Chamblee54

Last week, there was a golf tournament. Before the telecast of the final round, there was a film of children reciting the pledge of allegiance to the United States flag. For some reason, the words “under G-d” were left out. This sparked a controversy.
A reasonable first question is, who watches the introduction to the telecast of a golf tournament? With all the things you can do on a sunday afternoon, why would you want to waste this time on something this trivial? This is aside from spending your emotions, getting upset because a “pledge of allegiance” did not have a reference to your favorite sacred name.
One of the players in this bilefest is a Republican congressman named Todd Akin. He saw a chance to make political hay out of this incident. The money quote : “NBC has a long record of being very liberal and at the heart of liberalism really is a hatred for G-d and a belief that government should replace G-d.”
The third commandment says “Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy G-d in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.” This is a bit of a contradiction. The word Lord ( with or without all caps) is reportedly a term for an English nobleman, that does not accurately represent the phrase in the original Hebrew text. The key word here is G-d, and this is the sacred name at the heart of this controversy.
This commandment is about the proper use of a sacred name. In a perfect world (which does not include PG), this word would only be used for respectful discussion and worship. It would not be part of the dozens of sayings, many hurtful, that currently involve the G word. And the word G-d would not be part of a “pledge of allegiance”, to a symbol of a political entity.
Mr. Akin is using a sacred name to trash those who disagree with him. He combines use of this sacred name with name calling. He forgets that “Liberals” are G-d’s children just as much as “Conservatives”. This is not the proper use of a sacred name.
Update There is a proposal in Georgia to add In G-d We Trust, without the hyphen, to automobile license tags. This is not an appropriate use of a sacred name.

The state of Georgia poisoned Roy Williard Blankenship last night. He was accused of causing the death of 78 year old Sarah Mims Bowen on March 2, 1978. There is little doubt that Mr. Blankenship was in her residence, after a night of drinking, and taking quaaludes. Ms. Bowen died of heart failure, which is said to be caused by an assault.
In addition to being the first execution for Nathan Deal, the Blankenship poisoning was the first time the state used Pentobarbital in the lethal injection process. Sodium Thiopental had been used before. The first drug in this cocktail is a sedative, to relax the prisoner before the more deadly second and third drugs are injected. The manufactorer of Sodium Thiopental no longer produces the drug, in part because of concerns about use for capital punishment.
There are reports that Pentobarbital did not work in the execution of Mr. Blankenship. “Reports suggest that the first execution carried out in Georgia using pentobarbital may have been botched, with the prisoner experiencing severe pain as a result of a failure to properly anaesthetise him.
According to the Associated Press, Roy Willard Blakenship grimaced during the process, and kept his eyes open throughout. These indications that he may have remained conscious – and therefore would have suffered severe pain as the process continued – have recently been seen in botched executions using other anaesthetics which have not been properly assessed or tested.”
Pentobarbital is produced by the Lundbeck corporation. They have issued a statement expressing their opposition to the use of Pentobarbital for executions. It is also known as Nembutal.
Dr. Carlo Anthony Musso participates in Georgia executions. He is accused of buying Sodium Thiopental from a shady source, and illegally shippping the substance to authorities in Tennessee and Kentucky. If an unconnected citizen was accused of this, there would be serious legal consequences. Dr. Musso made a statement about these allegations: “Musso said in a statement released to The Associated Press late Thursday that he is being singled out for “political purposes” and urged critics of the death penalty not to specifically target him. The statement did not directly address the allegations.”
As with most capital cases, there is a flood of information available. Here is the the court opinion of the latest attempt at clemency. Much of this information is available here as well.
Mr. Blankenship was an alcoholic, and he was high when he broke into Ms. Bowen’s residence. When arrested, he waived his right to silence, and gave several contradictory statements to the authorities. There are doubts as to his ability to become erect, as well as reports of other people in the apartment. Making statements like this did not help his case: “When I put her on the bed and took her clothes off, I was drunk, I guess. I said I may as well go ahead and get some pleasure. That’s when I had the relationship with her. As far as I know, I thought I was in the right hole. After that I got up and was afraid that I might have hurt her. I thought I’d better get out of there. I left as soon as I did that shit.”
