Chamblee54

Andrew Sullivan links to a feature at cracked.com about commonly accepted ideas about psychology. Yes, the imitation Mad Magazine is still in business. The tagline at this facility is “America’s only humor & video site, since 1958”. Cracked has a nifty ad for Diet Coke at the top of the page. More than a few cocola fans consider diet coke to be an abomination.
The post in question has 6 tidbits of conventional wisdom. Cracked uses a vulgar term to describe them…think of Ted Roosevelt and “bully”. PG suspects the tough part of a post like this is narrowing it down to six items. They are:
#1.”Carl is Such a Homophobe! I Bet He’s Secretly Gay!”
#2.”We’ll Find Out if He’s Lying! Give Him a Lie Detector Test!”
#3.”Be Careful! Advertisers Use Subliminal Messages to Make Us Do Things!”
#4.”Cult Members are Stupid, Gullible Sheep!”
#5.”Just Believe in Yourself, and You’ll Succeed!”
#6.”If You Let Your Anger Out, You’ll Feel Better!
Another find at Cracked is a photo series titled “One Queen and Eleven Presidents“. Diana’s mother in law is seen with a football team of POTUS. Her majesty seems embarrassed by Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon, and BHO. LBJ was missing, and the Eisenhower and Truman pictures have not been colorized. .
At no time are her hands shown without gloves, and does not wave. The empty purse is in five shots, and she wears hats in two. She has dreadful taste in hats.
George H.W. Bush makes a crude gesture with his right hand, which her highness ignores. Bill Clinton is smirking, Ronald Reagan is laughing, and Harry Truman seems to be up past his bedtime. As for which Presidents slept with the Queen, PG would vote for Clinton, Ford, Kennedy, and Eisenhower.

When you step into the world of Avitable, you never know what to expect. Today, it was  a list of things that Avitable wishes he could do. To illustrate, he posted a video of a man singing.
There is a rule in the south about wishing. You are required by law to repeat this saying about wishing whenever the concept is mentioned. You can wish in one hand, and s**t in the other, and see which hand gets full faster.
Looking at the video, PG suspects that was what Shane was doing. The viewer does not know which hand got full faster. It is best if Shane washes his hands.
There have been lots of comparisons of singing and defecation. There used to be scat singers. Playing Frank Sinatra records in a garden makes the roses grow faster.
There is a saying about being busy. “I don’t know whether to s**t or go blind”. Stevie Wonder wishes he had tried ex lax.

Atlmalcontent has put a name on something that PG has known about for a long time. He calls it frown syndrome, and says it is because of poor bone structure. PG calls it sad face, and it has had an impact on his life. If PG ever forgets that he has frown syndrome, there is always someone to remind him.
The nutshell is that PG’s face has a default setting that many see as being unhappy. PG does not know why this is, and, if he thinks about it, can make an effort to “put on a happy face”. However, if he is tired or bored, this is probably not going to happen. PG then looks like he just lost his best friend.
The ever helpful Urban Dictionary has a listing for frown syndrome. It is “A cranky little bitch whose a downer no matter what.” Wikipedia does not have an article for frown syndrome.
The suggested Wikipedia alternative that caught PG’s eye was Washlet syndrome. A washlet is a Japanese commode that shoots water up a body cavity, for hygienic purposes. It seems as though some people abuse this device, for pleasure purposes. Whether or not they smile was not discussed. The article…actually a section of a longer article about Japanese toilets…said that washlet syndrome was frowned upon by Japanese society.
Persecution of those with frown syndrome is acceptable in modern culture. Once a person is tagged with the dreaded label “negative attitude”, anything you say or do to this person is all right. Perhaps in a more enlightened society, people with a sad face will not face discrimination.

