Chamblee54

A few years ago, PG worked at a place called Shaky Blueprints. In those days, construction was humming, and many days were spent trying to keep up. One afternoon, a stupidvisor was heard to say “Don’t worry if it’s done right, just get it done”.
A few years rolled by. One afternoon, PG found himself in a discussion about Religion, and buying 200 rolls of toilet paper at one time. The conversation quickly devolved.
all the jews do now is open bagel shops and buy 200 rolls of toilet paper at costco…
Mr. Sam isnt jewish, but buys that much toilet paper at a time…
jesus was not the only jew to perform miracles…
you USE that much toilet paper at a time…
hasn’t anyone else read the bible?…
the bible is an AWESOME book of fiction…
PG hands Mr. Sam a bottle of kaopectate…
I would rather believe in fiction than have no beliefs at all

PG looked out the window. A dog left animal waste in front of the vacant house.
PG got a piece of old carpet pad, and picked up the debris. The sample was then placed in a plastic bag on the stack of old carpet.
By this time, the dog and the dog owner were down the street. The only way to discuss the matter was to crank the car and drive .
Confrontations of this sort usually devolve into a tribal shouting match. The leash holder lady might have had a large, mean, non understanding man friend.
PG decided to let the matter slide, but felt like a coward.
PG often feels that dog owners are more trouble than they are worth.

Today is the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. This used to be a holiday in the US, along with Washington’s BD on February 22. Somehow, the two got combined into President’s Day.
It is unlikely that the two met, or knew much about the other. “On the origin of species” was published in 1859, as the United States teetered on the brink of catastrophe. There is a certain “Darwinism” in the way the unpleasantness of the eighteen sixties went down. The northeast quadrant of the United States gained dominance over a large chunk of North America, at a horrible cost. The concept that a human being could literally own another human being was banished from the Union.
There are two other anniversaries of note today. On February 12, 1733, James Oglethorpe landed a boatload of debtors on the future site of Savannah. This was the start of the Colony/State of Georgia.
There is another that continues the symmetry of Darwin/Lincoln, and was exactly 100 years later. On February 12, 1909, the NAACP was founded.

It is a staple of law and order politicians. We should have public executions, in the town square. This will increase the deterrent value of the killing. Now, in China, they have the the execution van. Only six people will fit in the witness chamber.
China executes a lot of people. The usual method has been a firing squad, but now the shift to lethal injection poisoning is taking place. The United States and Singapore are the other two countries where poisoning the condemned takes place.
Poisoning is said to be more humane than shooting. It also allows for the organs of the former criminal to be recycled.
The execution van is forty feet long, and will drive up to 80 mph. It will take the efficiency of poisoning criminals into the countryside. Communities will no longer have to build a death chamber for condemned criminals. It is made by a group called “Jinguan”.
HT to JoemyG-d and USA today.

Drugs and the athletes who *allegedly* use them are back in the news. An olympic swimmer is photographed with a bong in front of his mouth. A baseball player is said to use steroids. And the beat goes on.
One reason we know these young men so well is television. Their activities are a staple of the boob tube. This is paid for by advertising. One of the leading purchasers of sports broadcast advertising is alcohol.
Alcohol is america’s number one drug problem. There is no second place. Alcohol kills more people than all illegal drugs combined.
Any athlete who performs on television promotes alcohol use.

We had to have the garage door repaired. The &%&%&% repairman told us that one of our problems was that we did not have a ‘large’ enough motor on the opener. I thought for a minute, and said that we had the largest one &%&%&% made at that time, a 1/2 horsepower. He shook his head and said, ‘Lady, you need a 1/4 horsepower.’ I responded that 1/2 was larger than 1/4. He said, ‘NO, it’s not.’ Four is larger than two..’. My daughter and I went through the #$#$#$’s take-out window and I gave the clerk a $5 bill. Our total was $4.25, so I also handed her a quarter. She said, ‘you gave me too much money.’ I said, ‘Yes I know, but this way you can just give me a dollar bill back.’ She sighed and went to get the manager who asked me to repeat my request. I did so, and he handed me back the quarter, and said “We’re sorry but they could not do that kind of thing.’ The clerk then proceeded to give me back$1 and 75 cents in change. ..The stoplight on the corner buzzes when it’s safe to cross the street. I was crossing with an intellectually challenged coworker of mine. She asked if I knew what the buzzer was for. I explained that it signals blind people when the light is red. Appalled, she responded, ‘What on earth are blind people doing driving?!… My daughter went to a local @#@#@#@ and ordered a taco. She asked the person behind the counter for ‘minimal lettuce.’ He said he was sorry, but they only had iceburg lettuce… I was at the airport, checking in at the gate when an airport employee asked, ‘Has anyone put anything in your baggage without your knowledge?’ To which I replied, ‘If it was without my knowledge, how would I know?’ He smiled knowingly and nodded, ‘That’s why we ask.’.. I work with an individual who plugged her power strip back into itself and for the sake of her life, couldn’t understand why her system would not turn on… At a good-bye luncheon for an old and dear coworker. She was leaving the company due to ‘downsizing.’ Our manager commented cheerfully, ‘This is fun. We should do this more often.’ Not another word was spoken. We all just looked at each other with that deer-in-the-headlights stare… When my husband and I arrived at an automobile dealer ship to pick up our car, we were told the keys had been locked in it. We went to the service department and found a mechanic working feverishly to unlock the driver’s side door. As I watched from the passenger side, I instinctively tried the door handle and discovered that it was unlocked. ‘Hey,’ I announced to the technician, ‘its open!’ His reply, ‘I know. I already got that side.’… I live in a semi rural area. We recently had a new neighbor call the local township administrative office to request the removal of the DEER CROSSING sign on our road. The reason: ‘Too many deer are being hit by cars out here! I don’t think this is a good place for them to be crossing anymore.’

