Chamblee54

PG received this email today. He has not started to write in the first person. The toilet paper tea party patriots are a source of amusement to PG.
Today my girlfriend tried to go to a town hall meeting to hear about and participate in the health care debate in Monroe, GA. Her US Rep. John Linder was slated to be there. Unfortunately, the meeting was canceled at the last minute literally due to the high emotions of organized group members.
One of them is the Tea Party Patriots. They have one purpose: to drown out anyone who is in favor of health care reform and to demonize government in general and more specifically anything that has the word DEMOCRATS associated with it.
I don’t care what side you are on over this huge issue. I do care that there is an element in our society that is doing exactly what they accuse our government of doing, running over people in the name of their agenda.
Take a look at the tea party link. And do some original agenda-neutral research to come to your conclusions and let your US Rep. and Senators know your position.
As an American I am deeply embarrassed by the behavior of this kind of group and uncertain whether saner voices will take the time to participate as citizens. Be a Patriot.

The one thing PG is sure of in the Troy Davis case is the abundance of material on the internet. This is true of all death penalty cases. When you have celebrities calling for clemency, the data crush gets heavier.
Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a district court needs to have a hearing on the Troy Davis case. The Supremes were convinced that there is enough evidence to doubt the conviction of Troy Davis for the murder of Mark MacPhail. Justices Scalia and Thomas dissented.
The dissenting opinion, written by Justice Scalia, is a doozy. “This court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is ‘actually’ innocent.”
It should be noted that PG is not a lawyer, and some of the arguments he is reading make his head swim. Some say that Justice Scalia was correct in his opinion. Others think he is crazy.
The one thing PG has not been able to find in his googling is a picture of Sylvester “Red” Coles. Mr. Coles is known to have been present at the murder site. Mr. Coles owns a .38 pistol with a chrome finish, similar to the pistol that shot Mr. MacPhail. On the morning after the murder, Mr. Coles and an attorney showed up at the Police Headquarters. Soon, a decision was made that Troy Davis was the killer.
The reason PG wants to see a picture of Sylvester Coles is to know, for sure, if he is black or white. Mr. Coles is described as a “a fearsome neighborhood thug ” and a drug dealer. If Troy Davis (black) takes the blame for killing Mark MacPhail ( white) and allows Sylvester Coles (?) to go free, is this racism? Perhaps it is sloppy policework, or a bribe from the Coles attorney.While we are talking race, please note that Clarence Thomas concurred with Antonin Scalia in his dissent.
There are some who don’t think the ruling yesterday will change much. The MacPhail family and the Chatham County police are convinced of the guilt of Mr. Davis. This case has been bouncing around the courts for twenty years, and several courts have upheld the original guilty verdict. PG would hope that at any hearing, these parties will present evidence to show why they have this opinion.

Amazon just scared PG. They are too optimistic . The first thing PG gave up when he lost his job was paying for reading material. The Chamblee Library has come a long ways from its humble beginnings as a storefront, next to Woolworths.
PG is reading “Wild Ducks Flying Backwards” by Tom Robbins. At least that is who got the copyright. The real star of this book is the contractual advance brigade at Bantam Books. WDFB is not a novel, but a collection of magazine articles. There is even rumored to be, G-d forbid, poetry.
Tom Robbins is a hero to PG. Ever since page three of “Another Roadside Attraction”, when Amanda asked about the meaning of life. When the oblique one asked  how Amanda would repay him for this knowledge, she lowered her eyes and said “I will suck you off”. PG was hooked, and read each of the seven novels that followed.
One night in 1990, PG went to a eye clinic in Little Five Points to pick up his contact lens. It was a first for him…to see the world click into focus, without glasses, was astounding. From there it was on to Buckhead. A car dealership, turned bookstore, hosted an appearance by Tom Robbins (who did you expect, Neal Boortz?). PG was too late for the speech, but did get to wander by the desk while he signed books. Mr. Robbins also stood up, and slowly turned around, to lusty cheers .
PG then went home, to find a message on his machine. A longtime friend said to call him, it was important. When PG obliged, he learned that his friend had AIDS. This was enough experience for one day.
So, what does this have to do with the mind police at amazon? PG likes to write book reports, and he gives a link to Amazon for the book as a way of giving information. Well, those amazoners collect this information, and have a list of books that you inquire about in the corner. You don’t even have to buy them, which is handy for PG.
They also have a list of books ” you might also consider”, which is where we go into never never land. PG likes Rock and Roll books, including ubertacky groupie sagas. That afternoon on the sofa reading “Going down with Janis” by Peggy Casserta was memorable, even if PG didn’t believe a word of it. So, what does Amazon suggest but “I’m with the band” by Pamela Des Barres. PG hasn’t inquired, but has thought about it. Its a small world, or maybe a small mind connected to a medium internet.

