Chamblee54

In previous posts, PG has borrowed the words … wise and otherwise… of others. One night, the idea light bulb went on. Why not look up quotes about quotes? Many people have bright ideas. It is a few that can express them in a memorable way. It should be noted that not every clever phrase is the truth, or especially profound. In a sound bite culture, the clever phrase gets the attention that the thought deserves There are also misquotes and misunderstandings. Or, the correct quote, with credit given to the wrong person. The title of quote magnet goes to the Oscar Wildes and Mark Twains of history, who really didn’t say all those things. It is also not known how many of those credited with famous quotes actually thought of them, and how many are good listeners and repeaters. ( In the case of politicians, with paid speechwriters, the answer is obvious.) So here we go, with a collection of quotes about quotes. As for the originator, we will trust the source . This is a repost. // After all, all he did was string together a lot of old well-known quotations. — H.L. Mencken on Shakespeare //A half truth is a whole lie. — Yiddish Proverb //A witty saying proves nothing. — Voltaire //Actions speak louder than words.– Theodore Roosevelt // A gram of practice is worth a pound of belief. // Copy from one, it’s plagiarism; copy from two, it’s research.– Wilson Mizner, Unknown , 1876-1933 // Godwin’s Law: As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one. — Mike Godwin // He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know. — Abraham Lincoln // There is one thing that is true about newspapers the world over. They print lies. — Bob Geldof, onstage rant, The Capri Ballroom, Atlanta GA, 1979 // He who trains his tongue to quote the learned sages, will be known far and wide as a smart ass. — Howard Kandel // He who would pun would pick a pocket. — Dr. Maturin, Master and Commander And he will go to the punitentiary. // I got so tired of hearing those proverbs when I was a child. Now I use them all the time. Sometimes they are the best way to say what needs to be said. I teach them to my students. I have a collection of proverbs for class discussion and writing assignments. — Marva Collins // 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. — Dorothy Parker // If a student submits a paper that is good enough to be published, maybe it has. — Dr. Jefferson D. Caskey // You have two ears, and one mouth. You should listen twice, and talk once. // In places, this book is a little over-written because Mr. Blunden is no more able to resist a quotation than some people are to refuse a drink. — George Orwell, on Edmund Blunden // In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman. — Margaret Thatcher // In the matter of soliloquies we cannot accept Hamlet as an unbiased authority. We merely find in him the possible origin of the belief that talking to oneself is a bad sign. — Max Beerbohm // It is a good thing for an educated man to read books of quotations. — Winston Churchill, Unknown , 1874-1965 // It is better to be quotable than to be honest. — Tom Stoppard, // One should know the difference between wisdom and a clever phrase. // It is not so much the content of what one says as the way in which one says it. However important the thing you say, what’s the good of it if not heard or, being heard, not felt? — Sylvia Ashton-Warner // Light travels faster than sound–isn’t that why some people appear bright until you hear them speak? — Steven Wright // Misquotation is the pride and privilege of the learned — Hesketh Pearson Push push in the bush — Disco Lyrics // Originality is the art of concealing your sources. — Unknown // Quoting: the act of repeating erroneously the words of another. — Ambrose Bierce // Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider — Francis Bacon, Of Studies, 1605 // Francis Bacon was never in a movie with Kevin Bacon. // The cleverly expressed opposite of any generally accepted idea is worth a fortune to somebody. — F. Scott Fitzgerald // The cruelest lies are often told in silence. — Adlai Stevenson // The man who doesn’t read has no advantage over the man who can’t read. — Mark Twain //This feature on quotes will not use Oscar Wilde, Will Rogers, or George Bernard Shaw. Using Mr. Twain is the legal minimum for quote magnets The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do. — Thomas Jefferson, // Mr. Jefferson was quoted as saying there should be a revolution every thirty years. He was POTUS in 1806, and would not have appreciated a revolution. // There’s a difference between philosophy and a bumper sticker. — Charles Schulz // To generalize is to be an idiot. — William Blake // Truth fears no questions. — Unknown // Whoever said this has never been interviewed by the police. // We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at each other; until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices. — Richard M. Nixon // Just because someone gets credit for the quote, this does not mean that he actually practiced what he said. //Wise men make proverbs, but fools repeat them. — Samuel Palmer // Names of fools, like monkey faces, are often seen in public places // You ain’t learnin’ nothin’ when you’re talkin’. — Lyndon B. Johnson // You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be misquoted, then used against you. — Unknown // Unknown was a very clever person, who spoke many languages. // …one of the great ironies of Western philosophy. Its founding practitioner, Socrates, wrote nothing down–no philosophy, anyway; and his greatest pupil so distrusted writing that he wrote dialogues, a form that mimics the life of the spoken word. — John Churchill, From the Secretary: Inspiring Conversations in The Key Reporter. Vol 67, Number 4. P. 2., Summer 2002

As you may have heard, Christopher Hitchens died Thursday. He was in a medical facility in Houston TX, ill with esophageal cancer. He was 62 years old, and is survived by a wife, and three children.
