Chamblee54

Today is August 16. At least here and now…according to GMT it will be the 17th soon.
On this day in 1958, Madonna was born.
On this day in 1977, Elvis left the building.
On this day in 1986, a Madonna fan died on his birthday. JoemyG-d has the story here.
Other births on this day include T.E. Lawrence (1888), Charles Bukowski (1920) Frank Gifford (1930) Edie Gorme'(1931) and Kathie Lee Gifford (1953). Other celebrities to check out include Babe Ruth (1948 ) Margaret Mitchell (1949) Bela Lugosi (1956) and Idi Amin (2003). Thank you Wikipedia.
In other news, the John Edwards affair just keeps getting stranger. There are some strange stories coming out about Rielle Hunter. She was born Lisa Gluck, and had the sense to change her name. She was a gf of Jay McInerney, who based a character on her. The story about the racehorse is a shocker.
Spell check suggestions for this feature:
Bukowski- Mankowski, Kowalski, Buckskin
Gorme’- Gore, Gorge
Idi- edi, ida, midi, didi, id
Amin- armin, amie, Main, amino. akin
Gluck- luck, cluck, pluck

1. Law of Mechanical Repair – After your hands become coated with grease, your nose will begin to itch and you’ll have to pee. 2. Law of Gravity – Any tool, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible corner.3. Law of Probability -The probability of being watched is directly proportional to the stupidity of your act .4. Law of Random Numbers – If you dial a wrong number, someone always answers.5. Law of the Alibi – If you tell the boss you were late for worbecause you had a flat tire, the very next morning you will have a flat tire.6. Variation Law – If you change lines (or traffic lanes), the one you were in will always move faster than the one you are in now (also works at bank and grocery every time). 7. Law of the Bath – When the body is fully immersed in water, the telephone rings. 8. Law of Close Encounters -The probability of meeting someone you know increases dramatically when you are with someone you don’t want to be seen with. (doubles if attractive person of opposite sex) 9. Law of the Result – When you try to prove to someone that a machine won’t work, it will. 10. Law of Biomechanics – The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach.11. Law of the Theater – At any event, the people whose seats are furthest from the aisle arrive last.. 12. The Starbucks Law – As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee, your boss will ask you to do something which will last until the coffee is cold. 13. Murphy’s Law of Lockers – If there are only two people in a locker room, they will have adjacent lockers. 14. Law of Physical Surfaces – The chances of an open-faced jelly sandwich landing face down on a floor covering are directly correlated to the newness and cost of the carpet/rug.15. Law of Logical Argument – Anything is possible if you don’t know what you are talking about. Also known as Classing’s Imperative.16. Brown’s Law of Physical Appearance – If the clothes fit off the rack, they’re probably ugly. 17. Oliver’s Law of Public Speaking – A closed mouth gathers no feet. 18. Wilson’s Law of Commercial Marketing Strategy – As soon as you find a product that you really like, they will stop making it.19. Doctors’ Law – If you don’t feel well, make an appointment to go to the doctor, by the time you get there you’ll feel better. Don’t make an appointment and you’ll stay sick.

Some of the reports coming back from the new conflict are disturbing.
It seems like some Georgians thought the USA was going to come to their rescue. Georgia is a member of “ the coalition of the willing”, and thought it was going to be a member of NATO. If that had come to pass, the USA would be treaty bound to send troops to fight the Russians. As if our armed forces are ready for another battle. The war in Babylon has taken its toll.
How many other countries have we agreed to help if they anger their neighbor?
Some of the news reports from Russia openly blame America for this.
Before the shooting started, very few Americans were aware of the Russian-Georgian dispute. Out attention was distracted by the war in Babylon, an election, an economy in tatters, and Britney Spears.
Russia is getting bad press in this affair. They have a mighty army, and don’t seem to care what the rest of the world thinks. There are similarities with the American invasion of Iraq.

