Chamblee54

There is much talk about the super bowl, and the commercial fest that goes with it. An ad, starring a gator, that discusses abortion, will play. It is too bad the procedure can not be done retroactively.
One ad that will not play is for the California political campaign of Carly Fiorina. The lady is running for the Senate seat currently held by Barbara Boxer. No, the issue is not about boxers or briefs. The issue is name calling by Mrs. Fiorina about her opponent. The other guy is called a FCINO…fiscal conservative in name only. Fiscal Conservative is a name for borrow and spend types who support wars eight time zones away.
The ad is very, very strange, even by California standards. It shows a bunch of sheep milling around. Some of the sheep are chewing, while the other guy is talking. Then, a human, wearing a very poor wolf in sheep’s clothing costume, appears. PG is not sure what the point of all this is.
Two versions of the ad are attached to this post. The first is the original, in all its disjointed glory. The second uses a Pink Floyd song about animals as the soundtrack, and is an eerie fit.
Carly Fiorina (born Cara Carleton Sneed) would seem to be a case of a person who succeeds by failure. Once they get name recognition, some people keep on getting second chances. If this ad is any indication, the campaign is more of the same.
Pictures to this post are from ” Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”

In the first year of the Obama regime, America has seen the rise of the “Tea Party”. These affairs are usually right wing, sometimes racist, and have lots of clever signs. The general idea is that taxes are too high, government is too big, and that the people need to do something.
The namesake event was the Boston Tea Party. On December 16, 1773, crowds of people ( some dressed as Mohawk indians) went on board the Dartmouth, the Eleanor, and the Beaver. The crowds threw overboard 342 chests, containing 90,000 pounds of tea. The crowds were unhappy because the East India Company was importing the tea into America, with a 3 pence per pound tax.
A website called listverse plays the contrarian. According to them : “American colonists did not protest the Tea Tax with the Boston Tea Party because it raised the price of tea.
The American colonists preferred Dutch tea to English tea. The English Parliament placed an embargo on Dutch tea in the colonies, so a huge smuggling profession developed. To combat this, the English government LOWERED the tax on tea so that the English tea would be price competitive with Dutch teas. The colonists (actually some colonists led by the chief smugglers) protested by dumping the tea into Boston Harbor.”
According to Wikipedia, the Dutch tea had been smuggled into the colonies for some time. The Dutch government had given their companies a tax advantage, which allowed them to sell their product cheaper. Finally, the British government cut their taxes, but kept a tax in place. The “Townsend Tax” was to be used to pay governing colonial officials, and make them less dependent on the colonists.
In Charleston, New York, and Philadelphia, the tea boats were turned around, and returned to England with their merchandise. In Massachusetts, Governor Thomas Hutchinson insisted that the tea be unloaded. Two of the Governor’s sons were tea dealers, and stood to make a profit from the taxed tea. There are also reports that the smugglers were in the crowd dumping tea into the harbor.
The photogenic tea party movement seems to be destined to stay a while. The question remains, how much does it have to do with the namesake event? Pictures for this post are from the ” Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”

Saxby Chambliss is a Republican senator from Georgia, and a known idiot. He received several deferments from military service, during the Vietnam war. He recently spoke out about life in the military.
During his comments, he made the statement “there is no constitutional right to serve in the military”. This is true. However, in a shooting war, when the government decides that it wants to use you for a while, constitutional rights don’t mean a whole lot. When Uncle Sam needs men to die for their country, being gay is not a good excuse.
The pasteup image at the top of this post was made from screen shots of his recent remarks. The two people in back of him have interesting facial expressions. The other pictures are from ” Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”

The story now is the the underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab ( G-d bless copy paste), has been talking to the authorities. No, torture was not necessary, he was persuaded to cooperate by family members.
Some said undieboi should have been handed over to military authorities, and tortured. The fact is, the FBI deals criminals all the time, many of which are far badder than Mr. Abdumutallab. As the Germans say in war movies, we have ways of making you talk. And the FBI knows how to follow the guidelines, so what you say is admissible in court.
There is a video attached to this post about talking to the police. The general concept is that the police are smart, and can twist what you say, until you are doing time. Like the FBI, the police routinely deal with criminals who are nastier than your average terror suspect.
The video has two parts, a cop and a lawyer. The lawyer is all flash and rhetoric, and the cop is cold and deadly. The cop tells a story about getting the suspect to write an apology letter to the people whose house he broke into. This letter is then used as a written confession, in the suspects own handwriting. When you use tactics like this, torture seems crude and thuggish.
Two of the pictures with this feature are recent product from PG. The other four are from ” Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library ” Thank you twentytwowords for the police video.