Furman Bisher has a piece at the fishwrapper site about Joe Torre. The punch line is that Mr. Torre “grew up” when the Braves traded him to St. Louis. PG was a kid when this was going on, and did not hear a lot of what went on.
In 1965, the Braves played a lame duck year in Milwaukee before moving to Atlanta. One night, there was an exhibition game at Atlanta Stadium, the Braves against the Yankees. PG got his oh so patient dad to take him to the clubhouse after the game, to get autographs. In those days, you could go into the bowels of the stadium and wait outside the locker room. Hank Aaron came out and signed dozens of autographs while smoking a cigarette. Joe Torre came out, hid behind a truck, and took off running.
Mr. Torre was a racoon eyed catcher for the Braves. In the first regular season game in 1966, he hit two home runs, in a thirteen inning loss. Soon, the novelty of big league baseball in a toilet shaped stadium wore off. Mr. Torre got at least one DUI, and apparently a reputation as a barroom brawler. He was traded to St. Louis in 1968. Mr. Torre hit .373 and won the national league MVP in 1971.
The comments to the feature by Furman Bisher were interesting. Cecil 34 contributes “The reason that Torre was traded is because on the team’s charter flight back to Atlanta back in 68, a drunken Torre got into a fistfight with Aaron. Aaron popped off to Torre, and thus the fight was on, broken up by the other players.
Since Aaron was the face of the franchise at the time, Torre was traded. There had been bad blood between them for years before this incident anyway. Reasons vary. But the final nail in the coffin was this fistfight. I was told Torre could pack a punch and Aaron came out on the worse end of it.”
There has been whispering for years about Hank Aaron and his attitude. Furman Bisher made hints once or twice, but there was never anything of substance. It seems that Mr. Aaron does not lack for self confidence. Hank Aaron was the subject of much racially based abuse while  chasing the home run record in 1973.
Hank Aaron was  known to not get along with Rico Carty. Mr. Carty is a dark skinned man from the Dominican Republic, who was popular with fans. Mr. Carty was eventually traded. Rico Carty had a barbeque restaurant on Peachtree Road in Chamblee, next door to the Park and Shop.
Joe Torre was the manager of the Braves in the early eighties. The team won a divisional title in 1982, but lost the NLCS. This was after Ted Turner bought the team, and Mr. Turner fired Mr. Torre in 1984. ( Managers are hired to be fired ).
Getting back to the comment thread, Misterwax contributes “Turner cut Joe Torre loose because Ted was in love with Henry Aaron and Aaron thought Joe Torre was a white supremacist….A hangover from the clubhouse days when they were teammates…still does today. And THAT is the only reason he was cut….beause Hank Aaron said so.”
Hank Aaron was recently quoted on Barry Bonds and Steroids. Joe Torre is managing the Los Angeles Dodgers, and is leading his division. Furman Bisher is 90, has outlived Bear Bryant by 26 years, and continues to sign his columns “selah”.

PG was resisting the urge to say something profound about Mike Vick. There is something about Philadelphia that seems like a good fit for number 7. There should be dogfights in New Jersey.
In the midst of vicktalk, PG looks at this email. There is a comment.
Hey there, you’ve blogged about The Jesus Storybook Bible in the past and we want to give you the exciting opportunity to help us celebrate the release of the Deluxe Edition this October! All throughout September we’ll be sending updates about ways you can win copies of the Deluxe Edition (which features the entire Jesus Storybook Bible read by award-winning British actor, David Suchet) and free resources you can share with others! To register for these updates and exclusive information, visit here and sign up!
Sincerely, Zonderkidz Marketing
Wow, spam for Jesus. Dogfights in New Jersey seem ethical suddenly. The rest of the internet is kinda sketchy, except for Margaret and Helen. They always make sense. Well, almost always. A few weeks ago, they wouldn’t quit talking about how sexy Walter Cronkite was. PG doesn’t get the Cronkite cult. In his family, they always watched Chet Huntley and David Brinkley. If some old lady blogger starts to get the hots for Chet Huntley, PG is giving up the internet.
Margaret is it just me or did combing your hair become optional when going out in public? I’ve been watching news clips of these town hall free-for-alls and we have definitely become a nation of tired, poor, and huddled masses clearly tempest-tossed, but without access to a good beauty salon. Universal Hygiene – now that is something I could get behind.
And what’s all this crap about killing your grandmother? Are you people honestly that stupid? This has become less an argument about healthcare reform and more a statement about our failed education system. Margaret, I don’t know what plans you’ve made up there with Howard, but down here with Harold, we have living wills to determine how we will leave this world when the time comes.
Mine states that unless the feeding tube is large enough for a piece of pie, I don’t want to be hooked up to it. Harold, of course, says his can only be connected to him if the other end is connected to a bottle of single malt scotch.

