Chamblee54

First generation college student and certified teacher. $20,000+ in student loans. 89 elementary schools in my hometown, and I couldn’t find a long-term position! Working outside my field. No healthcare plan, no retirement plan, and I am running short on hope! I AM THE 99%! occupywallst (spell check suggestion:occupational) .org I’m an 66 yr old ex-sailing yacht skipper, ex-gold smith. The yacht sunk and the gold went through the roof. The upper middle class that were my customers is gone. No more income, debt to my landlady, food or rent? I am also the 99%. occupywallst.org I’m 23, married 1 year, just lost my job at a business that had been running for 30 years. We are ok for now, but I live in fear of the future. I am the 99 percent. occupywallst.org I’m 22 going to college for a Fire Science degree. My mom has to work two jobs just to support herself with a bad back. I can’t find work anywhere and the government doesn’t care. I am the 99% I made this sign for us at Occupy Wall Street. I’m a Hell’s Kitchen, NYC born girl who lives in industrial Brooklyn with my husband. We are both artists who largely survive on SSD/pending SSI. These allotments get us by, as we live frugally, but put us in the poverty level. He was born with a physical disability due to a birth trauma, & I’ve been diagnosed with schizo-affective disorder. We live in an abandoned coffin factory that has been converted to a livable and affordable housing space for artists, but still fight against the city in housing battles, as they’d love to gentrify the area and price residents out. We are the 99%, and this is what life is like for us. In 2004, I landed a job in a metal plant that produces parts and accessories for Harley Davidson. It put money in my pocket and food in my stomach, but the job required me to endure high temperatures, poor air circulation, and dangerous conditions. In 2008, when the recession first came about, I was constantly getting laid off. I was making half of what I was making before the recession, so I decided to do something else. In 2009, I found a job as a counselor/mentor at a residential treatment facility for disturbed children. I absolutely loved doing the job and enjoyed working with at-risk youth, and reaping the emotional rewards of helping. Shortly after 4 months of working there, I began to observe a lot of injustices occurring within the workplace. Unfair treatment to the employees, long hours with NO breaks, mandatory 16-hour days and constantly understaffing. I put in a two-week notice and got my old job back. I was denied my accrued vacation time from my previous job, even with a two-week notice. Now, I am back to enduring unsanitary and dangerous working conditions. My hands are constantly in pain and my respiratory system is awful. I am 26-years old with no health insurance. I am the 99%. I AM AN UNEMPLOYED PRINTER REPAIRMAN WITH $87,000 IN STUDENT LOANS. I MAKE ENDS MEET BY CLEANING THE BATHROOMS AT RYAN’S STEAK HOUSE. I WAS FORCED TO MOVE BACK INTO MY MOM’S BASEMENT, AND I CANNOT AFFORD TO FEED MY CATS BECAUSE THEY WON’T TAKE FOOD STAMPS FOR CAT FOOD. I AM THE 99%. OCCUPY WALL STREET I will be 24 in exactly 1 month. I moved to a big city in 2009 with bright eyes and a job bartending where I pulled $100+ a night in tips. Shortly after my arrival, the bar went bankrupt and I began working in the adult industry behind the scenes to make ends meet. Even the adult industry was hit hard and with no work in sight, I decided to go back to college to pursue a specialized degree that I love (and that is a growing field with prospects). My degree will put me $60,000 in debt by graduation because I attend one of the top 50 schools for this degree. I was accepted into the #3 in the nation for my degree but decided that 60k in debt was better than $225,000 in debt. Because I made the more frugal choice it will harder for me to get a job in this field. I may not be able to attend much longer due to not having enough credit to get a loan this year. Now that I am 24 I do not qualify for loans given to first time college students. I now live with my mother, sister, her two children and her fiancé who also struggle to make ends meet. Our house is roach infested and mouse infested, but we can’t afford to move despite my mother working 60-80 hours a week and my sisters fiancé working 40 hours a week. We also can’t afford an exterminator either and our landlord won’t pay for one. For the first time in my life I know what hungry is. I use my credit card to buy milk, bread, cheese and lunchmeat for my family. Even when I had a high paying job I was denied health care because I was “overweight” with a pre-existing health condition. I now can no longer afford the gym membership I was using to get to a healthy weight, even though it’s only $10 a month. I do not qualify for food stamps because my household makes too much money yet we live check to check and some weeks can’t afford groceries. I do not qualify for free health benefits because my “condition” is not serious enough despite the fact that I may have cancer. I can’t afford the $250 to get a biopsy done or the $200 for the lab results. I cannot get jobs at fast food places or cleaning offices because I am “too qualified” (yay college) and I cannot get jobs working in my desired field because I have “too little experience.” My old boss calls me telling me that he can make me money in the adult entertainment industry if I ever wanted to be in front of the camera. The prospect of ever doing that job makes me cry at night. I shouldn’t have to give myself away for someone else’s viewing pleasure to live. For now I would rather 100% broke, than give up my integrity. It is only through the wisdom and guidance of my best friend and the hope of starting my own business with him that I have not taken my own life.. I am the 99%. Occupywallstreet.org I worked 45-40 hours a week for 5 years for a 2 degree education Wall St considers frivolous and the government doesn’t value. I’m lucky enough to be taken care of now, but where will I be at the end of degree #3? My fiancee convinced me to go to college, graduated with 2 degrees. 