The following is from a list of “Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)”. This was related to a post here, which was titled “Donald Duck in Person“, but was really about hairspray, prostitution, and Georgia politics.
The blog ripped off today is ramblingsbybones, which looks like a good use of bandwidth. Today, they have a youtube thing of Tony Blair being grilled, about the war in Babylon. This is something that needs to happen on the west side of the Atlantic, with the Texas idiot given the third degree. The people interviewed in the clip see Mr. Blair as a war criminal.
Without further ado, here are the things ramblingsbybones thinks you want to know.
The dot over the letter ‘i’ is called a “tittle”.
Ketchup was once sold as medicine in the US (Dr. Miles Compound Extract of Tomato).
There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with orange, silver and purple.
American Airlines saved $40, 000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each plate of salad served.
The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during WWII killed the elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
Names of all continents end with the same letter with which they start.
If a statue of a horse with a person on it has both front leg in the air, it means the person died in battle…If the horse has one front leg in the air, it means the person died of wounds received in battle…If all four legs of the horse are on the ground, the person died of natural causes
A duck’s quack does not echo.
Donald Duck comics were banned in Finland because he didn’t wear pants
I’m very bored today

There are two bills before the lesterslature dealing with child prostitution. The basic concept is that if a prostie under the age of 16 is caught, then the government can “steer” him/her into a “diversionary program”, instead of an arrest. PG thinks the subject matter of such a program, ran by the state of Georgia, might be rather frightening. But that is not the objection the oxymoronic “Christian Right” is making to these bills.
Some say the bills would amount to legalization of child prostitution. Never mind that the laws against procuring and hiring would be left in effect, in addition to statutory rape.
Then there is the objection of Former State Senator Nancy Shaefer. “Who will benefit from the passage of H.B. 582 or S.B. 304? I’ll tell you who – the very profitable and growing pedophile industry. It is imperative that these bills be defeated.”
There has been no comment from the Roman Catholic Church.
Pictures of Mrs. Shaefer are from the Georgia Legislature, and from a video, of a speech she made. The other pictures are from “Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”

When I was a kid, my Mother liked to make breakfast food for dinner every now and then. And I remember one night in particular when she had made breakfast after a long, hard day at work. On that evening so long ago, Mother placed a plate of eggs, sausage and extremely burned biscuits in front of my Dad.
I remember waiting to see if anyone noticed! Yet all my Dad did was reach for his biscuit, smile at my Mother and ask me how my day was at school. I don’t remember what I told him that night, but I do remember watching him smear butter and jelly on that biscuit and eat every bite!
When I got up from the table that evening, I remember hearing Mother apologize to my Dad for burning the biscuits. And I’ll never forget what he said: “Honey, I love burned biscuits.”
Later that night, I went to kiss Daddy good night and I asked him if he really liked his biscuits burned. He wrapped me in his arms and said, “Your Momma put in a hard day at work today and she’s real tired. And besides – alittle burnt biscuit never hurt anyone!”
You know, life is full of imperfect things…..and imperfect people. I’m not the best at hardly anything, and I forget birthdays and anniversaries just like everyone else. What I’ve learned over the years is that learning to accept each others faults – and choosing to celebrate each others
differences – is one of the most important keys to creating a healthy, growing, and lasting relationship.
And that’s my prayer for you today. That you will learn to take the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of your life and lay them at the feet of Spirit. Because in the end, He’s the only One who will be able to give you a relationship where a burnt biscuit isn’t a deal-breaker! We could extend this to any relationship. In fact, understanding is the base of any relationship, be it a husband-wife or parent-child or friendship-lover-partner!
So Please pass me a biscuit, and yes, the burnt one will do just fine! Thank you Kim Pittman.

