want corporal punishment have good reasons for feeling this way. Also, in that parenthetic statement at the end, PG wonders what is being compared to what. There is a list of actions, and no way to know what is not what.
Then someone said, let’s let our daughters have abortions if they want, and they won’t even have to tell their parents. And we said OK. Then some wise school board member said, since boys will be boys and they’re going to do it anyway, let’s give our sons all the condoms they want so they can have all the fun they desire, and we won’t have to tell their parents they got them at school. And we said OK.
Then some of our top elected officials said it doesn’t matter what we do in private as long as we do our jobs. Agreeing with them, we said it doesn’t matter to me what anyone, including the President, does in private as long as I have a job and the economy is good. Ah, nostalgia for good times past. A good economy was a healthy thing, no matter what went on in the Oval Office. The next President started a War of Choice in private, and the economy is not good.
Then someone said let’s print magazines with pictures of nude women and call it wholesome, down-to-earth appreciation for the beauty of the female body. And we said OK. And then someone else took that appreciation a step further and published pictures of nude children and then further again by making them available on the Internet. And we said OK, they’re entitled to free speech. This bit of rhetoric may be the biggest lie in this letter. Child pornography is an aggressively prosecuted crime. Government agencies have been known to advertise such materials, and then bust anyone who answers the ad. PG has NEVER heard anyone say that child pornography is protected by free speech.
Then the entertainment industry said, let’s make TV shows and movies that promote profanity, violence, and illicit sex. Let’s record music that encourages rape, drugs, murder, suicide, and satanic themes. And we said it’s just entertainment, it has no adverse effect, nobody takes it seriously anyway, so go right ahead.
Now we’re asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don’t know right from wrong, and why it doesn’t bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves. In the years after 911, we have engaged in wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. There are lots of strangers being killed over there. But, it is going a bit far to say that it doesn’t bother soldiers to kill strangers. PTSD and suicide are serious problems among troops who have been to war in Babylon.
Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with “WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.” Funny how simple it is for people to trash G-d and then wonder why the world’s going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Many of the people who forwarded this message whine about “liberal media bias”, but call the Bible the “Word of G-d”.
Funny how you can send ‘jokes’ through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of G-d is suppressed in the school and workplace. Are you laughing? Does a cynical smirk count?
Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you’re not sure what they believe, or what they WILL think of you for sending it. It is a good idea to only send a message to someone who is going to trust what you say. If they don’t trust you, what is the point? Also, if a message about G-d creates ill will, is that message not in vain? Any questions about this, see the Third Commandment.
Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what G-d thinks of us. If G-d lives in the hearts of Man, is there a difference between what man thinks and what G-d thinks? Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it… no one will know you did. But, if you discard this, don’t sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.
ACA @ SCOTUS
PG was working on a post with an eye on the clock. Any minute now, the Supremes were going to rule on the Affordable Care Act. This is part of the process. After the law comes out of the sausage factory, the lawyers attack and defend. Finally, it goes to the Supremes. Scotusblog has the story.
Tom: 520,000 contemporaneous readers. 10:07
Tom: First American was dismissed. 10:07
Amy Howe: We have health care opinion. 10:08
Amy Howe: Parsing it asap. 10:08
Amy Howe: The individual mandate survives as a tax. 10:09
Amy Howe: It’s very complicated, so we’re still figuring it out. 10:10
Kali: We are still here. Don’t worry. 10:10
Tom: So the mandate is constitutional. Chief Justice Roberts joins the left of the Court.10:11
Amy Howe: The Medicaid provision is limited but not invalidated. 10:13
Tom: The bottom line: the entire ACA is upheld, with the exception that the federal government’s power to terminate states’ Medicaid funds is narrowly read. 10:15
Tom: We’re still here; taking a deeper dive into the opinion. Back soon. 10:15
Tom: Link to the opinion isn’t up yet. 10:15
Tom: Chief Justice Roberts’ vote saved the ACA. 10:18
Pictures, with one exception, are from The Library of Congress.