PG and his pal Uzi had used up all the good places for a sunday afternoon walk. Then Uzi suggested Atlantic Station.
The first stop on the tour was IKEA. PG had heard all the stories describing the place as a retail Hotel California…you can check in, but you cannot check out.
Uzi wanted to see the place, and there were a few spots left in the parking lot. Getting to these places was easier said than done, but after waiting for the vehicles in line to pick up merchandise, the Green Honda was in a space.
IKEA made PG feel so single. All those charming families in the midst of that abundant merchandise. After following the arrows through two levels, the two walkers were expelled into the sunshine.
There were two possible destinations ….the millennium gate, and the mosque. The more secular was chosen. The Millennium Gate gives new meaning to the phrase tacky. Then, the green metal statue honoring “Justice” was examined.
The next stop was the bridge over the freeway. First, there was a detour to the various shrines of retail splendor. An open air market was found. PG stopped to take a picture of a merchant, who waved his arms vigorously and screamed no. This was the cause of much speculation, with Uzi saying he was a fugitive and PG suspecting bootleg merchandise.
Before long, the pair was going down an escalator into a parking facility. There was a money taking box to allow you to pay for your parking. It seems like the whole place is on top of a parking garage. Uzi wondered what would happen when some otp visitors got beaten up by marauding urban teenagers in this garage. This is consistent with his opinion that Atlantic Station was the second coming of Underground Atlanta.
And so it goes. The bowling alley was rented out to a private party. The outfitter store was a glorified version of the gap. Construction was around every corner.
On the way back to IKEA, there was another green metal statue. The first guess was that it was dedicated to truth. After all, truth and justice go together everywhere except the courtroom. But alas, the green metal statue was in honor of peace.

The postcard said free pizza.
Jill Chambers, the incumbent representative from the 81st district, had a campaign rally at Gallas Pizza. The pizza place was the former Park and Shop. It has been nicely redone, with almost all traces of the Park and Shop gone.
As soon as I arrived, I was greeted by Mrs. Chambers. I got to talk to her, and she said that she had read my blog. She agreed with my assessment of the democratic hopefuls.
I asked Mrs. Chambers what she wanted to do about water. She said that a comprehensive water plan had been passed in the house, but that it was a complicated issue. It was noted that the dozens of governments were competing for the development. If one municipality turned down a developer, it could go to a neighbor. Ultimately, no one wants to be responsible for the water supply.
Her guest at the rally was House Speaker Glenn Richardson. There was only one person wearing a tie, who I guess was working for the Speaker.
Before long, the pizza was served. I got a slice of something with sun dried tomatoes and pepperoni, sprinkled with powdered cheese. The pizza was good, and the soft drinks were free. I saw Mr. Richardson dispose of an empty beer bottle.
I was getting ready to leave, when Mrs. Chambers spoke to the crowd. Mr. Gallas was called out of the kitchen, and given a state flag. Mrs. Chambers and Mr. Richardson spoke to the crowd.
After the speech, I asked Mrs. Chambers how long the state flag would be good. “Forever”.

Today is 080808. This first decayed decade of the new age has only one year left, so when we have 090909 that will be all. That will be two days before the eighth anniversary of 911. The Chinese think that 8 is a magic number. The Olympics started at 8:08 on 080808. I seldom watch tv, so an Olympic boycott is moot for me. The human rights abuses are really bad, but I keep on buying the product of those nasty factories. I just might be complicit. I hear the Chinese are leading lenders for our national debt. That might be like buying whiskey for an alcoholic. All of us are in the gutter, but some of us are looking at stars. Twelve years ago, the Olympics came to Atlanta. While not a perfect event, this was the nicest I have ever seen the people of this city. We went back to our nasty selves soon enough. Back to the number eight. It is a dandy digit. It is two cubed, and in some number systems is the same as 100. It is the infinity symbol at a ninety degree angle, and two hundred seventy degrees. With the advent of text messaging, 8 is a very handy symbol. It sounds just like “ate”. You can use it to say str8, c8ter, and m8. Isn’t that gr8?

There is nothing to do at 4 in the morning, and yet there is everything. The only problem is staying awake at work all day, but I can fake that.
This is also election runoff day. In one hour and eight minutes, the polls will open. Maybe, just maybe, I can be the first person to vote at this precinct this morning. It might be quite the social scene waiting outside for the doors to open.
I have already had one first today. A blog hero just got back from a vacation cruise, and he had a selection of pictures. He is on a train into Manhattan as we type. I saw that no one had made a comment, so I went for it, and got in first:

I got up in the middle of the night and could not go back to sleep. After playing with the computer and eating, I decided to go grocery shopping. The store is really different at 4:30 in the morning, but I didn’t care. Then, there was the shocking discovery that my store did not have fresh corn. I had to go to another 24 hour Kroger to get my corn. This Kroger used to be an A&P. They tore down the A&P that had been there since 1960 and built a super big A&P. My mother shopped in the old A&P every Thursday afternoon for 36 years, until they tore it down to build a super big store. She went to the Kroger with no corn while this was happening. Then the new A&P was finished. My mother died a few months later, and within six weeks, A&P closed all the Atlanta stores. The supersize store became an all night Kroger, and they had fresh corn for me this morning.
Yea, the store was different. The stockerdudes were in the aisles putting product on the shelves. The only checkout available was the self scan, which I am trained on but not certified.
Leaving the Clairmont Kroger en route to the Brookhaven Kroger, I decided to see what am radio was like at four something in the morning. The first voice was talking about Skip Carey. As a non sports fan, I felt like an outsider at this. I do admit to admiration for Mr. Carey. Anyone that could watch all those Braves games in the 1980’s and not go postal was a strong man.
While I was on the computer earlier, I went to the Wikipedia page for Milo Hamilton. He was the Braves announcer when they first came to Atlanta, and I listened. Mr. Hamilton does not suffer from false modesty.
And so it goes. The runoff election will not be appealing. I have been following the Dekalb CEO race the last few days, and we seem to have a choice between Bill Campbell part two and Mr. Postcard. I will probably hold my nose. The voting is held in the cafetorium of my grammar school. I have held my nose in there before.
Spell check suggestions for this feature:
puntabulous- fabulousness, accountableness, accountability, nebulousness, insurmountably
wikipedia- pediatric, cyclopedia, hypermedia, stipendiary, impedimenta
cafetorium- crematorium, sanatorium, auditorium, moratorium, cafeteria

The flapette continues about the postcard(s) from the Stan Watson campaign. I am going to leave that to others to sort out. This incident does illustrate a problem with the BHO campaign.
In the “concerned citizens” postcard, Mr.Watson is boasting about his endorsement of BHO. He claims that he is trying to help elect an African American President. My question is, where does this leave a white voter?
The contest between BHO and JSM is showing signs of degenerating into a black vs. white campaign. This could only benefit JSM, and may indeed be his best chance to pull out this election.
BHO is walking a fine line. On the one hand, he needs to energize the African American vote. On the other hand, he cannot scare white people. It is going to be quite a balancing act.
Over the years, I have learned one thing. When it is us against them, you need to remember which one you are. If the Black endorsements of BHO get too strident, this is going to scare white people. The wingnut end of the corporate media is already beating the drums for this. We saw this recently, when a mild comment about how ” I don’t look like the Presidents on the dollar bills ” was blown up into playing the race card from the bottom of the deck.
BHO is a sharp cookie, and he knows this. He recently said “In no way do I think that John McCain’s campaign was being racist,” …”I think they’re cynical,” …”And I think they want to distract people from talking about the real issues.” Maybe we need a semantic microscope to explore the difference between racist and cynical.
BHO has run a remarkable, savvy campaign so far. The Repubs and their buddies in the corporate media are piling up mudballs to throw at him. He needs to do what he has done so far, and not let the mud stick. And his “supporters” should let go of his coattails.

The runoff elections are next Tuesday. In Dekalb County, the CEO is running for the US Senate, and there is a race ( key word here) to determine who the next CEO will be.
Peach Pundit has compared the postcards sent out by Stan Watson. He is running against Burrel Ellis for the CEO position.
I live in a white neighborhood. I received a postcard from “Stan Watson for Dekalb CEO” , with a Wesley Chapel Road address. This postcard lists his website, the prosaic stanwatson.com. ( This was an issue with Cecillia Haley. She used a goofy web address, and left CecilliaHaley.com to her opponent to use as an attack site). The postcard is a fairly nondescript affair, with the usual homilies about building a better county. All the people endorsing Mr. Watson are white. Included in the endorsers is Karla Drenner, who is openly gay.
Apparently, the black neighborhoods are getting a different message. The postcard makes some confusing charges about Burrel Ellis. It seems like he favored black officials before he ran for CEO, but appointed white officials to different positions after the decision to run. ( One wonders how Mr. Ellis got in the position to appoint officials, if he was a mere district council representative)
The other charge that Mr. Watson makes against Mr. Ellis is that Mr. Ellis did not endorse Barack Obama. To quote from the postcard: “ Stan Watson is one of the very first democrats in the state of Georgia to endorse Barack Obama in 2007 and has worked with Obama’s staff to ensure that he is elected the first African American President of the United States of America. Stan Watson was a part of the foundation that helped to anchor Barack Obama’s statewide victory and has the ties with Barack and Michelle Obama to make a difference in Dekalb County!”
The “Black” postcard does not show the Watson web address. The return address is “Concerned Dekalb Citizens”, with a Don Juan Lane address.
One wonders if BHO is aware of the coattail pulling by Mr. Watson. It is a mystery to this reporter what the race for POTUS has to do with collecting garbage in Lithonia.

I knew we were in for the strangest election ever when I saw this video.

