Chamblee54

There was a buzz on facebook about the Health Reform Quiz. PG saw an opportunity to write some text to go between the pictures, and take a few cheap shots at the medical industrial complex. These shots will be the only thing that is cheap. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
The quiz is presented by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. They claim “The Kaiser Family Foundation is not associated with Kaiser Permanente or Kaiser Industries.” Of course, wikipedia says that Kaiser Permanente was founded by Henry J. Kaiser. Maybe it is a different one.
The quiz is ten questions, all of whom start with “will the health reform law”. They concern the Affordable Care Act, aka health reform law, aka Obamacare. There are three possible answers to each question … No, the law will not do this, Yes, the law will do this, Don’t know. As internet quizzes go, it is a model of simplicity. The questions are:
1. Will the health reform law require nearly all Americans to have health insurance starting in 2014 or else pay a fine?
2. Will the health reform law allow a government panel to make decisions about end-of-life care for people on Medicare?
3. Will the health reform law cut benefits that were previously provided to all people on Medicare?
4. Will the health reform law expand the existing Medicaid program to cover low-income, uninsured adults regardless of whether they have children?
5. Will the health reform law provide financial help to low and moderate income Americans who don’t get insurance through their jobs to help them purchase coverage?
6. Will the health reform law prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage because of a person’s medical history or health condition?
7. Will the health reform law require all businesses, even the smallest ones, to provide health insurance for their employees?
8. Will the health reform law provide tax credits to small businesses that offer health insurance coverage to their employees?
9. Will the health reform law create a new government run health insurance plan to be offered along with private plans?
10. Will the health reform law allow undocumented immigrants to receive financial help from the government to buy health insurance?
PG got 9 questions correct. This is better than 97% of Americans. (Make that a chocolate chip cookie.) The only question he missed was four. Yes is the correct answer for number four.
Like most Americans who get their health insurance through employers, PG has been insured by a wide variety of companies. Kaiser Permanente had a turn, and was fairly pleasant to deal with. The problem was a co-worker that got cancer, and cost Kaiser a lot of money. After he went to the outstanding value in the sky, Kaiser told redo blue to find another health care provider.
A few years later, PG got laid off, and was looking for health insurance. He gave an honest answer to the wrong question, and was told he could not buy a policy from Kaiser. Whether this was the real reason, or a handy excuse for not insuraning an older man, is between G-d and the Kaiser computers.

There was a comment left at a post, Never leave a cybernetic organism behind! The post was about the emotional impact, or lack of same, of shooting down an unmanned aircraft. Losing one of your toys is not the same as losing a crew of humans.
The comment dealt with another effect of advanced technology. “In the long run it’s a suicidal strategy for Empire. Thanks to Moore”s Law and micromanufacturing, before too long this stuff’s going to be available as a cheap off-the-shelf technology for the resistance. Networked resistance forces will be using cheap h-k drones to target U.S. regional chains of command, logistical tails, support infrastructure on the airbases the drones are staged from, the factories that build them in SoCal, the corporate boards of directors, the American engineers who design them, etc. In which case the side with the most concentrated target profile loses.”
Ever since the first monkey hit his neighbor with a stick, there has been an arms race. Side a builts a better weapon, and has an advantage over side b. Then side b gets the same weapon, and things are even, unless one side builds a better weapon.
The ability to kill people more efficiently is a driving force of science. Many of today’s products were first developed for military use. It has been said that if we had destroyed Hiroshima with sunbeams, we would be using solar power today.
Even more troubling than unmanned aircraft is the potential of cyberwarfare. Our side let the genie out of the bottle with Stuxnet. It is only a matter of time before the other finds a way to use malicious code as a weapon of war. It is ironic that the use of Stuxnet was against Iran, to keep her from getting nuclear weapons. Nukes are another technology that gave us a temporary advantage, until other people figured out how to do it.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress.

In march of 1969, Judy married her fifth husband, Mickey Devinko, better known as Mickey Deans, a gay night-club promoter. Judy had an unfortunate habit of marrying gay men. They lived together in a tiny mews house in Chelsea, London. For a look inside, click here. The evening of Saturday June 21 1969, Judy and Mickey were watching a documentary, The Royal Family, on television, when they had an argument. Judy ran out the door screaming into the street, waking the neighbors.
Several versions of what happened next exist, but the fact remains that a phone call for Judy woke him at 10:40 the next morning, and she was not sleeping in the bed. He searched for her, only to find the bathroom door locked. After no response, he climbed outside to the bathroom window and entered to find Judy, sitting on the toilet. Rigor Mortis had  set in. Judy Garland was dead at the age of 47.
The press was already aware of the news before the body could be removed. In an effort to prevent pictures being taken of the corpse, she was apparently draped over someone’s arm like a folded coat, covered with a blanket, and removed from the house with the photographers left none the wiser.
The day Judy died there was a tornado in Kansas. Several people have claimed this to be false, but Findadeath friend Kris Fenton sends this: When I came across the Judy Garland page, I noticed the part about the legend of a tornado occurring in Kansas the day she passed. Being somewhat interested in tornadoes, I checked out Tornado Project.com which has a database listing historical tornadoes by state and by county. There were none on June 22nd, 1969 in Kansas. Actually, 1969 was a light tornado year for Kansas, they usually average about 75 tornadoes/year but that year only had 17. However, in Saline County, a rather large F3 tornado (injuring 60, but causing no deaths) did hit at 10:40 pm on June 21st, that would be 4:40 am, June 22nd, London time, the morning she died. I know the time of death has never been firmly established, but since Rigor Mortis had already set in, I think this tornado may very much be in the ballpark in terms of coinciding with time of death. The St. Petersburg Times, on June 23, 1969 featured a story on that early summer tornado outbreak, and on page 2-A there is a mention of the Saline county tornado from June 21st, which hit the county seat at Salina, next to a photo of Garland, Bolger and Haley from The Wizard of Oz as a part of a story on Garland’s death. The St. Petersburg Times article indicates the Tornado in Salina was “early yesterday [June 22] morning” which may indicate this may have been a rather long-lasting tornado, as some of them are, or that the 10:40 pm start time given by Tornado Project is only a best estimate. Other news articles suggest the tornado struck Salina “late at night” which could certainly also mean after midnight on June 22, or roughly 6:00 am London time.
The Toledo Blade for June 24th, also in an article located right next to a picture of Garland, in a write-up on the Salina tornado noted that “Late Saturday [June 21] and early Sunday [June 22, another batch of tornadoes struck in central Kansas.” So it seems the legend seems confirmed.
The text for this story comes from Findadeath. You can spend hours at this site. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.

