Chamblee54

Today is Confederate Memorial Day. It is an ancient question…how to honor the soldiers from the side that lost. They were just as valiant as the Union Soldiers. Considering the shortages of the Confederate Armies, the Rebels may have been just a bit braver.
The issue of Federalism is a defining conflict of the American experience. What powers do we give the Federal Government, and what powers do we cede to the States? The Confederacy was the product of this conflict. The Confederate States were a collection of individual states, with separate armies. This is one reason why the war turned out the way it did.
This is not a defense for slavery. The “Peculiar institution” was a moral horror. The after effects of slavery affect us today. Any remembrance of the Confederacy should know that. This does not make the men who fought any less brave.
It is tough to see the War Between the States through the modern eye. It was a different time, before many of the modern conveniences that are now considered necessities. Many say that the United States were divided from the start, and the fact the union lasted as long as it did was remarkable. When a conflict becomes us against them, the “causes” become unimportant.
The War was a horror, with no pain medicine, and little that could be done for the wounded. It took the south many, many years to recover. The healing continues in many ways today. Remembering the sacrifices made by our ancestors helps.
This is a repost from CMD 2009. Pictures are from the Library of Congress.

Sometimes staying on the internet can make for a good Saturday night. There are no drunks or police on the road, nor do you do have to buy drinks or smell cigarette smoke. There are sights to be seen, and sounds to be heard.
The soundtrack came courtesy of bloggingheads . The dialog was between Jesse Bering and Neil Sinhababu, one a psychologist, and one a philosopher. As was noted at 2:41, the philosophers ask the questions, and the psychologists answer them.
The discussion started out about ethics, and Mr. Sinhababu ( the philosopher with the big eyebrows) began to talk about progressive taxation. He actually finished a few sentences before Mr. Bering changed the subject to sex. Mr. Sinhababu began to discuss a paper he had written, which centered on pleasure and morality. His thesis was that pleasure is moral, as long as no party is injured in any way by the transaction.
The conversation went downhill in a hurry, with human/animal sex a prime subject. At 12:27, Mr. Sinhababu observed “for a lot of people there is going to be a serious disgust response at the idea of having sex with ones dog”. The question was raised whether the “yuck factor” was a good basis for making a moral judgment.
Meanwhile, PG was going through the Prokudin-Gorskii collection of the Library of Congress. The pictures consist of images from the Russian Empire, shot between 1905 and 1915. The images were shot by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, and many are in color.
How did he make color images a hundred years ago? Here is a brief description of his methods: “Prokudin-Gorskii created his negatives by using a camera that exposed one oblong glass plate three times in rapid succession through three different color filters: blue, green, and red. For formal presentations, he printed positive glass slides of these negatives and projected them through a triple lens magic lantern. Prokudin-Gorskii would project the slide through the three lenses, and, with the use of color filters, superimpose the three exposures to form a full color image on a screen.”
The images in the LOC collection are digital recreations, made using the glass plates. The page about the methods used has more information, and links to some other sites that discuss these images. Some of the sites are in Russian.
Meanwhile, back at bloggingheads, Mr. Bering discussed the ethics of eating a dog that died of natural causes, and said he was going to masturbate on camera. Mr. Sinhababu did not think this was a very good idea. The men were shown from the shoulders up, and it is not known what they were doing below that.

As you may have noticed, this blog uses a lot of pictures from ” Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”. There is one face which keeps turning up, always seeming to find the camera. This is the face of William Berry Hartsfield, the Mayor of Atlanta between 1937-1941, then again between 1942-1961. He is the namesake of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, and Willie B, the gorilla at Zoo Atlanta. Mr. Hartsfield is one of the reasons ATL airport is the aviation powerhouse that it is. He probably had little to do with the conception of Willie B, although one can never be too sure.
Mr. Hartsfield was born March 1, 1890, in Atlanta. He did not finish high school or attend college. At 25, he began work as a legal secretary, reading law journals at night. Mr. Hartsfield was admitted to the Georgia Bar.
In 1909, Coca Cola mogul Asa Griggs Candler bought some land near Hapeville, GA, and built a racetrack. There was only one season of racing ( with an appearance from Barney Oldfield), before the track was shut down. There was a series of aviation exhibitions on the site in the following years, and talk of using the land as an airport.
In 1922, William Hartsfield was elected to the Atlanta City Council, and started to promote the idea of an airport. The 285 acres of the Candler racetrack was leased in 1925, On April 13, 1929, the city bought the land for “Candler Field” for $94,400. During World War II , Candler Field was declared an army air base, and doubled in size.
In 1936, Mr. Hartsfield defeated incumbent James Key to become Mayor of Atlanta. He guided the city through the last years of the depression, only to be defeated by Roy LeCraw in 1940. When Mr. LeCraw was called into military service after Pearl Harbor, Mr. Hartsfield won a special election for the Mayor’s job. He held the job until the election of Ivan Allen in 1961.
Atlanta grew tremendously during the Hartsfield years. During the civil rights era, it kept a cool head, and integrated the schools peacefully in August 1961 ( After Mr. Hartsfield had announced his retirement) He was a tireless promoter, both of himself and the city. It was said that if Atlanta could suck as hard as it blows, then the oceans would be pulled up to the borders, and Atlanta would be a seaport.
Mr. Hartsfield was the ideal mayor for this up and coming town. He never met a camera he did not like. The metropolitan area went over a million people shortly before his retirement, and “city of a million people” was a new motto.
William B. Hartsfield died February 22, 1971. On the way to his eternal destination, he changed planes in Atlanta.