Diva Thursday comes rolling into Dodge like a …wait a minute, this is not happening yet. Like Truman Capote dishing Jack Keruac, or Norman Mailer corrupting Gore Vidal, the sun is gonna shine on my backdoor someday. Maybe the next paragraph will work better.
This is Diva Thursday, the fourth installment. Funny how no one worries about Thursday the 13th. Next week will be the last of the cd, and then this train goes off the tracks.
The opening act for the shower of stars is Annie Lennox. She uses her real name, with no middle name, for a stage name. Annie was born on Christmas Day 1954 in Aberdeen, Scotland. Wikipedia notes no major scandals or addictions, which is true of all our divas today.
Annie achieved major popularity with the Eurythmics. Her partner was a former boyfriend, Dave Stewart. This was back when MTV played videos, and Annie made some good ones. Like most MTV era videos, there is no embedding. Miss Lennox has gone on to make several solo albums, and is an activist and fighter for good causes.
Sarah Lois Vaughan was born March 27, 1924 in Newark N.J. She is the today’s only diva to pass, having left us April 3, 1990. She won a talent contest at Harlem’s Apollo theater, and became a star. Miss Vaughn was married three times, and had the bad habit of allowing her husbands to manage her.
Emmy Lou Harris was born April 2, 1947 in Birmingham, Alabama. She uses her “real” name for performing, and has avoided scandals and addictions (or had the grace to not get caught). Emmy Lou was a vocalist in a band with Gram Parsons, and was torn up when he died. ( PG does not know if there was a romance, or just a musical partnership.)
Emmy Lou has had a long and happy career. She refuses to dye her hair, and is a hero for many of us with gray hair. There is a video of her (with dark hair) that does not allow embedding.

PG is reading “Living with the dead”, about a band formerly known as the Warlocks. The ghost writer is a man named David Dalton, who channels the lysergic nuttiness of the Haight. Ghost writer, get it , huh huh.
The man behind the curtain might tell you that the GD name was about the death of the ego…a psychedelic thing. Once the band became popular, the skeletons came out of the closet, and suddenly every day was the day of the dead. Jerry never cared for the skull paraphernalia, but got over it.
The person the ghost writer channeled was Rock Sculley. He was doing something in San Francisco in 1965, when Owsley Stanley invited him to the Trips Festival. Soon, the walls of the auditorium were breathing, and the band was playing. This was their first gig as the Grateful Dead, and Bill Graham ( a cross between mother teresa and al capone) was horrified by the new name. The posters had the phrase “formerly known as the warlocks”.
The next night, Mr. Scully went to an acid test in Palo Alto, where Neal Cassidy was juggling hammers and talking endless amphetimated nonsense. If he had just stayed off those railroads tracks he could have been the first white rapper, and eminem would be the personal assistant to Sacha Baron Cohen.
Owsley thought Rock Scully would be a good manager for the band. Maybe because his name sounded like skull.
And so it goes. Did Kurt Vonnegut ever see the Grateful Dead? They would have been a good match, especially with all the cigarettes mr v smoked. He could have been dosed, and time tripped back into that meat locker in Dresden.
Did you know there is a Dresden Drive that connects Brookhaven to Doraville? Dresden Drive is a popular road for police cars, and PG learned a long time ago to watch the rearview carefully there. At this junction point in history, Dekalb County drove gold Plymouth Satellites. PG drove a gold Plymouth Satellite in the eighties, after the girl in Planet Claire made everyone forget the Dekalb gestapo.
Back to the book, which is a lot of fun to read. The ghost writer and Kurt Vonnegut have a similar effect on PG…when he reads a book by mr v, he starts to think like the book reads. LWTD is having the same impact, which can be intimidating to the readers of this blog who dare to go this far. The sixties were like that in California, or so PG heard…in 1967 he was in the eighth grade, and was a long way away. Neal Cassidy said he got more out breakfast than he got out of the eighth grade.
LWTD is chock full of trivia. Did you know that St. Stephen was written about Stephen Gaskin? Or that Grace Slick would never sunbathe nude on David Crosby’s boat, because David’s girlfriends were all so pretty. Grace just couldn’t compete. Oops, that last bit was from David Crosby’s book, which was another perversion excursion. Does anyone else find the concept of Mr. Walrus being the turkey baster supplier for Julie Cypher…just a touch bizarre?
PG is on page 213 of LWTD at this point. This is a mathematical wonder, using all prime numbers and a superstition into a sum of six. The story of the dead is at a turning point, but then almost any inning of this ballgame was a turning point. It is early 1972. Pigpen has been replaced, but doesn’t know it yet.
The dead just played the armistice day show at the Atlanta Municipal Auditorium, which is fondly remembered by many who were not there. In a bit of irony, this is one of the last shows with the old sound system. There is a quote from a someone who saw them in NY a few weeks later, and said it was the worst he had  heard the band sound.
This is also turning point in america, with the rise of george mcgovern leading to a landslide for tricky dick. The sixties were slowing coming to a multi colored end. They were too painful to live and too profitable to die.
The dead rode the wave for the next thirty seven years, even after uberdeadhead Jerry became the real thing on hiroshima day in 1995. The book has about 144 pages to go ( that’s gross), but PG suspects that it won’t be as much fun as the first 213.
The pictures for this post are from a farm in Tennessee. As PG edits the pics, he listens to a tape of the auditorium show, and the band plays “Tennessee Jed”. Once, PG was playing a tape of “Tennessee Jed”, and a neighbor asked him “ Do you like that?” “Yes” “then you are a hick”.

