Chamblee54

A popular link on facebook these days is to an article in Slate magazine, Why Do Millennials Not Understand Racism? It is written by Jamelle Bouie, and is based on the MTV Survey on Millenials and Race. Mr. Bouie does not like the results of this study.
One question might be why he is paying attention to the study. The results are broken down in two groups, white and POC. The study was conducted in English. The respondents were 14-24 years old, with the under 18 crowd needing parental permission. Only people who watch MTV were interviewed.
Some questions asked about “microaggressions” … “brief and commonplace actions or words that are subtle examples of bias. Microaggressions can be intentional or unintentional, and often communicate negative feelings towards people of color.” POC report having more problems with microaggressions than white people. One possible reason for this is the fact many white people have never heard of microaggressions. The use of words like this is one reason for using English only.
Mr. Bouie makes a few broad comments. Remember, he is talking about a group of MTV watchers. “More jarring is the 48 percent of white millennials who say discrimination against whites is as big a problem as discrimination against racial minorities. … But while this reaction doesn’t seem to have a basis in reality, it makes perfect sense given what millennials writ large believe about racism.”
Maybe this is white privilege. Many white people are not sensitive to being discriminated against. What is a microaggression to one person is a rude comment (or misunderstood look) to another.
The way the survey was worded might have something to do with it. The questionnare is not included in the report. The study does not go into the family income, or level of education in the family. The only breakdown is white vs. POC.
When a person gets on a roll, it is tough to stop. The rhetorical snowball rolls down the slope, getting bigger and bigger as it heads to the bottom. “From these results, it’s clear that—like most Americans—millennials see racism as a matter of different treatment, justified by race, that you solve by removing race from the equation. If we ignore skin color in our decisions, then there can’t be racism . … And the magic of white supremacy is that its presence is obscured by the focus on race. When a black teenager is unfairly profiled by police, we say it’s “because of the color of his skin,” which—as a construction—avoids the racism at play, from the segregated neighborhood the officer patrols to the pervasive belief in black criminality that shapes our approach to crime.”
Holy social scientist Batman. Who is this we? Most people never hear about a black (POC) teenage in his encounter with the police. Is it fair or unfair? Is it because of the color of his skin, or the 911 call that started the encounter? Yes, some police may target POC unfairly, and that is an issue to address. Runaway rhetoric by the likes of Jamelle Bouie does not help.
Maybe this is another case of the younger generation being misunderstood by the old fogeys. The study makes the shaky claim that “The majority of millennials believe that their generation is post-racial.” Perhaps … and this just might be a good thing … there are people coming along who are more interested in solving problems, than in worrying whether the problem affects white people more than POC. Maybe, just maybe, the divide and conquer tactics of the ruling class are being seen as the foolish distractions that they are. Those who enjoy screaming about racism might find themselves obsolete in a few years. This might not be such a bad thing.
This is a repost. Some text has been edited out of this edition. It is available in the original, and in the source document. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.

Lene Lovich was born Lili-Marlene Premilovich in Detroit, Michigan, March 30, 1949. She moved to England as a teenager, and met Les Chappell. He who played guitar in her band, and was her man.
As an art school student, she started to tie her long hair in plaits to keep it out of the clay while studying sculpture. Her recording debut was as part of an audience, when Chuck Berry recorded “My ding a ling”. This may have been the inspiration for “Lucky Number.”
Miss Lovich played in several bands, before winding up on the Stiff label. She put out two albums that became popular in the USA, and did a tour. After a while, she retired from music to raise a family. Miss Lovich has made a slight comeback in recent years.
PG had the privilege of seeing Lene Lovich at the Agora Ballroom, Atlanta GA, in the winter of 1980. The opening act was The Romantics. The show was taped for broadcast on the NBC radio network, and Don Pardo was on hand to introduce the bands.
The Romantics were unknown to the crowd at the Agora that night. They came on stage wearing costumes that looked like the Beatles of 1963. Every song they did was a bit better than the one before, and they got a big round of applause when the set ended.
