Chamblee54

A few years ago, some lawyers with too much time took a case to the Supreme Court about Flag Burning. The Justices decided that Flag Burning was not against the Constitution. This caused a lot of people to get upset. The case was Texas v. Johnson, the decision was issued June 21, 1989.
Many of these same people like to display the flag. They leave it out in all kinds of weather, in direct sunlight, until the once proud flag is worn and tattered. At least when the flag is burned the damage is done quickly. As it is, the Red White and Blue becomes the Pink Gray and Lavender.
PG was walking to WalMart today, and decided to record some examples of this slow moving desecration. It did not take long to find enough examples to illustrate this post. One site was the grave of a revolutionary war veteran.
The United States code has a comments about respect for the flag. Many of these are routinely ignored, often by people who consider themselves patriots.
174 (c) Inclement weather-The flag should not be displayed on days when the weather is inclement, except when an all weather flag is displayed.
176 (i) The flag should never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever.
176 (k) The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning.
PG recalls a bumper sticker from the early nineties. It had the stars and stripes, and the words “Try Burning This One”. The vehicle was left in direct sun during the day. The sunlight burned those colors, reducing them to a mass of gray.
There is a pledge of allegiance for the flag. PG is certain that anyone reading this is familiar with it. The phrase “under G-d” is famously included. Is this a violation of the third commandment, regarding the proper use of sacred names?

PG uses WordPress.com as his home page. They have a variety of blogs that they promote. Today they have a very good quote about self respect, but first a bit of internet business. The original blogger to make the comment was on blogspot. The comment was quoted at another blog, where it was picked up by WordPress. PG can appreciate that Blogspot/Google is competition for WordPress, but it does make for some peculiar situations.
Now for the quote: “Self-loathing is not a f###### character-builder. It doesn’t make you stronger. It doesn’t make you better. It’s just an ever-deepening, creepy-ass trap; a trap that is a huge moneymaker for corporations that do not have and never will have good intentions. You’re not disgusting. You’re not freakish. You’re not ugly. And you’re never going to be perfect. And holy s###, that is so okay.”
The quote was inspired by a lady named Kirstie Alley. It seems like she has fought “the battle of the bulge” and is currently losing. People magazine put her on the cover to talk about it. This is a corporate tool that does not have good intentions.
PG does not watch TV, and has  little idea who Miss Alley is. It seems as though she was in a TV comedy about  patrons at a Boston Alcohol Use Facility. While America is locking up people for smoking pot, TV has profitable comedies about Boston Drunks. Miss Alley is also a contributing associate of the Church of Scientology.
Self Loathing is a problem for millions, and yes, it is a profit center for unscrupulous businesses. It is much, much more than weight loss programs. The Jesus Worship Church uses self loathing as a recruiting tool. If people would learn to love themselves because they are G-d’s children, and are worthy of this love for that reason alone, the American consumer economy just might fall apart.
PG has had self esteem issues, and, rather than drag this post into eternity, will mention one. After de toxing himself from alcohol and other substances, PG is just as slack as ever.

PG recently finished a sticker picture. The name of the image is 313 T Fascism. The T is for triangle. They have triangles in Texas and Tennessee.
Originally, the design was a graffiti inspired group of geometric shapes. There are no curved lines in this image…all the lines are straight. This made the final assembly much easier than usual, and created far less scrap. To make up the difference, image 314 will be all curving lines.
At some point in the design process, all the shapes were rendered into triangles. This gave the picture some unity that was lacking when four and five sided polygons were in the house. This conversion of the picture to an all triangle affair suggested the concept of triangle fascism.
There are 52 triangles in 313 T Fascism. Some of them have 90 degree angles, and all the trigonometric qualities therein. Due to the asymmetric nature of the image, it is assumed that all 52 triangles are scalene, or having three different side dimensions and angles. PG is not about to measure the triangles to find out for sure, and is comfortable with the possibility of an isosceles, or even an equilateral, triangle in the midst .
PG had a Geometry teacher in tenth grade named Cofield. She said, without elaboration, that the Pythagorean theorem…the triangle happy cornerstone of mathematics…can be disproven. She was a volunteer in LSD experiments, and said a good glass of whiskey would do more for you.
You could not have triangles without 3. This is a remarkable number. If you divide a number, that is not a multiple of 3, by 3, then you get an eternally repeating decimal of either .333 or .666. The cipher 3 is made of three lines, held together by two semi circles.
The number three is prominently used in religion, mythology, science, and dining. It is the first odd number after one, and is a prime number. When combined with 5 and 8, 3 is a side of a golden triangle. The world as we know it today would not exist if it were not for three.