Epistemological Transcendence
These visits to alternative reality are from a variety of sources. Included are Facebook (fb), twitter (tw), Futility Closet (fucl), All Aphorisms, All The Time (Aph), Texts From Last Night (tln) , and Overheard in New York (ony). Attempts to maintain a no profanity blog will be suspended for this post. // And the road goes on forever…..RAGBRAI cyclist (fb) // Zion has rehearsal today and I am meeting someone new and feeling off and Arts Exchange tonight…… coffee then attitude adjustment, then I don’t know what… I have avoided writing because I’m feeling over optimistic and bitter at the same time. I have no idea what the fuck that sounds like? Not sure I want to know. I do know that off for me usually means write….. (fb) // “I don’t have secrets, just well-edited truths.” (fb) // #youknowwhatsannoying when you try and talk to someone and they are about as interesting as a table (tw) // “If you think you can’t make a difference, you are wrong. If you think you are too old or too young to make change happen, you are wrong. If you think that somebody else will do it first, you are wrong.” ~ Dan Pearce (fb) // The ulitmate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves its children–Dietrich Bonhoffer. (fb) // “The church was in the government and the government had always been rotton”–For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway-as the rebels tossed the priests over a cliff. (fb) // peace is what you get when you stop killing people. (fb) // We are saturated with lies. The lies we are told. And the lies we tell ourselves–Chris Hedges (fb) // Mr Roberts, of Lawrence Street, Brooklyn, who was fond of examining his revolver, did so for the last time yesterday. (tw) // Traffic on 34th Street was halted while a crowd looked, in vain, for Mrs Cornely’s nose, torn off when she fell down the station steps. (tw) // “you must write, and read, as if your life depended on it.” — adrienne rich // I’m a part of all that I’ve met. Yet all experience forms an arch through which gleams that untraveled world. Ulysses (fb) // Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how.’ Viktor Frankl (fb) // Without music, life would be a mistake. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche (fb) // BBQmySchlong:I love being kicked in the balls! I love having my penis roasted on a BBQ grill! I love drinking piss! I live in NY and can travel plus PAY you, if interested send an IM! PICS IN PROFILE! // I was just asked in a meeting, “Is it business critical to make this fannypack?” (fb) // “Kindness is a force that breaks open your heart even as it heals – and in that healing sets you free.” ~ Sharon Salzberg (fb) // Ok, I’m running a test to see who’s reading my posts. So, if you read this, leave me a one-word comment about how we met. Only one word please. Then copy this to your wall so I can leave a word for you. Don’t just post a word and not copy – that’s not as much fun. (fb) // Work like you don’t need the money. Love like you’ve never been hurt. Dance like nobody’s watching. Sing like nobody’s listening. Live like it’s Heaven on Earth. /// “I don’t consider myself an anthropologist so much as an animal behaviorist who specializes in humans.” “Yeah … you might not want to say that too often.” (fb) // Just had a very entertaining experience in corruption. A big burly Con Ed employee approached me as I was photographing dancers in Madison Square Park. He asked about my work as a photographer, made small talk and then asked if I did any “paparazzi” work because he moonlights as a bodyguard for celebrities and for a “percentage” he would text me who, where and when. (fb) // Had an MRI today for my sore neck. They gave me Valium because of my newly discovered claustrophobia from the first time I had one. That one was the longest half-hour in my life. Could NOT talk myself out of the irrational fear. It’s like being shoved into an orange juice can with your arms pinned at your side. But I was good and made no scene. Here’s how that first one went with mental dialog: Using the alphabet, come up with a name for a song title with each letter. DONE! (Don’t open your eyes! Don’t open your eyes!) Eyes opened anyway. SCREEEEECH! (I TOLD YOU NOT TO OPEN YOUR EYES!) OK, undo the panic by counting each breath up to 100. DONE! (Don’t open your eyes! Don’t open your eyes!) Eyes opened anyway. SCREEEEECH! OK, now count down from 100 with each breath. (Isn’t this half hour over YET? Don’t open your eyes! Don’t open your eyes!) Eyes opened anyway. SCREEEEECH! THIS TIME: Valium an hour before and a cloth over my eyes during the procedure. It was a breeze. Make