One of the concepts PG got from the Buddha Show was the idea of the Middle Way. Actually, the concept is around in other forms, but the chubby one did talk about it.
It seems there is a problem with images of Muhammad. That vanguard of speech freedom, “South Park”, got into a bit of a jam recently on this front. The word is that the Quran outlaws images of the Messenger. Riots have broken out in Muslim countries over this issue.
On the other extreme is the promiscuous imagery of Jesus. If all the pictures of Jesus were real, then the man would have had time to do nothing other than pose. Reality has little to do with these images, with the dark skinned Semite replaced by a rock star lookalike.
There is also the grossout pictures of the murder of Jesus. It is well known that Christians are more excited about the death of Jesus than his life. The tee shirts, with blood spurting from the nail holes, are in very bad taste.
A few years ago, Mel Gibson made a splatter movie about Jesus. In a cynical marketing move, rumors of antisemitism were used to produce publicity. Gibson then got religious professionals like Billy Graham to view, and endorse, the film. It is difficult to consider the image of Muhammad (or Buddha) exploited in this manner. Of course, a glorious, though short, death is a “vital” part of the Jesus charisma.
Which is where the middle path comes in, as shown in the treatment of Buddha. Drawings of Gautama Siddhartha are generally tasteful and attractive. It is a pleasant middle path between the riots over images of Muhammad, and splatter movies about Jesus.
It should be noted that there are no photographs of any of the three, and any pictures are based on the ideas of the artist. The pictures that illustrate this post are photographs, and they are from The Library of Congress .

America is in a world of trouble. The financial markets have fallen, and can’t get up.
A committee in Congress is investigating. According to Obsidian Wings, they found this:
“A Senate panel investigating the causes of the nation’s financial crisis on Thursday unveiled evidence that credit-ratings agencies knowingly gave inflated ratings to complex deals backed by shaky U.S. mortgages in exchange for lucrative fees. “
Don’t act surprised. As capital flooded in, the moneybois got greedy, and tried to turn it over a few more times. And the Wall Street wonders are paying Congress, now,to win the job of putting humpty dumpty back together.
Another site chiming in today is the named by committee camelswithhammers . They have a tasteful video about New Testament justice. Do you think we should forgive the credit rating agencies for their role in the money meltdown? If we did, would that brings jobs and prosperity back to America?
The notion of forgive applies to debts as well as misdeeds. In some versions of the Lord’s Prayer, they say “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors”. If Jesus forgives Standard and Poor, will someone else forgive a few ARM? Inquiring minds want to know.
Pictures from the ” Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.