PG first heard of Dorothy Parker in tenth grade. His friend Bob Gibson cut the poem Resume out of the literature text book, and carried it in his wallet. Mrs. Parker had been dead for two years at the time, with her ashes resting in her attorney’s filing cabinet. As the years rolled on, there were stories about the round table at the Algonquin hotel, and a poem about W.R. Hearst … Upon my honor, I saw the madonna, by the door, in a niche, of a well known whore, and a prominent son of a bitch. There was a movie, and more stories. One day there was a comment, to a post called Raw, Uncooked, Protesting . The comment went: Re “The Cardinal’s Mistress” by Benito Mussolini, Dorothy Parker wrote one of my favorite bon mots: “This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.” PG decided it was time for a Dorothy Parker tribute. The google search for “Michele Bachman Weird” can wait a day or so, and will probably have a million more results. These quotes are from the quotations page .There is a political ad for the Presidential election. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library” This is a repost. ~ A little bad taste is like a nice dash of paprika. ~ Brevity is the soul of lingerie. ~ I don’t care what is written about me so long as it isn’t true. ~ I might repeat to myself slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound – if I can remember any of the damn things. ~ I’ve never been a millionaire but I just know I’d be darling at it. ~ If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised. ~ If wild my breast and sore my pride, I bask in dreams of suicide, If cool my heart and high my head I think “How lucky are the dead. ~ If you want to know what G-d thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to. ~ Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves. ~ The best way to keep children home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant–and let the air out of the tires. ~ This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force. ~ That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment. ~ They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm. ~ The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. ~ I’m never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don’t do any thing. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don’t even do that any more. ~ Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song, A medley of extemporanea; And love is a thing that can never go wrong;And I am Marie of Romania. ~ Men seldom make passes At girls who wear glasses. ~ She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B. RE: Katharine Hepburn ~ I require three things in a man. He must be handsome, ruthless and stupid. ~ Scratch an actor – and you’ll find an actress. ~ I went to a convent in New York and was fired finally for my insistence that the Immaculate Conception was spontaneous combustion. ~ Money cannot buy health, but I’d settle for a diamond-studded wheelchair. ~ Ducking for apples – change one letter and it’s the story of my life. ~ My land is bare of chattering folk; the clouds are low along the ridges, and sweet’s the air with curly smoke from all my burning bridges. ~ The affair between Margot Asquith and Margot Asquith will live as one of the prettiest love stories in all literature. ~ The only “ism” Hollywood believes in is plagiarism. ~ That woman speaks eighteen languages and can’t say “No” in any of them. ~ Four be the things I’d have been better without: love, curiosity, freckles and doubt. ~ “I really can’t come to your party Mrs. Parker, I can’t bear fools.” “That’s strange; your mother could.” ~ “Coolidge is dead” “How could they tell? ~ You can’t teach an old dogma new tricks. ~ You can lead a whore to culture, but you can’t make her think.

The world cup is the largest sporting event in the world. They play football (futbol), not soccer.
In the 19th century, the english wrote the rules for something called association football. This was different from rugby football. Somehow, soccer, a nickname for association, became the name of this new sport. When the pastime spread from the upper crust schools to the working class, it became known as football. It made sense, being a sport where you kick the ball with your feet.
In the USA, there was another sport called football. It involves beer and steroids. The ball only gets kicked when it is time for a commercial. For some reason, when association football became popular here, the name soccer stuck.
PG thinks soccer is a terrible word, for a pretty good sport. All those guttural noises sound bad in the mouth, like something  caught in your throat. Maybe, if the sport had another name north of the Rio Grande, it would be more popular. As it is, soccer is popular as a kids game, but strikes out as a spectator sport in the lower 48.
There was even a joke on laugh in once. It may be field hockey to you, but it’s soccer to me. If you get that, the social security office will be open at the usual time tomorrow. This is a repost.

There is some talk in the media about what are tastefully called drone strikes. Unmanned airplanes are piloted by remote control. The focus on a target, and fire a AGM-114 Hellfire II Missile. Often, a second strike is made, after rescuers come to the scene. When the dead are buried, there is sometimes a strike on the funeral.
This kind of warfare costs money. The Hellfire II Missile costs $40,000. The drones use lots of fuel, and require maintenance. For a broke government, this adds up.
The moving lips in Washington say that no civilians are killed by these attacks. The dead are labelled militants. Anyone speaking out against this can expect to be denounced by the government.
“More recently, on February 8, the Times reported the BIJ’s findings that the CIA’s drone attacks in Pakistan “have repeatedly targeted rescuers who responded to the scene of a strike, as well as mourners at subsequent funerals.” But after highlighting BIJ’s report, the article then allowed a “senior American counterterrorism official, speaking on the condition of anonymity” to not just question the report’s findings, but to state: “One must wonder why an effort that has so carefully gone after terrorists who plot to kill civilians has been subjected to so much misinformation. Let’s be under no illusions — there are a number of elements who would like nothing more than to malign these efforts and help al Qaeda succeed.”
Code Pink has a few comments on why drones matter. “The difference with drones is that drones make these wars possible. From being able to wage them without even having to go to Congress, because according to the Administration’s definition of war, war is when you put your own soldiers’ lives at risk. And since we’re not doing that with drones, it’s not war, it doesn’t have to be agreed in Congress. It doesn’t even have to be open to the  people. It can be carried out in total secrecy.
And as some people said in the conference, drones are the only way to wage some of these battles because of the issue of national sovereignty. You could never get away with the boots on the ground. And because, for example with the terrain in Yemen, you wouldn’t be able to do it any other way than with drones.”
The use of drone warfare has increased dramatically under BHO. This tactic is employed against populations in countries like Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan. America is technically not at war with these countries.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. They are Union Soldiers, from the War Between the States. Drones were not used in this conflict.