When he was a kid, PG had different interests. He would get into something for a while, then move on to something else. In 1965, it was baseball and football. The Atlanta Journal had a column every day by Furman Bisher. PG thought he was a very good, very funny writer.
Yesterday, the fishwrapper printed the last column by Furman Bisher. Many, many things had changed in those 44 years. The well crafted prose of Furman Bisher remained the same.
In 1965, Mr. Bisher produced six columns a week for the afternoon paper. Typically, five of them would be on a single subject. The sixth one would be a collection of one or two liners, separated by three dots. These mix and match columns were always signed “selah”. Selah is an untranslatable Hebrew word from Psalms. When asked why he said that, Mr. Bisher said “your guess is as good as mine”.
In one of the columns signed selah, Mr. Bisher talked about sports cliches. His least favorite one was about a ballplayer “who can do it all”. ” Lets see one of them have a baby”
While the Cox family owned both the morning Constitution and the afternoon Journal, they were separate papers then. They had a TV section on saturday printed on green paper, which made the world look red after you turned away from it. The saturday paper also had a weekly ad by a restaurant owner who dabbled in politics, named Lester Maddox. The next year, he would be elected Governor of Georgia. Lester called the Cox Newspapers “the fishwrapper”.
In 1965, the Braves played a lame duck season in Milwaukee. The Crackers played one last season in the brand new Atlanta Stadium. It did not have the hyphen Fulton County in it’s name yet, and the people of Atlanta were so proud of that facility. The next year, the Braves set up shop in Dixie, and were horrible. The Falcons played their first season, and were even worse. Before long, PG found other things to be interested in.
Furman Bisher continued to plug away. A young man named Lewis Grizzard came to work at the fishwrapper, and Mr. Bisher was his boss. Eventually, Lewis Grizzard took a job in Chicago, a frosty exile from warm Georgia. A few years later, Mr. Grizzard came home, and became an  institution. The only problem was his heart. Lewis Grizzard left us on March 20, 1994.
Mr. Bisher is 90 today, and in good health. He is leaving on his feet. The fishwrapper continues to shrink, and may not outlive one of it’s best writers.

Laura Ingraham got in a shouting match with Bill O’Reilly about the Nobel peace prize. O’Reilly thought the award was a positive move, because it shows an improvement of the way the world sees America. Miss Ingraham argued with him that America was weaker, although she was unclear how this award made America weaker. Mostly, they interrupted each other and waved their hands. HT to JoemyG-d for the video.
The lack of courtesy is one of the appalling things about Conservatives. Miss Ingraham is one of the rudest ones. This post and that post tells the story of things PG has heard Miss Ingraham say on her radio show.
While researching this post, PG went to the Laura Ingraham website. There was a link to an article about the morale of American troops in Afghanistan. It seems that the more we sacrifice, the worse things get. The war was started to get revenge for nine eleven. Now, we struggle to find a reason for the slaughter. And the murderer in chief gets a Nobel Peace Prize.
On a lighter note, Andrew Sullivan chimes in with a bit of arithmetic. “And then there was the matter of what he called COIN mathematics. If there are 10 Taliban and you kill two, how many do you have left? Eight, perhaps. Or there might be two, because six of the remaining eight decide it’s just not worth fighting anymore. Or you might have 20 because the brothers and cousins of the two dead fighters decide to take vengeance.”

PG found a link on facebook for something called the freak revolution manifesto. Things went well for the first 25 pages or so, until the inner Ethel came out. Lucy always had these great ideas, until she told Ethel about them. ” I don’t know Lucy“.
No doubt, there is room for improvement in the way we conduct our lives. The evidence is abundant. The FRM tells a tale of a control paradigm running the show, and proposes to replace it with a connect paradigm. PG has always thought cooperation works better than domination/submission. So far so good.
The devil is in the details. Change starts with the individual. The FRM has a few ideas about how the individual player can change to best “empower” itself. One of these notions is that the person should dump their friends that don’t agree with the revolution.
“Imagine sharing this manifesto with each of your friends. Would they roll their eyes and say “Those are some pretty big ideas, but it’ll never work”? Or would they be moved to tears, jump up and down excitedly, and ask “Where can I sign up?”
You need more of the up-and-down-jumpers in your life, and fewer of the eye-rollers. The eye-rollers are poisonous and will sap your energy and motivation. The up-and-down-jumpers will share their enthusiasm with you, you’ll share yours with them, and you’ll both help each other.
Don’t maintain friendships with eye-rollers because you think you can help them or fix them. You can help much more effectively when you’re buoyed up by encouragement than when you’re drained by cynicism. It’s difficult and painful to cut ties with friends who drain you, and it’s also scary to reach out and make new friends who support you, but it’s worth it.”
PG has never found it easy to make and keep friends. The idea of losing a friend because of insufficient revolutionary zeal is distressing. There is a saying among mass murderers, “ To make an omelet, you need to crack eggs“. Reading page 29 of the FRM made PG feel like an egg, hiding from the cook.
This business of kicking out friends sounds to PG like  the control paradigm. In looking for a solution, the FRM might be making a worse problem. While many of the ideas in this tract are valid, overall PG is listening to Ethel.