Don Pardo had quite a career. He was the house announcer on November 22, 1963, and was the voice of NBC when he interrupted a soap opera to announce that John Kennedy had been “cut down with assassin’s bullets”. During his career as a TV announcer, Mr. Pardo could not use profanity. That night at the Agora, he made up for lost time…every other word he said was a cuss word. Dominick George “Don” Pardo, born February 22, 1918, passed away August 18, 2014.
Soon, Lene Lovich (spell check suggestion:lovechild) and her band came on stage. She was not the typical sexpot rock chanteuse… A bit chubby, with her long hair tied in plaits. Wearing a long sleeve black dress, probably stolen from a convent, she provided fantasy for only the kinkiest. Les Chappell was there, with his shaved head, to stop any trouble before it started, and play guitar.
The material came mostly from the first two albums on Stiff records. (At some point in the evening, someone…maybe Lovich, maybe Pardo…said “Be stiff”.) She introduced “Lucky Number” by saying “We have a song that goes ah oh aih oh”. During an instrumental jam in that song, she cried out “We have an American on keyboards”. The American was Thomas Dolby, who would soon go solo. He did not appear to be blinded by science.
The first encore was ” I think we’re alone now”, which had been a hit for Tommy James and the Shondells (spell check suggestions: shoulders, shovelfuls). Soon the night was over. Pictures are from the “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. This is a repost.
UPDATE: This comment was left on facebook “Those first two albums are GREAT. I probably saw her on this same tour; Dolby was with her. I was a club on South Street in Philly. She looked like a freaked-out Teutonic barmaid, the St. Pauli girl gone goth (before there was goth). Somehow, the sight of her playing sax was hilarious, and the concert was a blast. I bought a recent Thomas Dolby CD a couple months ago. Sucked, as, alas, did Lene’s last one.

In the past year, PG has learned that two poems he enjoyed were “borrowed.” One was in Mad Magazine. It was a poem about baseball. “Tigers Tigers, burning bright, in the ballparks, of the night, your pitching’s fair, your fields adroit, so why no pennant for Detroit.” Not only was this a memorable rhyme, but it has the word adroit. While this is a wonderful addition to a vocabulary, in forty eight years PG has never used it. Maybe the only thing it is good for is rhyming with Detroit.
PG is not terribly well educated when it comes to poetry. A lot of things slip by him. He did develop an admiration for Allen Ginsberg, which led to William Blake. One night, with the World Series in the background, PG found a poem by Mr. Blake, The Tyger.
“Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry?” Could it be that Mad was more fun to read? A more adroit turn of phrase? Or less prophetic… The Tigers won the World Series before the sixties were over.
In a few years, PG moved byond Mad Magazine. He read about these albums being sold by Warner Brothers. They were collections of songs from different artists, designed to make you want to buy more. “The Big Ball” cost two dollars by mail order. Side four was devoted to weird stuff. Captain Beefheart, The Mothers of Invention, The GTO’s, and Pearls Before Swine. The last band had a song, “Footnote,” which is embedded with this post.
“Footnote” is a quiet song, with easy to remember words. PG listened many, many times, and thought he had it figured out. It was about an arms dealer. Of course, most think the Pearls Before Swine is something in the Bible. Another version is when Clare Boothe Luce went into a room ahead of Dorothy Parker. “Age before beauty” “Pearls before swine”.
So anyway, there was an article about something, somewhere. It was quoting Wyston Hugh Auden, known mercifully by his initials W.H. This is another famous person that PG knew little about, other than his friendship with Christopher Isherwood. The quote was familiar. Then it hit… this was that song by Pearls Before Swine. It seems like the performer borrowed the lyrics from a copyrighted poem, Epitaph on a Tyrant.
Pictures for this repost are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. The second embedded video is from side four of “The Big Ball.” PG does not know if a famous poet was copied, or if this piece is original.