a mental note for next time, if there is one. I’m not looking to enter any kind of drug addiction or the Whitney Houston diet, but DAMN. Valium and the cup of coffee afterwards has made for a perfect day. But I dare not start a painting. (fb) // Curiosities of medical language: VESICULOGRAPHY contains no repeated letters. PARASITOLOGICAL alternates vowels and consonants. HYDROXYZINE is the only word in the Oxford English Dictionary (second edition) that contains XYZ. BIOPSY is in alphabetical order. Each letter in ZOONOSIS is rotationally symmetrical in uppercase. Each letter in BERIBERI and INTESTINES appears twice. (fucl) // Kind woman in dark aquarium: do you have all your children accounted? We have an extra with us there. (tw) // Mommy, you have too many semicolons in your book. I don’t see why you need so many of them. (tw) // 7-yr-old: what is nymphomania? me: where did you see the word? 7yo: in a book. Me: which book? 7yo: yours. (tw) // Class is a thing that has a way of dissolving rapidly in alcohol. (tw) // ‘The motion-picture business is the only business in the world in which you can make all the mistakes there are and still make money.’ (tw) // Her voice was as cool as boarding-house soup (tw) // She began to sob in my arms. Women have so few defenses, but they certainly perform wonders with those they have. (tw) // “I liked you better when you used to…” Those who put their comfort above your progress are not your friends. (tw) // Merely because his surgeon, Dr Fischer, left two sponges in his abdomen, Jacob Weiss, of East 87th Street, is making a legal fuss. (tw) // The number of wealthy Dicks in Long Island increased after sugar magnate William Dick left his $20 million fortune to his children. (tw) // In the future, after our generation is forgotten and humanity has become civilized, people will be able to edit tweets after posting them. (tw) // NO SORRY, SANTORUM, YOU MUST CARRY YOUR DEAD PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN TO FULL TERM.” (tw) // Stacey @nonpromqueen Mommy, Potty Mouth, Lactivist, Liberal-ish, Atheist, Dong Expert, Geek, Goon, News Junkie, Web Addict, Video Game Connoisseur. (tw) // The Circus… Fun for the whole family. Except the animals kept enslaved and abused there. This is Tyke, who in 1994 killed her trainer to escape and was shot 86 times by police. It took her two hours to die. So the next time someone tells you the animals like it there, remember this photo. (fb) // Trigger Warning: sexism, fat shaming, body shaming, misogyny, assumptive objectification, Really ya’ll, these attitudes are insipid and just darn dull. Also, the fat shame and shaming is unwelcome. (fb) // ”We’re taught to do things the right way. But to discover something other people haven’t, you need to do things the wrong way” ~ James Dyson // A driver is stuck in a traffic jam on the highway. Nothing is moving. Suddenly, a man knocks on the window. The driver rolls down the window and asks, “What’s going on?” “Terrorists have kidnapped Congress, and are asking for a $10 million dollar ransom. Otherwise, they are going to douse them all in gasoline and set them on fire. We are going from car to car, taking up a collection.” “How much is everyone giving, on average?” the driver asks. The man replies, “About a gallon.” (fb) // “Not only is no language ever free of troping; not only is facticity always saturated with metaphoricity; but also, any sustained account of the world is dense with storytelling. ‘Reality’ is not compromised by the pervasiveness of narrative; one gives up nothing, except the illusion of epistemological transcendence, by attending closely to stories. I am consumed with interest in the stories that inhabit us and that we inhabit; such inhabiting is finally what constitutes this ‘we’ among whom communication is to be possible.” (fb) // With a leap in front of the northbound local, Philip Joseph, of Heary Street, canceled his wedding plans. (tw) // Abdul Baha Abbas, teacher of the Bahai faith, arrived on the steamship Cedric. One of his peculiar beliefs is that women are equal to men. (tw) //