Allen Ginsberg would be 86 today, if nature had not made other plans in 1997. The son of Louis and Naomi Ginsberg arrived, in Newark NJ, June 3,1926.
Allen Ginsberg had a part in many new age dramas, with a few musicals and comedies thrown in for good measure. Hippie, beatnik, gay, artist, peace promoter, Buddhist convert…these are a few of the labels. He became famous for being famous, well known to people who never read a word of his poems. Two of the more famous were howl and kaddish.
Howl became scandalous in 1956 when it was busted for obscenity. It is mild by today’s standards, but almost landed Mr. Ginsberg in prison. PG heard about howl in the early nineties, and looked high and low for a copy. He could not find one. Today on the internet, not only is the text widely available, there are recordings of Mr. Ginsberg reading his work. (Here is an updated version, Howl 2011.)
The original plan was to listen to Mr. Ginsberg read while editing photos. PG was going to listen to the words, and think of something to say while listening to the bard. About the seventeenth time Mr. Ginsberg shouted “Moloch”, the plan began to fall apart.
The next poem was Kaddish. This is about Naomi Ginsberg, the mother of the poet, who evidently had some issues. This was tough for PG to listen to. The other night, PG had a disturbing dream about his own late mother. In this dream, a fearsome shouter came in wearing a black suit, which meant that he intended to do some scary shouting. PG went into another room, where his recently deceased mother was laying on a table.
In the aftermath of his mother’s passing, PG worked closely with an aggressive Jesus worshiper, who enjoyed humiliation for Jesus. This person declared war on PG, when asked to turn his radio down. PG feels like Jesus let him down, and finds it difficult to forgive the so called son of G-d.
1956 was the year of the obscenity trial for howl. This took place on the other side of america, from the Brookhaven where PG was two years old. This was the year when his brother was born, the year when the Georgia legislature voted in a new flag, for whatever reason. In 1955, President Eisenhower had a heart attack. Many wondered if it was a good idea to have Richard Nixon as the vice president.
Finally, PG could stand no more of that voice. The player was turned off, the files stored on an external hard drive, never to be heard again. PG just is not a poetry person. The pictures, edited while listening to Allen Ginsberg in performance, are from the “Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library” The text above is a repost.

These visits to alternative reality are from a variety of sources. Included are Facebook (fb), twitter (tw), Futility Closet (fc), All Aphorisms, All The Time (Aph), Texts From Last Night (tln) , and Overheard in New York (ony). Attempts to maintain a no profanity blog will be suspended for this post. ~ ‏@bukquotes “these demons have staying power.” ~ Charles Bukowski (tw) ~ @bukquotes “I was easy to please. It was the rest of the world that was the problem.” ~ Charles Bukowski (tw) ~ @bukquotes “there was always the danger of men who originally wrote things down well of becoming professional writers.” ~ Charles Bukowski (tw) ~ @bukquotes “But what did it really matter who screwed who? It was finally all so drab. Fuck, fuck, fuck.” ~ Charles Bukowski (tw) ~ @bukquotes “to walk a city street is to see hell early.” ~ Charles Bukowski (tw) ~‏@Enernoj “Wanna come back to my place and violate the sanctity of marriage?” – #FloridaPickupLines (tw) ~ @david_arnott #FloridaPickupLines Are those Skittles in your hoodie, or are you just happy to see me? (tw) ~ @jimray Isn’t Amercia the name of that Caribbean nation where Mittens keeps his money so he doesn’t have to pay taxes? #mitt2012 #withmitt (tw) ~ @BorowitzReport My phone autocorrects “Amercia” to “America,” and autocorrects “Romney” to “Blow me.” (tw) ~ “Mistakes happen,” Andrea Saul, Romney Press Secretary , said in an appearance on MSNBC Wednesday morning. “I don’t think any voter cares about a typo.” ~ @MittRomney The iPhone app is here – download it & tweet your photos using ‪#WithMitt‬. Will RT some favorites tomorrow http://mi.tt/WithMitt (tw) ~ @alaindebotton (For no good reasons) the greatest taboo in the eyes of the art establishment is the suggestion that art should be ‘useful’. (tw) ~ @MlTTR0MNEY So what if I can’t spell America? California elected a Gov. who couldn’t pronounce their state and it worked out…uh oh. #Amercia #withmitt (tw) ~ @PassingWhite 32 plural wives MT @nojorising @mittromney I’m with @mittromney. Here’s a photo showing my support. #mitt2012 #withmitt http://pic.twitter.com/amVAgBjC (tw) ~ @alaindebotton To judge from a lot of modern parenting, psychotherapy will continue to be a growth area deep into the 21st century. (tw) ~ You must have purchased items from Amazon to post. ~ Do you have a Hot topic on your mind that you just want to rant about… DISH DISH DISH!! I have some myself. about certain people i know. But i don’t know where to begin. He makes me so angry. But as i said i dont know where i should start. In the beginning the middle or the ending result of why we fell out. And if you must know. i Despise LIARS and THIEVES!! (fb) ~ Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass… it’s about learning to dance in the rain. -Anonymous (fb) ~ I am out of the country until May 27th and will be checking my email periodically. If your message requires a timely response, I will get back to you within a few days. Otherwise, I will respond to emails upon my return home. (fb) ~ A sleeper from the Amazon Put nighties of his gramazon. The reason? That He was too fat To get his own pajamazon. (fc) ~ Throwing up in his bed is not a step up in your relationship (tln) ~ You say you’re gonna take rehab seriously… but i keep imagining it as a training montage for you preparing to snort all of columbia. (tln) ~ So his mom walked in the kitchen while I was sucking him off and just casually suggested that “I’d need a glass of water after that” (tln) ~ New life rule, no banging opera singers. I might be a little deaf now (tln) ~ I was only out of town for 1 week. His cell records show he texted 63 ex-gfs and hookups while I was gone. And 10 condoms are missing. (tln) ~ All that fucking tequilla made my head feel like it’s inside of a body builder’s asshole. He’s doing squats. (tln) ~ It was like bizarre-o star trek. I shamefully went where every man has gone before. (tln) ~ theres chocolate ground into my couch, nerds candy all over the floor and cocaine on every surface. great memorial day weekend and yours? (tln) ~ Why are there chunks of your hair in everyones pocket? (tln) ~ My Grandma made me promise not to drink more beer, so I’m chugging wine. (tln) ~ Climbing out Mr. Friday night’s bathroom window. He thinks I’m puking. Be on state st. with the getaway car and if you could bring me a shirt and some advil that’d be dandy. (tln) ~ Best oral ever, hands down so to speak. but I’m starting to want to meet that lesbian truck driver he says he’s better than. Just for comparison purposes of course. (tln) ~ @bukquotes “How odd that everybody was younger than I.” ~ Charles Bukowski (tw) ~ @bukquotes “I’ve got to get back to the typewriter, I thought. Art takes discipline. Any asshole can chase a skirt.” ~ Charles Bukowski (tw) ~ ‏@bukquotes A guy on the bus next to me asked, “What are you reading?” Saw it was Women, and said, “Yeah, I can usually read women pretty well.” (tw) ~ Lady at shop: Are you Mexican? My ex was Mexican. He was shorter than me, but I loved him. Until he stabbed someone. (pause) Sweetheart, I need a lot of napkins–I don’t have my top teeth. (ony) ~ 20-something dude, talking to couple: I’m not sure if I want to go out with her. She has the kind of STDs that Ben Franklin had. (ony) ~ Angry suit on cell: I can sue you for defecation of character! (ony) ~ Naked guy to fellow naked guy, about boss: He’s so dumb! Why won’t natural selection just step in and make him walk in front of a bus? (ony) ~ Irate black man on cell: I love you, but you’re fuckin stupid. (ony) ~ Guy: People see me in a nursing uniform and they expect me to help. But I have a philosophy: stupid people deserve to die. (ony) ~ Old guy to young couple, upon departing train: Have a good night, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, and if you do, wash your hair! (ony) ~ Who knew drunk me could climb a 17 story building for apple juice and sex (tln) ~ Pretty sure I scared him off for good. The lesbian in me is ecstatic. (tln) ~ Her roomates have been scoring her hookups. I got 8.9, best of the week! (tln) ~ Strike three, the fat brides maid they call shit puker also has herpes. (tln) ~ I’m gonna take my bong and hot box the pirate ship in the daycare playground. (tln) ~ This whole bra on the outside of my shirt thing is so convenient. It turns my shirt into a pocket to eat Fritos out of. Mmm boobies (tln) ~ Having to explain to my dad why there are chicken wings to the pool filter, new low. (tln) ~ We’ll talk about this tommorrow when I’m not mistaking my fingers for French fries…. (tln) ~ You didn’t act like you were blacked out yesterday…I didn’t know (tln) ~ I know it’s not technically the “Mile High Club” but we def need a name for the airport bathroom. Cuz that just happened. (tln) ~ I’m worried my skin won’t stretch enough to handle this boner. Then what? (tln) ~ I’m pretty sure every guy I’ve been with this weekend has made a solid attempt at getting me pregnant… (tln) ~ The fact that you can’t sell your daughter for three goats and a cow means we’ve already redifined marriage.(fb) ~ “It is easy for those who do nothing to criticize. Those who do much and love much, make mistakes” — Elbert Hubbard (fb) ~ “Nature is as prolific with man as she is with the seeds of the Maple, spores of the mushroom, and eggs of the Salmon. Too create a perfect man, she must make a million boobs.” — Elbert Hubbard (fb) ~ “FEAR – A method devised by Region and Government to keep the people from taking back what is theirs.” — Roycroft Dictionary (fb) ~ “We’re All Gonna Die” — anonymous (fb) ~ “The French have no word for Entrepreneur” —- Boy George Bush (fb) ~ “Fighting for Peace is like F**king for Chastity” —- Bathroom wall in Bloomington IN (fb) ~ Better bread with water than cake with trouble….. Russian Proverb (fb) ~ Small fish live in shallow water. (Aph) ~ You take people’s word and soon find that you’ve appropriated their whole vocabulary. (Aph) ~ The fear of falling in love with yourself is that you will displace no one. (Aph) ~ When you are washed up you never realize the extent of shoreline you have to yourself. (Aph) ~ The faith you lose in people is almost enough to start a religion elsewhere. (Aph) ~ Too many women around a man always camouflages his inability to make friends. (Aph) ~ No matter how we talk a thing to death, death always has the last word. (Aph) ~ @tejucole From  five floors up,  Sophie fell into Orchard Street, but was only slightly bruised. (tw) ~