There is an article posted at The Economist about Sex Offender Registries. (HT to Andrew Sullivan) The feature has a dateline of Harlem, Georgia. The Columbia county town was the home of Oliver Hardy. It is also the home of Wendy Faye Whitaker.
Mrs. Whitaker is 5’3″ and weighs 350 pounds. When she was 17, they turned out the classroom lights to watch a video. A 15yo student said he would like a blow job. Mrs. Whitaker got caught, and now is on the Sex Offender Registry. She had to move from her house, and her husband lost his job as a dog catcher.
The article in the Economist had some delightful statistics. Over 647k americans are registered sex offenders. 17k are in Georgia. In 1994, congress required all states to have such a registry, or lose some federal funds. 13 states require registration for urinating in public.
Politicians love to be seen as tough on crime. RSO are a popular target, and the legislators compete to enact tougher laws. A few years ago, RSO were not allowed to live within 1000 feet of a school bus stop. That was thrown out by the court.
The concept of the sex offender registry is sound. There are, however, questions about the effectiveness and expense. The effect on offenders, many of whom have finished jail time and probation, is considerable.
After reading the article, PG decided to take a look at the Georgia Registry. Before you go, make sure you have plenty of time to spend. The GSOR has a strong search engine, and will give you all the RSO in your zip code. It will also show all offenders by county or by last name.
In PG’s zipcode is a hotel with 19 RSO. Evidently, the hotel is far enough from schools and churches to allow RSO to live there. It is across the street from a major IRS office.
A breakdown for this zipcode ( which is not typical of the overall state) shows 21 white, 16 black, 2 hispanic and 1 asian. All were males…while the story of Wendy Whitaker got the attention of the Economist, the overwhelming majority of the RSO are males. On this page, 3 were incarcerated, 2 had absconded, and 1 was homeless.
In 1994, PG was living in a duplex, with terrible people downstairs. There was a major controversy about dogs kept by these tenants, who were verbally abusive to PG. One night, PG heard a knock at the door, saw no one at his apartment, and looked at the front of the house. There was a Dekalb county welcome wagon in the driveway. Very soon, the husband was being taken off in handcuffs.
When PG looked at the SOR, he found his former neighbor quickly. The conviction listed on the SOR was 1998, or four years after the incident PG knew about. The Georgia SOR requires all offenders after July 1, 1996, to register.

PG tried to attend the town hall meeting in Clarkston. It was not to be.
He left a bit late, and had gotten to the Montreal Road underpass by the 7pm starting time. There sure is a lot of traffic on North Indian Creek, surely all these people aren’t going to this meeting. The first parking lot PG tried was full, and the yellow light on the gas gauge was on. There was another lot behind the James Hallford Stadium, and PG parked there.
Walking by the stadium and towards the campus, PG was amazed by all the new buildings. He had been a student here in 1972, when it was called Dekalb college. Now, there was a parking deck, and a huge building with a glass brick front, and alphabet signs on all the buildings. This is not your grandpa’s Dekalb college.
Soon, people coming from the front were saying that the meeting hall was full. There was a video screen set up in the gym, and a line of about a thousand people for that. PG was only there for the spectacle, and there was plenty of that in the line. As was noted elsewhere, the crowd was heavily Caucasian, in a district that is majority black.
PG was handed a flyer from a man about a website, youcanstopobama. This site is a vehicle for a man running for Governor of Georgia. His last name starts with a beast of burden. This animal is generally more useful than this politician, who hopefully will be a trivia question after the primary.
His campaign had a nasty scandalette about the stopobama website. It seems like a 15yo blogger got offended at some of the practices at the campaign and the site, and spoke out. The campaign “bullied” him, and the 15 yo pulled down his site. PG mentioned this to the flyer pusher, who acted embarrassed. The flyer man said the only people in the hall were (some group sympathetic to Obama), who were told to be there at 4 pm and fill the hall up. The conversation was not labeled off the record.
PG walked down towards the gym, where the line seemed to be slowly moving in. He decided to work the rest of the crowd, and take some more pictures. A lady in an Uncle Sam hat stood out. It turns out that her name is Glenda Bernadette Allen. She is running for mayor of Atlanta. She is on “a continued mission every 1st Tuesday of each month to end the fraudulent foreclosures of thousands of homes in Fulton County”.