40k student loan. Had job for 5 months before losing it because of “season ending”. Student loans were due the following month. Got married. Husband kicked me out and divorced me after 3 months of marriage, leaving me helpless. Been almost 2 years, current BF works 50 hours a week, we have a 4 month old daughter who is on medicare. We can barely afford to pay rent, buy food and diapers. I am hounded daily by the loan company demanding payment, they do not offer any kind of help to pay off the loan or delaying payments over the lack of job. They do not care that I am unemployed, they want full payment NOW. I live in the Philippines where poverty, unemployment, corruption, and injustice prevails. A man sleeping on the street, or a kid selling flowers along highways in Manila are common sights. Still, my heart breaks every time I see such things, the same way my heart broke when I read your stories. I’m tired of the filthy rich on top of the social triangle who keeps getting richer. I’m tired of politicians stuffing their pockets with money while their countrymen drown in poverty and debt. I’m tired of their greed and selfishness. That damn triangle should be inverted. It’s time for a social revolution. America’s 99%’s fight= the rest of the world’s 99%’s fight (and we are quite a lot). We are the 99%. in my last year of college, an african american woman with a double major and $100 k debt to match. “dream degree” right? too afraid to quit school because of the economy, but cant go on because of chronic depression… last week i had to decide whether to pay my moms electric or have food for the week. i contemplate suicide daily. (with school & a 50+ hour work week, i dont have the time to) land of the what? i am the 99%. I have done awful things to make my mortgage payments…including selling my body. But I am no longer willing to sacrifice my remaining shreds of dignity on the altar of a faceless institution that gave me an ill-advised loan to begin with. Are you guys really THAT greedy? Going to be 22 at the end of the month, not excited for 23. I’ve lost 3 good friends on money issues. Recently! 1 I was trying to help out; now again I find myself broke. I eat a meal a day to save just to spend the rest on bus fare. Makes me feel wrong to sacrifice for the sake of others, especially those I care about. Chances are it stays that way. Sad to be part of the 99% “Workers must Organise” As a member of the British Working Class who is involved in protests against the exploitation working people by the rich, I am absolutely thrilled to see the American workers standing up at last against the parasites who exploit and demean their lives daily.Workers and Trade Unionists in Britain support and applaud your efforts,you are not alone the workers of the world are with you This is only the beginning of my financial troubles. I have constant anxiety that my family will not survive, and all I have gotten for my experience, dedication, and strong work ethic is the promise by corporations that I will get paid less for more work. For many years, I ate beans and rice…I still eat ‘em. Embrace simple food…It makes you stronger!!! I am the 99%. Occupy All The Time. The stories above are from We Are the 99 Percent. This selection is the copy ready text from page 44 and 45. The blog currently has 89 pages. The pictures today are from The Library of Congress .

Herman Cain said in an interview “when they had the lottery, I made myself available. The year that they had the lottery for the draft, they did not draft me because they didn’t get to my number.” This did not add up. If he had a deferment for his work with the Department of the Navy, why would he expose himself to the draft?
PG decided to check out the record. The numbers were surprisingly easy to find. Herman Cain was born December 13, 1945. The lottery webpage says : The lottery drawing held December 1, 1969, determined the order in which men, born from 1944 through 1950, were called to report for induction into the military. The highest lottery number called for this group was 195; all men assigned that lottery number or any lower number, and who were classified 1-A or 1-A-O (available for military service), were called to report for possible induction.
The number for December 13 was 163.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress.

Herman Cain is running for President. Recent polls show him doing very well. Mr. Cain has come to the point in his campaign where the press gets rough. This is an important part of the process. If he cannot handle a few “irrelevant” questions on MSNBC, then what will happen when the opposition party in Congress tries to block your every move?
As PG has mentioned before, he does not like Herman Cain. PG listened to him on the radio, before the Presidential run, and usually had to change the channel within five minutes. In the spirit of fairness, PG will watch the video of an interview with Mr. Cain.
A controversial part of the discussion regards Mr. Cain’s participation, or lack thereof, in the civil rights movement. First he says he was in high school, and if he had been in college he might have participated, Then we learn that he started college ( at Morehouse, near Downtown Atlanta) in 1963. Mr. Cain tries to change the subject to talking about the “failed policies” of the Obama administration.
