Chamblee54

There is a facebook page now, If-the-American-Flag-offends-you-Ill-be-happy-to-help-you-pack. This rubs PG the wrong way.
Before you start to holler, there are a few facts to consider. PG has had a good life in The USA, and cannot imagine living anywhere else. He pays taxes without complaint. When PG was military age, America was winding down a disastrous war, and military service was not seen as a good option.
PG compares his thoughts about America with his thoughts about his hometown of Atlanta GA. He has had a good life in both places, and does not want to live anywhere else. And yet, no one is ever asked to “die for Atlanta”. That duty is reserved for the national political unit. If PG had been 110 years older, he would have had to opportunity to die for Georgia. That war is seen as wasting thousands of good men. When it comes to dying for a political unit, there is a lot of waste.
No, the Stars and Stripes, while aesthetically challenged, does not offend PG. That does not mean that our flag should be used for jewelry, or to promote products. The flag should be respected, not left out in direct sunlight for years at a time, until the red, white, and blue is pink, gray, and lavender.
A few years ago, after a Supreme Court ruling about flag burning, PG worked with someone who drove a van. There was a bumper sticker on that van, with the American Flag, and the message “Try burning this one”. That van was parked in direct sunlight every day, and the sun burned those colors off that van.
The Flag is a political symbol, a symbol of a nation. A “Pledge of Allegiance” to this symbol should not include the use of a sacred name. The word G-d should only be used for worship, and respectful discussion, not the celebration of political symbols. If you have any more questions, look at the Third Commandment.
No, the American Flag does not offend PG. However, Facebook groups that would try to bully people who don’t have the “correct” opinion about this symbol…that would seek to create conflict between citizens…that does offend PG.
Photographs are from
The Library of Congress. The flag image is by PG.

Some people think that the drought is over, and we can go back to wasting water. They are wrong.
From a water supply point of view, Atlanta is a terrible place for a city. 4 million people depend on the Chattahoochee River, an overgrown trout stream. If you look at a map of Georgia watersheds , you see what a small area is covered by the Chattahoochee.
As if that isn’t bad enough, the water is also claimed by Alabama and Florida. A nuclear power plant in Alabama uses enormous amounts of river water. The three states have been arguing in the courts over the water rights for years, and the courts have ruled against Georgia.
For decayeds decades, the developers in Metro Atlanta have built as though having a water supply was not an issue. With dozens of governments to choose from, if the developers are turned down in one jurisdiction, they merely go to another…or make another bribe campaign contribution, and another forest bites the dust.
In an era of tea parties and calls for small government, few have a plan for the water crisis. There are going to be no cheap solutions. Even if we were to have access to the Tennessee River ( a very big if), a pipeline to carry the water through the mountains to Lake Lanier is going to be very expensive. We will not get this money by cutting taxes to stimulate the economy.
Even without a water sharing agreement, we almost ran out in 2007. A severe drought cannot be predicted, and another one may start today. The nuclear plant in Alabama requires tremendous amounts of water, and was close to having to shut down.
Much of the rain in Georgia comes from the Gulf of Mexico. This Gulf is currently becoming an open air reservoir for crude oil. What will happen when the remaining sea water evaporates, and becomes rain? Will the water have a helping of crude oil derivatives? At least this water can be used in a nuclear power plant.
Rain water is held in a reservoir until it is needed. For metro Atlanta, this is Lake Lanier. A water reservoir is not like a bank account, where the money earns interest. Water in a reservoir shrinks over time…water on the surface evaporates. When there is a drought in August, with 100 degree temperatures every day, water usage increases, evaporation increases, and there is no fresh rainwater going into the lake. This is how a water problem becomes a crisis.
There are a few, common sense, ways to save water now. Just because we are not in a drought does not mean we need to start wasting water. The water we save now will (mostly) be waiting for us when ( not if) another drought starts.
When you brush your teeth, fill a cup of water up first. Use part of this to rinse your mouth, and use the rest to clean your brush.
If it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down.
Get a stopper for the bathroom sink. If you shave, save water in the sink to clean your razor.
Keep a jug of water in the fridge if you like cold water. Don’t let the water run until it gets cold.
Take a “navy shower”. Get wet, turn the water off , lather up,  turn the water back on, rinse.
Only run dishwashers and washing machines when they are full.
There are many, many more ways to save water. The less we use now, the longer our reserves will last. The water shortage will never be over in Atlanta.
Pictures from The Library of Congress.