PG has been blogging for almost four years. There have been a total of 937, about a variety of topics. The one missing subject is tall awareness.
PG is 6’5″ tall. This is also 196 cm, or 5’17”. He has never played team basketball, and cannot remember the last time he watched a game. Ceiling fans do make him nervous, as do doorways in old buildings.
In 1938, Kae Sumner was a cell painter at Walt Disney Studios. One of her projects had been “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”. Miss Sumner was 6’2″, and always banging her knees under the desk. Finally, she wrote an article for a Los Angeles newspaper about the perils of being tall, and mentioned that she would like to hear from other tall people. On May 1, 1938, the first meeting of the ” Longfellows Club” was held. This later became the California Tip Toppers, and was the start of Tall Clubs International.
In 1984, PG had heard about the Atlanta Sky Hi club from numerous people. One night in September, he attended a get together at a house in Stone Mountain. He was voted into membership at the November business meeting, and has paid his dues every year since then.
TCI has a convention every year (Atlanta hosted in 1989 and 2000). At this convention, there is a Miss Tall International pageant. When PG joined the Sky Hi Club, Miss TCI® was Anna Rowan, from the Atlanta club.
“The club” did not change PG’s life, but it did make it more fun. It is now known as the Atlanta Tall Club, after years of jokes about the mile high club. ATC is in a slow period now, and there is talk of disbanding it. This has happened before, and somehow it kept going.
Getting back to tall awareness, there is not a whole lot of there there. Numerous celebrities are known for being height enhanced, and maybe a historic event or two was influenced. PG promises to do research on the subject, and have a suitable post about tall awareness before the end of the world.

Today is August 9. Next year, it will be 080910.
It is day 221 of 2009, with a gross of days left.
Sixty four years ago, Nagasaki got nuked.
Fifty four years ago, Peter Schmuck was born in California.
Forty five years ago, Whitney Houston was born.
Forty years ago, the Manson Family visited 10050 Cielo Drive.
Thirty five years ago, Richard Nixon resigned.
Thirty two years ago, Elvis Presley had one week to go.
Fourteen years ago, Jerry Garcia died.

The United States has killed Baitullah Mehsud. He was the leader of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. He is blamed for a lot of things, including the murder of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Mr. Mehsud held together the factions of the TTP.
Mr. Mehsud was at the home of his father in law. He had an iv in his arm, for what is reported as a kidney ailment. He was also known to be diabetic. His wife and others were killed in the raid.
The missile that murdered Mr. Mehsud was from an unmanned US aircraft. The Pakistan government is playing both ends against the middle here. On the one hand they denounce the US raids on their soil, but seem certain to be cooperating with America in these actions. The Pakistan government has issues with the Taliban. This is ironic, since the Taliban was the creation of Pakistani intelligence. This was when the Soviet Union was fighting in Afghanistan.
The raid has gotten little press in the United States. A conservative website was more concerned about a report that BHO (wisely) does not want to use the phrase “war on terrorism”.
PG has a few questions. How many raids have been launched in the search for Baitullah Mehsud?How many people have died in these raids? How many of those to die were women and children?
Are these raids legal, both either American law and International law? The United States has not declared war on Pakistan. For that matter, unless PG missed something, the USA has not declared war on anybody in the Iraq-Iran-‘Stan country region. This question does not cover the morality of killing women and children from unmanned aircraft, but rather asks if it is legal.
Is killing women and children with unmanned aircraft terrorism?
What are our goals in the ‘Stan country war? We have long ago punished Afghanistan for 911. We are stuck in Iraq. We are playing with nuclear fire in Pakistan. What do we hope to achieve from all this killing? How long will it take, and how much will it cost?