A blogger named gartalker has a list of words that are becoming extinct. Maybe it is a southern thing, but PG still hears supper used. The rest of the list is amusing, and can make you feel old…even if your age is not an interstate speed limit.
Pictures are from “Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library.”
A term I haven’t heard in a long time, and thinking about ‘fender skirts’ started me thinking about other words that quietly disappear from our language with hardly a notice like curb feelers. Any body remember them. And steering knobs.’ (AKA) suicide knob, Neckers Knobs. Since I’d been thinking of cars, my mind naturally went that direction first. Any kids will probably have to find some elderly person over 50 to explain some of these terms
Continental kits They were rear bumper extenders and spare tire covers that were supposed to make any car as cool as a Lincoln Continental.
Emergency Brakes At some point ‘parking brake’ became the proper term. I miss the hint of drama that went with ‘emergency brake.’
Clutch -‘Foot Feed -Dimmer Switch. I’m sad, too, that almost all the old folks are gone who would call the accelerator the ‘foot feed.’ Many today do not even know what a clutch is or that the dimmer switch used to be on the floor.
Running Board Didn’t you ever wait at the street for your daddy to come home, so you could ride the ‘running board’ up to the house? You felt like a real G-man. Heck, most of you most likely don’t know what a G-man is.
Store-bought Here’s a phrase heard all the time in my youth but never anymore -’store-bought.’ Of course, just about everything is store-bought these days. However, once it was bragging material to have a store-bought dress or a store-bought bag of candy.
Coast to Coast Coast to coast’ is a phrase that once held all sorts of excitement and now means almost nothing. Now we take the term ‘world wide’ for granted. I guess that soon it will be Universal.
Wall to Wall On a smaller scale, ‘wall-to-wall’ was once a magical term in our homes. In the ’50s, everyone covered his or her hardwood floors with, wow, wall-to-wall carpeting! Today, everyone replaces their wall-to-wall carpeting with hardwood floors. Go figure.
In A Family Way – P G When’s the last time you heard the quaint phrase ‘in a family way?’ It’s hard to imagine that the word ‘pregnant’ was once considered a little too graphic, a little too clinical for use in polite company, so we had all that talk about stork visits and ‘being in a family way’ or simply ‘expecting. The more sophisticated town girls called it P G. (That is not the source of the pen name of this blogger.)
Brassiere Apparently, ‘brassiere’ is a word no longer in usage. I said it once to my daughter when she was a teen and she cracked up. I guess it’s just ‘bra’ now. ‘Unmentionables’ probably wouldn’t be understood at all.
Picture Show I always loved going to the picture show. In fact, I have written about it in this very blog. I considered ‘movie’ an affectation.
Rat Fink Most of these words go back to the ’50s, but here is a pure-’60s word I came across the other day – ‘rat fink.’ Ooh, what a nasty put-down! These two words could cut like a sharp knife. Especially if they were true.
Percolator- DynaFlo -Elevtrolux – Spectra Vision Here is a word I miss – ’percolator.’ That was just a fun word to say. What was it replaced with? ‘Coffee maker.’ How dull. Mr. Coffee, I blame you for this.
I miss those made-up marketing words that were meant to sound so modern and now sound so retro. Words like ‘DynaFlow and‘Electrolux..’ Introducing the 1963 Admiral TV, now with‘SpectraVision!’ ( PG has a percolator in his camping gear. It works well over a propane stove, but the coffee is way too hot.)
Lumbago- Castor Oil -Food for thought – Was there a telethon that wiped out lumbago? Nobody complains of that anymore. Maybe that’s what castor oil cured, because I never hear mothers threatening kids with castor oil anymore.
Supper Some words aren’t gone, but are definitely on the endangered list. The one that grieves me most, ’supper.’ Now everybody says ‘dinner.’ Save a great word. Invite someone to supper. Discuss fender skirts
Chimney One last thing, when I was a kid we passed a neighbors house. They had a T V antenna strapped to their Chimney. It was a cold day and smoke was bellowing out the old leaning stack. My mother said, “Look there can’t afford butane to keep warm but they got a television set.
Yes, when I was kid a sure sign of poverty was smoke coming from your chimney. Now you know you are in an up scale neighborhood.