People are saying more and more about the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. TomDispatch has a fascinating paragraph about one of the key players, British Petroleum (BP):
“Originally known as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (later the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, still later British Petroleum), BP got its start in southwestern Iran, where it once enjoyed a monopoly on the production of crude petroleum. In 1951, its Iranian holdings were nationalized by the democratic government of Mohammed Mossadeq. The company returned to Iran in 1953, following a U.S.-backed coup that put the Shah in power, and was finally expelled again in 1979 following the Islamic Revolution.”
If you look at the problems of the world in the last forty years, so many are affected by Iran. The 1953 revolution left great resentment, which became manifest in the 1979 revolution. Soon Iraq…whose border with Iran was clumsily drawn by the British…decides to attack Iran. A gruesome eight year war is the result, with the USA supporting both sides ( as well as possibly encouraging Iraq to attack Iran). The idea was, if they are fighting each other, they will leave Israel alone.
After this war is over, Iraq has a problem with Kuwait over it’s war debt. Another war is the result, with the USA involved. Iraq is vanquished, but some in the USA are not satisfied, and after a few years the USA invades Iraq again. That war is still raging.
The biggest winner of the US-Iraq war (aka World War W) is Iran. This new influence in Persia is very troubling to Israel, which is loudly rattling it’s nuclear saber. While Israel is making noise about Iran, it takes attention away from the Palestinian tragedy.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress.

There are two days in every week that we should not worry about, two days that should be kept free from fear and apprehension. One is yesterday, with its mistakes and cares, its faults and blunders, its aches and pains. Yesterday has passed, forever beyond our control. All the money in the world cannot bring back yesterday. We cannot undo a single act we performed. Nor can we erase a single word we’ve said – yesterday is gone! The other day we shouldn’t worry about is tomorrow, with its impossible adversaries, its burden, its hopeful promise and poor performance. Tomorrow is beyond our control. Tomorrow’s sun will rise either in splendor or behind a mask of clouds – but it will rise. And until it does, we have no stake in tomorrow, for it is yet unborn. This leaves only one day – today. Any person can fight the battles of just one day. It is only when we add the burdens of yesterday and tomorrow that we break down. It is not the experience of today that drives people mad – it is the remorse of bitterness for something which happened yesterday, and the dread of what tomorrow may bring. Let us, therefore, live one day at a time! The poem is from cyberrecovery Pictures are from The Library of Congress.

Here is a feature about what is quaintly called “nudism”. It is a radio show from 1966, on a mainstream AM station in “Chicagoland”(spell check suggestion:Chicanery). The tapes include the commercials and news, and are a trip back in time.
AM radio used to have a lot of shows like this. TV was established, FM radio was on the way, and AM radio was adjusting. While the music stations were popular, most towns had stations which played mainstream music, and tried to appeal to as many people as possible. In Atlanta, the equivalent would be WSB. In those days, you added FM or TV…if you just saw the call letters, it was assumed to be AM radio.
PG had quite a time with these files. He tried to listen to them on the site, but could not pause, or adjust the volume. PG then dragged the files into a window, double clicked, and an mp3 appeared in the window. The fun started when he tried to play them in “Winamp”.
The program went crazy. You could not minimize, open another window, adjust the volume, or anything. PG tried to close the program, and nothing worked. Finally, the only way to get the program to close was to cut the power off to the computer. This is a crude way of turning off the machine, and is only used as a last resort.
When PG tried to cut the machine back on, it would not start. After unplugging/replugging the wire, hitting the circuit breaker, and saying a few cuss words, PG found a toggle switch on back of the tower. After turning this switch off and on, the computer started back.
Pictures are from the ” Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.