There apparently is a commercial on TV now featuring “The world’s most interesting man”. An embedded video of this critter is a facebook mainstay. PG  seldom watches the tube, and had no clue who TWMIM was.
Fortunately for the unwired PG, YouTube/Google has a profligate search engine. All one has to do is type “the most in” and the rest pops up, as if by magic. As it happens, TWMIM is a spokesman for a brand of legal drug. PG chooses not to further publicize this product.
As is the custom at youtube/google, the rest of the search page yields similar entries. Some of these entries are more interesting than whatshisnamethatneedsashave. At the top of the list, under improtant videos, is “The most beautiful man in the world…simon lebon”. SLB had something to do with a band called Duran Duran. Their fifteen minutes of fame was 27 years ago. PG decides that he is not interested in pursuing this.
The next three entries are worlds most dangerous man, most t shirts worn at one time, and most beautiful man part two. PG bites on MBMITWP2. The resulting video is a b&w film of a body building contest, with commentary in a foreign language.
The fourth entry is where we strike pay dirt. It is a video…”It’s A Man’s World – James Brown & Pavarotti”. Mr. P must not have a first name. As the blurb notes say: “James Brown & Pavarotti live!!! This incredible performance is one of the most electrifying collaborations ever assembled. Sheer perfection!!! Sp Thanks to, Enigma Solved “ 911 for the language police, an adjective crime has been committed.

PG has a friend named Uzi. They go for walks, eat at cafeterias, and exchange joke emails.
Today, PG received this. By amazing coincidence, today is his 55th birthday. It is a big deal whether he passes or fails this test.
This is going to be a three color affair. The test questions, and commentary, will be in green. The answers the PG gives will be in blue. The official answer will be in purple.
PG also feels that dementia is a sexist phrase. It affects women as well as men. It should be called depeopletia.

Exercise of the brain is as important as exercise of the muscles.
As we grow older, it’s important that we keep mentally alert.
The saying; “If you don’t use it, you will lose it” also applies to the brain. Below is a very private way to gauge your loss or non-loss of intelligence. So, take the following test presented here and determine if you are losing it or are still “with it..” The spaces below are to give you time to decide before you see the answers.
OK, relax, clear your mind and … begin.
WELL MAYBE NOT THAT CLEAR!
1. What do you put in a toaster?
Electricity.
Answer: “bread.” If you said “toast,” then give up now and go do something else. Try not to hurt yourself. If you said, “bread,” go to Question 2.
2. Say “silk” five times. Now spell “silk.” What do cows drink?
Beer.
Answer: Cows drink water. If you said “milk,” please do not
attempt the next question. Your brain is obviously over stressed and may even overheat. It may be that you need to content yourself with reading something more appropriate
such as Children’s World. If you said “water” then proceed to question 3.
3. If a red house is made from red bricks and a blue house is made from blue bricks, and a pink house is made from pink bricks and a black house is made from black bricks, what is a green house made from?
A Loan from the Bank.
Answer: Greenhouses are made from glass. If you said “green
bricks,” what the devil are you still doing here reading these questions????? If you said “glass,” then go on to Question 4.
4. It’s twenty years ago, and a plane is flying at 20,000 feet over Germany (If you will recall, Germany at the time was politically divided into West Germany and East Germany) Anyway, during the flight, TWO of the engines fail. The pilot, realizing that the last remaining engine is also failing, decides on a crash landing procedure. Unfortunately the engine fails before he has time and the plane fatally crashes smack in the middle of “no man’s land” between East Germany and West Germany Where would you bury the survivors? East Germany or West Germany or in “no man’s land”?
You wait until they die, and ask the family.
Answer: You don’t, of course, bury survivors. If you said ANYTHING else, you are a real dunce and you must NEVER try to rescue anyone from a plane crash. Your efforts would not be appreciated. If you said, “Don’t bury the survivors”, then proceed to the next question.
PG’s feelings are hurt. But only a little bit. PG has lived near a small craft airport most of his life, heard one plane crash, and saw the results of about a dozen more. The chances of the average person…or PG…getting an opportunity to rescue anyone from a plane crash are roughly the same as being hit by lightning, while attending a home game for the Falcons.
5. Without using a calculator – You are driving a bus from London to Milford Haven in Wales. In London, 17 people get on the bus. In Reading, six people get off the bus and nine people get on. In Swindon, two people get off and four get on. In  Cardiff, 11 people get off and 16 people get on. In Swansea, three people get off and five people get on In Carmathen, six people get off and three get on. You then arrive at Milford Haven. What was the name of the bus driver?
It depends on whether the department of labor is involved.
Answer: Oh, for crying out loud! Don’t you remember your own name? It was YOU!!