PG was shooting from the hip the other day, and said that G-d was causing global warming. At first it seemed a bit goofy,,but the more PG thinks, the more sense it makes.
A lot has to do with your idea of who G-d is. ( maybe the four other w’s, what, when, where, and why should also apply. Former POTUS are best left out of discussions about G-d). Although PG would not put global warming past Jehovah or Mary’sbabydaddy, those conceptions of G-d are  obsolete. The idea of G-d that PG uses is the fifth element, to go with earth, air, fire and water.
The moonies have another view…that G-d is the difference between a human being and five dollars worth of chemicals. There seems to be an overall body of knowledge that makes the earth function. A DNA, or software. This framework of knowledge is how PG views G-d.
Right now, man is living in a paradise. A planet with earth, air, water and fire that is uniquely fabricated to support intelligent life. The role that G-d played in facilitating this planet is a mystery. There is a balance of life here…the right amount of gravity, the right ph balance in the oceans, the proper mix of gases in the atmosphere.
Man has been granted this paradise…it was not earned, it was given out of the bounty of G-d. And man has done his best to destroy the environment. Promiscuously burning fossil fuels is just part of the damage.
Now, there does seem to be a plan to deal with this. If the level of CO2 in the air goes above a certain level, then the temperatures will start to rise. This has been proven time and time again. There are nay sayers…some of whom are not on fossil fuel industry payrolls… who say this is a natural process, and has nothing to do with the actions of man. These people are similar to the upstanding citizens who ridiculed Noah when he built his ark.
It should be noted that the story of Noah and the ark may be a myth. That is, it is full of symbols and allegory, and is not to be taken literally. It could be that in an ancient time, G-d got fed up with the evil deeds of man, and decided to teach a lesson. This could be what is happening today.

There are two live shows available for download by Talking Heads. (If you want these, you should hurry up and get them. Download sites take stuff down after a few days) They are from 1977 and 1983.
The 1977 show was when punk rock/new age was a rumor to much of America. David Byrne teamed up with straight couple Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz to start the band. (They thought they were very modern to have a woman play bass, instead of being featured for her voice or breasts). Many say that the three piece band was the best line up of the band, but they added Jerry Harrison to play guitar at some point or another. The phrase Talking Heads was a tv slang, meaning a face on camera that does nothing but talk.
The first time T Heads played Atlanta was a “New Age Spectacular” at the Capri Theater in Buckhead. They were the headliners, with Elvis Costello as the opener. The house was full of people with free passes, and the majority of the house left after Mr. Costello played.
In the fall of 1978, PG heard a radio station giving away passes to see Talking Heads at the Agora Ballroom. He called the station, asked to be put on the guest list, and got his passes. Six friends of PG were called, and all were either busy or not interested. The seventh person called, “Bradley”, agreed to ride the 23 Oglethorpe bus downtown.
The Agora was only about a third full that night. No one really knew much to expect, other than the bass player was pretty. A security team stood in front of the stage, and had almost nothing to do. (At one point, PG raised his hand to a ceiling tile, and pushed it half an inch above its frame. A security guard came over, and told him to leave the ceiling alone.) The band was impressive to those who were into the music, which PG really wasn’t.
About a year later, the Talking Heads returned to the Agora. This time the place was packed with a paying crowd. The Fans opened, and were horrible. (Their keyboard player was at the ’78 show, grooving with his eyes closed to the sound) The T Heads played a tight set, with PG observing that none of the players was an instrumental virtuoso. They did play very well together, and created some compelling grooves. It was written somewhere that, where most bands created a release, the Talking Heads created tension, then more tension, then more.
As the eighties got going, PG got a job and didn’t go to many rock and roll shows. The Talking Heads got bigger and bigger. They hung out with an artsy New York crowd, made movies and videos, and got just a bit pretentious. The band expanded, with up to nine musicians on stage at one time. The second download set is of the 1983 version of the band. It is not as much fun as the early days.