…c_in take the…A out and pu tht eT there…ccian…job 11:3 and job 13. they use those thigns to make it look like there enemy sare drunk on there own blood….c tin say tin…that be what you ge twhen thty epu thtose htgins in side of yall the same thign babylonians get…some of them…god told me to tale yall servnats he declined yall sacrifice to him which be me…. you no the one ind aliek terry shravo wiht all the brain tumors in th ebrain yall stole th emri’s an deeg’s to….eeg’s to….swtiched them out an dgav ethem to a looka like…what do yall think cains offer to the lord was…it be abel his sarifice…that crap is over thou…many yrs…. they take the eyes off of me they are jsut simply taking the eyes off of me they had to do it for another reason. they say. now if these thgns in the house finish off there sacrifice no there s but theres then they had nothin gto do wiht it…. they were usign my birth certificate as they were using battry charger son my brains. to keep me ou tof the public eye and mak ei t where i was nto all coheirant cuase i saw some fishy things going on everytitm ei started to figure out what they were doing. they use battery charger sit was non of my buisness man shalll rule ove rothers…and yes he had more than one compannion…he had to use a look laiek daddy to rule ove rme an dhis other copanions at the same time… the other servants are sayin gthey are helping some htigns out they beelive in forgivness. of couse they do they were in on it. they were the ones using my birth certificate. and witneses a tthe clubs an dstuff….private partys…it is michaels little ghost rider writer.,…poked at the dragon an dhe poked back…war roke out in heaven…. ti is given to everyman to carrry his own load so i was gettin gthe work ou tas they were collecting rewards yall… it is fair in there book…eyefor an eye a tooth for a tooth…they belive in whats fair they fogot to tale yall thye had a little buddy in my lap for over 20 yrs, and the police new about it an dthe sheriff to. they just thought ti was fair that swhen thye let c_in an dthose thngs43’s of there finsih there joba as they help them out. soe not lal of them…Pictures from The Library of Congress.

Sarah Palin recently spoke at the NRA convention in Charlotte, NC. She told redneck jokes.
“Some of these animal activists are just…crazy,” she said. “They think we’re killing Bambi’s mother. I love animals, but in Alaska, Bambi’s mother is dinner.”
“You’re a redneck if you’ve ever had dinner on a ping pong table.”
“You’re a redneck if you’ve ever had a custody fight over a hunting dog. Well, Todd and I haven’t, but we’ve got friends who have!”
“You’re a redneck if your honeymoon was a hunting trip. That was us!”
“You’re a redneck if you’ve ever used a fishing license as ID.”
“You’re a redneck if you’ve ever slept in the back of a pickup rather than pay for a hotel.
“You’re a redneck if you’ve ever said to your husband, ‘Honey, move the transmission so I can take a bath.’
“And you’re a redneck if you think the last words of ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ are ‘PLAY BALL!”
“You’re a redneck if your daughter’s babydaddy calls himself a f*****g redneck on facebook.”
Thank you Matt Taibbi and the NY Daily News. Mrs. Palin did not really say all of those things.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. Ansel Adams took pictures of Japanese Americans, in a World War Two internment camp. The ladies in the bridge game are Aiko Hamaguchi, Chiye Yamanaki, Catherine Yamaguchi, and Kazoko Nagahama.

One big news story this week is the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. SCOTUS is something that PG usually ignores. Yes, it is important, but PG is not a lawyer, and knows little about the arguments. In addition, Georgia is represented in the senate by two notorious republicans, who seldom think about ITP Atlanta. PG has little say so in this matter.
That did not stop a radio preacher from sending PG an email about Miss Kagan. It seems as though the Miss Kagan did not want military recruiters working Harvard Law School. The radio whiner was offended by this.
PG had gotten annoying emails from this clown before. It seems like once, in 2007, PG heard something offensive on the radio show, and wrote an email about it. The address got on the email newsletter list. PG never asked to receive the email newsletter.
PG was in the middle of a frustrating afternoon, involving car care issues, and was in no mood for unwelcome rhetoric. He sent a reply email to the radio preacher. The next time PG checked the email, there was another message from the preacher. Expecting to find a reply to his comments, PG found a second copy of the original email. PG was upset by this point, and sent a strongly worded message to the radio preacher.
When the preacher sent a reply, there was no word on why he sent the original email twice. Instead, he proceeded to insult PG. “Get some logic and thinking skills of your own and then respond to my letter. Do not send me other people’s thinking that is watery and poorly thought through. You have no point. You merely call names and parrot others.”
PG sent a reply. The preacher’s answer was, you can unsubscribe at any time.
There is a good bit of chatter about Miss Kagan at the moment. To paraphrase a bloggingheads diavlog that did discuss the Harvard recruiter affair, this is what the chattering class does. The BH diavlog referred to felt that the business of the recruiters at Harvard was a minor, symbolic affair, that was not a good tool to “Judge” Miss Kagan by. PG agrees, and said as much in one of the emails to the preacher. This is another point the preacher ignored.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. “The Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection features color photographic surveys of the vast Russian Empire made between ca. 1905 and 1915.” The pictures shown today are digital composites, made from negatives between 1905 and 1915.