At 10:51, there was a twitter question: “How can you say that being gay is a choice? Did you choose to be straight?” “It’s a difference of opinion. Next question please.”
At 17:07 comes a question that PG has wondered about:”after avoiding the war in Vietnam, why should you be commander in chief?” After graduation from Morehouse, Mr. Cain took a job with the Department of the Navy as a mathematician. To hear him say it, the draft board said they would prefer him crunching numbers to fighting. He then says that he made himself available to the draft lottery, and his number was not called. (The bs detector is ringing off the wall. Are the lottery numbers from 1968/1969 available online, to compare with Mr. Cain’s birthday? Who is the official with the draft board who gave him this clearance? These claims may be impossible to prove or disprove. It is beyond doubt that Mr. Cain’s lips were moving.) UPDATE: PG checks out the claims.
The issue of military service comes up for every Presidential candidate who was cannon fodder age during ‘Nam. Bill Clinton dodged the issue and got elected. George W. Bush won two elections over Vietnam Veterans. Mr. Cain does get points for knowing this issue would come up.
Mr. O’Donnell has a comeback. He asks why Mr. Cain did not wait to be drafted, but sign up like John Kerry. Mr. Cain:”Well Lawrence, we have a difference of opionion. I would like to move on to talk about how we are going to boost our economy.” He proceeds to promote his 999 plan. PG is not an economist, and has not studied this plan. He suspects that it is a lot of flashy talk with a clever title. It sounds like Fair Tax lite.
HT for this story goes to Andrew Sullivan. He has two links which shed some light on this story. Conor Friedersdorf provides a handy transcript of the Vietnam part of the interview.
O’Donnell: I misread your book and its references to the Navy. I thought you served in the Navy. You’re now telling me you didn’t. Can you explain how you avoided military service during the Vietnam War and during the draft, and why you should be commander in-chief if you did successfully avoid service during the war that came during what would have been your war years? After avoiding the Vietnam War, why should you be commander-in-chief?
Cain: Lawrence, you know, do you stay up nights coming up with the wording of these questions?
O’Donnell: Just thought of that one now when I heard you didn’t serve in the Navy or the military during Vietnam. How did you do that?
Cain: You say, “How did I avoid the Vietnam War?” I wasn’t trying to avoid the Vietnam War! Here’s what happened, Lawrence. I was working in a critical area called exterior ballistics. I worked on something called rocket assisted projectiles for the Department of the Navy. It was my local board in Atlanta, Georgia, that told me, “We would rather have you continue to do that analytical work, to help the Navy, rather than us draft you.” Secondly, when they had the lottery, I made myself available. The year that they had the lottery for the draft, they did not draft me because they didn’t get to my number. So I think that’s a poor choice of words on your part to say that I “avoided” the Vietnam War. I made myself available to my country, and they did not draft me. The rest of the time I was serving my country in a critical role called exterior ballistic analysis. So I am offended with your choice of words in terms of what I was doing during the Vietnam War.
O’Donnell: I am offended on behalf of all the veterans of the Vietnam War who joined, Mr. Cain. The veterans who did not wait to be drafted, like John Kerry, who joined. They didn’t sit there and wait to find out what their draft board was going to do. They had the courage to join, and to go, and to fight that war. What prevented you from joining? And what gives you the feeling, after having made that choice, you should be the commander in chief?
Mr. Friedersdorf is dumbfounded by this exchange. He is a younger man, and probably does not remember the domestic turmoil of the Vietnam war. There was something called Selective Service in those days, which meant you got a letter from Uncle Sam telling you to go in the Army or go to jail. Many of these men went to fight in Vietnam, where we lost 59,000 men. (55,000 more than in Iraq, with an all volunteer force.) Unless, of course, your draft board wanted you to work on exterior ballastic analysis.
The second link is to an email that a reader sent Mr. Sullivan. It is presented below. The pictures  are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”
I have to admit being horrified at how horrified people are at Lawrence’s interview with Herman Cain. He treated Mr. Cain far more politely than I or virtually any other African-American I know would have given the circumstances. And the circumstances are these. My father attended the University of Texas roughly during the same time period. UT was desegregated at the time, but he has no fond memories of the school, even though any troubles he experienced there were minor in comparison to others. He would eventually go on to Rice University (where he teaches today) for his PhD as the first Black man ever to attend that institution. His admission was delayed a year because White Alumni sued Rice to prevent his entry. He also had to deal with a Professor in Applied Math who publicly vowed that any Black student who enrolled in his class would start at a “C” and head downward.
Still, as angry as he remains to this day over what relatively little happened to him during his stays at both Texas schools, he still found time to test restaurants, because he knew it was his about him and his future children. He was doing it for me. He also met another student at the time who was also testing restaurants while attending Texas Southern University. Her name was Claudette Smith. I know her today as Mom.