What we want to hear determines almost everything people say. (Aph) ~ You get carried away less often the older you get despite being closer to ending up on a stretcher. (Aph) ~ We are always at the mercy of our inability to give it. (Aph) ~ Murmurs often appear in those hearts that have no say. (Aph) ~ That life is almost meaningless in its brevity naturally shortens the attention span. (Aph) ~ A person’s pride is accountable for almost all their loneliness. (Aph) ~ What you love never leaves you, who you love always does. (Aph) ~ Mom with stroller to another: Am I the only one who thinks being a stay-at-home mom makes you a raging alcoholic? I mean… What else are you supposed to do with your time? (ony) ~  Basketball teen to friend, on girl who betrayed a best friend: We’re still friends on Facebook, but we not friends on Twitter. (ony) ~ Lady to stranger petting her dog: He’s great. I like him more than I like my friends. (ony) ~ Girl to friend: We’re not really dating, we’re not really friends either, we have a sexual acquaintanceship. (ony) ~ Asian girl on phone with her mother: He’s not a regular Hispanic, you know, he speaks English, recycles, and likes museums. (ony) ~ Potpourri: 1) I would like for all the gay stuff to calm down. I think giving attention to a few crackpots who say wild shit doesn’t really advance anything. 2) They found Etan Patz’s killer. I never knew about that til recently. 3) Space stations? 4) Remember also that truth is stranger than fiction. 5) Have a nice weekend. Memorial Day is a nice holiday.~ Today (May 25) is the last day in the Gregorian calendar in which the month number is the square root of the day number. The others are January 1, February 4, March 9 and April 16. ~ how would you feel if your name was Ludmila? ~ also: the difference between doing it and not doing it is doing it. -grant henry ~ More pourri and less pot is suggested. (fb) ~ I keep forgetting to avoid Walgreens on coupon day. Only the flashing red light in my own palm keeps me shut up around the arguing old biddies. (fb) ~ This is how people become gay ~ @TheDanielNavy #iUseTwitterBecause you guys are as appalling and abrasive as I am :’) (tw) ~ @tejucole To two of her daughters, Elizabeth and Clarine, Mrs Warner, of Los Angeles, willed $250,000, and to the third, Edith, $5. (tw) ~ @BorowitzReport RT @MittRomney I apologize for “Amercia” misspelling. The staff member who did it was foreign and has now self-deported. (tw) ~ @alaindebotton We study biology, physics, movements of glaciers… Where are the classes on envy, feeling wronged, despair, bitterness… (tw) ~ @mystie03 #iUseTwitterBecause my real friends are not as cool & as funny as my followers!! (tw) ~ @watsonheart #iUseTwitterBecause i can tweet every minute. If i were to do that on facebook you would look like a complete idiot. (tw) ~ @GirlsAloud_USA #iUseTwitterBecause it gives me a chance to speak my mind with less consequences than reality (tw) ~ @BorowitzReport It’s weird that the candidate who was born in Kenya is the one who can spell America. (tw) ~ @alaindebotton ‘Freedom of speech’ obscures difference between what you can say in theory – and what you can say and retain any friends. (tw) ~ Men see themselves in women’s eyes; women trust the mirror. (Aph) ~ People who argue whether the glass is half empty or half full are probably not thirsty. (Aph) ~ People drown in shallow thoughts. (Aph) ~ It’s easy to write history. All the eyewitnesses are dead. (Aph) ~ @BorowitzReport I’m glad the Library of Congress is storing tweets so alien scientists will someday know why our civilization fell. (tw) ~ @NikkiMJFisher Do you feel comfortable knowing Thomas Donilon &John Brennan have the power to decide who lives and who dies? ‪#killist‬ pic.twitter.com/9uI4UOg1 (tw) ~ @Trendeh #IUseTwitterBecause people have to keep their stupid drama to 140 characters or less. (tw) ~ @iiiRelate_ @BorowitzReport It turns out that Mitt Romney also had a Kill List, and Chrysler and GM were on it. #killist (tw) ~ @Lprice3 Everyone who tweets #killist is going to end up on the DHS watch list – new “monitor” word? (Hello “the man”!) (tw) ~ 1- This is fun to listen to. What I really want to hear is another conversation between Ms. Hurlburt and Eli Lake. 2- Talk about revealing your age. The actual counter slogan in 1964 was “In your guts you know he’s nuts”. Which rhymes, and should be used in every Presidential election. 3- Ms. Hurlburt refers to a PG link. As the reader(s) of this blog know, PG is the stand in for the blog owner. In any event. PG is not Bolton curious. 4- This is another appalling visual. chamblee54 ~ “The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.” Oscar Wilde (tw) ~ It all depends if the displeasure is because your ego has stopped hearing itself in the other voice or that the conversation has becomes a monosyllabic joust of quotidian half hearted pleasentries. (fb) ~ Clothes we buy at sweatshop labor, drugs we buy from corporate enablers. We’re not living the good life, unless we’re fighting the good fight– you and me, just trying to get it right. (fb) ~ I haven’t been up this early since earlier (fb) ~ Most of all I rely on our spiritual connection with each other. I have long believed that beyond any religious teachings, dogma, principles, cannon laws or words written in stone it is the quality of love and respect with which we treat each other (including the plant, animal, mineral, and other elements of the natural creation) that best allows the God of my Understanding to be present in my life. Thank you for the degree to which you participate and share in that with me. (fb) ~ Whenever I try to understand the world, often I find myself thinking, “Why would healthy, well-adjusted people do ________? And then I realize that the world is not composed of healthy, well-adjusted people. And THAT’s why the paparazzi exists. (fb) ~ “Love, friendship, respect, do not unite people as much as a common hatred for something.” — Anton Chekhov (fb) ~ I shared with a bar mitzvah student that God would have better off if S/He had taken anger management. (fb) ~ A wise man once said, “If you really, really wanna piss people off … just change your name on Facebook.” (fb) ~ Warning- Any person and/or institution and/or Agent and/or Agency of any governmental, public or private structure including but not limited to the United States or Canadian Federal Government also using or monitoring/using this website or any of its associated websites, you do NOT have my permission to utilize any of my profile information nor any of the content contained herein including……, ……but not limited to…… my photos, and/ or the comments made about my photo’s or any other “picture” art posted on my profile. You are hereby notified that you are strictly prohibited from disclosing, copying, distributing, disseminating, or taking any other action against me with regard to this profile and the contents herein. The foregoing prohibitions also apply to your employee(s), agent(s), student(s) or any personnel under your direction or control. The contents of this profile are private and legally privileged and confidential information, and the violation of my personal privacy is punishable by law. UCC 1-103 1-308 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED WITHOUT PREJUDICE It is recommended that other members post a similar notice to this or you may copy and paste this one. Thank you. FB is now a publicly traded site. Protect yourself. (fb) ~ @tejucole Visiting Chicago, Reverend Heck was hit by a falling window washer. The reverend’s injuries were serious, the washer’s fatal. (tw) ~ @alaindebotton We study biology, physics, movements of glaciers… Where are the classes on envy, feeling wronged, despair, bitterness… (tw) ~ #iUseTwitterBecause I hate my Facebook friends. (tw) ~ @alaindebotton It’s a homage to all the really great ones that even the worst books are hard to throw away without guilt. (tw) ~ @_TheOneWho #iUseTwitterBecause I can relate to my followers more than my real friends. (tw) ~ @ComedyTruth #iUseTwitterBecause if I updated my facebook status as much as I tweet, then everyone would think I’m annoying (tw) ~ #iUseTwitterBecause I can talk to myself without looking stupid .. (tw) ~ #iUseTwitterBecause my family has used Twitter since coming over to America on the Mayflower, and I dutifully continue our proud tradition (tw) ~ Selah