Death had been ignoring 82-year-old Mrs Levy, so she jumped from the fifth floor of the Ansonia Hotel and got his attention. (tw) // 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. (tw) // When the doctors have done all they can for Sting, I hope one of them raises a vial of morphine and murmurs, “O Sting, here is thy death…” (tw) // Envious of the White Star Line’s Titanic, which is on its maiden voyage, Cunard announced plans for Aquitania, which shall be even larger. (tw) // Shiva is the destroyer and the first thing on his list should be his hairdo, but who am I to argue with the divine? The river Ganges is supposed to spout from his hairstyle, so there’s more going on in Shiva’s topknot than just a chaotic updo achieved without a mirror during the first five minutes of yoga. ~Margaret Cho (fb) “Nothingness was a wind that inexplicably changed directions but ever and always conscious of its goals.” (fb) // Please repost this to your status if you’re constantly being asked to repost things to your status by friends who constantly repost things to their status. Many people won’t repost this, but my truly sarcastic, caring and intelligent friends will repost it because they know this was reposted from a dear friend in dire need of more stuff to repost; and if you don’t repost it, then this means you must hate Jesus, kittens, puppies, Tim Tebow and bacon. And if you hate bacon, the terrorists win. I bet 444% of you won’t repost this. (fb) // This comment has received too many negative votes // This is closer // Knocking someone for being “too gay” when the real problem is that you think they are too materialistic, superficial, or catty.. that’s not fair to people who are femme but are none of those things. And it is often ironic, because by criticizing someone before getting to know them, we are engaging in superficial catty behavior. “If you want a good friend, first be a good friend.” (fb) // May all beings be truly peaceful. May all beings be free from fear, stress and unnecessary suffering. (fb) // “That would make a good Facebook status!” (fb) // I’m having trouble curbing my anger in this email. (fb) // She sighed. “All men are the same.” “So are all women—after the first nine.” She damned me and hung up. (tw) // I finished my drink and got the thirsty look on my face again. She ignored it. (tw) // They always have a gun in the drawer and they always get it too late, if they get it at all. (tw) // Brought my umbrella yesterday. No rain. Forgot it today. Of course it’s raining. Sigh. (tw) // Very proud of myself: I’m still less than halfway through this box of thin mints, and I’ve had them open for weeks. Go me! (tw) // Common sense is the little man in a gray suit who never makes a mistake in addition. But it’s always somebody else’s money he’s adding up. (tw) //Oh you’re vegan, that’s cool but I practice true cruelty free living, BREATHARIANISM. I live off the nutrients of air then die after 1 month (tw) // he said something like ‘sorry if i’m being a shithead. am i being a shithead’ and i wish i could have yelled ‘YES OF COURSE YOU ARE!!!!!!!!! (tw) // “If happiness always depends on something expected in the future, we are chasing a will-o’-the-wisp that ever eludes our grasp, until the future, and ourselves, vanish into the abyss.” ~ Alan Watts (fb) // Why do we constantly talk about non violence and then call people bitches on our facebook? (fb) // I’ve said it before: people talk a lot of crap and are too lazy to do their research. And then when presented with irrefutable evidence about matters of fact, apparently, they simply say “I disagree” so they can welch on their bets. The only mystery is why I am surprised. (fb) // NOTICE: Contents of web site may settle during downloading. Pages are sold by weight, not by volume. // I’m perpetuating a test…to see who’s reading my posts. So, if you read this, leave me a one-word comment about how we met. Only one word please. Then copy this to your wall so I can leave a word for you. Don’t just post a word and not copy – that’s not as much fun. (fb) // Such an interesting day on facebook. when I first logged in I saw an obituary posted by a friend in memory of his feline companion. I opted to respond to a friend request first before digging into the full obit, but when I returned to the news feed page I got this simple message: There are no more posts to show right now. I imagine I will find more on facebook through my groups and friend feeds. Such an interesting experience. (fb) // To the guy at the Cheveron, who tried to sell me a bag of weed, as I was at the counter paying for my gas…. What the phuck is your problem? (fb) // Poetry is my crutch and comfort. Girls are scary. (fb) // So, I went to three events tonight. Two completely social, one poetry showed her face what I learned, I cannot do the club thing anymore for real! I gravitate to folks I know which defeats the mf purpose. Everyone else is so fucking young. I may have to come to terms with, I might have to be alone for a while……Marinating on that one…ugh (fb) // Commenters get banned when they spam our comments section with inanities and slogans or if they establish a consistent track