There is a nifty article about Cary Grant and LSD on the web now. It seems Mr. Grant, the onetime Archibald Leach, had a few issues. Duh. Married five times. Widely rumored to the the bf of Randolph Scott. A talented actor, but a mess in the real world.
In 1956, Mr. Grant was with third wife Betsy Drake, who had a tough summer.
“It was an open secret between cast and crew alike that the married Cary Grant was sleeping with Sophia Loren during their filming of The Pride and The Passion. Drake had flown to Italy to be by her husband’s side during the shoot only to find Grant ignoring her. Distraught, she fled on what was to be a quiet voyage on the SS Andrea Doria. On July 25, 1956 her quiescent journey turned into a nightmare. The ship collided with a Swedish ocean liner off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, sinking to the bottom of the Sea and claiming fifty-one lives.2 Betsy survived but was traumatized. The incident, coupled with the estrangement of her husband, haunted her in her sleep.”
Betsy Drake had a friend named Sally Brophy, an actress. Miss Brophy also received help from a psychiatrist, which included taking LSD. Eventually, Cary Grant started to go see this doctor.
Taking a legal trip, in a Hollywood doctor’s office, is not like going to a rave. It was seen as therapy, a way of learning how to deal with your problems. According to Cary Grant, it worked very well. He talked about it to a reporter, and then confirmed that he wanted this to go out to the public.
“The shock of each revelation brings with it an anguish of sadness for what was not known before in the wasted years of ignorance and, at the same time, an ecstasy of joy at being freed from the shackles of such ignorance … I learned many things in the quiet of that room … I learned that everything is or becomes its own opposite … it releases inhibition. You know, we are all unconsciously holding our anus. In one LSD dream I shit all over the rug and shit all over the floor. Another time I imagined myself as a giant penis launching off from earth like a spaceship … I seemed to be in a world of healthy, chubby little babies’ legs and diapers, smeared blood, a sort of general menstrual activity taking place … As a philosopher once said, you cannot judge the day until the night ..”
The only problem was, Mr. Grant had a movie coming out, “Operation Petticoat”. The studio “tripped out” when it heard the star of the show was praising LSD in the press. Mr. Grant had a share in the profits of the film, and was persuaded to call the reporter and recant on the interview.
Not everyone was impressed by the doctors that Mr. Grant used. “Aldous Huxley had encountered the clinic prior to his death, but had sought his LSD experiences from the parallel practice of Dr. Oscar Janiger, the other acid doctor to the stars. Huxley witnessed Chandler and Hartman’s work and was unnerved by their approach. “We met two Beverly Hills psychiatrists the other day,” he wrote, “who specialise in LSD therapy at $100 a shot – and, really, I have seldom met people of lower sensitivity, more vulgar mind! To think of people made vulnerable by LSD being exposed to such people is profoundly disturbing.”
In any event, LSD became criminalized, Doctors Chandler and Hartman got in trouble, and Cary Grant got married two more times. While Grant never renounced LSD, he refused to use any other illegal drug, even marijuana. He was a conservative old fogey.
Maureen Donaldson was the lover of Cary Grant in the seventies, and was a friend of Alice Cooper. She finally persuaded Mr. Grant to go to an Alice Cooper concert with her. He wore sunglasses, gold chains, and dressed like a “seedy agent”. He sat through the entire show, wearing earplugs, hating every minute of it.
As Miss Donaldson recalled the evening “Driving back to Los Angeles, I congratulated Cary for being such a good sport … He’d made an extraordinary effort to please me … [I asked him] ‘You really hated it, didn’t you?’ ‘It’s…’ he said, struggling for words, ‘you know what it’s like? Remember I told you about the time I took LSD in my doctor’s office and shat all over his rug and floor?’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Well now I know how that poor doctor felt.”
Pictures are from the Library of Congress.

PG heard that a PBS show,“The Buddha”, was available for online viewing. He watched a bit, and realized that the story was being told through spoken words. The drawings, and talking heads, did not add to the story. PG began to edit pictures, while listening to the story.
At the 43 minute mark, Gautama Siddhartha ( pronounced sid HART ha) turned away from asceticism. He accepted a bowl of rice pudding from a lady, and was a step farther on the path to enlightenment. At this point, PG put the show on pause, put his shoes on, and went for a walk around the block. This is something that PG has learned will help him to feel good.
Buddhism has always seemed “too asian” for PG, or perhaps he is too western/christian to follow. There are some things, confirmed by this video, that PG finds appealing about the practice.
The stories of Buddha are understood to be legends, with no one (that we know of) claiming them to be literal history. This is a welcome contrast to the book worship of Christians, where stories about Jesus are claimed to be literal, perfect truth. And does it matter… the ideas that Buddha taught are not changed by any mistake in telling the story of his life.
There is a story about Buddha seeing his ascetic buddies, after he ate the bowl of rice pudding. He got the ascetics to listen to him, until he won them over. From what PG has seen of humans, especially spiritually charged ones, he finds it tough to imagine these people listening that long. The average Jesus worshiper cannot be quiet long enough for you to finish a single sentence.
The focus is on the life of Buddha, not his death. The focus is on this life, not on life after death. Buddha lived to an old age, teaching thousands up until his departure. Maybe if Jesus had been better at human relationships, he would not have been executed.
Maybe PG is so scarred by Jesus that he cannot benefit from any other source of wisdom. Pictures for this feature are from the Library of Congress.