There was physical evidence linking Mr. Blankenship to the crime scene. “Semen was found in her vagina, which tests demonstrated came from a blood type-O individual. Both Blankenship and Bowen were type-O…A fingerprint lifted from glass broken in from the balcony and found inside the apartment matched Blankenship. On March 11, an arrest warrant for Blankenship was prepared, as well as search warrants for his apartment. Inside the apartment, police found shoes belonging to Blankenship whose tracks matched those found in and around Bowen’s apartment.”
Pictures today are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”

The phrases counterinsurgency and counterterrorism are tossed around a good bit these days. (Some use the abbreviations Coter and COIN.) Some people know what they are talking about. PG is not one of them, but he does know how to get to google city.
The top result is from yahoo , and features an ad for Dollywood. They say counterterrorism is when you kill the enemies, and counterinsurgency is when you try to win over the native population. If you shoot someone and pitch the remains in a holler, that is counterterrorism; if you take his neighbors to Dollywood, that is counterinsurgency.
If you want to get confused, read What is the difference between counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism?. There seems to be confusion as to exactly what terrorism and insurgency are. Since our government is conducting a Global War on Terrorism, (aka the long war, or world war w) this might be problem. “The question ‘What is the difference between counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism’ may be interpreted as suggesting that the two are dichotomous, but as a closer look demonstrates, they are in fact closely linked. Terrorism, as an ideological strategy of psychological warfare by political violence, falls under the aegis of insurgency, which is a situation of violent political activism directed against a government by a rebellious minority.” There is no advertising on this page.
Global Counter Terror (GCT) Magazine advertises shoes and warfighter tools. The article is poorly written nonsense. “Insurgency is an organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted government through the use of subversion and armed conflict. The definition of terrorism is much more convoluted as terrorism has been used by every insurgency throughout history to topple a government by coercing the ruling government to increase controls of its citizenry, thus creating increased popular disaffection, in an ever-increasing cycle that leads to major uprising by the majority against the ruling government. The best definition for terrorism I’ve been able to find is the one by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI): Terrorism is the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a Government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.”

Demcracy Arsenal does not like counterinsurgency. They go on at great length, mostly about how the USA is unwilling to make the commitment to see counterinsurgency through. A comment here makes a good point: “First, the US invaded Iraq and overthrew the government, and so the US forces were (and are) the insurgents. Iraqis resisted the invasion and the ensuing military occupation, so they are the counter-insurgents. COIN strategy is really building a new government to replace the one the US insurgents overthrew and defending it against the counter-insurgents. And so on, with any discussion on the subject making a whole lot more sense if proper English rather than incorrect military jargon were used.”
The American Prospect has a nifty piece about “The cult of counterinsurgency”. It focuses on a man named John Nagl, which rhymes with boggle. Mr. Nagl is one of the salesmen for COIN theory to the military establishment, and he has succeeded in his sales job. He uses as an example for COIN strategy the conduct of our army in Vietnam. Mr. Nagl was two years old during the tet offensive.
“Counterinsurgency means, more or less, an attempt to defeat guerilla fighters who hide among a civilian population over an extended period of time (the word “guerilla” comes from the Spanish term for “small war”). These types of “low-intensity conflicts,” as they are known, were fought by the French in Algeria, the British in Malaysia, and the Soviets in Afghanistan. “ It should be noted that, for the French and the Soviets, these conflicts ended in disastrous defeats.
A critic of the COIN approach is Edward Luttwak, a senior associate at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. “And, yes, it is possible for counterinsurgency to succeed, says Luttwak of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. It depends on how much “blood and treasure” you put into it. Few people know as much about irregular warfare as Luttwak does—and he is not impressed by what he has seen in the Middle East. Luttwak, 65, who is the author of Coup d’État: A Practical Handbook, says U.S. troops should pull out of Afghanistan. “What the fuck are we doing there?” he asks. “Much better to abandon it and do occasional punitive expeditions as opposed to counterinsurgency and its enormous costs. I’ve been to Afghanistan. Basically, you’d have to kill every single Afghan and take all the children and put them in boarding school, preferably in England.”