In honor of the National Day of Prayer, Chamblee54 presents an encore post, featuring a story by Mark Twain. The pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Over a hundred years ago, the United States was involved in a war that did not want to end. This conflict was in the Philippines. Although there had been an official end to the war, guerrillas continued to fight the Americans. The war was a nasty affair, with many atrocities.
The War against the Philippine people was a souvenir of the Spanish American War. There had been a rebellion against Spanish rule in the islands. After the American forces routed the Spanish, the rebellion shifted to the American occupiers. It was a war stumbled into, and difficult to end.
Mark Twain was horrified. He wrote a story, The War Prayer. As Lew Rockwell tells the tale. (The Rockwell link does not work. This source is similar, with a two part animated feature included.)
“Twain wrote The War Prayer during the US war on the Philippines. It was submitted for publication, but on March 22, 1905, Harper’s Bazaar rejected it as “not quite suited to a woman’s magazine.” Eight days later, Twain wrote to his friend Dan Beard, to whom he had read the story, “I don’t think the prayer will be published in my time. None but the dead are permitted to tell the truth.” Because he had an exclusive contract with Harper & Brothers, Mark Twain could not publish “The War Prayer” elsewhere and it remained unpublished until 1923.”
HT to David Crosby and his autobiography, “Since Then“. A book report is forthcoming.
Getting back to “A War Prayer“, the story starts in a church. A war has started, and is popular. The troops leave for glory the next day. The preacher has an emotional prayer to send them on their way. Unknown to the minister, there is a visitor. “An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher’s side and stood there, waiting.
With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal,” Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!”
The stranger motioned to the preacher to step aside. The stranger stepped into the pulpit, and claimed to have a message for the worshipers, sent directly from G-d. The preacher’s message was for support in time of war, and implied that G-d and the preacher support the same side in this conflict. There is an unspoken part to the prayer. This unspoken part was what the stranger was going to put into words.
“”O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle – be Thou near them! With them, in spirit, we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.“

There is a nifty article about Cary Grant and LSD on the web now. It seems Mr. Grant, the onetime Archibald Leach, had a few issues. Duh. Married five times. Widely rumored to the the bf of Randolph Scott. A talented actor, but a mess in the real world.
In 1956, Mr. Grant was with third wife Betsy Drake, who had a tough summer. “It was an open secret between cast and crew alike that the married Cary Grant was sleeping with Sophia Loren during their filming of The Pride and The Passion. Drake had flown to Italy to be by her husband’s side during the shoot only to find Grant ignoring her. Distraught, she fled on what was to be a quiet voyage on the SS Andrea Doria. On July 25, 1956 her quiescent journey turned into a nightmare. The ship collided with a Swedish ocean liner off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, sinking to the bottom of the Sea and claiming fifty-one lives.2 Betsy survived but was traumatized. The incident, coupled with the estrangement of her husband, haunted her in her sleep.”
Betsy Drake had a friend named Sally Brophy, an actress. Miss Brophy also received help from a psychiatrist, which included taking LSD. Eventually, Cary Grant started to go see this doctor.
Taking a legal trip, in a Hollywood doctor’s office, is not like going to a rave. It was seen as therapy, a way of learning how to deal with your problems. According to Cary Grant, it worked very well. He talked about it to a reporter, and then confirmed that he wanted this to go out to the public.
“The shock of each revelation brings with it an anguish of sadness for what was not known before in the wasted years of ignorance and, at the same time, an ecstasy of joy at being freed from the shackles of such ignorance … I learned many things in the quiet of that room … I learned that everything is or becomes its own opposite … it releases inhibition. You know, we are all unconsciously holding our anus. In one LSD dream I shit all over the rug and shit all over the floor. Another time I imagined myself as a giant penis launching off from earth like a spaceship … I seemed to be in a world of healthy, chubby little babies’ legs and diapers, smeared blood, a sort of general menstrual activity taking place … As a philosopher once said, you cannot judge the day until the night ..”