PG has read “The Road To Woodstock” by Micheal Lang, ghostwritten by Holly George-Warren. Mr. Lang was one the the producers of the Woodstock music and arts festival in 1969. It is quite a story.
Mr. Lang was a Brooklyn kid, who got turned onto the counterculture in 1959. When he decided that college was not for him, he did what Jews do…he moved to Miami. Before long, he owned a head shop, and was promoting a rock festival. The Miami Pop Festival, in 1968, featuring Jimi Hendrix and a big rainstorm, was sort of a success. Micheal Lang was back in New York soon.
Mr. Lang met Artie Kornfield, who was in the recording business. They started to talk about ventures, and had an idea for a recording studio in Upstate New York. They met some guys with capital, John Roberts and Joel Rosenman. The four of them became Woodstock Ventures. Somewhere along the way, a music festival in the country got started.
Back to 2010, with PG waiting to talk to someone at the Department of Labor. A book is a handy companion in a waiting room. He brought a notepad along.
PG is reading a memoir about the Woodstock festival, and it is a gold mine of trivia. Did anyone know that Joan Baez was pregnant? Jim Morrison would not appear because he was afraid of an on stage assassination. The promoters kept Pete Tomnsend up until 8am to convince him to play. When it finally went off, the Who followed Sly and The Family Stone.
In Woodstock, the town of Walkill kicked out the festival, and, with a few weeks to go, they met Max Yasgur. Max rented the farm to 50k. This was the same price that David Selznick paid to Margaret Mitchell for GWTW.
Bethel approved the festival July 21, one day after Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. The festival was August 15-17.
The Jeff Beck Group cancelled, when Rod Stewart quit the band to join Faces.
PG got his business done at the DOL, and the festival on Yasgur’s farm went off. There was a lot of chaos and ignorance, but good will saw the thing through. The first act to perform was Richie Havens. He was playing an acoustic set while the electric PA was set up, and was not allowed to leave the stage. Finally he ran out of material, and just started to say the word Freedom and jam. This is what appeared in the movie.
PG saw Richie Havens in 1974, at a nightclub in Atlanta called Richards. Havens played a Guild guitar, which he strummed, hard, across the front of the instrument. He would wear holes in the front of his guitar, which apparently did not last for more than a show or two. The crowd…this was the second show of the evening, starting at 2am…kept yelling for Freedom.
Back to the dairy farm. The story is familiar by now…it was a free concert, they ran out of food, and tie dye was perfected. Abbie Hoffman jumped on the stage during the Who, and Pete Townsend hit him upside the head with a guitar. Stephen Stills did not need a laxative.
After Jimi Hendrix played the final set, the crowds went home, and the workers wanted to get paid. A series of meetings took place to settle the business end of the festival. Lang and Kornfield were bought out, and Roberts and Rosenman owned the franchise.
The Woodstock festival was a milestone of sorts. Richard Nixon was new to the Presidency, and the war in Vietnam was going strong. The moratorium in the fall of 1969 was the high water mark of the anti war movement. Soon,the government started to withdraw troops, and look for “peace with honor”. And so on and so forth. The sixties were too beautiful to live, and too profitable to die.
Pictures are from “Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. They are from 1969 ( give or take a bit) in Atlanta, GA.

Somewhere in his drifting around the internet, PG found a reference to the story of Noah and the Ark. A light bulb above his head switched on, and the answer was apparent: Global warming is the second great flood.
In the Biblical story, G-d was upset with the way man was doing things. She gave Noah a heads up, and he was ridiculed by the good citizens of the day. Finally, it rained forty days and forty nights, and everyone except Noah got wet.
In the modern version, G-d sees man making a wasteland of the bountiful planet. An amazing resource like oil is controlled by hateful tyrants, and burned to make cars run. The signs of dis ease are apparent to some, but they are ridiculed by the good citizens of the day.
This time, things are different. Instead of forty days and forty nights, it is two hundred years of burning fossil fuels. It is a time of war, and rumors of war.