The last result on the first google page is an academic report, Counterterrorism vs counterinsurgency: understanding Obama’s Afghanistan decision. This document does not shed much light on this murky debate. Perhaps a reader can follow the link, and explain this to PG in the comments.
To Sum up, the correct answer to the question, should we use counterinsurgency or counterterrorism in Afghanistan, is I don’t know . After reading the reports cited above, as well as this report, PG is suspicious of anyone who claims to know the difference. The two strategies seem to work together … COIN is a part of Coter, to the extent that it helps provide intelligence to the forces trying to kill the terrorists. It is a big, murky, expensive mess, and one of the reasons our country is in the economic mess it is in. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.

At the seven minute mark of his speech on Afghanistan , BHO starts a paragraph with the phrase “my fellow americans”. Those of a certain age will remember another democratic warpotus, Lyndon Johnson, who was fond of saying MFA. Whatever rude things were said about lightbulb Lyndon, no one ever asked to see his birth certificate. Perhaps that is what BHO meant by that phrase.
The paragraph that BHO starts with this bit of sixties nostalgia ( four year old Barry probably did not see the SOU message linked above) caught PG’s eye when reading the transcript . “My fellow Americans, this has been a difficult decade for our country. We have learned anew the profound cost of war — a cost that has been paid by the nearly 4,500 Americans who have given their lives in Iraq, and the over 1,500 who have done so in Afghanistan — men and women who will not live to enjoy the freedom that they defended.”
Are you sure, Barry? Over a million Iraqis live in exile in Syria as we speak. They may have jumped out of the frying pan, and into the fire. The reason they left was to escape the civil war that our “liberation” of Babylon set off. They have paid a price for our “mission accomplished”.
Are you sure Sean Hannity? Every day, you say to make the Bush tax cuts permanent. ( At least you were the last time PG was brave enough to listen to your  show.) Historically, the profound cost of war has been paid, at least partially, by higher taxes. In world war two, people sold war bonds, and encouraged each other to invest in the defeat of the Nazis. In this war, the right wing wants to pay for it by lowering taxes. The result is a national debt that is going to burden our economy for decades.
Getting back to the message by BHO (It was made in an empty hall, with gilt edged chairs replacing the Seal of the Presidency. Not to worry, BHO was wearing a flag pin on his lapel.) … there was another Vietnam flashback at 7:53. “And even as there will be dark days ahead in Afghanistan, the light of a secure peace can be seen in the distance.” Is this light at the end of a tunnel?
At 8:58 comes this gem:“When innocents are being slaughtered and global security endangered, we don’t have to choose between standing idly by or acting on our own.” Since BHO has taken over as warpotus, the drone strikes over the third world have dramatically increased. This is air slaughter, against a helpless population, directed by remote control from a cave in Nevada. Many of the people killed in these raids are women and children, who are not members of Al Qaeda. (To be fair, some of the children would have been terrorists if they had been able to grow up.) We don’t have to choose, because the decision was made by warpotus BHO…we will use our high tech weapons to KILL, KILL, KILL.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress.

PG has been on a rules of life bender lately. Recently, the facilitator was Avitable. He left ten rules for life. He had 94 comments, many of whom offered their own RFL. While editing the Avitables, PG began to think. This is usually dangerous, though so far has not been fatal. A running list of profundities was begun.
This list uses male oriented terms. PG realizes that more than half of humanity is female. However, the english language is clumsy. Words like their and people just don’t sound right. For the purposes of this lesson, PG will say he and him. The reader can translate this into more inclusive terminology.
1 A man who says I don’t know is usually telling the truth, unless he is under oath. 2 If you don’t know, ask. 3 Don’t use body parts or hygiene appliances as insults. 4 If you can’t say anything good about someone, say bless his heart.5 Believe half of what you read and nothing that you hear. 6 If you tell the truth, you will always know what you said. 7 A phony apology is usually worse than the misdeed which proceeded it. 8 An after dinner bike ride in summer is a gift. Whatever you are doing can wait until you get back. 9 A man once complained that he had no shoes, until he met a man with no feet. 10 Wisdom fatigue is real. 11 Bumper stickers are asking for trouble. Why should the person behind you in traffic know your innermost thoughts? 12 Sometimes it takes more courage to listen than it does to talk. 13 The more opinions you have, the easier it is to be a hypocrite. 14 If you say something louder, it does not become more true. 15 When compiling lists of wisdom, include things that make you smile, even if you don’t completely agree. 16 You can wish in one hand and poop in the other, and see which hand gets full faster. Whatever choice you make, wash your hands. 17 Keep your voice down if you don’t want someone to hear you. 18 Efficiency is laziness with an attitude. 19 Know the difference between true wisdom and a clever phrase. 20 Don’t believe your own propaganda. 21 Follow the money.