The only problem was, Mr. Grant had a movie coming out, “Operation Petticoat”. The studio “tripped out” when it heard the star of the show was praising LSD in the press. Mr. Grant had a share in the profits of the film, and was persuaded to call the reporter and recant on the interview.
Not everyone was impressed by the doctors that Mr. Grant used. “Aldous Huxley had encountered the clinic prior to his death, but had sought his LSD experiences from the parallel practice of Dr. Oscar Janiger, the other acid doctor to the stars. Huxley witnessed Chandler and Hartman’s work and was unnerved by their approach. “We met two Beverly Hills psychiatrists the other day,” he wrote, “who specialise in LSD therapy at $100 a shot – and, really, I have seldom met people of lower sensitivity, more vulgar mind! To think of people made vulnerable by LSD being exposed to such people is profoundly disturbing.”
In any event, LSD became criminalized, Doctors Chandler and Hartman got in trouble, and Cary Grant got married two more times. While Grant never renounced LSD, he refused to use any other illegal drug, even marijuana. He was a conservative old fogey.
Maureen Donaldson was the lover of Cary Grant in the seventies, and was a friend of Alice Cooper. She finally persuaded Mr. Grant to go to an Alice Cooper concert with her. He wore sunglasses, gold chains, and dressed like a “seedy agent”. He sat through the entire show, wearing earplugs, hating every minute of it.
As Miss Donaldson recalled the evening “Driving back to Los Angeles, I congratulated Cary for being such a good sport … He’d made an extraordinary effort to please me … [I asked him] ‘You really hated it, didn’t you?’ ‘It’s…’ he said, struggling for words, ‘you know what it’s like? Remember I told you about the time I took LSD in my doctor’s office and shat all over his rug and floor?’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Well now I know how that poor doctor felt.”
This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.

Joyce Carol Oates recently appeared on Bookworm. She was promoting The Sacrifice: A Novel. TSAN is a work of fiction, based on the Tawana Brawley rape allegations. Here is what the show says:
“In The Sacrifice (Ecco), a novel drawn from a notorious racially-steeped case of the late eighties, Joyce Carol Oates speaks of the domino-effect that started with one sacrifice and led to another and another, eventually eviscerating an entire town. By inhabiting her characters from the marginal to the central, Joyce Carol Oates asks herself “what would I do?” In this way she brings emotional clarity to the chaos of public experience.”
As you might recall, Tawana Brawly accused men of raping her. This created a firestorm of controversy. As the book sales pitch says, ” domino-effect … eventually eviscerating an entire town.” When the authorities investigated, the story by Miss Brawley was seen to be a lie.
At the 7:30 mark in the show, JCO said “The tremendous impact of Ferguson MO and the aftermath of the Eric Garner case in New York City are relatively recent and this has a snowballing or avalanche effect on the protests across the nation have been very exhilarating and very wonderful and I’m completely on the side of the protesters”
There are things you can say about the protests over Eric Garner and Michael Brown. There is a lot of turmoil. People saying hateful things about their neighbor. Relations between black people and white people have suffered. This is what JCO calls exhilarating and wonderful.
Many people feel caught in the middle. Yes, there probably is a problem with the way some policemen treat black people. There is also a lot of heated misinformation being generously distributed. If you don’t believe everything you are told, you might be called a racist. This is what JCO calls exhilarating and wonderful. JCO clearly has a certain amount of privilege.
Typical of the Ferguson rhetoric is a piece in PuffHo, The 10 Kinds of Trolls You Will Encounter When Talking About Mike Brown. Number two, after “The Full-Blown Racist Troll,” is “The “Wait for Evidence” Troll.” No matter how many times you are lied to, if you don’t believe what you hear, you are a troll and a racist.
This blog posted a poem in November, when the Missouri grand jury released a decision. This decision was recently confirmed by the Department of Justice, albeit accompanied by stories of police misconduct. The poem said that justice should not be a popularity contest. The men Tawana Brawly accused might agree. O.J. Simpson probably has a few thoughts on the subject as well.