It started at Peach Pundit, with an open thread about the “fair tax”. PG felt obligated to make a couple of comments.
“One of the good things about writing a blog is you can express yourself. You can write something longer than a few words. No one will interrupt you…a major problem in vocal conversation. And, once you have expressed yourself, you can move on to something else.
Back when my blog was still on Blogspot, I wrote a piece about the “fair tax” . A certain loudmouth radio entertainer is still flogging this donkey, but some of us have moved on.”
“So much for being consistent. The miracle of advanced search has found another “fair tax”post . This one compares the FT to a Presidential candidate. The candidate is living in the White House.”
To the second comment, Lady Thinker added “Scary isn’t it?”.
OK, reader(s), we have a treat for you today. We are reposting three commentaries about the “fair tax”. To help with the eyestrain, we are publishing pictures from the ” Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”. The pictures are better focused than most of the chatter about the “fair tax”.
There is an issue these days called the “fair tax”. There are lots of folks in favor of this, and at times I wish I could join the party. However, there are many things to think about.
The Camel Syndrome A camel is a horse made by a committee. This is how laws are made, by committees and general assemblies. The process is often compared to the procedure that converts hog parts into sausage.
The “fair tax” might sound like a good idea at this stage. Congress has not enacted it into law, however. If this were to happen, there would be amendments. There would be a house version and a senate version, which would be cobbled into a single entity. The Frankenstein stitches would be in full view, though probably ignored by the media. At all stages of the journey, the lawmakers will be hearing from those who finance them, with “suggestions” about this new tax scheme. If the “fair tax” ever goes to the President for his signature, you can rest assured that it will be very different from the proposal that Squeal uses to sell books. In fact, it will be as different from the original proposal as Joe Camel is from Secretariat.
The law of unexpected consequences The American economy is a marvel of history. Our economy has given the United States a lifestyle unique in the history of the world.
Now, free market “conservatives” don’t want to tell you this, but the role of the Government in this economy is huge. Many business decisions are guided by the tax implications. Government spending, often with borrowed money, is a driving force behind many industries.
The truth is, we don’t know how the “fair tax”would affect the economy. And we won’t know until it is put into place, at which point it will be too late.
Who do you believe? Neal Boortz, aka Squeal, enthusiastically supports the “fair tax”. An Atlanta based talk show host with a national audience, he co wrote a book about the “fair tax” with republican congressman John Linder.
Squeal has a disclaimer on his web page: ALWAYS REMEMBER Don’t believe anything you read on this web page, or, for that matter, anything you hear on The Neal Boortz Show, unless it is consistent with what you already know to be true, or unless you have taken the time to research the matter to prove its accuracy to your satisfaction. This is known as “doing your homework.”
Squeal is an entertainer, and a cynic. I cannot prove it, but I don’t think Neal Boortz really believes in the “fair tax”. This is the star he has hitched his wagon to, and it has taken him places. You can always get attention by trashing the taxman. But can you provide a good alternative?
There is a blog called Deer Hunting with Jesus , where Joe Bageant shares his view of the world. He compares the world view of the media to a hologram…you can see it, it appears real from a distance, but if you try to slap it your hand keeps on going.
Squeal, much as he may deny it, is a creation of main stream media.(Cox Enterprises is mainstream media.) He is a creation partner of the hologram, and I think he knows this. This smokescreen talk about a “fair tax” is just another game.