It is ironic that Mr. Hitchens left our world as the last US troops are leaving Iraq. (Mr. Obama’s lips were moving when he made the speech.) While the writing of Mr. Hitchens was always sharp, sometimes people wondered about his judgement. As a slack blogger wrote in 2005, while discussing a protest of the war in Babylon : “Christopher Hitchens…bless his heart…is a good place to start. He wastes little time in trashing the organizers of the event. He accuses them of supporting Fidel Castro, the soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, and lots of other nasties. While this may, in a hyper technical way, be true about some of the organizers, these ad hominem attacks ignore the many marchers who simply feel that America is making a ghastly mistake. The thought also occurs to me… is someone paying Mr. Hitchens to shill for the war? Maybe he should get back to trashing beloved celebrities who are recently deceased.”
Christopher Hitchens, and his writing, were well known for two things. One was trashing beloved celebrities, soon after their death. When Mother Teresa checked out, Mr. Hitchens wrote “This profane marriage between tawdry media hype and medieval superstition gave birth to an icon which few have since had the poor taste to question,” In the attached video, Mr. Hitchens expresses himself about the demise of Jerry Falwell. In a pot and kettle moment, Sean Hannity says to Mr. Hitchens, “you are incredibly mean, incredibly selfish, and incredibly thoughtless”.
The other thing Mr. Hitchens is well known for is atheism. Considering the Christian obsession with life after death, the recent rash of comments, speculating about a deathbed conversion, was to be expected. To his credit, Mr. Hitchens stayed true to his beliefs, as the footsteps of the grim reaper got louder and louder.
Hitchens remained steadfast in his criticism of religion even in the face of his grim prognosis. In an August 2010 interview with Jeffrey Goldberg , his colleague at The Atlantic, Hitchens made it known that even if he were to somehow recant his devout atheism on his deathbed, any apparent conversion would be a hollow gesture. “The entity making such a remark might be a raving, terrified person whose cancer has spread to the brain,” he said. “I can’t guarantee that such an entity wouldn’t make such a ridiculous remark. But no one recognizable as myself would ever make such a ridiculous remark.”
PG has written about Mr. Hitchens several times. The pictures are from The Library of Congress. These are Union soldiers from War Between the States. Some of them did not go home, as the American troops, in Iraq, are now doing.

There is a fuss going on now about an article at Forbes magazine, If I Were A Poor Black Kid. The online version has an ad for the Cadillac SRX crossover. PG was reading a facebook discussion of the article, and decided he wanted to read the original. He googled white guy writing about being a poor black kid for freakin’ FORBES, and the fun began.
Or maybe the boring, predictable responses start. Angry Black Lady Chronicles tells of the day when her (white) mother took a day off, from her job as a copy editor, to get young ABL enrolled in a tougher math class. Freethoughblogs chimes in with Forbes’ Gene Marks Needs To Check His Priv. (This piece has advertising for Extended stay hotels.) The last line of this lengthy feature sums up his thoughts… “Or, as in your case, not so smart but privileged.”
If you want to read denunciations of the Forbes article, open your eyes and take a look. You might want to hurry up. because, soon, there will be another article, somewhere, that people don’t like. Maybe you can talk about the War on Christmas. This is an example of Christian Privilege gone awry. It is a safe bet that many poor black kids are Jesus worshipers. Maybe one form of privilege will outweigh another. Maybe people will learn about a grain of salt.
It is ironic that the piece was published in Forbes. Malcolm Forbes was fond of saying that he was loaded with “sheer ability, spelled i-n-h-e-r-i-t-a-n-c-e.” The elder Forbes had a lavish lifestyle, with Elizabeth Taylor as a beard. His son, Steve Forbes, (Malcolm Stevenson Forbes Jr.) was quoted as saying “My father once spent $5 million on a birthday party for himself in Tangiers. Why can’t I spend a few more running for President?”.
Pictures today are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library” .

This is based on a post from four years ago. The pictures for today’s post are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
DWJ-  time to get ready fo a neighborhood CHRISTMAS gathering, and not a holiday gathering
PG- I think a secular christmas is a good idea…if Jesus worshipers want to talk about their boi, that is cool, if you just want to shop and eat then that is fine too
DWJ- secular – Christmas is an oxymoron -without Christmas there wouldn’t be any of this
PG-yea, but those who are hated by Jesus need to enjoy the holiday as well
DWJ- why? -its not their holiday
PG-the birth of Jesus is nothing for me to celebrate, Jesus hates me…but I still enjoy the holiday
This bit of dialog from yesterday has got me thinking. There is a problem with Christmas. This polarizing of Christmas turns people against each other, and, at the very least does not create peace on earth and good will towards men.