1
I sing the body electric,
The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.

Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?
And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?
And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul?
And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?
2
The love of the body of man or woman balks account,
the body itself balks account,
That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.

The expression of the face balks account,
But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face,
It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of his hips and wrists,
It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist and knees,
dress does not hide him,
The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth,
To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more,
You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side.

The sprawl and fulness of babes, the bosoms and heads of women,
the folds of their dress, their style as we pass in the street,
the contour of their shape downwards,
The swimmer naked in the swimming-bath, seen as he swims through
the transparent green-shine, or lies with his face up and rolls
silently to and from the heave of the water,
The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-boats,
the horse-man in his saddle,
Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their performances,
The group of laborers seated at noon-time with their open dinner-kettles,
and their wives waiting,
The female soothing a child, the farmer’s daughter in the garden or cow-yard,
The young fellow hosing corn, the sleigh-driver driving his six horses
through the crowd,
The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite grown, lusty,
good-natured, native-born, out on the vacant lot at sundown after work,
The coats and caps thrown down, the embrace of love and resistance,
The upper-hold and under-hold, the hair rumpled over and blinding the eyes;
The march of firemen in their own costumes, the play of masculine muscle
through clean-setting trowsers and waist-straps,
The slow return from the fire, the pause when the bell strikes suddenly again,
and the listening on the alert,
The natural, perfect, varied attitudes, the bent head, the curv’d neck
and the counting;
Such-like I love—I loosen myself, pass freely, am at the mother’s breast
with the little child,
Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line
with the firemen, and pause, listen, count.
3
I knew a man, a common farmer, the father of five sons,
And in them the fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons.
This man was a wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person,
The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and beard,
the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes,
the richness and breadth of his manners,
These I used to go and visit him to see, he was wise also,
He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old, his sons were massive,
clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome,
They and his daughters loved him, all who saw him loved him,
They did not love him by allowance, they loved him with personal love,
He drank water only, the blood show’d like scarlet
through the clear-brown skin of his face,
He was a frequent gunner and fisher, he sail’d his boat himself,
he had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner,
he had fowling-pieces presented to him by men that loved him,
When he went with his five sons and many grand-sons to hunt or fish,
you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of the gang,
You would wish long and long to be with him, you would wish to sit by him
in the boat that you and he might touch each other.

4
I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly
round his or her neck for a moment, what is this then?
I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as in a sea.

There is something in staying close to men and women and looking on them,
and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well,
All things please the soul, but these please the soul well.