You may argue that Herman Cain had a right not to participate in the Civil Rights Movement, and that may be true. But here’s the problem: he’s holding himself up as an example of, if not the very pinnacle of, the black community. (Just ask him, he’ll be glad to tell you). He has gone so far as to suggest that Black People who do not support him (not give him a fair hearing, mind you, but out-and-out support him) have been brainwashed by the Democratic Party.
May I suggest that my Father and Mother were not brainwashed? May I suggest that they saw with their own eyes who was supporting Civil Rights and who wasn’t; and their allegiance forevermore was aligned with the Democratic party.
And for the record, yes, there were Southern Democrats who voted against the 1965 Civil Rights Act. They long ago switched parties and joined Herman Cain’s party, the Republicans. I’m sure even Mr. Cain remembers Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act, and saying he was delivering the South to the Republicans for the next 40 years. He was wrong. Try 60-70.
The horrific part of the interview which apparently did not catch your eye, was Lawrence’s first asking Mr. Cain if he wanted to back off that “brainwashing” statement. Mr. Cain did not. With him questioning my intelligence as a African-American, I had a right to know where he stood in relation to the community he was questioning I had a right to know what kind of African-American he was, and yes that is something I can judge given the questions Lawrence O’Donnell asked rather haltingly. I had a right to know what he had given to the cause. Because if he had stood with my parents, if he had marched with my parents, then African-Americans as a whole would have shrugged when he called us “brainwashed”. At least, we would have decided, he earned the right.
But he didn’t. He didn’t march. He didn’t sit-in. He didn’t test. He didn’t want to get involved, because frankly, it was probably more important to him to ingratiate himself to his white oppressors. I’m sorry to come off sounding like a member of the Black Panther Party, but we see people like Mr. Cain all the time in the African-American community. The ones who think they’re better than the rest of us, smarter, and the only ones fit to lead, the only ones fit to be heard from.

This is a repost from October 12, 2008. At the time, ACORN was at the center of an election year controversy. In the three years since, it was been caught up in another flap, this one even flakier than the 2008 dustup. This  had a devastating impact on the organization. ACORN filed for bankruptcy on November 2, 2010.
An organization called ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) has been in the news lately. The word is they are registering voters, and not being too choosy who they sign up. Vote early, and vote often. Since a lot of these new voters will presumably vote for BHO, the JSM campaign has made an issue of this. The talking points have gone out, and ACORN is an issue.
This brought back some memories for PG. He used to work, briefly, for one of those community organizations. In 1980, he answered an ad for “Activists”. The job was for a group called Georgia Action, which was connected to ACORN.
The job was going door to door, getting people to sign a petition. The petition called for the Public Service Commission to take action against Georgia Power Company. When the petition was signed, the signer was asked to make a donation. Checks were preferred, since people seldom make checks out for less than five dollars.
PG trained for a couple of days with a senior operator. The word operator is appropriate. The man had a slick routine down, and did not take no for an answer. One lady said she was on chemotherapy, and was strapped for cash. The operator did not bat an eye, but said she could save money on her power bill if she would help Georgia Action.
Back at the office, PG learned that most of what Georgia Action did was “build a base”. They had meetings for Senior Citizens. The worked with neighborhoods to get garbage picked up. They did almost nothing with Georgia Power. The power company was a handy villain to use in fundraising. PG began to be disillusioned, but decided to stick it out.
The first day on his own, he was walking from the bus stop to the office. An acorn fell off a tree, and hit him in the head. PG tried, but never did too well. He called on a Georgia Power employee, who ridiculed what he was doing. His heart was not there, and the money wasn’t that great either. He called it off after a couple of days.
Now, this is just one story, about one of many community organizations. It took place 31 years ago. The petition drives against Georgia Power have not been seen in a while. Is ACORN committing voter fraud on behalf of BHO today? Who knows. The charges by JSM have the feel of noise from a losing candidate. There just might be an organization doing the same thing to register voters for JSM.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.