The following was originally posted January 7, 2008.
The original concept was for this post to be about either the “fair tax” or Barack Obama. The more I think, the more similarities I see between the two.
I can start with Mr. O. With his rock star looks and charisma, and the fact that he is not Hillary, his train seems unstoppable. It would be a symbolic moment if a dark skinned man were elected President, even if he is not the descendent of slaves. Yes, he has always been opposed to the War in Babylon.
Maybe he is just a photogenic front man, without any substance. The same could be said of Ronald Reagan, and America really didn’t do too badly under him. Just who is pulling the strings on this puppet with star quality?
My main question with the man is how is he going to deal with the military machine. We now have an agreement with the Iraqi Government. This treaty that isn’t a treaty has our troops supporting the Iraqi Government, in exchange for first access to the vast oil riches in Mesopotamia. What is the Junior Senator from Illinois going to do about that?
There is also the matter of this video. Do women really dance out of his mouth?

An Obama Presidency is a great idea, with some serious questions about the implementation. Which brings us to the “fair tax”. (We are awaiting a call from the Umpire whether it is fair or foul, or maybe a sacrifice bunt).
Nobody likes the I.R.S. Calls to do away with it will always find an audience. Maybe the “fair tax” will be enacted, and maybe it will do all that it’s supporters claim.
I suspect the “fair tax” is a good idea, with serious questions about the implementation. And no, I have not read the book.
1- I only have so much time to read, and I prefer to read fiction. OK, some of you say the “fair tax” book is fiction.
2- I don’t trust the men who wrote it. One of them is a radio whiner who says every day, in effect, Don’t believe anything I say unless your own experience goes along with it. The other is a Republican congressman. I suspect that neither of them really believes in the “fair tax”, but know a good gimmick when they see one.
3- I am aware of the power of rhetoric, sophistry, and the clever word processor. (See Mr. Obama above). You can make grand arguments in favor of a lot of things that are not completely true.
I hear a lot about the “fair tax” on the Whiners radio show. It seems like the more I hear, the more I don’t like. Here is an example from today. The concept of the “fair tax” is that a thirty percent sales tax would replace the income tax, and other Federal Taxes. (I know there is more than that, before you start to say, “Read the Book”. For today’s illustration, that nutshell is sufficient)
As our example, lets say that we have a book selling for Ten Dollars. The book was written by a bald headed radio whiner, and says rude things about Liberals. Now, on the surface, with the “fair tax”, the book would cost thirteen dollars, that is, the cost of the book plus the thirty percent tax.
Today’s whine was about embedded taxes. According to the whiner, there are embedded taxes in the ten dollars. These are the corporate taxes paid by the publisher, and other taxes that are passed along to the consumer as part of the ten dollar price. I understand this concept, and realize that this is a big reason why many American goods are not competitive in the marketplace.
But then the whiner said something that I simply don’t believe. He said that once the embedded taxes were removed, the cost of the book would go down. This cost would go down so far that the book would still sell for ten dollars, even with a thirty percent tax markup.
One, who is to say the publisher would not just keep a bit of those taxes in the form of added profits? Are the embedded taxes enough to lower the price so that a thirty percent markup wouldn’t matter? I am not an economist. Maybe the book has answers to this, and maybe they are not just clever words. Chanting “Read the Book” only goes so far.

Ok just one more repost . Promise, at least for today. The title is ” A fair tax for cigarettes”
Carl Hiassen takes timeout from writing novels about weirdos to produce a column for the Miami Herald. It comes out on Sunday, and lately has been every other week. He usually makes more sense than many can handle.
This week the subject is a proposed cigarette tax. Some grinches want a dollar a pack state tax added onto cigarettes. The tax would raise revenue, and hopefully some folks will quit the vile habit.
However, there is opposition. A legislator is looking out for the convenience store owners, who stand to lose a bundle if fewer people buy cancer sticks.
PG has smoked roughly two cigarettes in his life. That is, by his own choice. The second hand smoke adds up. There is also the “it’s legal” sense of entitlement that the tobacconists are well known for. PG has an answer to the matter of how much cigarette tax to assess.
Cigarettes should be taxed so that a pack of cigarettes costs as much as an ounce of marijuana.
Ciggies will still be legal. You will not have to be them from criminals, who will turn you on to “hard drugs”. You will not lose your job if you fail a urine test. Your house cannot be confiscated for possession.The cancer sticks would still be legal, but with a reasonable tax.