5
This is the female form,
A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,
It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,
I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor,
all falls aside but myself and it,
Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth,
and what was expected of heaven or fear’d of hell, are now consumed,
Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it,
the response likewise ungovernable,
Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all diffused,
mine too diffused,
Ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh swelling
and deliciously aching,
Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of love,
white-blow and delirious juice,
Bridegroom night of love working surely and softly into the prostrate dawn,
Undulating into the willing and yielding day,
Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh’d day.

This the nucleus—after the child is born of woman, man is born of woman,
This the bath of birth, this the merge of small and large, and the outlet again.

Be not ashamed women, your privilege encloses the rest,
and is the exit of the rest,
You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.

The female contains all qualities and tempers them,
She is in her place and moves with perfect balance,
She is all things duly veil’d, she is both passive and active,
She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as daughters.

As I see my soul reflected in Nature,
As I see through a mist, One with inexpressible completeness,
sanity, beauty,
See the bent head and arms folded over the breast, the Female I see.

6
The male is not less the soul nor more, he too is in his place,
He too is all qualities, he is action and power,
The flush of the known universe is in him,
Scorn becomes him well, and appetite and defiance become him well,
The wildest largest passions, bliss that is utmost, sorrow that is utmost
become him well, pride is for him,
The full-spread pride of man is calming and excellent to the soul,
Knowledge becomes him, he likes it always, he brings every thing
to the test of himself,
Whatever the survey, whatever the sea and the sail
he strikes soundings at last only here,
(Where else does he strike soundings except here?)

The man’s body is sacred and the woman’s body is sacred,
No matter who it is, it is sacred—is it the meanest one in the laborers’ gang?
Is it one of the dull-faced immigrants just landed on the wharf?
Each belongs here or anywhere just as much as the well-off, just as much as you,
Each has his or her place in the procession.

(All is a procession,
The universe is a procession with measured and perfect motion.)

Do you know so much yourself that you call the meanest ignorant?
Do you suppose you have a right to a good sight,
and he or she has no right to a sight?
Do you think matter has cohered together from its diffuse float,
and the soil is on the surface, and water runs and vegetation sprouts,
For you only, and not for him and her?

7
A man’s body at auction,
(For before the war I often go to the slave-mart and watch the sale,)
I help the auctioneer, the sloven does not half know his business.

Gentlemen look on this wonder,
Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for it,
For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one animal or plant,
For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily roll’d.

In this head the all-baffling brain,
In it and below it the makings of heroes.

Examine these limbs, red, black, or white, they are cunning in tendon and nerve,
They shall be stript that you may see them.

Exquisite senses, life-lit eyes, pluck, volition,
Flakes of breast-muscle, pliant backbone and neck, flesh not flabby,
good-sized arms and legs,
And wonders within there yet.

Within there runs blood,
The same old blood! the same red-running blood!
There swells and jets a heart, there all passions, desires, reachings, aspirations,

(Do you think they are not there because they are not express’d
in parlors and lecture-rooms?)

This is not only one man, this the father of those who shall be fathers
in their turns,
In him the start of populous states and rich republics,
Of him countless immortal lives with countless embodiments and enjoyments.

How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring
through the centuries?
(Who might you find you have come from yourself,
if you could trace back through the centuries?)

8
A woman’s body at auction,
She too is not only herself, she is the teeming mother of mothers,
She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be mates to the mothers.

Have you ever loved the body of a woman?
Have you ever loved the body of a man?
Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all nations
and times all over the earth?

If anything is sacred the human body is sacred,
And the glory and sweet of a man is the token of manhood untainted,
And in man or woman a clean, strong, firm-fibred body, is more beautiful
than the most beautiful face.

Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body?
or the fool that corrupted her own live body?
For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves.

9
O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women,
nor the likes of the parts of you,
I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the soul,
(and that they are the soul,)
I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems,
and that they are my poems,
Man’s, woman’s, child, youth’s, wife’s, husband’s, mother’s, father’s,
young man’s, young woman’s poems,
Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears,
Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eyebrows, and the waking
or sleeping of the lids,
Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the jaw-hinges,
Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition,
Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck-slue,
Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind-shoulders,
and the ample side-round of the chest,
Upper-arm, armpit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm-bones,
Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger,
finger-joints, finger-nails,
Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast-side,
Ribs, belly, backbone, joints of the backbone,
Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and outward round,
man-balls, man-root,
Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above,
Leg-fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under-leg,
Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel;
All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your body
or of any one’s body, male or female,
The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and clean,
The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame,
Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity,
Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes from woman,
The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping,
love-looks, love-perturbations and risings,
The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud,
Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming,
Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and tightening,
The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes,
The skin, the sunburnt shade, freckles, hair,
The curious sympathy one feels when feeling with the hand
the naked meat of the body,
The circling rivers the breath, and breathing it in and out,
The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips,
and thence downward toward the knees,
The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the marrow
in the bones,
The exquisite realization of health;

O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul,
O I say now these are the soul!

Text for this adventure is from the Project Gutenberg.
The text was reformatted by Chamblee54.
“I sing the Body Electric” was written by Walt Whitman.
An audio version of this poem is available from Librivox.
Reposted May 31,2012. Walt Whitman’s 193rd Birthday.