The above feature is a repost , twice. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.

Rick Santorum is a former Senator from Pennsylvania. He wants to be President of the United States. If the voters of Pennsylvania fire you from the Senate, then you run for President. There is a certain logic to that. When you type “Rick Santorum weird” into google you get 772k results, many of which are duplicates. Think Progress has a post with the prosaic title ” Rick Santorum’s 10 Weirdest Statements.“ Before we get to those, the ultimate Santorum weirdness (so far) is this quote from Letters to Gabriel , written by Karen Garver Santorum, the wife of the candidate. ( Chamblee54 does not ordinarily hold personal tragedy up to ridicule. However, this is in the public record, and is going to be cited in the campaign. Also, the living children involved were 5, 3, and 1 at the time of this story. The quote below is from BS alert. ) Santorum and his wife, Karen Garver Santorum, have six children: Elizabeth Anne (born 1991); Richard John (“Johnny”), Jr. (born 1993); Daniel James (born 1995); Sarah Maria (born 1998); Peter Kenneth (born 1999); and Patrick Francis (born 2001). In 1996, their son Gabriel Michael was born prematurely and lived for only two hours (a sonogram taken before Gabriel was born revealed that his posterior urethral valve was closed and that the prognosis for his survival was therefore poor). Karen Santorum wrote a book about the experience: Letters to Gabriel: The True Story of Gabriel Michael Santorum. In it, she writes that the couple brought the deceased infant home from the hospital and introduced the dead child to their living children as “your brother Gabriel” and slept with the body overnight before returning him to the hospital. And now, the rest of the top ten. 1. “In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That’s not to pick on homosexuality. It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be….If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything.” [4/2003] 2. “Is anyone saying same-sex couples can’t love each other? I love my children. I love my friends, my brother. Heck, I even love my mother-in-law. Should we call these relationships marriage, too?” [5/22/2008] 3. On repeal of DADT: “I’m worried when many people will stand up and say, ‘well whatever the Generals want.’ I’m not too sure that we haven’t indoctrinated the Officer Corps in this country that they can actually see straight to make the right decisions.” [2/20/2010] 4. “I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say ‘now we are going to decide who are people and who are not people.” [1/19/2011] 5. “Marriage is an institution that’s a bridge too far for too many African-American woman and is not desirable among African-American males….I think [Obama] has to realize that flying to New York is…self-indulgent. Go down to the corner bar and have a drink, a shot and a beer.” [6/2/2009] 6. In far too many families with young children, both parents are working, when, if they really took an honest look at the budget, they might find they don’t both need to….The radical feminists succeeded in undermining the traditional family and convincing women that professional accomplishments are the key to happiness. [‘It Takes A Family,’ 7/6/2005] 7. Santorum responded to the Pentagon’s decision rescind its invitation to evangelist Franklin Graham to speak at the upcoming National Day over his statement that Islam is “evil” by saying that Graham’s comment was “a reasonable statement at the time.” [3/23/2010] 8. “I think the Democrats are actually worried [Obama] may go to Indonesia and bow to more Muslims.” [3/23/2010] 9. “The creeping Sharia throughout Europe and here in this country and in Canada. The Islamization of Europe that is already on the way and will visit these shores not too soon is a concern for us and something that we need to identify and we need to talk about and we need to fight with every ounce of our being. [2/28/2009] 10. “Now we have the Attorney General confirming to Osama bin Laden just bide your time and the effeminate and pampered Americans will cower away.” [2/28/2009] Bonus If this is not enough, be sure to visit spreading Santorum. The more hits the site gets, the higher it’s google ranking is. The fun never stops.