Christmas is a big party, that I am not invited to. I can choose to ignore the religious message, enjoy the festivities, and be done with it. But this attitude gets in the way. You cannot get away from Jesus. When you mix in the hateful attitude of *some* Jesus worshipers towards those who do share their beliefs, you create a toxic Christmas punch. Holiday depression is real.
When I was a kid, I was told if you were going to bring candy to school, you should bring enough for everyone. It is considered rude to eat in front of people, without offering them some. And yet, Jesus Worshipers routinely have a big festive Christmas Celebration in front of all the non believers, and the heathen are expected to ignore it.
This includes those who practice other religions (Including today’s whipping boy, Islam), non believers, and those who simply don’t agree with Christianity. These people are not cool enough to come to the Christmas Party of the Jesus Worshipers. It is not your holiday.
The truth is, Christmas has always been a secular holiday. It is a celebration of the end of the year. People eat, drink, shop, and enjoy the company of their neighbor. If the Jesus worshipers want to talk about Jesus, no one will tell them to stop. It is when they want everything to be about them, that problems arise.

PG saw a link on facebook. Click here, and find out what kind of liberal you are. Once there, you can click again, and find out what kind of conservative you are. PG took these tests in February of 2009. It might be fun to see what the current versions are. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress .
Both tests are courtesy of About.com, a part of The New York Times Company . (In 2009, the tests were on a site selling two books… “How to argue with a conservative”, and it’s obvious counterpart.) The first question, then and now, is a list of bumper stickers. You are asked to choose one. This is a tough question for PG, who does not want the policeman behind him to know what he thinks. The two stickers chosen are “Another Former Fetus for Life” and “May the Fetus You Save Be Gay”. Synchronicity is reality.
Question two is the same for cons, but different for libs. Neither one has an answer that PG likes, so he is stuck with the lesser evil. For a political poll, that is appropriate. Question three is, for libs, “A second civil war has just broken out in America. Who is to blame?” (PG is offended that the phrase “War between the states” was not used.) The answer today was “Sarah Palin—for going rogue and leading a secessionist movement to crown herself as “Queen of Jesusland”. This question is used for number four on the conservative side. The answer chosen was “Barack Obama — for accidentally nuking Texas after misreading his TelePrompter” (Urban renewal special William T. Sherman once said that he owned hell and Texas, he would live in hell and rent out Texas.)
For question six on the lib side, they used the same answers as in 2009. Of course, all the questions are the same, on both sides of the tennis court. The old test only had seven questions, so we may see some creativity in the update. And maybe not. In number ten, the last question of this ordeal, you are asked to choose some americans you would like to chisel onto Mt. Rushmore. (Chiseling a living person onto a cold mountainside sounds very painful.) The liberal PG chose Cesar Chavez, Rosa Parks, Harvey Milk, and Angelina Jolie. The conservative PG chose Revs. James Dobson, Rick Warren, Joel Osteen, and Saint Carrie Prejean.
If you read this much, without skipping ahead to look at the pictures, you must be interested in the results. The liberal PG learns: ” You are a New Left Hipster, also known as a MoveOn.org liberal, a Netroots activist, or a Daily Show fanatic. You believe that if we really want to defend American values, conservative hatriots must be exposed and mocked for every fanatical, puritanical, paranoid, fact-allergic, reality-challenged, obstructionist ideal for which they stand.” On the conservative side, “You are a Flag-Waving Everyman, also known as a patriot. You believe in championing liberty over tyranny, apple pie over sushi, and that God gave us a two-day weekend so we could enjoy football and NASCAR.”

It is December, which means a lot of things. Included is the POTTY award. … Person of the Time year. Some naysayers would tell you that print media is obsolete, and point to the POTTY.
This tradition started in 1927 , during a slow news week. Charles Lindbergh, namesake of a Buckhead road, was the first POTTY. In 1929, Owen D. Young became the first unknown POTTY. In 1930, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was the first non USA resident. In 1936, Wallis Simpson became the first female to win the award, which was initially called Man of the Year.
In 1938, fun loving Adolph Hitler won, followed in 1939 (and 1942) by Joseph Stalin. 1950 saw the first group award, with “the American fighting man” honored. In 1951, Iran’s Mohammed Mossadegh was the man. The CIA disagreed, and helped ease him out of office in 1953. We are still dealing with the effects of that.
The POTUS is almost always a POTTY. Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover were not chosen for this honor. Gerald Ford could not chew gum, and accept the award, at the same time. Other than that, all men elected to the oval office have been the POTTY, usually more than once.
Mercy killing for the POTTY? Maybe after 2006, when the winner was YOU. The years before that had numerous embarrassments. This year is no worse than the 1995 selection of Newt Gingrich, and maybe a bit better than 1993. That year saw The Peacemakers as the POTTY, including Yassir Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin.