A radio whiner referred to a book, The Tyranny of Cliches: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas, and the idea light bulb went off in PG’s fevered mental cavity. The tome is written by Jonah Goldberg, who is often confused for Jeffrey Goldberg. PG has not read the book. However, with the help of Amazon and NPR, he knows enough to write some text. You have to put something between the pictures. The pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The video is courtesy of  The Heritage Foundation. Listen to it at your own risk.
Amazon dutifully posts this brief description: “The bestselling author of Liberal Fascism dismantles the progressive myths that are passed-off as wisdom in our schools, media and politics. According to Jonah Goldberg, if the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist, the greatest trick liberals ever pulled was convincing themselves that they’re not ideological. Today, “objective” journalists, academics and “moderate” politicians peddle some of the most radical arguments by hiding them in homespun aphorisms.”
Mr. Goldberg proceeds to break down some of these expressions. Among the sacred cows skewered are : “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter ~ Violence never solves anything ~ Better ten guilty men go free than one innocent man suffer ~ Diversity is strength.”
Before we go any further, we should know that PG is no fan of bumper sticker wisdom. Much of what passes for knowledge in our culture is cleverly worded pablum. It is like the sets on a movie soundstage … What looks like Dodge City is a painting held up by a wooden frame. It gives you the sense of being on a western street. Reading Jonah Goldberg gives you the sense of being smart.
A writer starts a fire to promote a book. This fire produces a bit of heat, a smidgen of light, and enough smoke to fill the Georgia Dome. When you write a post about book promotion and reviews, it can be tough to see through the smoke. It is bad for your health to inhale smoke.
Many conservative writers whine about liberal mainstream media. They use MSM to promote their books. It is part of the game. In the internet age, with reviews and interview transcripts, there is a lot of material for the slack blogger. If you add a few comments of your own, then you can quickly produce post with a scary wordcount. Most readers don’t have the patience for more than 500 words. A great deal of long form blogging is not worth the effort, so the slack reader may be correct.
A good place to start is the NPR interview, Do Liberals Live Under A ‘Tyranny Of Cliches’? A transcript is the slack bloggers friend.
Jonah Goldberg: “What bothers me is the way in which cliches sort of sail right through. And so you’ll get these kids who will stand up in an audience and say – you know – Mr. Goldberg, I may disagree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it … And first of all, it’s just a lie. You know, this kid’s not going to take a bullet for me. And second of all, it’s completely not responsive. All it is, is him sort of getting bravery on the cheap, claiming to take – you know, to be valiantly defending my right to free speech. “
Chamblee 54 – PG wonders what Mr. Voltaire meant by that phrase, and what the context was. A version today might be, I may disagree with what you say, and I will interrupt you before you finish your second sentence. Arguments (which Mr. Goldbergs is fond of) usually consist of people yelling at each other, with few listening to what the other says.
As for bravery on the cheap … this is in a country that uses a paid army to fight wars of conquest eight time zones away. Few are called on to sacrifice in the fifty states, except those who serve in the military (and their families). These military adventures are paid for with a tax cut. Yes, to raise money to pay for these wars, the taxes were cut. There is something called supply side economics at play here, and it has produced trillion dollar a year budget deficits. Conservatives denounce big government, then demand that this big government send hundreds of thousands of bootsontheground eight time zones away, and pay for it with a tax cut. Lets talk about cliches run amok.
JG- “That’s right. I mean, it’s not a book about bumper stickers and buzz phrases. Those are sort of endemic to politics, and I’m not sure you can ever completely get them out. I sort of want to go one layer beyond that, you know, things like social justice. Or President Obama recently talked about social Darwinism. And… “
NPR- “He’s against it.”
JG- “He’s against it. But here’s the funny thing: Nobody is for it. There was no intellectual movement in American history called social Darwinism. The people who were supposedly the leaders of the social Darwinist movement never embraced something called social Darwinism. It didn’t exist. But it is one of these sort of mythologies about America and its intellectual history, that the right embraced this thing called social Darwinism, when it never did so.”
C54- So nobody claims to be a social Darwinist. Just like nobody embraces liberalism. The only people who talk about liberalism are conservatives. Very few people embrace the label of liberal. This business of dividing society into liberals and conservatives ignores the people who don’t claim any label, but just want to live their lives and be happy. This is very discouraging to those who want to have arguments.