PG was being kept prisoner, in the basement of an bankrupt department store in Alpharetta. Some movie company wanted to film a scene in the parking lot. The cheapest way to get a bunch of cars is to hire extras, and then have them do nothing. PG was happy to oblige. He felt better about the whole thing when he found his car, in the same space, at 4am.
One of the first rules of movie work is to bring a book. On the busiest days, there are long stretches where the background sits around, waiting for something to do. The ideal book is a thin paperback, in the standard 4.25″x 6.875″ format. Such a volume will fit neatly in the back pocket, eliminating the need to tote it around. Such books are popular at yard sales and discount racks, so that it is no tragedy if the book is lost.
After a bit of experimenting, PG found a place to sit. It had a good source of light, and a table to write on. This was on the table with the tubs of water and coffee. There was a jug of lemonade on the table, but the craft services man decided that it was not good quality, and did not put it out. The rest of the night, people asked PG which cooler had water, and which one was lemonade. (When life gives you lemons, you are supposed to make lemonade. What do you do if someone gives you bad lemonade?)
The day before, PG had been in another mall, working on the same movie. His book that day had been “ The Subterraneans” by By Jack Kerouac. For some reason, the typing did not amuse PG. He wound up looking at a advertisement for a new type of shoe. The ad had a picture of Joe Montana, looking like he was going to throw a sneaker for a touchdown. PG looked at the ad, trying to find the hidden messages. It turns out that the signature of Joe Montana, in the top left corner of the image, had two phalluses, and a pair of boobs. PG suspects that Joe Montana’s signature does not look like that.
For the all nighter in Alpharetta, PG chose ” Black Humor “. It was a collection of short stories and novel excerpts, with some sort of connection. According to an interview Mr. Friedman gave a few years ago, this was where the term “black humor” was coined. The phrase is not as popular now as it once was, probably because of the racial toes that seem to get stepped on.
The racial angle works for the first story PG read. It was written by Terry Southern, and he goes to a baton twirling camp at the University of Mississippi. It was written in 1963, which was a different time. When Mr. Southern got to town, he asked the taxi driver where he could get some booze. Before you could say batons on fire, Mr. Southern was at a shack out in the country. A nine year old black kid sold him two bottles of “n*****r pot”, aka moonshine.
Between staring at high school girls learning how to twirl and strut, Mr. Southern got into a chat with two law students. “We never had no Negra problem here. There just weren’t no problem – wasn’t till those agitators came down here started all the problem business”.
The collection came out in 1965. In the introduction, Mr. Friedman talks about the rapidly fading line between fiction and “reality”, how it was tough to tell which is more bizarre. He made some comments about our high tech air force dropping napalm on Vietnamese peasants, and how Red China was about to get involved. At the time, there were 35,000 “advisers” in Vietnam.
The next story PG chose was by John Rechy , and was an exerpt from ” City of Night “. Mr. Rechy is somewhat of a legend. He wrote about hustlers, and did his research on Santa Monica Boulevard. The story is that he never did quit, but was out on the streets when he was fifty years old.
A british interview gets a bit more specific. Rechy didn’t clean up for a while. “The last time I hustled was when I was 55 years old. It was more of a symbolic act than anything – just to prove to myself that I could still do it. I actually gave the guy his money back, much to his astonishment. I didn’t put that story in the book. There’s a limit to how far you can stretch people’s belief.”
The story PG read, between questions about lemonade, was about a drag queen named Miss Destiny. In her night to night life in downtown Los Angeles, Miss Destiny…who will correct you, if you forget the Miss, and call her Destiny… longs to get married. We see her in a couple of nights on the town, with a motley collection of queens, trade, fruits, pushers, and police.
The author gets tired of the scene, and leaves for San Diego. When he gets back to town, Miss Destiny has vanished. It seems like everyone heard about her wedding, but no one attended. At the end, someone gets a letter saying that Miss Destiny had gone straight, married a real girl, and had kids. The author does not believe it.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress.