The POTTY for 2011 is The Protester. Considering the sanitation issues at some OWS sites, a POTTY might come in handy. One runner up is Kate Middleton, who married Prince William. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress . HT to joemyg-d.

The story below was found at the website of James Petras . HT to palestinianpundit. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
The settlements were still being built, financed mostly by Jewish money from America, contributions from Wall Street speculators and owners of gambling dens.
“Good thing”, Joseph thought, “we have a few sheep and olive trees and Mary keeps some chickens. But Joseph worried, “cheese and olives are not enough to feed a growing boy. Mary is due to deliver our son any day”. His dreams foretold of a sturdy son working alongside of him…multiplying loaves and fish.
The settlers looked down on Joseph. He rarely attended shul, and on the high holidays, he would show up late to avoid the tithe. Their simple cottage was located in a nearby ravine with water from a stream, which flowed year round. It was choice real estate for any settlement expansion. So when Joseph fell behind on his property tax, the settlers took over their home, forcibly evicted Joseph and Mary and offered them a one-way bus ticket to Jerusalem.
Joseph, born and raised in the arid hills, fought back and bloodied not a few settlers with his labor-hardened fists. But in the end he sat, battered on their bridal bed under the olive tree, in black despair. Mary, much the younger, felt the baby’s movements. Her time was near.
“We have to find shelter, Joseph, we have to move on …this is no time for revenge”, she pleaded.
Joseph, who believed with the Old Testament prophets in an “eye for an eye”, reluctantly agreed.
So it was that Joseph sold their sheep, chickens and other belongings to an Arab neighbor and bought a donkey and cart. He loaded up the mattress, some clothes, cheese, olives and eggs and they set out for the Holy City.
The donkey path was rocky and full of potholes. Mary winced at every bump; she worried that it would harm the baby. Worse, this was the road for the Palestinians with military checkpoints everywhere. No one ever told Joseph that, as a Jew, he could have taken a smooth paved road – forbidden to the Arabs.
At the first roadblock Joseph saw a long line of Arabs waiting. Pointing to his very pregnant wife, Joseph asked the Palestinians, half in Arabic, half in Hebrew, if they could go ahead. A path was opened and the couple went forward.
A young soldier raised his rifle and told Mary and Joseph to get down from the cart. Joseph descended and nodded to his wife’s stomach. The soldier smirked and turned to his comrades, “The old Arab knocks up the girl he bought for a dozen sheep and now he wants a free pass”.
Joseph, red with anger, shouted in rough Hebrew, “I am a Jew. But unlike you … I respect pregnant women”.
The soldier poked Joseph with his rifle and ordered him to step back: “You are worse than an Arab – you’re an old Jew who screws Arab girls”.
Mary frightened by the exchange turned to her husband and cried, “Stop Joseph or he will shoot you and our baby will be born an orphan”.
With great difficulty Mary got down from the wagon. An officer came out of the guard station, summoning a female soldier, “Hey Judi, go feel under her dress, she might be carrying bombs”.
“What’s the matter? Don’t you like to feel them yourself anymore? ” Judith barked back in Brooklyn-accented Hebrew. While the soldiers argued, Mary leaned on Joseph for support. Finally, the soldiers came to an agreement.
“Pull-up your dress and slip”, Judith ordered. Mary blanched in shame. Joseph faced the gun in disgrace. The soldiers laughed and pointed at Mary’s swollen breasts, joking about an unborn terrorist with Arab hands and a Jewish brain.
Joseph and Mary continued on the way to the Holy City. They were frequently detained at the checkpoints along the way. Each time they suffered another delay, another indignity and more gratuitous insults spouted by Sephardim and Ashkenazi, male and female, secular and religious – all soldiers of the Chosen people.
It was dusk when Mary and Joseph finally reached the Wall. The gates had closed for the night. Mary cried out in pain, “Joseph, I can feel the baby coming soon. Please do something quickly”.
Joseph panicked. He saw the lights of a small village nearby and, leaving Mary on the cart, Joseph ran to the nearest house and pounded on the door. A Palestinian woman opened the door slightly and peered into the dark, agitated face of Joseph. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“I am Joseph, a carpenter from the hills of Hebron. My wife is about to give birth and I need shelter to protect Mary and the baby”. Pointing to Mary on the donkey cart, Joseph pleaded in his strange mixture of Hebrew and Arabic.
“Well, you speak like a Jew but you look like an Arab,” the Palestinian woman said laughing as she walked back with him to the cart.
Mary’s face was contorted with pain and fear: her contractions were more frequent and intense.
The woman ordered Joseph to bring the cart around to a stable where the sheep and chickens were kept. As soon as they entered, Mary cried out in pain and the Palestinian woman, who had now been joined by a neighbor midwife, swiftly helped the young mother down onto a bed of straw.