But I had no idea. This is the first youtube presidential election. From Larry Sinclair to the Snowman, we are in uncharted territory. Maybe this is the uncharted terrorist.
The Demos have a clear lead in the follies. The repubs still think it is 1952, and are looking for a dog named Checkers. This video is typical of the Gross Old Perverts:


There is satire. These make the New Yorker cover look like a boring still cartoon. It extends Chris Crocker’s fame all the way to sixteen minutes. Which is not bad for someone who acts like he is nine. (Warning: This video has bad language.) ( This video is courtesy of a link to JoemyGod. It is not on youtube that I know, and I don’t know how to embed it. Maybe I really am a Republican after all.)

And then there was JibJab. The sound you hear is Bob Dylan rolling in his…wait, he is still alive.


On a more serious note, another disturbing trend has been spotted by your slack blogger here. Three Presidents in recent memory have had two daughters, one wife, and no sons. This is the combination achieved by BHO. It is one wife fewer than JSM.
The other recent Presidents with two daughters were Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and George W. Bush. Somehow, I don’t think you are going to hear this from the BHO campaign.
Spell check suggestions for this feature:
crocker- rockers, clocker, crackers, croakers, crockery

There is a fine mp3 site called The Aquarium Drunkard. Today he put up some selections from a man I saw once, Roy Buchanan. His name had the dread phrase “the late” in front of it.
This is news to me, twenty years after the fact. It seems like August 14, 1988, his substance abuse issues got him locked up. A few hours later, he was found hanging by his shirt .
Mr. Buchanan opened for the Jefferson Starship at the Omni in 1976. He was a technical virtuoso, making sounds out of his guitar that were not supposed to be made. He was always on the verge of superstardom, but never seemed to get into the upper circles of fame. Meanwhile, Gracie Slick spent too much time at the hospitality table, and gave a poor performance.

At this time, I would look on the index page of New Yorker magazine at newstands. There is a list of cartoonists who had cartoons in that issue, in the order of appearance. I would look for Charles Addams, and see if I could find his cartoon.
Charles Addams drew the cartoons that were the basis for the Addams Family. He liked to say that he modeled Uncle Fester on himself. Many,many stories are told about him.
Sometime in the late eighties, I noticed that he no longer had cartoons in the magazine. I continued to look until about 1991, when I found a book about him. The reason I didn’t see cartoons anymore was that Mr. Addams died September 29, 1988.

Going up to Kennesaw this afternoon, I was greatly amused to hear a guest on the Mike Gallagher Show. The visitor was my former Congresswoman, Cynthia McKinney.
Miss McKinney is running for president as the candidate of the Green Party. She is following in the footsteps of Zell “Zig Zag” Miller, who abandoned the Democratic Party to shill for Republicans. On the radio today, she said that the Greens were an international party, that has had a tough time getting on the ballot in Georgia.

I enjoy the convenience and innuendo of referring to Presidential hopefuls by their initials. There is a slight problem with Cynthia Ann McKinney. CAM is the first syllable of my middle name, and was chosen as my given name. I still employ it for this purpose. The bottom line is, I will refer to Cynthia Ann McKinney as Miss McKinney. She was married at one time to Mr. Coy Grandison (with whom she had a son, Coy McKinney, born in 1987). The various websites promoting her and her candidacy do not provide much personal information.
This could be a plus, IMO. I am tired of candidates running their long suffering families into the public eye. A woman who is unashamedly not married would be an political innovation .
Miss McKinney has a reputation as a loose cannon. Her visit on the Gallagher show was highly entertaining. He asked her about the incident where she slapped a security guard at the U. S. Capitol, and she refused to answer. She said what she wanted to say, including saying that the democrats and republicans were both complicit in war crimes in Babylon.
Her strong stand against the War in Babylon is most appealing. She is probably no more capable of dealing with the mess there than BHO or JSM. If you want to make a protest vote against the killing, she is your lady.
Her vice presidential candidate is Rosa Clemente. Miss Clemente is a “hip hop activist”. When questioned by Mr. Gallagher about the seamier aspects of hip hop culture, Miss McKinney replied that he was thinking about corporate hip hop.
Cynthia Ann McKinney does not have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting elected. The most she can hope to do is siphon votes away from one of the two corporate candidates. To her credit, she seems to have a new hairdo. Gone is the Alfalfa looks, replaced by a more conservative look. As far as the hair issue goes, she is a clear winner over BHO and JSM.
If you want to help her retire Miss McKinney retire her congressional campaign debt , go here.
Spell check suggestions for this feature:
kennesaw- brokenness, keenness, drunkenness, tennessean
zell- ell, sell, tell, cell, dell, hell, bell, yell, fell, well,zee