This story is borrowed from Gartalker, who borrowed it from someone else. The pictures are from The Library of Congress
When you have to visit a public bathroom, you usually find a line of women, so you smile politely and take your place. Once it’s your turn, you check for feet under the stall doors. Every stall is occupied. Finally, a door opens and you dash in, nearly knocking down the woman leaving the stall. You get in to find the door won’t latch. It doesn’t matter, the wait has been so long you are about to wet your pants! The dispenser for the modern “seat covers” (invented by someone’s Mom, no doubt) is handy, but empty. You would hang your purse on the door hook, if there was one, but there isn’t – so you carefully, but quickly drape it around your neck, (Mom would turn over in her grave if you put it on the FLOOR!), yank down your pants, and assume” The Stance.”
In this position your aging, toneless (God I should have gone to the gym!!!) thigh muscles begin to shake. You’d love to sit down, but you certainly hadn’t taken time to wipe the seat or lay toilet paper on it, so you hold”The Stance”. To take your mind off your trembling thighs, you reach for what you discover to be the empty toilet paper dispenser. In your mind, you can hear your mother’s voice saying, “Honey, if you had tried to clean the seat, you would have KNOWN there was no toilet paper!” Your thighs shake more.
You remember the tiny tissue that you blew your nose on yesterday – the one that’s still in your purse. (Oh yeah, the purse around your neck, that now, you have to hold up trying not to strangle yourself at the same time).That will have to do. You crumple it in the puffiest way possible. It’s still smaller than your thumbnail.
Someone pushes your door open because the latch doesn’t work. The door hits your purse,which is hanging around your neck in front of your chest,and you and your purse topple backward against the tank of the toilet. “Occupied!” you scream, as you reach for the door, dropping your precious, tiny, crumpled tissue in a puddle on the floor, lose your footing altogether, and slide down directly onto the TOILET SEAT. It is wet of course.
You bolt up, knowing all too well that it’s too late. Your bare bottom has made contact with every imaginable germ and life form on the uncovered seat because YOU never laid down toilet paper -not that there was any, even if you had taken time to try. You know that your mother would be utterly appalled if she knew, because, you’re certain her bare bottom never touched a public toilet seat because, frankly, dear, ”You just don’t KNOW what kind of diseases you could get”.
By this time, the automatic sensor on the back of the toilet is so confused that it flushes, propelling a stream of water like a fire hose against the inside of the bowl that sprays a fine mist of water that covers your butt and runs down your legs and into your shoes. The flush somehow sucks everything down with such force that you grab onto the empty toilet paper dispenser for fear of being dragged in too At this point, you give up.. You’re soaked by the spewing water and the wet toilet seat. You try to wipe with a gum wrapper you found in your pock! et and then slink out inconspicuously to the sinks.
You can’t figure out how to operate the faucets with the automatic sensors, …..so you wipe your hands with spit and a dry paper towel and walk past the line of women still waiting. You are no longer able to smile politely to them. A kind soul at the very end of the line points out a piece of toilet paper trailing from your shoe. (Where was that when you NEEDED it??) You yank the paper from your shoe, plunk it in the woman’s hand and tell her warmly,”Here, you just might need this”.
As you exit, you spot your hubby, who has long since entered, used, and left the men’s restroom. Annoyed, he asks, “What took you so long, and why is your purse hanging around your neck?” … This is dedicated to women everywhere who deal with a public restrooms.It finally explains to the men what really does take us so long. It also answers their other commonly asked questions about why women go to the restroom in pairs. It’s so the other gal can hold the door, hang onto your purse, and hand you Kleenex under the door!

This is a borrowed post. It was originally posted at A Merrier World . PG does not bake or write in first person. He has never had kids. He does borrow other peoples ideas, and introduces them to the rainbow. This is a repost
At the end of her birthday party last year, M announced that she would be having a unicorn party for her next birthday. I didn’t realise that she was absolutely serious about this. I thought, “It’s a whole year away – she’s bound to change her mind.” But no, for a whole year M has stuck to her original intention and has been counting down the days until her unicorn party.
You could argue that I’ve had a whole year to prepare, so why the sudden rush to get everything ready last week? Well, M may have had a solidly clear idea of the grand theme for her party, but she left the finer details entirely up to me. Not wanting to disappoint, I threw myself into turning our house into an enchanted forest in the hope that any passing unicorns might be tempted to pop in on the big day. We made glittery trees and rainbow streamers while M’s big sister created a  welcoming poster for the front door.