And thus the child was born, as Joseph watched in awe.
It came to pass that shepherds, returning from their fields, heard the mingled cries of birth and joy and hurried to the stable carrying both their rifles and fresh goat milk, not knowing whether it was friend or foe, Jew or Arab. When they entered the stable and beheld the mother and infant, they put aside their weapons and offered the milk to Mary who thanked them in both Hebrew and Arabic.
And the shepherds were amazed and wondered: Who were these strange people, a poor Jewish couple, who came in peace on a donkey cart inscribed with Arabic letters?
The news quickly spread about the strange birth of a Jewish child just outside the Wall in a Palestinian’s stable. Many neighbors entered and beheld Mary, the infant and Joseph.
Meanwhile, Israeli soldiers, equipped with night vision goggles, reported from their watchtowers overlooking the Palestinian neighborhood, “The Arabs are meeting just outside the Wall, in a stable, by candle light”.
The gates under the watchtowers flew open and armored carriers with bright lights followed by heavily armed solders drove out and surrounded the stable, the assembled villagers and the Palestinian woman’s house. A loud speaker blared, “Come out with your hands up or we’ll shoot.” They all came out from the stable together with Joseph, who stepped forward with his hands stretched out to the sky and spoke, “My wife, Mary cannot comply with your order. She is nursing the baby Jesus”

These visits to alternative reality are from a variety of sources. Included are Facebook (fb), twitter (tw), Futility Closet (fucl) , 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. // The meeting of two personas is similar to the interaction between two natural elements; by chance, if there is any reaction both are transformed. (fb) // Girl to gay friend, after conversation about pretty girls in their grade: She’s not ugly, but her mustache is starting to piss me off. Loud woman on cell: I swear, his mustache just fell off! 10-year-old girl with fake mustache to brother: When you wear the mustache, the mustache possesses you. Girl walking her dog: So I call my brother this morning and tell him “I don’t know what happened last night, but I woke up with dice in my ass.” (ony) // G-d, please keep me clean and sober today. G-d please help me to remember that other people may be spiritually sick. Help me to remember that I may act the exact same way in their situation. Help me to be accepting of them. Please help me to not be judgmental, to remember we are all human. G-d, thank you for this day and the many opportunities that lie inherent within in it. Give me wisdom and strength to embrace these opportunities. Thank you for a life that is far better than what I imagined for myself. (fb) // On the 12th Day of Christmas my Facebook gave to me, 12 dudes I’m blocking, 11 friends just watching, 10 corny topics, 9 busted barbies, 8 friends complaining, 7 stalkers stalking, 6 party invites, Fiiiiiiiiiiiiive Drama Queeeensssss, 4 game requests, 3 photo tags, 2 friends-a-pokin & a creep who won’t stop inboxing meeee! (fb) // A loving heart is the truest wisdom. Charles Dickens Madeleine (fb) // Destiny is not a matter of chance; but a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, It is a thing to be achieved. William Jennings Bryan (fb) // I hate how women are spoken about in recent times. I just saw at least ten tweets with guys using the word “bitch”. It’s disgusting (tw) // First they were muslim. Then they were anti-religion. Now the Obamas are being trashed for liking Christmas too much. http://t.co/4K3Qugue (tw) // Newt decrying meanness and harshness in politics . . . I mean honestly (tw) // Are the GOP candidates running for president of the United States or prime minister of Israel? (tw) // “Generally speaking anybody is more interesting doing nothing than doing anything.” — Gertrude Stein (fucl) // “Teaching science without evolution is like teaching sentence structure without the alphabet,” // A tour bus driver drives with a bus full of seniors down a highway, when a little old lady taps him on his shoulder. She offers him a handful of almonds, which he gratefully munches up. After approximately 15 minutes, she taps him on his shoulder again and she hands him another handful of almonds. She repeats this gesture about eight times. He finally asks her why they do not eat almonds themselves. Whereupon she replies that it is not possible because of their old teeth. They are not able to chew them. “Why do you buy them then?” he asks puzzled. The old lady answers: “We just love the chocolate around them.” (fb) // you went over to those random dudes and told them you were an ordained minister and would like to bless their food. they laughed and agreed, then you said “now bow your heads in prayer” as soon as they did you grabbed a taco off their tray and bolted out the door. (tln) // Boy did I ever crash and burn on the pickled egg pick up line. (tln) // @bennycdoze The incident happened somewhere in Maryland. She is human, that’s the police force we’ve got. She died in custody (tw) // @tejucole I have been robbed at gunpoint and attacked another time. i suggest you talk about it. If you don’t, it sticks in your head. (tw) // RT @tejucole: Children in Osogbo were spared the horrors of education thanks to unknown do-gooders who burned a few thousand schoolbooks. (tw) // True words from @kanyewest- “I’m on the pursuit of awesomeness. Excellence is the