The curiously named “Home Office” of the British Government released a list of 16 names. The people on this list are banned from entering the U.K. This has something to do with stirring up hatred.
In addition to the 16 listed, 6 names were not made public. This has something to do with “public interest”.
Only three names on this list are familiar to PG. This would be Fred Phelps, Shirley Phelps-Roper, and Michael Savage. Margie Phelps may be one of the 6 whose names were not released.
The 16 who made the cut are:
ABDULLAH QADRI AL AHDAL…YUNIS AL ASTAL…STEPHEN DONALD BLACK… WADGY ABD EL HAMIED MOHAMED GHONEIM…ERIC GLIEBE…MIKE GUZOVSKY… SAFWAT HIJAZI…NASR JAVED… ABDUL ALI MUSA…FRED WALDRON PHELPS… SHIRLEY PHELPS-ROPER… SAMIR AL QUNTAR…ARTUR RYNO… RAVEL SKACHEVSKY…AMIR SIDDIQUE… MICHAEL ALAN WEINER (ALSO KNOWN AS MICHAEL SAVAGE)

PG is running out of things to say. Never mind having something good to say about anyone, he doesn’t have anything to say, good or bad. Fortunately, the computer he reads the internet with has this feature called copy and paste.
For the amusement of the reader(s) of this blog, Chamblee 54 presents this list. It is found at the ever entertaining EddyWu. Mr. Wu borrowed it from Discover Magazine.
1) The practice of burying the dead may date back 350,000 years, as evidenced by a 45-foot-deep pit in Atapuerca, Spain, filled with the fossils of 27 hominids of the species Homo heidelbergensis, a possible ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans. 2)Never say die: There are at least 200 euphemisms for death, including “to be in Abraham’s bosom,” “just add maggots,” and “sleep with the Tribbles” (a Star Trek favorite). 3) No American has died of old age since 1951. 4) That was the year the government eliminated that classification on death certificates. 5) The trigger of death, in all cases, is lack of oxygen. Its decline may prompt muscle spasms, or the “agonal phase,” from the Greek word agon, or contest. 6) Within three days of death, the enzymes that once digested your dinner begin to eat you. Ruptured cells become food for living bacteria in the gut, which release enough noxious gas to bloat the body and force the eyes to bulge outward. 7) So much for recycling: Burials in America deposit 827,060 gallons of embalming fluid—formaldehyde, methanol, and ethanol—into the soil each year. Cremation pumps dioxins, hydrochloric acid, sulfur dioxide, and carbon dioxide into the air.8) Alternatively . . . A Swedish company, Promessa, will freeze-dry your body in liquid nitrogen, pulverize it with high-frequency vibrations, and seal the resulting powder in a cornstarch coffin. They claim this “ecological burial” will decompose in 6 to 12 months.9) Zoroastrians in India leave out the bodies of the dead to be consumed by vultures. 10) The vultures are now dying off after eating cattle carcasses dosed with diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory used to relieve fever in livestock. 11) Queen Victoria insisted on being buried with the bathrobe of her long-dead husband, Prince Albert, and a plaster cast of his hand. 12) If this doesn’t work, we’re trying in vitro! In Madagascar, families dig up the bones of dead relatives and parade them around the village in a ceremony called famadihana. The remains are then wrapped in a new shroud and reburied. The old shroud is given to a newly married, childless couple to cover the connubial bed. 13) During a railway expansion in Egypt in the 19th century, construction companies unearthed so many mummies that they used them as fuel for locomotives. 14) Well, yeah, there’s a slight chance this could backfire: English philosopher Francis Bacon, a founder of the scientific method, died in 1626 of pneumonia after stuffing a chicken with snow to see if cold would preserve it. 15) For organs to form during embryonic development, some cells must commit suicide. Without such programmed cell death, we would all be born with webbed feet, like ducks.
16) Waiting to exhale: In 1907 a Massachusetts doctor conducted an experiment with a specially designed deathbed and reported that the human body lost 21 grams upon dying. This has been widely held as fact ever since. It’s not. 17) Buried alive: In 19th-century Europe there was so much anecdotal evidence that living people were mistakenly declared dead that cadavers were laid out in “hospitals for the dead” while attendants awaited signs of putrefaction. 18) Eighty percent of people in the United States die in a hospital. 19) If you can’t make it here . . . More people commit suicide in New York City than are murdered. 20) It is estimated that 100 billion people have died since humans began.