Back when this blog was on blogspot, the motto was a quote from Hunter S. Thompson. “When the going gets wierd, the wierd turn pro”. One day, there was a comment, to the effect that the proper spelling of wierd  was weird. When you are quoting Hunter S. Thompson, should you be surprised that you spell weird wrong? (The spell check suggestions were wider, wield, wired)
This fine spring morning, there is a feature, on another blog, about the weird of the king’s english. Through the miracle of copy paste, we now present part one, between pictures from the Library of Congress. We will save Part Two for a dry day.
1)The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7) There is no time like the present, time to present the present.
8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line..
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear..
19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

good morning
hey there
how is life out your way?
boring,but ok
boring is better than some condtions
i suppose
well, too much philosophy can make my head hurt
i woke up with a migraine after debating the whole
“what is the sound of one hand clapping” conundrum
what is the other hand doing?
thats part of the conundrum…and it depends entirely on
whether your mind is in the gutter or psedo pure
and now, i will go total cliche and quote oscar wilde…
all of us are in the gutter, but some are looking at stars
i think the gutter is a perfectly acceptable place for ones mind to live
unless you are bowling
true…i don’t tend to bowl with my brain however…
i’m usually drunk and it has nothing to do with my brain
i haven’t been bowling in years, i seem to remember it being fun,
even though i am not very good at it
me either…but it was fun with the glow-in-the-dark stuff
and a few coctails on a friday nite
pictures from the Library of Congress

There is a bit of synchronicity at Little Green Footballs today. First, there is the video embedded above. It shows a live TV show from 1954, starring Ronald Reagan and James Dean. It is the tale of a young man who brings a wounded friend to a doctor, and then forces him, at gunpoint, to perform surgery on him. You will have to see the video to see how it turns out, if you haven’t already guessed.
Below that is a statement from the vice president, about more killing in Iraq. The word is that the Iraqi army did the deed this time, and some Al Queda players are taking a dirt nap now. This is supposed to be progress.
PG sees the American army as being like the gun totin hipster in the TV show. He comes into the doctor’s house, and forces him to perform at gunpoint. In the modern story, American forces have gone into Babylon with shock and awe, and forced the natives to do our chores. The video only takes six minutes to tell the story. The tale in Babylon is entering the seventh year.
Pictures are from the Library of Congress. These shots are of Nevada and San Francisco, CA, in the 1860s.

Me in a canoe/ /not a pretty sight but the//water beckons me
It’s Easter morning//peeps, chocolate, jelly beans//get my attention.
On this date the ship//weighed anchor for the last time//it’s the Titanic.
Saw a stone circle//in a farmer’s field — heifers//stood and stared at me.
Remove knee-y bits//replace with metal. Like that//Pop’s got a new joint.
I’m trapped in Ireland//volcanic ash cloud keeps me//from my Freeville home.
The above is from The Haiku Diaries. Pictures from the Library of Congress.

It is 5pm, 420 eve, 2010. PG began the adventure by walking up to the mailbox at Peachtree Dekalb ( spell check suggestions : Denali, denial, dermal, decal) Airport. He took the eighth street route, instead of the normal Tobey road route, for reasons that are unclear but not nuclear.
Thoughts began to accumulate under the 96 olympic hat, and the green venue came when he sat down at a picnic table. This table was at the end of the airport road, in a little park by the runways. There is a sign, a bit up the road, saying to report all suspicious activity at the airport. Is writing in a notebook, on a picnic table under a magnolia tree, a suspicious activity?
PG likes to live dangerously, but living on the edge requires the ability to take a step back from time to time. Turning to his right, on the fence behind some resting planes, is another sign about suspicious activity. Is this paranoia or realism? Is this the connection between the future and the pasture, between mature and manure, or does it even rate a measure of pleasure?
At 5:13 on 420 eve, a black helicopter with FOX in bold letters, took off in an easterly direction. A bird sat down on a picnic table in front of PG, then moved to the relative comfort and security of the magnolia tree. Meanwhile, a table of folks sits quietly on the deck of the downwind restaurant, formerly the downwind lounge.
There was once a moment of paranoia at the downwind facility. It was 1982. PG was living in an addict apartment on Tobey Road, and went out one friday night for beer. He arrived at the gas station at 1147, or two minutes after the legal cut off.
Denied his legal drugs at the Amoco station, PG turned his bike north, went past Tobey and up the hill to the airport. The Downwind lounge was there, in the old control tower building, 45 steps from the men’s room ( an important statistic to beer drinkers). PG locked his bike, climbed the stairs, opened the door, and saw a dozen or so people drinking. They turned around as one, looked at PG, and shouted “stranger”.
It is now 6:54 pm, 420 eve, 2010. PG is sitting at his computer, listening to a French piano player. This means that either no one reported his suspicious journal writing at the airport, or the 911 operator did not get the information to the police on time.