record of bringing nothing to the discussion beyond rude treatment of others. Insults are fine, as long as you’re making a point. But if insults and expletives are all you have, find another cocktail party. // “Neo-cons stink of necrosis and flee from the thought of peace like a Victorian spinster from a penis.” (fb) // The mideast is like the black-white thing on steroids. (fb) // I’m seeking the understanding necessary to be a great storyteller and the wisdom to know the stories worth telling. This is my intention. (fb) // So, you are going to use my page to promote your page and then announce how you are going to delete me after you used my fucking page….ok, weird, but ok…so how about I delete your ass first , you fucking recongnize and get over your damn self….. FOR REAL? MOTHERPHUCK , for real….. (fb) // That depends if you’re a functional distinctionist and if you think all things should be compartmentalized neatly into their place (which you conveniently invent and then pretend like it is proper only when you find things where you leave them), or if you recognize that distinctions/differences are a historical byproducts and you should do a geneaology to recover why on earth you think you need a separate room to shower or poop in the first place. Water supply doesn’t explain walls. In fact the only thing that I can think of that would explain the walls is puritanical fear of nudity aka prudence. (fb) // may all ancient hatreds become a present love–A Course In Miracles. (fb) // As the human soul matures, we are confronted with moments that force us to let go of yet another thin veil of self-delusion. The moral high ground, sinks into a thicket of gray. // Register for FREE to access our online magazine articles. This one-time registration takes only a FEW seconds. Continue to enjoy free subscriptions to email newsletters, SojoMail, articles and more great features. // If you aren’t a fan of Jon Luc Pickard (Patrick Stewart), this might make you ask yourself why not?……….“Our house was small, and when you grow up with domestic violence in a confined space you learn to gauge, very precisely, the temperature of situations. I knew exactly when the shouting was done and a hand was about to be raised – I also knew exactly when to insert a small body between the fist and her face, a skill no child should ever have to learn. Curiously, I never felt fear for myself and he never struck me, an odd moral imposition that would not allow him to strike a child. The situation was barely tolerable: I witnessed terrible things, which I knew were wrong, but there was nowhere to go for help. Worse, there were those who condoned the abuse. I heard police or ambulance men, standing in our house, say, “She must have provoked him,” or, “Mrs Stewart, it takes two to make a fight.” They had no idea. The truth is my mother did nothing to deserve the violence she endured. She did not provoke my father, and even if she had, violence is an unacceptable way of dealing with conflict. Violence is a choice a man makes and he alone is responsible for it.” Patrick Stewart (fb) // Don’t talk unless you can improve the silence. -Vermont Proverb // Mrs Esther Galarzo, wife of a Brooklyn cigar dealer, and E.J. Davis, the negro she eloped with, were caught in Atlantic City and jailed. (tw) // At West 44th Street, while explaining to her husband that she wanted a club sandwich, Mrs Cohen shot herself in the shoulder. (tw) // “Has a playground for little kids as well as big kids.” // I am traveling with perhaps the worst procrastinators alive. We are STILL at the hostel, despite having prepped to leave hours ago. This means we’ll now be biking 4 hours in the dark and setting up camp at Tulum in the middle of the night. How absurd! (fb) // Selah
Facts Are Stupid Things
In an internet galaxy, millions of byte years from known forms of life, resides Taki’s Magazine. They recently became notorious for posting The Talk: Nonblack Version. If you wade past the ritual denunciations, and want to read the article for yourself, you will discover that the server for Taki’s does not work very well. When you click on a link, the worst thing to happen is waiting a minute or Often, the link does not work, or has to be clicked several times, only to go to a home page where you might find a link to the article you want. This is a problem. When you copy something from Taki’s, this message appears at the bottom. “Please share this article by using the link below. When you cut and paste an article, Taki’s Magazine misses out on traffic, and our writers don’t get paid for their work. Email editors@takimag.com to buy additional rights.