The preceeding post about beautiful words had a couple of links. One was for beautiful words # 11-110. The other was for the 100 funniest words in english.
As you may have noticed, the list posted yesterday was not the ten most beautiful words in english. It was merely the first ten, in alphabetical order. The fact that number one rhymes with Detroit is a clue.
The second list….the 100 funniest words…. is also an a-z affair. The reality is that the last word is yahoo, and no z words made the cut.
PG decided to edit the list for the convenience of the reader. It occurred to him that perhaps this said more about PG than about the list…what words did he choose, and why?
Here is the list:
9 bloviate To speak pompously or brag.
23 crapulence Discomfort from eating or drinking too much.
24 crudivore An eater of raw food.
31 fatuous Unconsciously foolish.
32 fenestration Putting in windows.
39 fuddy-duddy An old-fashioned, mild-mannered person.
57 klutz An awkward, stupid person.
59 la-di-da A saying indicating that something is pretentious.
61 logorrhea Loquaciousness, talkativeness.
73 osculate To kiss.
83 rhinorrhea A runny nose. .
92 troglodyte Someone or something that lives in a cave.
This was going to be a bakers dozen, until a last minute review decided to pull “formication…The sense of ants crawling on your skin.” PG was slack about laundering some gym clothes once, and found out the literal meaning of “ants in your pants”. There was nothing funny about it.
Fenestration is better known to mystery fans as defenestration, or tossing a person out a window. A office worker who helps the boss throw someone out the window is a defenestrative assistant.
It seems to PG that comedy/funny prose is a matter of context, rather than individual funny words. Humor is also a matter of taste. Not being a female comedian, PG does not understand why it is so funny that men do not ask for directions.
If Don Rickels produced this list, hockey puck would be on it.
Spell check suggestions for this feature:
bloviate- obviate, alleviate, abbreviate, novitiate, deviated
crapulence- corpulence, opulence, fraudulence. truculence
crudivore- carnivore, divorcee, divorce, herbivore
fuddy duddy- ruddy, muddy, buddy, daddy
logorrhea- gonorrhea, pyorrhea, amenorrhea,seborrhea
rhinorrhea- gonorrhea, pyorrhea, amenorrhea,seborrhea

There is a post today about 10 beautiful english words. HT to the WordPress home page.
The words are:
1. adroit: dexterous, agile
2. adumbrate: to very gently suggest
3. aestivate: to summer, to spend the summer
4. ailurophile: a cat-lover
5. beatific: befitting an angel or saint
6. beleaguer: to exhaust with attacks
7. blandiloquent: beautiful & flattering
8. caliginous: dark & misty
9. champagne: an effervescent wine
10. chatoyant: like a cat’s eye
Adroit is also the first word on the list. When PG was young enough to think it was funny, he read MAD magazine. There was a poem once:
Tigers Tigers fighting bright/In the ballparks of the night /Your pitchings fair, your fields adroit/So why no pennant for Detroit.
A commenter at the original post begs to differ:
I take issue with the top word on your list. Adroit comes from the French word for “right”, as in “right handed”. It is the direct antonym of gauche, both in English and in its native French where it means “left”, as in “left handed”. As a non-right-hander I find both of these words to be handist and offensive.
The last time I checked, left handed was not a protected category, discrimination wise.( Oxymoron alert). The current resident of the White House is a lefty. On the minus side, fabled southpaw Sandy Koufax invested money with Bernie Madoff.
And so it goes. Two of the ten are related to cats. PG has the same attitude towards felines that cats display towards humans. PG is not dependent on Kitties for his meals.
PG would like to adumbrate that you know how to pronounce these words before using them in conversation. Mispronounced big words are not flattering to the user. Like Sheriff Taylor said about his deputy once, “Barney tries to put his best foot forward, and then trips over it”.
Spell Check Suggestions for this feature:
aestivate- activated, activate, captivate, festival, cultivate
ailurophile- audiophile, Anglophile, bibliophile, necrophilia,
blandiloquent- grandiloquent, magniloquent, blandishment
caliginous- vertiginous, cartilaginous, mucilaginous
chatoyant- clairvoyant, eschatology, flamboyant, Chattanooga
handist- handiest
Koufax- Bouffant