In a scandinavian shocker, BHO has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The former Chicago politician supports sending more troops into Afghanistan. These soldiers will not be greeted as liberators. The cowardly use of unmanned aircraft in this conflict continues, and has possibly  increased.
BHO supports the spread of war into Pakistan. In addition to the Nobel affair, this is a violation of the US Constitution. Killing civilians in Pakistan with unmanned aircraft has not been authorized by Congress. No war against Pakistan has been declared. For that matter, no formal declaration of war was issued against Iraq, Afghanistan, or Terrorism.
This is not the first bizarre decision by the Nobel committee. In 1994, the prize was shared by Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, and Yitzhak Rabin. 1990 saw Mikhail Gorbachev make the trip to Oslo. Le Duc Tho declined the award in 1973, because there was no peace in Vietnam. His co-designate, Henry Kissofdeath Kissinger, accepted the award. The word “honor”(as in “Peace with Honor”) took a beating that year.
In other years, no one was awarded the prize. The money in those years was allocated to the main fund. This was the approach in 1966-67, 1939-1943, and 1914-1916. In times of war, it is not always appropriate to award a peace prize.

Falcons owner Rankin Blank is trying to get big government to build a new stadium. The Georgia Dome is seventeen years old. It has hosted two super bowls and Olympic events. The Falcons did not play in either super bowl.
The State of Georgia needs to find a new source of water for four million people. Police are being furloughed. A local school system is losing accreditation. And the billionaire buddy of Bernie wants big government to spend a billion dollars on a new stadium.
The Falcons have never had back to back winning seasons. A few years ago, they drafted the most talented and exciting athlete in recent memory. After two winning seasons, he was sent to prison for dog fighting. Rankin Blank wants big government to spend a billion dollars on a new stadium.
The ruinous war in Babylon may cost upwards of three trillion dollars. This could pay for a three thousand new stadiums. We have gotten revenge for nine eleven, by attacking the enemy of the people who attacked us. Big government does strange things.

A couple of weeks after Al Gore got more votes than George Bush, PG bought a computer. A little while later, he read “Sarah”. PG thought he would send J.T. Leroy a fan email. The very next day, a reply came. PG felt  good about this, until he found out that J.T. Leroy was a hoax.
Moving ahead a few years, PG reads “Michael Tolliver Lives” and “The Night Listener” by Armistead Maupin. “Listener” is semi autobiographical, and deals with a literary hoax. The reader never knows for sure what the score is. After a while, Mr. Reader wonders the same thing about the “real” details that illustrate the story.
It is said that one way an author can tell the truth is to write fiction. Mr. Maupin tells a moving story in both books. “Michael” is admitted fiction, but enough connections to reality that the reader wonders who is a stand in for what. In “Listener”, the story holds up, until the author makes a fateful trip to Wisconsin. Then the slippery slope story hurtles downhill into the bejeweled elephant. While the story may be fake, and about fakery, the emotions it stirs in the reader are genuine
PG read an interview with the “real” Mr. Maupin once, probably around the late eighties. At the time, “Outing”, or telling everyone in earshot that so and so is gay, was the fashion. Mr. Maupin got into it with gusto, especially regarding a TV actor with a big mustache.
PG was put off by the entire affair. Government leaders who make policy could, arguably, have their “dirty laundry” exposed. However, why should anyone worry about a TV performer? If someone wants to let the public connect the dots, so be it.
Reading “The Night Listener” reveals a bit of back story. At the time of the interview, Mr. Maupin’s lover, Terry Anderson, (from Marietta, GA.) had AIDS. He was not expected to make it. Mr. Maupin, a de facto spokesman for planet homo, was in a world of hurt.
The appearance of miracle drugs in the late nineties saved Terry Anderson and Michael Tolliver. They almost did in Armistead Maupin. The good news is that writing is a source of life for Mr. Maupin.
It is his gift to take this pain, and render it into stories that are fun to read. As for the belief issue…the role of fiction if to create questions, not answers. Maybe it is a function of Jesus Worship to cause people to take myths seriously, to confuse mythos for logos.
PG wonders if the difference is important. As with the TV actor, once the reader has been transported by the book, what difference does it make if it is technically true?