11:58:15PM “who do you serve, who do you protect”. The police arrest infrastructure is lining up on the sidewalks outside Woodruff Park. The crowd is chanting “who do you serve, who do you protect”. The park has been officially closed for 58 minutes. The police assault is believed to be imminent. 11:59:25 PM “whose park our park, whose park our park” “reply to the general welfare” There was an announcement to those with children, and those whose alien status is uncertain, to please move to the sidewalk. There is a division between the people who want to get arrested, and those who are not into that. 12:12:25 AM Commercial break on the live feed from slim jims spicy sticks. A representative from the mayor’s office was talking to reporters, and was shouted down by protesters. 12:19:13 AM The ad on the feed is from blue cross blue shield. “Lets show them lets show them that we are not that we are not leaving leaving” 12:27:28 AM They are having a “general assembly” in “troy davis park”. This means that some lady is screaming at the crowd, and they are repeating what she says back to her. They have decided to re occupy the park, and the Mayor is on the way to address the crowd. The police have not moved in yet, and some say they have backed down. There was an apparent massing of police forces on the fringe of the crowd, and now the police seem to be backing off. 12:37:52 AM The fishwrapper has announced that the mayor is allowing the people to stay. They are going to stay anyway. 12:45:21 AM rairojasii Rai Rojas Not sure if shouting “I am Troy Davis” to hundreds of police about to arrest you is wise. #OccupyAtlanta. #copkiller /// dezlock dezlock Really tempted to make a late night doughnut run to get the cops hopped up on sugar & caffeine before they clean up the park #OccupyAtlanta /// The general assembly is discussing what to say to the mayor when he arrives at the park. This speaker says and crowd repeats format that the meeting is taking gets very tiresome very fast. I hope this is not the way meetings go on from now on. /// “the press is on our ass, be on your best behavior please” 12:50:42 AM GrouchoMarxist Jon D.A. @KasimReed Please let #occupyatlanta stay in Troy Davis park. They are peaceful people, your constituents, your allies. Stand with them. 1:02:45 AM who is taking minutes…it’s important for transparency…I kind of am.. PG went downtown with Uzi Sunday afternoon to see the Occupy Atlanta facility. They found a parking lot on John Wesley Dobbs Avenue, and paid two dollars for two hours of parking. The parking meters in Atlanta are notoriously corrupt, and PG was eagar to get back to his vehicle. As it turned out, the car was there, unbooted and unbrokeninto, when they got back. Uzi wondered how the “real” homeless people felt about these hippies moving into the park. PG thought this was a good question. Then the park came into view. PG got a pictures of the camp with the Coca Cola sign in the background. Next was an image with the encampment in front of the GP building. Uzi did not know that the Koch Brothers own GP. PG has mixed feelings about renaming the park for Troy Davis. The Woodruff family has been good for the city. While there is enough doubt about the guilt of Mr. Davis to object to his execution, PG does not want to make a hero out of the man. Learning about an issue will do that for you. 1:22:32 AM Quinnnerd Quinn Edgar Mayor needs to come so I can sleep. #occupyatlanta /// The GA is getting stuck on the issue of whether to ask the mayor whether to rename Woodruff Park as Troy Davis Park. “he will realize that his opinion is secondary””we should be asking the mayor to abolish the death penalty” /// 1:25:11 AM caulkthewagon Robin by Occupy_Boston We will rack up arrest records ten miles long. We don’t fucking care. We have nothing left to lose. /// some say the Boston police are moving in, some say they are backing down /// drewwill Drew @ RT @RTColvin: Wouldn’t it be neat if #OccupyAtlanta was really a @WalkingDead_AMC marketing stunt? #whenwilltheyturnintozombies /// 1:35:31 AM mike check i would like to propose that mayor reed provide better restrooms for this park ///make check i would propose to turn those g-d awful sprinklers off /// 1:37:38 AM the general assembly decides that the mayor is not going to come, and that tonight is a tremendous win for the people of atlanta 1:42:07 AM Occupy_Boston Occupy Boston KEEP TAKING PICTURES. WRITE DOWN BADGE NUMBERS. Occupy Boston Police are going in now #occupyboston 43 seconds ago Occupy Boston Cops are beating Veterans for Peace 42 seconds ago 1:57:03 AM We are being inundated by young good doers. Get them and their money out. Go home! Leave us alone. Change the world from your home. Leave us alone. Get out of New Orleans. Your money helps the machine, not us./// Update The police never moved in. Here is an on the scene report ./// selah

As you may know, Hank Williams Jr. recently expressed himself. If you want to see the original, here is the video. Those are mighty good drugs talking.
The money quote comes at the 1:35 point. The looks on the Fox folks faces are priceless. At the 3:08 point, the lady says that Mr. Williams “used the name of one of the most hated people in all of the world to describe, I think, the President.” To a person on the West Bank, whose land was stolen by Israel to build a settlement, the most hated person in the world is probably Mr. Netanyahu.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress .

1. The fattest knight at King Arthur’s round table was Sir Cumference.He acquired his size from too much pi. 2. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian. 3. She was only a whiskey maker, but he loved her still. 4. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class, because it was a weapon of math disruption. 5. No matter how much you push the envelope, it’ll still be stationery. 6. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering. 7. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart. 8. Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie. 9. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it. 10. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. 11. Atheism is a non-prophet organization. 12. Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said to the other: ‘You stay here; I’ll go on a head. ’13. I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me. 14. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: ‘Keep off the Grass.’ 15. The midget fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large. 16. The soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran. 17. A backward poet writes inverse. 18. In a democracy it’s your vote that counts. In feudalism it’s your count that votes. 19. When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion. 20. If you jumped off the bridge in Paris, you’d be in Seine. 21. A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at him and says, ‘I’m sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger.’ 22. Two fish swim into a concrete wall. One turns to the other and says ‘Dam!’ 23. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Unsurprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can’t have your kayak and heat it too. 24. Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says, ‘I’ve lost my electron.’ The other says ‘Are you sure?’ The first replies, ‘Yes, I’m positive.’ 25. Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal? His goal: transcend dental medication. 26. There was the person who sent ten puns to friends, with the hope that at least one of the puns would make them laugh. No pun in ten did. 27. Pictures for this entertainment are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost..

Long Island Congressman Peter King is in the news these days. He was on the Laura Ingraham radio show recently, and made a few comments about the Occupy Wall Street movement. “They have no sense of purpose other than a basically anti-American tone and anti-capitalist. It’s a ragtag mob basically,’ … ‘We have to be careful not to allow this to get any legitimacy … I’m taking this seriously in that I’m old enough to remember what happened in the 1960’s when the left-wing took to the streets and somehow the media glorified them and it ended up shaping policy. We can’t allow that to happen.’
Wikipedia has a few stories about Mr. King. He joined the National Guard in 1968, when he finished law school, and he could not claim a student deferment any longer. 1968 was also the year of the Tet offensive. While a military victory for the United States, the Tet offensive was a psychological victory for the Viet Cong. It convinced many in the United States that the war in Vietnam could not be won. It was a turning point. The anti war protests in the United States had little to do with this.
PG is also curious as to what Mr. King meant when he said “it ended up shaping policy”. In the 1968 elections, Richard Nixon won. He persued a policy of “Vietnamization”, or withdrawing the United States combat forces. It was not until 1973 that the Paris accords were signed. These called for the withdrawal of the final American forces, and the release of POWs. (Rumors of POWs kept by North Vietnam continue to this day.) During the Nixon years of the Vietnam war, 20,000 American troops died, as did untold Vietnamese soldiers and civilians. There was an invasion of Cambodia. The conflict spread into Cambodia, with a horrendous loss of life. It is tough to see how American policy was affected by the domestic war protests.
Peter King is the Chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security, and seems to be a piece of work. At one time, he was considered to be a friend of the Muslim community. Mr. King was a friend of the Irish Republican Army. “In 1982, speaking at a pro-IRA rally in Nassau County, New York, King said: “We must pledge ourselves to support those brave men and women who this very moment are carrying forth the struggle against British imperialism in the streets of Belfast and Derry.”
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.

We, the people of Mortville reject global capitalism and the consumer-based identities it imposes upon the populace. We acknowledge that race, class, gender, and sexual orientation have been systematically transformed into marketing schemes to sell us our identities at the expense of the global poor and the human spirit. Mortville shall exist indefinitely as a laboratory in which we create recombinant personas from the detritus of corrupt corporate constructs. We shall embarrass capitalism by exposing its lies and subverting its strategy of spectacle. In the shadow of Urban Outfitters, we will illuminate the plight of those who toil in sweatshops to line the pockets of republican scum. We strive to alternately parody the excesses of consumer culture and set an example of living free of them. We declare the self-definition of glamor to be a human right and not a privilege of the 1%. Constantly reinventing ourselves as a hybrid of identities, we will look how we feel, say what we wish, fuck who we want, act as we should(n’t), vogue like a queen, and walk like an Egyptian. The first action of the un-government of Mortville shall be to impose economic sanctions upon the tyrannical regime of the status quo and it’s allies. Sanctions shall be lifted when the wealth is redistributed, the military industrial complex dismantled, the police disempowered, and the public sector fulfilling its obligations to the people. We demand education, housing, public transportation, dignified employment, energy that neither spoils our planet nor supports oppressive theocracies, abortions, human rights, arts programming, a secular and transparent democracy, free health care (including sex change operations), and legal residency for all! Until our demands are met, we shall cast our glittery high-heeled sabots into the mechanism of complacency and laugh as the gears shatter! HT to Mattilda. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Posting  this document does not constitute an endorsement.