Lostmissing is a public art project. It is produced by Mattilda, a San Francisco based author. Here is letter 4.
Our last conversation, or not the last the second-to-last, right? The one when you got so enraged I thought you might hit me but even when I thought that I wanted to think I knew you wouldn’t but the truth is that you got so enraged I thought you might hit me. I started planning out what I would do, there wouldn’t be anything to do I mean I wouldn’t be able to fight you off. Later, when I told you that even though I knew you wouldn’t hit me I still felt that way, I mean I was scared and I was planning out what to do, no I didn’t say that part I just said even though I knew you wouldn’t hit me I still felt that way and you said I would never hit you, I’ve never hit anyone, you know that. And I said I know. Except maybe I don’t know. Last night I had this scary dream, really scary you were about to attack me. Then when I woke up I wondered whether a nightmare was better sleep than no sleep, but then I fell into something much calmer, it was such a relief when you asked me about these posters I said I thought I might never speak to you again and you were listening. When I started thinking about this project, it was a series of letters to you, letters that would be on the outside of the envelope so that even if you were going to throw them out then you might read something. Now I don’t know if I want you to be a part of this project at all, I mean yes I still feel silenced and I want to make you hear me but maybe in this public expression of grief and longing and love you don’t matter and that means more.

There is a man on the WordPress home page almost every day. He has a walrus mustache and talks about climate change.
PG is neutral about climate change. He hears the wind blowing from the Gory alarmists, and the hears the whirlwind from the subsidized poopooers. He sees things to admire on both sides.
There is a lot of talk about prove. PG suspects that when people say prove, they mean indicate. There is a difference between prove and indicate. Yes, this and that are happening, but does anything really prove anything? Maybe there is another reason for it.
One manifestation of excess CO2 is changing with the ph balance of the oceans. It seems like the waters are absorbing the CO2, and the alkalinity of the water is changing. What effect this has on marine life is, at this point, unknown. Global warming may turn out to be the least of our problems.
It is clear that there are those who have a financial interest in not enacting climate control regulations. These people find it a good investment to hire their own scientists, to put out statements “disproving” global warming. Many journalists and radio whiners are probably on the take as well.
The ecosystem of earth supports a wide variety of life. This mix of elements has evolved over billions of years. In the last two hundred years, we have tampered with this balance. The effects of this tampering are unknown, and may indeed be beneficial. It is a chance we are taking, and we do not know the results.

What follows was originally posted at my original blog. I wrote in first person shamelessly.
The subject is timeless. In the fifteen months since I posted this, a Kansas/Kenya man with dark skin has been elected President. The playing field is having a fruit basket turnover. No one is really certain what is what anymore, except things are different.
The thing I would like to further comment on is the reality of black people using the N word. It is a word that degrades the person who uses it. For a person of color, it degrades them as the object, as well as the speaker.
I cannot help but wonder why a person would want to do that to themself,  their family, and their community.  Why should I have more respect for a person than he has for himself?
It is like smoking cigarettes. Yes, it is legal, and you have the right to pull toxic chemicals into your body. But why on earth would you want to?
Here is the original post.
The good thing about not having a big audience is the freedom to discuss touchy subjects. I can say more or less anything I want, and since very few are reading, there is no problem.
With that in mind, I approach the subject for today’s lesson…the “N word”. It doesn’t get much touchier.
Now, we all know what that word is. It has six letters, rhymes with trigger, and makes the brains of some people turn into jello. It is a derogatory phrase for people of African origin, and is familiar to a white southern person like myself.
I try to avoid using this term. There are four main reasons for this. If I ever get paid for doing this I will come up with a top ten list.
1- The N word hurts people’s feelings. I have known many fine Black people, and my life is much richer as a result. I do not want to say anything that will hurt these people. As for the not so fine Black People that I have known, they are G-d’s children just like me. My fellow human beings do not deserve to be insulted just for who they are.
2- Being heard saying the N word can cause all sorts of problems. This can include physical retribution, loss of employment, lawsuits, and having to listen to enough loud angry words to make you wish you had never learned how to talk.
3- It is not a fair fight. There is no equivalent phrase for a Black Person to say to a white person. I do not wish to give that power to another group of people… to turn me into a mass of incoherent rage, just for hearing a six letter word.
The closest thing to this is “Cracker”, which I only recently found out was an insult. This is odd, because when I was a boy, we had a minor league baseball team called the Atlanta Crackers. There was even a team in the Negro League called the Black Crackers.
4- The use of the N word demeans the user. When you say an insulting word about another human being, you make yourself look bad.
When you hate someone, you hate yourself worse than the person you hate. And frankly, a lot of these people are not worth it.
Now, if the N word demeans a paleface like myself, what does it say about a black person who uses it?