What is a snob?
PG always thought it was someone who thought he was better than others. This is one of the “sins” that most people denounce, and then practice. Who doesn’t see someone that is just a few notches below you on the scale of human coolness? Or, who doesn’t see someone that is just a bit chillier.
A trip to the dictionary yields this:
1-a person who imitates, cultivates, or slavishly admires social superiors and is condescending or overbearing to others.
2-a person who believes himself or herself an expert or connoisseur in a given field and is condescending toward or disdainful of those who hold other opinions or have different tastes regarding this field: a musical snob
The origin of the word is amusing. Snob was a nickname for a cobbler, or someone who makes shoes.
This is a working class occupation, but one that is needed by all people. How this would become a label for someone who “puts on airs” is a mystery.
There are snobs in a book PG is reading, “The city of falling angels” by John Berendt. An American writer goes to live in Venice, and has tales to tell. At one point, there is a dispute in an organization devoted to restoring stuff in Venice, and some of the players are labeled snobs. On page 318, there is a definition of a snob. You can be a snob upwards, by working the people on a level above you. Or, you can be a snob downwards, by being rude to those on a level below you.
PG used to work in an architect’s office downtown. A man there had a sign above his desk. The sign said ” I have never met a snob who was not a born liar”. Beside that sign was a plastic case. Inside the plastic case was a white shirt, with an ink stain in the bottom of the front pocket.
The architect whose office PG worked in is famous. Some might be impressed. However, PG worked for a blueprint company, and was placed in the printroom there. It was nothing to brag about.
The reader may have figured out by now that this post is going to ramble for a few paragraphs and not really go anywhere. The practice of “uppity”, or “putting on airs”, is hard wired into the consciousness of almost everyone. Like telling the truth and lying, no one wants to admit to being a snob, and yet almost everyone plays the game on some level. Maybe the sign should have read “ I have never met a human being who was not a born liar“.

Back when PG was working at Shakey Blueprints, he had this running conversation. “PG you should write a book”. “No one would believe it”.
Now we fast forward to the blogosphere of 2009. You can write a post, and no sane person would believe it. The only problem is that it is the truth…at least part of the story is real.
The story in question is Carrie Prejean and Perez Hilton. As you probably know by now, Miss Prejean is Miss California, and was a finalist in the Miss USA pageant. Perez Hilton asked her whether the other states should follow the lead of Vermont, and legalize same sex marriage. Miss Cali gave a rambling answer. The bottom line was, her religion taught her that marriage was between a man and a woman.
The story went downhill from there. Mr. Hilton ( whose “real” name is Mario Lavandeira, which is spanish for laundromat) had a hissy fit, and insulted mama dogs. Miss Prejean opened her mouth, and has not shut it. It takes talent to make Perez Hilton look smart, but Carrie Prejean has done it.
Then reports came out that Miss Prejean had breast implants. There was a public statement by the Co Executive director of the Miss California Organization, speaking under the poetic handle Shanna Moakler. It turns out that the Miss California Organization paid for the breast implants.
You can’t make this stuff up.