The next day, there was an anonymous comment at chamblee54. “Thanks Luthor, your racism never disappoints.” This is what JCO calls exhilarating and wonderful. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. These are Confederate soldiers from the War Between the States.

PG finished a book, Peachtree Street-Atlanta. The author is William Bailey Williford, and it was published by the University of Georgia Press in 1962. PG found this at the Chamblee library, and this is probably the best way to find this book today. (Reissued by UGA Press.)
How this road got the name Peachtree is a good question. Most peaches grow south of the fall line. The story goes that there was a Creek Indian village called Standing Peachtree, located where Peachtree Creek runs into the Chattahoochee. During the war of 1812 Fort Peachtree stood there.
There was a trail that ran from Buckhead to an intersection with the Sandtown Trail, at what is now Five Points. A short distance south of this intersection was a settlement known as White Hall. For many years, Peachtree Street south of Five Points was known as Whitehall Road. At some point in the last thirty years, a decision was made to change Whitehall to Peachtree. It did not help the rundown condition of Whitehall Street.
In 1835 Governor Wilson Lumpkin decided that a railroad that would be centered near the junction of Peachtree Trail and Sandtown Trail. The new town was named “Marthasville”, after the daughter of the Governor. Martha Lumpkin resides in Oakland Cemetery today.
The village was soon renamed Atlanta, which was a feminine form of Atlantic. Houses, churches, and businesses were soon built on Peachtree Road. In 1856, Richard Peters built a flour mill. To insure a steady supply of firewood, he bought four hundred acres of land, for five dollars an acre. The land was between Eighth Street, North Avenue, Argonne Avenue, and Atlantic Drive.
Another pioneer citizen with a large landholding was George Washington (Wash) Collier. Mr. Collier bought 202 acres for $150 in 1847. The land was between West Peachtree, Fourteenth Street, Piedmont Road, Montgomery Ferry Road, and the Rhodes Center. Much of the land was used for the development of Ansley Park.

In 1854, Atlanta entertained, for the first time, a man who had been President. On May 2, Millard Fillmore arrived from Augusta on a private rail car.
There was some unpleasantness in 1864, which we will not concern ourselves with.
In 1866, there was a shocking murder. John Plaster was found dead, in an area known as “tight squeeze”. This was an area of shanties, at the present location of Crescent Avenue and Tenth Street. A hundred years later, this was near “the strip”, Atlanta’s hippie district, also called “Tight Squeeze”.
As the nineteenth century rolled along, many mansions were built on Peachtree Street. The road was paved, and streetcars ran up and down. Automobiles came, and came, and came. An expressway was built in the 1950’s, and quickly became obsolete. One by one, the mansions were torn down and replaced with businesses and churches.
The book was written in 1962, when the party was just getting started. The High Museum was known then as the Atlanta Art Association. In June of 1962, a plane full of prominent Atlanta residents crashed in Paris, killing all on board. As a memorial to those people, the Memorial Arts Center on Peachtree, at Fifteenth Street, was built.
Another phenomenon which is not explained by the book is the custom of naming everything here Peachtree. There are countless streets and institutions named for a fruit tree that likes warmer climates. Atlanta has a one street skyline, that stretches from Five Points to Peachtree Dunwoody Road, almost at the city limits. PG lives a quarter mile off Peachtree, in Dekalb County, and has no idea why Peachtree is a magic word.
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. and The Library of Congress. This is the annual repost.

Writers tackle was rampaging through Brookhaven. PG looked in a list of old product, and found a feature built on the output of Teju Cole. He has a dandy article, at the New Yorker, about what is antiseptically called drone warfare. It is the twitter feed that gets attention. This is a repost.
‏@tejucole George Carlin’s original seven dirty words can all be said freely now. The one word you can’t say, and must never print, is “racist.”
The quote marks lend mystery to the tweet. Does he mean the dreaded “n word”? Or does he mean that other six letter slur? There is no shortage of people screaming racist in Georgia, often at the slightest provocation. There is an attitude that racism is the worst thing you can be accused of, and that, once accused, you are guilty until proven innocent. If you do a bit of research into racism, the word, you will see some interesting things.