What follows below is the result of a writing exercise . If you are a picky reader, you may want to go ahead to the rest of the pictures. These images are from The Library of Congress.
It rained on the day of the picnic. This was of little concern to Arnold, who has a lot of money invested in the food. Rain or shine, the food needs to be eaten. The store might be willing to take the canned goods back. The perishables were going to be bought by the church that hosts the picnic
As if things weren’t sticky enough, the stranger came into town, looking for Arnold. He had done the picnic promotion thing before, in another part of the state, and some people didn’t get paid. This is probably what the stranger is up to, although it might just be Arnold’s legendary way with the ladies.
The girl was waiting on the porch for Arnold, when he got home. When he first heard of the stranger, he thought it was Willis the farmer, who sold him a mess of salad fixins on credit, and had not been paid. Instead, here was a girl on the porch, looking at Arnold with a shy smile.
An evening set over the wilderness, and the bears got hungrier, and more angry with each passing minute. When they saw the rains coming in, they anticipated a picnic ground with no picnickers and lots of food. It had been a long time since Arnold had encountered bears, and he forgot how hungry they could be.
Alongside a mountain stream was a bear family. Daddy Chicago Bear was explaining to his long suffering wife Yogine that the anticipated feast from the rained out picnic might not happen after all. It seems like Arnold had a contract with the church to buy up any unused food from the picnic, and they were loading the haul into a big refrigerator.

Inside the pages of an old book lay the invoice from Willis the farmer. Arnold was using it for a bookmark. He was reading a political novel about Texas, called “Children played behind the Bushes”. The latest chapter sees Jen and Laura trying to strangle Barbara, using her pearls.
As the ship sailed into port, the girl on the porch smiled. Arnold, whatever his shortcomings, was a stud. It was a tanker sailing into the port, not a rubber dinghy.
The housekeeper slowly stirred the tea, and waited for Arnold and the porch girl…she called herself Gnarlene. It was her job to fix dinner, after the picnic was rained out, and the food sold to the helpful, prosperous church.
At the pawn shop on the corner, Willis the Farmer waited, to no avail, for Arnold to come and pay his debts. Willis had to pawn a watch his grandfather gave him to pay the fertilizer bill for his farm, and he was in danger of losing it forever if Arnold did not pay up.
This did not stop Arnold and Gnarlene from tearing off another chunk of hot burrito supreme. If Arnold was concerned about Willis the Farmer, he did not show it. It turns out, Arnold had a plan. That night, Willis the farmer was dinner for Chicago, Yogine, and their four cubs eenie, meanie, miny, and moe.
Meanwhile, back in Texas, W staggered out of his room, trying to remember where the rest of the coke was. He saw his wife and daughter trying to strangle his mother, using her pearls. W took another slug off his bottle and passed out, leaving his elderly mother to defend herself.