Just shook hands with the bud light truck driver, thanked him for his service to our country /// I mean really it’s like when you’re super hungry and you can’t decide what to eat, you just know you want food. This is that situation, but for my vagina /// I legit just said “vaginal access denied” then told him his password hint was “tequila shots” /// I still love him regardless of his misguided forays into heterosexuality ///1. If you’re too open minded, your brains will fall out. 2. Age is a very high price to pay for maturity. 3. Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you a mechanic. 4. Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity. 5. If you must choose between two evils, pick the one you’ve never tried before. 6. My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance. 7. Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious. 8. It is easier to get forgiveness than permission. ///And nobody even seems to be considering that it could just be a publicity stunt for the new iPhone. /// In the eyes and ears of many people, including the writer of this opinion, a juke box confined to ‘jazz’ records may be a nuisance. It robs the air of sweet silence, it substitutes for the gentle concord of stillness the wailings of the so-called ‘blues singer,’ the whinings of foggy saxophones, the screeching of untuned fiddles, the blasts of head-splitting horns, and the battering of earshattering drums. It makes a mockery of music, it replaces harmony with cacophony, tonality with discord, and peace with annoyance. /// In 1937, Judge Leon R. Yankwich of Los Angeles Federal Court heard a case involving nearly identical patent claims submitted by Luther Wright and Herman Rongg. His decision: “Wright is wrong and Rongg is right.” /// 9. For every action, there is an equal and opposite government program. 10. If you look like your passport picture, you probably need the trip. 11. Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed of checks. 12. A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good. 13. Eat well, stay fit, die anyway. 14. Men are from earth. Women are from earth. Deal with it. 15. No husband has ever been shot while doing the dishes. 16. A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand. /// All that can be thought can be written. /// First we eat, then we beget; first we read, then we write. /// It happens to us once or twice in a lifetime to be drunk with some book which probably has some extraordinary relative power to intoxicate us and none other; and having exhausted that cup of enchantment we go groping in libraries all our years afterwards in the hope of being in Paradise again. /// Avoid adjectives. Let the noun do the work. /// The blind man doth eat many a fly. /// Man: I hope Santa come down your chimney! Woman: I don’t want him to come down a chimney. I want him to walk through the front door so I can get some fuckin head! –McDonald’s, The Village /// I do like those fuck-me pumps, but they’re terrible for my feet. /// 17. Middle age is when broadness of the mind and narrowness of the waist change places. 18. Opportunities always look bigger going than coming. 19. Junk is something you’ve kept for years and throw away three weeks before you need it. 20. There is always one more imbecile than you counted on. 21. Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again. 22. By the time you can make ends meet, they move the ends. 23. Thou shalt not weigh more than thy refrigerator. 24. Someone who thinks logically provides a nice contrast to the real world. 25. Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves for they shall never cease to be amused. /// Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical, liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. /// This Alzheimer’s Test is a MUST take if you are 40 or older. How fast can you guess these words and fill-in the blanks? 1. _ _NDOM, 2. F_ _K, 3. P_N_S, 4 PU_S_ , 5. S_X , 6. BOO_S Answers: 1. RANDOM 2. FORK 3. PANTS 4. PULSE 5. SIX 6. BOOKS You got all 6 wrong….d idn’t you? You do NOT have Alzheimer’ s YOU ARE A PERVERT!!!!!!! /// I probably shouldn’t confess this but when I was 14 and fighting for my life I never thought of suicide; I became obsessed with revenge. /// LETHOLOGICA is the word for the feeling you get when you cannot remember a word. /// We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out. /// “Not by wrath does one kill, but by laughter.”–Nietzsche /// three apples changed the world, the one eaten by eve, the one that hit newton, and the one created by steve jobs /// Quick question. What’s the protocol on going back to a bar after going home with one of their bartenders? Go back and try to find another to go home with. /// since when did our medecine drawer and our sex drawer become the same drawer? we now have lube covered cough drops. /// How many Apple employees does it take to change a light bulb? Three. One to come up with a design for a brand new type of lighting source that requires its own unique proprietary electrical connection to your home, one to create a method to buy proprietary accessories and design elements to improve the bulb’s functions, and one to come up with a name like iGlow that will convince people to spend $399 on a really cool looking light source. /// “If you start to take Vienna, take Vienna.” — Napoleon /// Minus forty Celsius is the same temperature as minus forty Fahrenheit /// No, but its not like diarrhea. i swear its like my intestines had a secret bank account and i just punched in the right pin. /// Had “I should be in prison or dead” storytime at the bar. Found out James has done blow off a dead guy. Overwhelmed and speechless. /// I was afraid that she would smell her boyfriend’s penis on my breath while we were talking. /// Wow. This hand sanitizer smells awesome. It’s like I just gave a handjob to a fruit basket. /// Skyscrapers don’t end till they run out of stories—like tedious people. /// Aphorisms are the echoes of our silences. /// The first rule of writing is not to omit the thing you meant to say. /// Four-year-old girl: Look daddy, I’m going to make a sand castle! Inexplicably angry father: You know that’s not going to work! The sand has to be wet. I thought we went over this already, but you never listen, do you? /// It was fun meeting your parents in my underwear. /// logomach n. one who fights over words /// Dude: I flirted with her really hard, and she was totally into it. Girl, flirtatious: Oh, yeah? Dude: Yeah. Her boyfriend wasn’t too happy though. Girl: Ha! Yeah? Dude: Yeah. And he’s a vampire, but it’s cool. Cause I’m a werewolf. /// Woman in fur coat #1: I’m thinking about downsizing: just one bedroom and one closet, that’s all I need. Woman in fur coat #2: Me too. But the ski clothes, and the golf clubs… they take up so much space! /// It’s taking 3 penises to fill the hole he left in my heart. /// Apparently you need a permit for a flamethrower. /// The Kardashian’s once again show they are right on trend, and this is on (sic) Mommy’s are all going to want to follow.( Spell check suggestion for Kardashian’s: Guardianship’s)/// This communication is for use by the intended recipient and contains information that may be privileged, confidential or copyrighted under law. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby formally notified that any use, copying or distribution of this e-Mail, in whole or in part, is strictly prohibited. Please notify the sender by return e-Mail and delete this e-Mail from your system. Unless explicitly and conspicuously stated in the subject matter of the above e-Mail, this e-Mail does not constitute a contract offer, a contract amendment, or an acceptance of a contract offer. This e-Mail does not constitute consent to the use of sender’s contact information for direct marketing purposes or for transfers of data to third parties. /// selah

This is a repost. It was originally posted four years ago. At the time, BHO was not doing well. The smart people said that Rudy Giuliani would run against Hillary Clinton to be the next POTUS. BHO was called out by the fashion police for not wearing a little flag on his lapel.