Chamblee54 is not too proud to recycle posts. This one is about ugly. If you are looking for beauty, and her mouthy stepsister truth, then look elsewhere.
Beauty is skin deep. Ugly is to the bone.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Ugly uses all five senses.
Rahsaan Roland Kirk: I don’t want to see you people, you are all too ugly.
Stevie Wonder: All I see are beautiful people.
Rahsaan Roland Kirk: You know, Stevie Wonder wants to make a lot of money, so he can have an operation and see.
Ray Charles: It’s crying time again.
She is so ugly, she could make a freight train take a dirt road.
He is so ugly, when he was born the doctor slapped his mother.
Is that your face, or did your neck throw up?
French for ugly is : laid m., laide f . Can we say irony?
There are some Jesus Worship blogs that PG likes to read. One of them recently made the lighthearted suggestion that ugly people were not welcome at the church of the other one. The recipient  found this to be “the deeply offensive false accusation he keeps leveling at me.”
FromTheMorning is the one standing up for the pulchritude challenged.
Pyromaniacs is the aggrieved party here. They say that ugly people “are not only welcome at my church; many of us actually participate in the ministry there”. PG believes you.
Ugly has another meaning. In fact, this is the first meaning PG heard for the U word, years before he connected it to people with unpleasant faces. It is about ugly behavior. People that are mean and cruel to each other. That is ugly.

At 7:28 pm, April 29, 2009, William Mark Mize was pronounced dead. He was poisoned by the State of Georgia. There was no report about what he had for his final meal.
The Story is that Mr. Mize was the leader of a white supremacist group called the National Vastilian Aryan Party (NVAP). On October 15, 1994, he went camping with five others. At some point, Mr. Mize said there was a crack house in Athens that he wanted burned down.
Chris Hattrup and Eddie Tucker stopped at a convenience store to buy lighter fluid, and then went to the crack house. When they got back to the car, Mr. Hattrup said Mr. Tucker did not know what he was doing. Mr. Mize said, you know what we need to do then.
The six went into a wooded area. Mize, Hattrup, and Tucker went ahead of the other three. Two shots were heard, and there was talk heard about how Tucker was still moving. A third shot to the head was made.
In the fourteen plus years between the murder and the execution, Mr. Mize had numerous arguments why he should be freed. Mr. Hattrup has stated that he fired all three shots, a view not believed by law enforcement. A site called lawskills goes into excruciating detail about the case.
It is not certain how much deterrent value this execution will have. It is fourteen years after the murder. The white supremacist angle does not speak well of anybody involved.

So, Father Tony did this interview with Andrew Holleran. There was an email exchange, where FT asked a few questions. At the end of the last question, Mr. Holleran made this observation:
p.s. These questions (above) are all so serious, it’s refreshing to know someone else cares about them, but the joke is you’re the one who should be answering them, not me!
Well, that sounded like an idea for a post. If anyone is not interested in the answers here, you can always look at the pictures.
1) What does one live for, if one doesn’t believe in god or an afterlife the quality of which is determined by our performance on earth?
PG may be the wrong person to ask this. He suspects there is a G-d, and that the world would be a happier place without her. As for life after death, that is not a good guide for life before death. Life is to be lived. Whether you are happy or sad, you are alive, and that is not being dead. Obsession with life after death is not a good foundation for a religion, either.
2) What does one live for if one is single with no foreseeable change to that status, or, single and making no effort to change that status?
PG suggests looking at answer one for this. PG has been single most of his life, and does not see it changing soon. Sometimes, he is surprised he has made it as far as he has. Regardless of what songwriters say, some people don’t do badly by themself.
3) There seemed to be happiness in your voice. What is the source of it, or did I read your voice incorrectly?
PG has been tagged with “negative attitude” for a while. He suspects that it is a bit of hype, but you learn to deal with it. After all, it is others who have to look at the face. Mr. Holleran had a good comment on this. AH: You know there are people at Harvard and no doubt other places studying happiness. and one theory is that people have a sort of fixed temperature to which they always return, no matter what happens to them – like a thermostat.
4) I’m almost done with the two “f” decades. (I barely remember the two “t” decades.) You are in the “s” decades. What is that like? What do you hope will happen when you get out of bed?
PG is in his “f’s”. He doesn’t hope for anything when he gets out of bed. If he can make it to the restroom without an accident, that is a plus. Not getting thumped upside the head is a good thing, as is not getting arrested or admitted to a hospital. PG prefers to remember to take food off the stove before it is burned, and to turn off the gas.
5) I see that at the Literary Festival in Fort Lauderdale you’ll be reading something from work in progress. Because I won’t be there to hear it, will you tell me anything about what you are working on, or about what you will read?
You are looking at it.