The concept of groups of people not liking each other is as old as mankind. The word racism apparently did not exist before 1933 (merriam webster), or 1936 (dictionary dot com).
Something called the Vanguard News Network had a forum once, What is the true origin of the term racism? This forum is problematic, as VNN seems to be a white supremacist affair. One of the reputed coiners of the R word was Leon Trotsky, also referred to as Jew Communist. Another Non English speaker who is given “credit” for originating the phrase is Magnus Hirschfeld. As for English, the word here is: “American author Lawrence Dennis was the first to use the word, in English, in his 1936 book “The coming American fascism”.”
The terms racist and racism seem to be used interchangeably in these discussions. This is in keeping with the modern discussion. As Jesus worshipers like to say, hate the sin, love the sinner.
The Online Etymology Dictionary has this to add: “racist 1932 as a noun, 1938 as an adjective, from race (n.2); racism is first attested 1936 (from French racisme, 1935), originally in the context of Nazi theories. But they replaced earlier words, racialism (1871) and racialist (1917), both often used early 20c. in a British or South African context.”
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.

PG stared out at the gray sky. He thought that the fourth sunday in february might be the most depressing day of the year. The ever cheerful blogger had an idea for a repost. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The people on a Baltimore streetcar seem to be happy.
Billie Holiday had a hit with”Gloomy Sunday”in 1941. The legend is that people would listen to the song, and kill themselves. As a result, the song was banned from the radio. Or was it?
“Gloomy Sunday” was written in 1933 by Rezső Seress. Additional lyrics were later written by László Jávor. It became known as the “Hungarian Suicide Song”, and was reportedly banned in Hungary. An English translation (which is said to not do justice to the original Hungarian) was rendered.
The song has a melancholy sound, even as an instrumental. The story is about a person…it is not gender specific…who decides to join a loved one who has died. A third verse was added, to the english version, where the singer says it was all a dream.
The song became popular in the United States. And the suicide stories started to spread, along with rumors that the song had been banned from the radio. (It was indeed banned by the BBC.) There are indications that these rumors were part of a publicity campaign.
The urban legend busters snopes. calls the story “undetermined”. Legends like this get a life of their own. A grieving person hearing this song on a dreary Sunday is not going to be uplifted. One thing is known for sure…the original composer did take his own life. Rezső Seress jumped off a tall building in Budapest in 1968. The legend is he had never had another hit song after writing “Gloomy Sunday”.

The story starts on twitter. @chescaleigh #Oscars2015 voter finds Selma cast wearing #ICantBreathe shirts to their film premiere “offensive” #OscarsSoWhite @chescaleigh Apparently protesting police brutality is offensive? But this same #Oscars2015 voter loved American Sniper soooo that says it all @ShaunKing I said it when Lebron wore it & I’ll say it re: the SELMA cast, if this shirt offends you, you are probably racist.
Evidently, the cast of the movie “Selma” wanted to make a statement, or get publicity for the movie, or both. They wore t shirts to an event. The shirts say “I CANT BREATHE,” in all caps comic sans letters, with no apostrophe. This refers to something said by Eric Garner.
The t-shirt clad cast is posing in the “hands up don’t shoot” pose. This gesture became popular after Micheal Brown was killed. Many people find it unlikely that Mr. Brown made this gesture.
The Hollywood Reporter posted a story, Oscar Voter Reveals Brutally Honest Ballot: “There’s No Art to ‘Selma,'” ‘Boyhood’ “Uneven.” An oscar voter went into great detail about the different categories she was voting on. She liked “American Sniper” because it made a lot of money. This is important to the movie industry. If you want to send a message, call Western Union.
Daily Kos, condensed the story to three juicy sentences. “But if the movie isn’t that good, am I supposed to vote for it just because it has black people in it? I’ve got to tell you, having the cast show up in T-shirts saying “I can’t breathe” [at their New York premiere] — I thought that stuff was offensive. Did they want to be known for making the best movie of the year or for stirring up shit?”