bare minimum” Watch at http://jol.ly/0rsG #voyrlife #ad (tw) // Even when you think you have your life all mapped out, things happen that shape your destiny in ways you might never have imagined… (fb) // Your life is such a sacred journey. And it’s also about change… Continuously expanding your vision of what is possible, stretching your soul, learning to see clearly and deeply, listening to your intuition, taking courageous challenges at every step along the way. You are on the path, of exactly where you are meant to be right now… And from here on in, you can only go forward, shaping your life story into a magnificent tale of triumph, of healing, of beauty, of wisdom, of power and of love ~ (fb) // give a man a gun and he can rob a bank. give a man a bank and he can rob the world. (fb) // “DREAMS” get you into the future and add excitement to the present. So dream away, and dream often, and dream big. and never let anyone talk you out of your dreams. Dreams are the Holding Place of God. The bigger the dream the more of God you let in. (fb) // Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401ks, took trillions in taxpayer funded bail outs, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid not taxes? Yea, me neither… (fb) //Chase said Ashley’s got to be better at praying than photography. Here here. #alistdallas (tw) // #AlistDallas…absolutely disgusting seeing ann coulter spew her ignorance & taylor laps it up. #VaginalVespa (tw) // no idea what that means, maybe becaues both are useless to me #vaginalVespa (tw) //It takes 42 muscles to frown and only four to extend my middle finger and tell you to bite me. (fb) // I hate two faced people. It’s hard to decide which face to slap first. (fb) // What the hell? I went outside there was a couch on my new neighbors lawn close to the house like it was airing out. I guess they left to get another load. I went back in the, then ten minutes later went back out to take out the trash and the couch was gone. They are not back home yet. If they were not getting rid of the couch, and I doubt it since it wasn’t on the curb but next to the porch,…ooops, and… Welcome to the hood! (fb) // He might have if you were a little more subtle about your feelings instead of telling everyone multiple times how much you wanted his dick (tln) // And I think short bridesmaids dresses are the best idea especially for bathroom sex (tln) // I made her a sippy cup with eggnog and whiskey. My meditation app told me to go the extra mile for someone today, so I did. (tln) // …oh my god that’s like anal suicide … I’m aware. I’m writing the eulogy for my colon as we speak. (tln) // Bombed my 8 a.m. exam and the liquor store doesn’t open till noon. Drinking unfinished beers from last night till they open. (tln) // I haven’t found him passed out in the living room covered in noodles for a while now so I guess he’s getting better with the drinking. (tln) // Guy to friend: You can’t expect to get away with killing someone when everyone knows who you’s is. Guy: Remember when we found that dead body? Boyfriend, to girlfriend: Look, the train is coming. You better stop or I’m gonna murder-suicide yo’ ass. Teenage preppy catholic schoolgirl on pink bedazzled iPhone: Oh, please, like I’m gonna wait for that bitch to roll over and die and hope she wills it to me. I want her Prada, and I want it now. I’m a New Yorker–I know how to get what I want! (ony) // Did yall hear about the girl who got Drake name tatted on her forehead? Its big as hell, it covers her whole forehead. (tw) // “Will you try to keep bribes down if you are elected President” (tw) // @ChrisRBarron GOP political consultant, homocon, fitness junkie, GOProud Board Chair, Firebird owner, married, like all things Pittsburgh related, I annoy the left. (tw) // Unlike some political whores my soul isn’t for sale. I value basic decency over a paycheck. I will never apologize for that. (tw) //I wasn’t concerned until I realized he was using the vase my birthday flowers came in as a ” big glass” for his 151 and coke. (tln) // Saw a license plate frame that said “only the best moms get promoted to grandma.” That’s not entirely true; some have slutty daughters and they get promoted anyway. (fb) // Teenage Girl: “Mom, Is it true that babies come out of where boys put their dicks in?” Mom: “Yes. dear, that’s true.” Teenage Girl: “But won’t that break my jaw?” (fb) //@michaelberliner Wicked – I will try to find my old school portrait now, quality might not be perfect: taken with blackberry camera. B nice! (tw) // @TheRealGriff Me too. The bag was a lot smaller in size than they said as well. (tw) // hello all im back sorry i was off for so long just needed some time away from the twitter but in back nothing much has changed in the life!! (tw) // “A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.” — Samuel Johnson (fucl) // “Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.” — Plato (fucl) // “Oh! it is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn’t. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn’t read.” — Oscar Wilde (fucl) // @KLSoltis Bloggers: I look forward to the first use of “How The Gingrich Stole Christmas” as the title of a post/article about Newt’s ascent. (tw) // Your olive oil is lying to you (tw) // for some reason old white men still feel comfortable being racist on da ol radio. #nealboortz u r no @talkmaster but u could b a CUMDUMPSTER (tw) // Im bored, which I had someone to chat on the phone with & laugh & just chat about shit (tw) // @BjCosbyJackson I have a grown man phone, you have a phone that wants to be grown but isnt. I just texted you, did you get a new number? (tw) // Mother to her daughter: Melanie, you want a punch in your face? Daughter: Not again! (ony) // Crackhead female: You wanna know how I know it’s Friday? Crackhead male: How? Crackhead female: Cause I get ma foostamps on Thursdays. (ony) // Teenage girl: I’ve been arrested eight times this year, but I didn’t nothing wrong. Guy on cell: But how is she on parole again? Every time she gets out on parole she does another felony. I don’t understand it. Man on public pay phone: No, they own my ass for the next two years. That’s what parole means! Thug on cell: I pleaded not guilty to postpone the trial… (ony) // Selah