PG got the call from Uzi at about 1:30. The power had gone out, and Uzi was ready to go. PG agreed to be over in a few minutes.
Uzi wanted to go to the Sandy Springs Festival. This did not do much for PG, but, seeing as he didn’t have any better ideas, decided to go along. Last year, PG had seen a way to get in without paying the five dollar admission.
The cheapskate method involved walking away from the main entrance, and coming in through a church parking lot. PG saw a staircase that led from the road into the parking lot. About three steps from the asphalt, the front of PG’s brand new walmart sneakers caught on a plank, and PG tumbled to the last step. He was able to pull himself up, declare the injuries minor, and walked into the festival without paying.
The rows of white tents had the usual assortment of politicians, home made barbecue sauce, and wild animals made of old auto parts painted gaudy colors. Almost none of it appealed to PG. The people watching was up to par, and the sunshine..after a mini monsoon season…put the crowd in a cheerful mood.
At one point, a Democratic party tent was ignored, and PG wandered over out of kindness. Uzi saw some papers about debt collectors, and started a cheerful discussion with the democrats. At this point, PG wandered back into the aisle.
There was a tent,full of Jews for Jesus. The lady asked PG if he would like a book. PG said, do I have to read it? The discussion did not last long, with both sides opting not to use heavy artillery.
Before long, the scene was the car in the old target parking lot, and it was time to wonder about dinner. Uzi had a coupon for Folks, formerly known as PoFolks. The Windy Hill location did not have the misspelled menus that had plagued PoFolks. The restroom was clean, and had a paper towel dispenser operated by a motion detector.

Sometimes, the “legitimate” newspapers make the tabloids look tame. Three stories today make this point. Blogs can cover both “real” news and tabloid trash with equal lack of profits. HT for the first two stories goes to JoemyG-d.
The mayor of East Cleveland ( presumably in Ohio) is a man named Gary Brewer. He is in an election, and somehow pictures of him in drag have been inflicted on the population. The man is too ugly to be seen in public, no matter what gender his clothing was intended for.
The former Miss California, Carrie Prejean, is back in the market. It seems as though she posed for some halloween costumes. The costumes show a lot of skin. The rumors that Miss Prejean will be appearing soon in a Perez Hilton costume were neither confirmed nor denied.
These things seem to work in threes. Mackenzie Phillips was promoting her new book on the Oprah Winfrey show. Miss Phillips opened her mouth, and her lips moved. A sordid tale of incest and drug abuse came forth. One monday night, Papa John said to his little girl, lets think of Mama Cass and make a ham sandwich.
Her ever supportive step mother,Michelle Phillips, said that Mackenzie was probably lying. Michelle Phillips had previously sent a letter to People magazine, where she expressed the hope that Papa John’s attempt at rehab number nine would work better than the previous eight.
If youtube does not have sound, try another browser. Firefox seems to have problems with youtube. This is the one thing Internet Explorer seems to be better at.

When PG was a kid, his grandmother lived in a side apartment, in a house on Virginia Avenue. The owner of the house was Mrs. Stuckey. ( PG never learned her “real” name, and assumed that checks were made out to Mrs.) There was a framed piece of paper in Mrs. Stuckey’s hall. The top said “The Four-Way Test of the things we think, say or do” , and featured the logo of the Rotary Club. The four rules were simple, on the surface.
Is it the TRUTH?//Is it FAIR to all Concerned?//Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?//Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?
The four way test was written by Herbert J. Taylor. In 1932, Mr.Taylor took over the bankrupt Club Aluminum Company of Chicago. Trying to revive the company during the depression, Mr. Taylor wrote a code of ethics, that would be the basis for the company’s actions.
Many said that the four way test was not practical for the business world. The balancing of integrity and ambition can be daunting. It was said that “This emphasis on truth, fairness and consideration provide a moral diet so rich that it gives some people “ethical indigestion.”
PG maintains that fair is a baseball hit between first and third base. Sometimes, the umpire makes the wrong call. In the “real world”, the different points of view in a dispute make rendering a fair judgment a difficult task, if not an impossible one.
There is a story about the revival of Club Aluminum. ” One day, the sales manager announced a possible order for 50,000 utensils. Sales were low and the company was still struggling at the bankruptcy level. The senior managers certainly needed and wanted that sale, but there was a hitch. The sales manager learned that the potential customer intended to sell the products at cut-rate prices. “That wouldn’t be fair to our regular dealers who have been advertising and promoting our product consistently,” he said. In one of the toughest decisions the company made that year, the order was turned down. There was no question this transaction would have made a mockery out of The Four-Way Test the company professed to live by.”
How did the sales manager learn of the intentions of this buyer? Was he tipped off by one of the “regular customers” who feared competition? Was this “regular customer” lying? Many inspirational stories leave out crucial details.
As it turns out, Club Aluminum did sell enough product to emerge from bankruptcy. “By 1937, Club Aluminum’s indebtedness was paid off and during the next 15 years, the firm distributed more than $1 million in dividends to its stockholders. Its net worth climbed to more than $2 million.”
Club Aluminum cookware was cast, not spun. It is heavy, and is a prized collectors item today. As for the Club Aluminum company ” Standard International Corporation bought it in 1968. Regalware made and marketed Club Aluminum for a while, but went out of business in the mid-1980s. The brand name was eventually obtained by the Mirro Company.”