The New York Times did it’s capitalist duty to help sell Mr. Goldberg’s book. Hating Liberals ‘The Tyranny of Clichés,’ by Jonah Goldberg is a copypaste wonderland. Even more fun is the reply, The NYT Calls Central Casting
New York Times- “Jonah Goldberg’s first book was called “Liberal Fascism.” It was a screed, of course, but a clever one. He argued that liberals who routinely denounce extreme conservatives as fascists should take a look in their own backyard, and he wasn’t fooling around: “It is my argument that American liberalism is a totalitarian political religion.”
Jonah Goldberg- “One quick point about Liberal Fascism. My first book still serves as something of a liberal emetic. It elicits vomitous exhalations of bilious nonsense. There’s just something about that  book that many liberals can’t make peace with or contend with honestly. It can be very annoying, but I also take it as a compliment. If the book didn’t matter so much, they’d stop bringing it up.”
Chamblee54- Before today, PG had never heard of “Liberal Fascism”. It reminds him of a billboard announcing a new radio station. WGKA 920 AM LIBERALS HATE US. The truth is, very few liberals even knew the station existed. Most people would rather listen to something else. Mr. Goldberg does score rhetorical points with this paragraph. This sort of prose is fun to read, even if it doesn’t mean a dern thing.
NYT- “But I’ve just come off six months of watching Republican candidates for president ply their trade, and the cliché spew has been volcanic. We can start with “Government doesn’t create jobs,” which somehow elides the existence of the military-industrial complex. Goldberg does acknowledge that conservatives also inhale, but liberal clichés are, well, fascistic, a never-ending assault on American freedom.”
NYT- “One of Goldberg’s next targets — and we’re still in the introduction, by the way — is centrism, which he sees as a particularly insidious brand of liberal obtuseness: “Well, the Wahhabis want to kill all the gays and Jews. The Sufis don’t want to kill any gays or Jews. So the moderate, sensible position must be to kill just the gays, but not the Jews. . . . The point is that sometimes the extreme is 100 percent correct while the centrist position is 100 percent wrong. Would it be pedestrian, in a decidedly liberal way, for me to point out that this sort of argument is not merely infantile, but a sly denigration of the necessary compromises that are at the heart of almost every real policy dispute? Figuring out how to calculate cost-of-living increases for Social Security is not an all-or-nothing proposition. But Goldberg is not interested in anything so quotidian as actual governance. “
JG- “Well yes, it is pedestrian in a decidedly liberal way for him to say this. When I write: “The point is that sometimes the extreme is 100 percent correct while the centrist position is 100 percent wrong,” I mean “Sometimes the extreme position is 100 percent correct.” Does he deny that? Or does he honestly believe the difference-splitting middle is always right?
Well, maybe he does. Like so many in his phylum, Klein is fixated on the issue of “compromise.” These days, “compromise” means conservatives should cave in on all of the big issues and liberals should be gracious about not rubbing it in too hard. Amusingly, this is a major theme of my book, and Klein not only doesn’t really seem to understand it but – like Piers Morgan before him — seems determined to illustrate the point for me.
He says that real policy disputes revolve around how much Social Security checks should go up, and that it is “infantile” for me to suggest otherwise. In other words, according to Klein conservatives are grown-ups when they agree to the status quo and/or growth in the size of government, but they are extremists when they suggest more structural reforms. Liberals, meanwhile, are grown-ups when they agree to bend a little on how much bigger the checks should be and, I surmise, they are never extremists because Joe Klein’s version of liberalism is never wrong. Ultimately, any effort more ambitious than slowing the rate of increase in entitlement spending is, by Klein’s lights, extremist.
No wonder he doesn’t like the book. It’s as if I wrote it about him!”
C54- At some point, it is helpful to quit arguing and find a solution to the problem. To point out the misdeeds of those who disagree with you solves little. It is like kids on a playground, screaming … always screaming … Billy is a liberal Billy is a liberal na nana na na. Dogs like to bark, and Jonah Goldberg likes to argue. Having a shouting match can be great fun for the participants, but is rough on the neighbors who are trying to sleep.
NYT- “Whatever minimal truth there is to that, Goldberg’s methods in exposing these depredations are not exactly rigorous. He begins his exploration of liberal clichés with this one: “I may disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” He says he hears it all the time on college campuses, from students more serious-looking than “the typical hippie with open-toed shoes and a closed mind.” (Hmm. Aren’t stereotypes first cousins to clichés?) “My response?” he responds. “Who gives a rat’s ass? First of all, my right to speak never was in doubt. . . . Second, the kid is almost surely lying. He’ll take a bullet for me? ­Really?”
JG- “By the end Klein simply starts to unravel entirely. It’s easy to imagine him dictating the last bits from his fainting couch, as he gestures for his attendants to bring him a cold rag for his brow. Assuming you’re still with me, I promise to keep it briefer than Klein deserves. He suggests I’m being absurd when I write: “Liberals are uncomfortable with the topic of patriotism because their core philosophical impulses are to make America a different country than it is.”
“In other words,” Klein responds, “the reforming instinct — the progressive insistence that meat be inspected by the government, for example — is inherently un-American because it’s a first step down the slippery slope toward government control?”
“Yes, that is exactly what I am saying! Meat inspections are unpatriotic! (Actually, I make no such slippery-slope argument, but he makes a slippery-slope inference. Also, I never say liberals are unpatriotic, I say they are confused about patriotism. For instance, Barack Obama has voiced his desire to “fundamentally transform the United States of America,” a locution, I think, that is hard to square with a love for America as it is. Don’t believe me? Tell your wife or husband, “Honey, I love you, I just want to fundamentally transform you.”) “
C54- ““Liberals are uncomfortable with the topic of patriotism” “I never say liberals are unpatriotic, I say they are confused about patriotism.” When your arguments about ideas don’t work, you go for the personal attack. Then you deny that you made this attack, but explain what you meant by it, which is when you launch another personal attack. Holy rhetoric Batman.
NYT- “After a while, it just becomes exhausting. “Feminism was in no small part launched as a Trojan horse for an older and more familiar Marxist assault.” And “No Jews were tortured in the Spanish Inquisition” (only “former” Jews who claimed conversion to Catholicism were, but Jews were treated far better by the Muslims than by the Catholics, a fact Goldberg neglects). Gandhi evinced “stunning naïveté” and was, occasionally, “incandescently dumb,” without a mention of the impact of his philosophy on the American civil rights movement or the collapse of the Soviet empire. Does Goldberg really believe this stuff? Or is he just being tendentious for rhetorical effect? In the end, his vindictive thrashings have very little to do with the actual practice of politics; the idea that political clichés are banal isn’t exactly a blinding insight, either. Sadly, Goldberg has intellectual resources that might be put to grown-up use. But then, as the liberal cliché has it, “a mind is a terrible thing to waste.”
JG- “Well, yes, I do really believe this stuff. What I want to know is whether Klein thinks any of this amounts to an impressive rejoinder or is he just monkey-dancing for the readers of the New York Times Book Review as the editors churn the organ grinder? Does Klein dispute that Gandhi was “incandescently dumb” when he advised the Jews of Germany to commit mass suicide? How about after the war, when Gandhi said, “The Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife”? Does he know George Orwell and I see eye to eye on this? Is Klein arguing that Gandhi was savvy and smart when he told the British to surrender the British Isles to the Nazis? Does he deny Gandhi was naïve to call Hitler his friend? And what does Gandhi’s influence on the American civil-rights movement have to do with anything?”
C54- Mr. Gandhi was in a struggle against the British. If Great Britain were to surrender to the Nazis, then perhaps the goal of Indian independence would be closer to fulfillment. Or maybe not. Many people in the Soviet Union greeted the German’s as liberators. Where have we heard that phrase?
JG- “In the Tyranny of Clichés I write that liberals are largely ignorant of, and disconnected from, their own intellectual history and blind to their own dogmatic and ideological commitments. As a result, their thinking has become calcified, and they tend to mask their ideological agenda behind clichés that sound more intelligent and harmless than they really are. I want to thank Mr. Klein for proving my point.”
No Amazon assisted post is complete without one star reviews. There are plenty to choose from.
Confused, muddled, and irrelevant ramblings from someone with too much time on his hands Jim (Northern Virginia) May 23, 2012
The author insults people for using “cliches” such as, “I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” He says it is an expression “born in glibness – defined by vanity.” But here’s a post written by the author from his magazine’s blog in 2010:
“I can criticize and complain about my brother all I like, but if my brother bothers somebody outside the family, well, that’s just too bad. Similarly, Ted Kennedy may or may not be a Caligulan carbuncle, but if the jihadists want to behead him for it, they’ll have to get through me first.”
Whoops! I guess dumb cliches are only dumb if they aren’t being used by the author. That his confused hypocrisy can be exposed so easily shows how undeserving of serious attention this person is. He needs to get a real job.
Shameful, Disrespectful, and just more War propaganda.
A. S. Evangelista “Truth Seeker” (Midwest) May 21, 2012
This is nothing more then neoconservative propaganda, spewed out to keep the hate alive between two groups (liberals & conservatives) in hopes of further separating us and promoting overall approval for Governmental violence in face of overwhelming evidence it is not working.

Doc Watson died today. He was at “Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, where he was hospitalized recently after falling at his home in Deep Gap, in the Blue Ridge Mountains. He underwent abdominal surgery while in the hospital and had been in critical condition for several days.” Doc Watson was a treasure of American music.
“Arthel Lane Watson was born March 3, 1923 in Deep Gap NC, about 100 miles northwest of Charlotte. He lost his eyesight by the age of 1 when he developed an eye infection that was worsened by a congenital vascular disorder … Watson took his nickname at age 19 when someone couldn’t pronounce his name and a girl in the audience shouted “Call him Doc!” … “Doc Watson’s son Merle began recording and touring with him in 1964. Merle Watson died, at 36, in a 1985 tractor accident.”
PG had the privilege of seeing Doc and Merle Watson in March, 1973. They played at The Great Southeast Music Hall. Doc, despite being blind, did not wear sunglasses. Merle led him on stage, and was a pretty good picker himself. They did “Deep River Blues” and “Thats All”… “If you can’t preach without going to school, then you ain’t a preacher you’re an educated fool”.
The duo had a new LP out at the time. PG handed it to Merle, and asked him to autograph it. Merle signed his name on one side, and signed Doc’s name on the other side.
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.