Chamblee54 has an archive with roughly 1900 posts. When the well of inspiration runs dry, the archive is a good place to find text, to go between the pictures. ( Pictures today are from chamblee54). There was an overtitled effort called When Dogs Fly and You Clean Up, which featured a list of puzzling questions. In an effort to waste more bandwidth than before, we are reprinting the unedited list of questions, plus a few from the comments. 01 Can you cry under water? 02 How important does a person have to be before they are considered assassinated instead of just murdered 03 Why do you have to ‘put your two cents in’… but it’s only a ‘penny for your thoughts’? Where’s that extra penny going to? 04 Once you’re in heaven, do you get stuck wearing the clothes you were buried in for eternity? 05 Why does a round pizza come in a square box? 06 What disease did cured ham actually have? 07 How is it that we put man on the moon before we figured out it would be a good idea to put wheels on luggage? 08 Why is it that people say they ‘slept like a baby’ when babies wake up like every two hours? 09 If a deaf person has to go to court, is it still called a hearing? 10 Why are you IN a movie, but you’re ON TV? 11 Why do people pay to go up tall buildings and then put money in binoculars to look at things on the ground? 12 Why do doctors leave the room while you change? They’re going to see you naked anyway. 13 Why is ‘bra’ singular and ‘panties’ plural? 14 Why do toasters always have a setting that burns the toast to a horrible crisp, which no decent human being would eat? 14 If Jimmy cracks corn and no one cares, why is there a stupid song about him? 15 If the professor on Gilligan’s Island can make a radio out of a coconut, why can’t he fix a hole in a boat? 16 Why does Goofy stand erect while Pluto remains on al l fours? They’re both dogs! 17 If Wile E. Coyote had enough money to buy all that ACME cag, why didn’t he just buy something to eat? 18 If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, what is baby oil made from? 19 Why do the Alphabet song and “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” have the same tune? 20 Why did you just try singing the two songs above? 21 Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog’s face, he gets mad at you, but when you take him for a car ride, he sticks his head out the window? 22 Why do we press harder on a remote control when we know the batteries are getting dead? 23 Why do banks charge a fee on ‘insufficient funds’ when they already know there is not enough money? 24 Why does someone believe you when you say there are four billion stars, but check when you say the paint is wet? 25 Why do they use sterilized needles for death by lethal injection? 26 Why doesn’t Tarzan have a beard? 27 Why does Superman stop bullets with his chest, but ducks when you throw a revolver at him? 28 Why do Kamikaze pilots wear helmets? 29 Whose idea was it to put an ‘S’ in the word ‘lisp’? 30 If people evolved from apes, why are there still apes? 31 Why is it that no matter what color bubble bath you use the bubbles are always white? 32 Is there ever a day that mattresses are not on sale? 33 Why do people constantly return to the refrigerator with hopes that something new to eat will have materialized? 34 Why do people keep running over a string a dozen times with their vacuum cleaner, then reach down, pick it up, examine it, then put it down to give the vacuum one more chance? 35 Why is it that no plastic bag will open from the end on your first try? 36 How do those dead bugs get into those enclosed light fixtures? 37 When we are in the supermarket and someone rams our ankle with a shopping cart then apologizes for doing so, why do we say, ‘It’s all right?’ Well, it isn’t allright,so why don’t we say, ‘That really hurt, why don’t you watch where you’re going? 38 Why is it that whenever you attempt to catch something that’s falling off the table you always manage to knock something else over? 39 In winter why do we try to keep the house as warm as it was in summer when we complained about the heat? 40 How come you never hear father-in-law jokes? 41 Why do they call them aPARTments when they are so close together? 42 Why do we park in the driveway and drive on parkways? 43 Is there another word for thesaurus? 44 What’s the difference between normal ketchup and fancy ketchup? 45 Did Noah have woodpeckers on the ark? If he did, where did he keep them? 46 Why do superheros wear their underwear on the outside of their clothes? 47 Why are there ironing instructions on a pair of boxers? Does anyone really do that?  48 With GPS devices eliminating the need to ask for directions, what will female comedians make jokes about ?