As we all know, things change very quickly. The yuck factor did in Hillary. BHO was elected POTUS. At some point in his journey, BHO began to wear flag jewelry. When he went on TV to announce the murder of Osama Bin Ladin, the camera saw a little flag.
BHO has changed his game in a few other ways. He is winding down the war in Babylon. The bad news is, the undeclared war against the Muslim world has been expanded. Thousands of women and children have been killed by American forces. How many women and children were killed in the drone strike(s) that killed Anwar al-Awlaki?

Barack Obama keeps saying things that appeal to me, and keeps falling further and further behind. This is the latest, courtesy of a local news service. Iowa City – Presidential Candidate Barack Obama is trying to change political fashion. He gave a speech in Iowa City Wednesday and he wasn’t wearing an American flag pin. Those pins have become synonymous with politicians since 9-11.
Obama says he doesn’t like how the pin has come to represent patriotism in America. “I decided I won’t wear that pin on my chest, instead I’m going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great. Hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism.”
The candidate, owner of the most prominent ears since Lyndon Johnson, is not doing well in the polls. Hillary is kicking his mixed race butt. Jesse Jackson accuses him of acting white.
It’s really a shame. Mr. O was opposed to the war in Babylon while the others were posturing over wmds. He is a good speaker, and is younger than yours truly. Part of the problem could be the shade of his exterior. He is expected to say things that appeal to black voters.(Hence the comment from Mr. Jackson) The only problem is that what appeals to African Americans frequently scares Whitefolk. He is in a tough spot. The irony is, his mother was white, his father is from Kenya, and he was born in Hawaii. He is not the descendant of slaves.
This latest flap is one more thing that I like. I get tired of the flag used as jewelry, and exploited for commercial and political gain. A while back, a real estate lady in my area put a flag in everyone’s front yard, with her business card attached. I wonder how many of those flags wound up in a landfill, which is not a place of respect.
A co worker once had a sticker on her van, “try burning this one”. After leaving the van in direct sunlight for a while, the pink, lavender, and beige were still there.
I have one flag on display. It is in my tool shed. I found it in a box of garbage once, while I was riding my bike. I rescued it. But I don’t use the flag as an item of jewelry. I applaud Mr. Obama for his not doing so.

The electoral college method of electing the President is broken, and needs to be fixed. This problem has been around since the constitution was written. It hurt America badly in 2000, when the man who won the popular vote was denied the Presidency on a technicality.
There have been few calls for electoral reform since the 2000 election, even from the Democrats who were robbed. It is almost as if the two parties don’t really compete, but pretend to fight each other, knowing that soon it will be the other guys turn to rule. The thieves who run our political system are used to playing the electoral college game, and would have to have an honest election if the race was decided by popular vote.
In Georgia, it is known that the Republicans will get the states votes. If you vote for a democrat, your vote in Georgia won’t make a difference in Ohio. The electoral college system takes the Presidential vote away from Georgia citizens.
The reform of this system does not have to be complicated. The constitution calls for the voters to select electors, who will vote on the President. The winner-take-all plan is a perversion of the original plan. The customs can be changed just as easily, probably without a constitutional amendment.
Here is a plan. Elect one elector for each congressional district. Give each state two electors based on the statewide vote. There will be districts where one party always wins, and that is regretable. There will probably be fewer people disenfranchised this way that under the present system of state by state, winner takes all.
Pictures tonight are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”