PG is tough to offend, and easy to annoy. To have a grandstanding movie cast exploit a human tragedy is annoying. To have a internet facility call this pose “coming together in solidarity”, and call those who disagree racist, is distasteful. At what point does the word racist cease to have any meaning?
While researching this story, PG found this. “Unfortunately, students were not given the opportunity to hear any of Dr. King’s groundbreaking speeches in the film (Selma). That is because the film doesn’t include any direct quotes from the brilliant orator. Believe it or not, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speeches are copyrighted, and filmmakers could not use his words in the movie without fear of being sued. Dr. King’s family owns the rights … and are famously litigious.”
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.

@TheHashtagGame @OGOrlandoJones To put a fine point on it… this account will soon cease to exist by choice without being Verified. #VerifyTheHashtagGame ~ @TheHashtagGame Dear @Twitter, a national discussion about online @safety is at hand. Please prepare to respond credibly. Sincerely, @TheHashtagGame ~ @dick_nixon I’m often told I shouldn’t wear a suit in public. The thing is I’m comfortable in it. ~ “It is better to think of church in the ale-house than to think of the ale-house in church.” – Martin Luther ~ The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American. ~ this was making the rounds a few months ago. As soon as I saw the clock running backward, I remembered it. ~ The last book I read in one day was “Going down with Janis”. It was written by the self reputed gf of Janis Joplin. The opening line: ” I was naked, stoned blind on heroin, and the girl with her head between my legs, giving me head, was Janis Joplin”. ~ Is what is labelled negative attitude, in fact resting bitch face? ~ Hating on rbf is a socially acceptable form of prejudice. ~ Tammy Fay Bodeen It’s hard to carry on a conversation with an Obummer made goat-woman, they’re always butting in. ~ The secret to happiness is to be the photo model for douche ads. ~ *DISCLAIMER: The information provided on AstrologyAnswers.com, and in any reports, emails, ebooks, or other materials you might receive from AstrologyAnswers.com, is for entertainment purposes only. Obviously, we cannot guarantee the accuracy of astrological information, and we are not responsible for how you interpret or apply it. The names and images of our astrologers have been changed to prevent instances of stalking or harassment, however the credentials mentioned are a true representation of their experience, and full bios are available upon request. If you are struggling with serious problems, including chronic illness, mental instability, or legal issues, please consult with your local registered health care or legal professional as soon as possible. Please also carefully read the full Terms of Service. ~ I want to write snarky blogposts about nonsense. ~ I have the annoying habit of not believing memes with inspiring quotes. When it comes to misquoting people, Jesus is as good as it gets. We really don’t know what he said. The religion that glorifies him is obsessed with his death, rather than his life. As for the Bible being “his scriptures”… no, I don’t buy that. ~ You’ve been blocked by this member ~ @TooMessedUp I read in the paper today about a Dad who paid his daughter for sex. I was absolutely disgusted. What kind of daughter charges her own Dad? ~ U.S. baker faces discrimination complaint for refusing to write anti-gay message on cake ~ Whoever devotes themselves to themselves will have nothing but themselves to show for themselves! ~ Two wrongs do not make a right. ~ cletus.hogan (signed in using yahoo) I ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­make ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­$86 ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­hourly ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­on ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­the ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­computer. ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­I ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­have ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­been ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­without ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­work for ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­six ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­months ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­but ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­last ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­month ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­my ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­income was ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­$19941 ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­just ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­working ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­on ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­the ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­computer ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­for ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­a ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­fe­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­w ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ho­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­urs. fr­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­om ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­th­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­i­­­­­­­­­­­­­s ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­si­­­­­­te­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­. ~ “Eric Garner was choked to death by a cop” I have heard that Mr. Garner had a heart attack. This is not the same as being choked to death. When I google “Eric Garner Death Certificate” I do not see the document. ~ pictures today are from The Library of Congress. ~ selah