1. Cons is not the opposite of poems.
2. Poetry slams can get violent.
3. Prose is not expected to rhyme.
4. Pornography is always prose.
5. Prose does not get set to music. .
6. Knee jerk is better than hip hop.
7. Prose writer pants stay up better.
8. Prose makes more money than poetry.
9. Free verse always winds up costing something.
10. If you are depressed you cannot take poetryzac.
11. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.

SFFILK (Not his real name) passes along a story about Mel Torme. It seems like Mr.Torme was eating a leisurely breakfast at a food court in Los Angeles, and a quartet appeared singing Christmas songs. They wound up performing “The Christmas Song” for co- author Torme…and the singers had no idea who he was. It is a good story, better told in the link.
According to the inerrant Wikipedia, Torme colloaborated with Robert Wells , until they had a falling out. One afternoon, on the hottest day of July in 1945, Mr.Torme went to visit Mr.Wells, and saw the first four lines of “The Christmas Song” (including “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose”). The lines were on a note pad, and the two agreed to beat the heat of summer by completing the song. Supposedly, Mr. Torme did not like the song very much. After three divorces, he probably didn’t see many of the royalties.
Mel Torme was the music director of the ill fated “Judy Garland Show” in the early sixties. He wrote a book about it… The Other Side of the Rainbow: With Judy Garland on the Dawn Patrol . The story is that Miss Garland would get blasted, call Mr. Torme in the middle of the night, and pour out her troubles. While the show did not last longer, there are some great youtube clips left over.
This is a repost.

A facebook friend put these fruitcake facts on the internet. PG saw a chance for some snappy text to put between some pictures. He would be nutty as a fruitcake to turn down a chance like this.
Fruitcakes were buried with the dead in Ancient Egypt. It’s true. Ancient Egyptians used to fill the tombs of the dead with all the supplies that they would need to enjoy the afterlife, including food and water. Fruitcake was often put into the tomb of a deceased person because a fruitcake soaked in a natural preservative like alcohol or fruit juice would last a long time. It was thought that the preserved fruitcake would not spoil on the journey to the afterlife. Fruitcake was a staple food of other ancient Middle Eastern, Southeast Asian and Mediterranean cultures as well
Candied fruits are used in fruitcake because using sugar was the only way to preserve the fruit long enough to get it back to Europe from the Middle East. When the Crusaders began carrying exotic fruits back to their European home the fresh fruit would spoil long before they were able to get it home. Ingenious traders began drying the fruits by candying them with sugar which made them an even more delicious treat and preserved them indefinitely. Once the candied fruits were sent to Europe and to other parts of the world they were baked into cakes so that they could be shared with family and friends on special occasions.
Fruitcakes will last for years without spoiling. It’s true. A fruitcake that is properly preserved with an alcohol soaked cheesecloth that is then wrapped in plastic wrap or foil can be kept unrefrigerated for years without spoiling. In the past, before refrigerators came along, families would make fruitcake for holidays and special occasions months in advance of the actual event and then let the covered fruitcakes sit wrapped in an alcohol soaked cloth until the event happened. As long as the cloth was remoistened with alcohol occasionally the cakes not only didn’t spoil, they actually tasted richer and sweeter because they had been soaking in brandy and rum for a couple of months.
To millions of fruitcake consumers, the town of Claxton GA is very special. This south Georgia town, just down the road from Reidsville, is home to Claxton Fruit Cake . This year, a new product is available, Chocolate Covered Claxton Fruit Cake Nuggets.
The story of the Claxton Fruit Cake company is a sweet one. Savino Tos founded the Claxton Bakery in 1910. He hired Albert Parker in 1927, and sold him the business in 1945. Mr. Parker decided to sell Fruit Cake to America. The rest is history.
No story about fruitcake is complete without mentioning the “Fruitcake Lady”. Marie Rudisill , an aunt of Truman Capote, wrote a book of fruitcake recipes. She became a tv celebrity, before going to the bakery in the sky November 3, 2006.
The urban dictionary has nine listings for fruit cake. The ones for homosexuals and crazy people are there. UD gets creative with this selection: “The act of releasing green chunky diarrhea onto your partners face then, ejaculating on it, then punching him/her in the nose causing the colors to mix together to form a fruit cake like color.”
If you tire of jokes about fruitcake, you can go to The society for the protection and preservation of fruitcake . (If you click on the “new URL”, you will be invited to join in the green card lottery.) There is a link on the society page that enables you to buy Fruitcake Mints. “Keep your breath fruitcake fresh with these festive mints! Turns out, the baked good actually tastes decent in mint form.”
Pictures for this entertainment are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”