http://takimag.com/article/the_talk_nonblack_version_john_derbyshire#ixzz1rSzTh3DJ” Often, the link does not function. Maybe it is the IT guy who doesn’t get paid for his work. On the “about” page, we see this: “We at Taki’s Magazine take our politics like we take life—lightly. We believe political labels such as conservative and liberal are as outdated as flared trousers and nazis. Ideology is a false god, a secular religion that seeks vainly to create a paradise on Earth. Our only ideology is to be against the junk culture foisted upon us and mirages of a new world order. Think of us what you will, but read us. Our writers are never boring.” The “big three” are Publisher Taki Theodoracopulos, Executive Editor Mandolyna Theodoracopulos, and Editor Jim Goad. There was a feature at Taki’s, 10 Hatefacts for Those Who Hate Facts. This was the article that made PG decide to write this post. Finding text to go between the pictures gets tougher and tougher every day. These pictures are from The Library of Congress. As Ronald Reagan once said, “Facts Are Stupid Things”. According to Bad Attitudes “The title above is a quote from Ronald Reagan at the 1988 Republican National Convention. He was trying to access a John Adams quote, “Facts are stubborn things,” but something more appropriate to the man and the occasion popped out.” This was the convention which nominated George H.W. Bush, and gave the dynasty a sold push. When you say something is a fact, you imply that it is the truth. Factual is the adjective, and Fact check is a verb. Anyone who thinks knows that the facts are often not true. Maybe rhetorical unit, or RU, would be better. As Ru Paul likes to say, you better work. Since the creditors of the writer want to get paid, you are encouraged to follow the link, and read the original feature. We will paraphrase the titles of some of these comments, and supply original text. The idea was to take 10 “true statements”, call them hatefacts, and post them in all caps. We will post four items. 4. Lifestyles One wonders what the author of this piece does for money, when he doesn’t get paid for his work. How did he find this out? “Circuit parties go on for three days and the attendees do so much crystal meth, they are able to fornicate nonstop throughout the entire event. This seemingly infinite amount of friction their poor bums and dinks are forced to endure has consequences.” One word: Lubrication. 6. Native Americans The terms indian and native american were coined by import americans. (A group that includes both black and white people.) The original residents of north and south america lived in hundreds of tribes. These tribes were probably just as different from each other as african americans and european americans. Many of them were not nice people. To make a generalization about all of these tribes is ridiculous. The new age ideas about how original americans lived are probably about as realistic as the injuns in Hollywood movies. 8. Slavery did not benefit the south after the war This one got people worked up. The idea was that the south was broke after the unpleasantness, and built itself back up. This is not completely true. Once reconstruction was over, a form of de facto slavery was in effect. The people who owned land before the war continued to own land. They found ways to get the land worked, without paying a whole lot to the helpers. It is easier to fire someone than to sell him. The truth is, things were tough for a lot of people after the war. White trash was only marginally better off than their black neighbors. The wealthy land owners got the whites and blacks to hating each other, so they wouldn’t worry about the economics. The same divide and conquer dynamic is working today. 9. Guns If George Zimmerman had not been armed, Trayvon Martin would be alive today. People who constantly talk about their wonderful guns are both obnoxious and scary. There are better ways to prove your masculinity. Does anyone want to speculate about George Zimmerman having a little pecker?
Ten Things You Cannot Say
There is a post at listserve today about the ten items you should never discuss on the internet. PG is going to take this as a challenge, and try to say something rude about all ten. Today is International Mens Day, and we all know that real men have lots of opinions.
01 Religion On the day PG was born, his father called the church choir director, at 6am, to sign PG up. The choir director, a gentleman named Ray Smathers, went back to sleep. PG thinks that Mr. Smathers had the right idea.
02 Origins of Man Gorillas and chimpanzees are embarrassed by people.
03 Politics A man is drowning fifty feet offshore. A democrat throws seventy five feet of rope, and then doesn’t tie it to anything. A republican throws twenty five feet of rope, and says that swimming to the rope will build character.
04 The Holocaust What Hitler did sixty five years ago does not justify dropping white phosphorous on children in Gaza today.
05 Gun Control A prominent politician in Georgia recently took some pills, and called his mother. The prominent politician said he was killing himself. If the prominent politician had used a gun, he would have succeeded.
06 Abortion PG has never had an abortion.
07 Race Relations PG does not like people who do not like PG.
08 Jesus Christ What Jesus worshipers call Jesus is a man made spirit, that has little in common with the historic figure. We know little about the man in Palestine two thousand years ago. The spirit called Jesus is a source of misery to PG.
09 Homosexuality If you have to ask, do you really need to know?
10 The Middle East If there was no oil there, would anyone care?
Chamblee54 
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