Lene Lovich was born Lili-Marlene Premilovich in Detroit, Michigan, March 30, 1949. She moved to England as a teenager, and met Les Chappell. He who played guitar in her band, and was the man in her life.
As an art school student, she started to tie her long hair in plaits to keep it out of the clay while studying sculpture. Her recording debut was as part of an audience, when Chuck Berry recorded “My ding a ling”.
Miss Lovich played in several bands, before winding up on the Stiff label. She put out two albums that became popular in the USA, and did a tour. After a while, she retired from music to raise a family, and has made a slight comeback in recent years.
PG had the privilege of seeing Lene Lovich at the Agora Ballroom, Atlanta GA, in the winter of 1980. The opening act was The Romantics. The show was taped for broadcast on the NBC radio network, and Don Pardo was on hand to introduce the bands.
The Romantics were unknown to the crowd at the Agora that night. They came on stage wearing costumes that looked like the Beatles of 1963. Every song they did was a bit better than the one before, and they got a big round of applause when the set ended.
Don Pardo had quite a career. He was the house announcer on November 22, 1963, and was the voice of NBC when he interrupted a soap opera to announce that John Kennedy had been “cut down with assassin’s bullets”. During his career as a TV announcer, Mr. Pardo could not use profanity. That night at the Agora, he made up for lost time…every other word he said was a cuss word.
Soon, Lene Lovich (spell check suggestion:lovechild) and her band came on stage. She was not the typical sexpot rock chanteuse… A bit chubby, with her long hair tied in plaits. Wearing a long sleeve black dress, probably stolen from a convent, she provided fantasy for only the kinkiest. Les Chappell was there, with his shaved head, to stop any trouble before it started, and play guitar.
The material came mostly from the first two albums on Stiff records. ( At some point in the evening, someone…maybe Lovich, maybe Pardo…said “Be stiff”.) She introduced “Lucky Number” by saying ” We have a song that goes ah oh aih oh”. During an instrumental jam in that song, she cried out “We have an American on keyboards”. The American was Thomas Dolby, who would soon go solo, and have a few hits.
The first encore was ” I think we’re alone now”, which had been a hit for Tommy James and the Shondells (spell check suggestions: shoulders, shovelfuls). Soon the night was over. Pictures for this feature are from the ” Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.

The post before this is about Arizona SB1070, a controversial measure dealing with illegal immigration. One of the men quoted is the Sheriff of Pima County, which lies on the border with Mexico.
Pima County is named for the Pima Tribe, whose land was in Arizona and Sonora, Mexico. Their name for the “river people” is Akimel O’odham. According to Wikipedia, “The short name, “Pima” is believed to have come from the phrase pi ‘añi mac or pi mac, meaning “I don’t know,” used repeatedly in their initial meeting with Europeans.”
Many of the Mexicans crossing the border are Native Americans. They did not agree to the Gadsden Purchase , or the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo . In other words, they were here first, and the white man (and his black associates) are the uninvited guests. Maybe the natives should ask the English speakers for their papers.
The second part of this feature is a repost . One of the best known Pimas was Ira Hayes. He was one of the Marines who raised the flag on Iwo Jima.
One of the enduring images of World War II was raising the flag on Iwo Jima. Three of the six men raising the flag died on the island in the next month. A fourth, Ira Hayes, became a casualty after the war.
The story of Ira Hayes is well known, but needs to be told again. A Pima Indian, his people had not been treated well by the conquerors. Nonetheless, when the War against Japan started, men were needed for the struggle, and Ira Hayes joined the Marines.
Iwo Jima was a steppingstone to the main island of Japan. After Iwo Jima and Okinawa were in Yankee hands, preparations could be made for the invasion of the main island. However, the stepping stone islands proved to be incredibly tough to secure. There were more American casualties on Iwo Jima than on D Day.
On the fourth day of the battle, a picture was made of six marines raising the flag on top of Mount Suribachi. A month of sticky, treacherous fighting was ahead for the fighting men. Of 21,000 Japanese soldiers, 20,000 died. Still, the image is inspiring. The photographer fiercely denied having staged it.
The flag was raised on February 23, 1945. Germany was all but defeated. The “explosive lens” for the atom bomb had been successfully tested. Viewed from the standpoint of 1945, it seems inevitable that the costly island hopping needed to continue, to be followed by an invasion of the Japanese mainland. From the view of 2009, one wonders if the fight for Iwo Jima, in retrospect, was really needed. War is fought in the present tense.
Two of the twelve hands holding the flagpole belonged to Ira Hayes. Ira Hayes did not adjust to peacetime well. He became a drunkard. On January 24, 1955, he passed away.
Ira Hayes was a native American. Thousands of African Americans have returned from foreign wars, to be treated poorly. If a man or woman is accused of being gay, the service is forgotten. On this Memorial Day, we should struggle to ensure that all future veterans are treated with respect, all year long.
Thank you Wikipedia,  luxunsghost, and The Library of Congress, for the pictures.