Last year, M set her heart on a cake she saw in a book by Debbie Brown (here’s a warning to parents – only ever let your children see pictures of cakes that you’re happy to make yourself). Four being so much more grownupperer than three, M has now  entered the chocolate frosting and smarties stage.
I’m not so very far removed from the icing sugar cloud of despair that I miss those fondant modelling sessions yet … I’m quite happy to be doing chocolate and smarties. I couldn’t resist giving the birthday girl a little surprise, though. From the outside, M’s cake looked perfectly normal (in a homemade sort of way) – a magical plastic unicorn standing amid swirls of white chocolate buttercream and scattered smarties. M’s seven little party guests looked on dutifully as M blew out her candles and I took a knife to cut into the cake.
Hesitating before plunging in to make the first slice, I asked them all, “Do you know what happens when a unicorn stands on top of a birthday cake?” “No,” they whispered with wide eyes. “He makes a rainbow,” I told them, cutting into the cake. The next day, M sidled up to me and asked, “Mummy, how did the unicorn do that to my cake?”
Well, if there’s by any chance anyone left in the blogosphere who hasn’t come across a rainbow cake before now, I’ll explain my own take on the concept … just in case a unicorn happens to pass by and stand on another little girl’s birthday cake ;-) . I’m not sure who had the original idea – there’s a box-mix version doing the rounds that appears to have started with this thread in the dubiously-named ‘Something Awful’ forums. Rejecting the layered box-mix and diet soda variety however, I based my own rainbow cake recipe on Farida’s beautiful Zebra Cake.
I followed Farida’s instructions to make a yellow cake batter (whichever basic cake recipe you choose, it’s important that it’s one in which the batter doesn’t mix about too much during baking or you’ll end up with a muddy brown cake instead of a rainbow).
Then, instead of dividing it into two parts and colouring one part with cocoa as Farida did, I divided the mixture between seven bowls (roughly 4 tablespoons of batter in each) and used my fondant paste dyes to colour each portion a different colour of the rainbow.
I then poured each rainbow batter in turn (starting with red) into the centre of my prepared cake pan. As Farida says, don’t wait for each colour to spread out before starting with the next – just pour the batter into the centre of the pan, then pour the next colour right on top and then the colour after that without waiting for each to spread fully.
The weight of each batter pushes the previous colour out further and, as long as you keep a steady hand with the pouring, they all sort themselves out. And it’s as simple as that.
I found out in the school playground this morning that one of the guests has kept her special piece of rainbow cake carefully wrapped up since the party so that she can show it to everyone who visits.

If I had more energy maybe I’d show up for one of your weekend afternoons in the park dressed in layers of mourning, head-to-toe black lace complete with a gorgeous embroidered veil, and out of a fuchsia rolling suitcase I’d remove seven huge three-dimensional letters made of glass and lay them out on the ground in front of you. Through the glass you would see the grass, but also the reflection of the sky and maybe your eyes — G-O-O-D-B-Y-E — and then I would take a tiny metal hammer with an enamel surface covered in elaborate flowers and smash each letter, one at a time the grass the sky your eyes the sky the grass the sky the sky, and then when I was done I would take out a tiny pink vacuum cleaner to remove every glass shard even the tiniest remnant and then I’d walk slowly down or up the hill through the crowd whichever felt more dramatic in head-to-toe black lace with my fuchsia rolling suitcase. Of course, if I had more energy maybe I wouldn’t think about you at all, not even when wondering what kind of vacuum I could find that would be so small, and cordless, and that I could be certain would remove any traces of the glass, so as not to hurt anyone, and of course you would be the person I would ask such a crazy question. And you would say: here’s what you should get. Or: that’s a crazy question. Once I asked you whether chickpeas would ever lose their shape and you said no, you’d have to put them in a blender. I didn’t realize that would be one of the last questions I’d get to ask. But I just cooked chickpeas for seven hours and they lost their shape, a small victory. Sometimes I feel better when I don’t think about you, and sometimes I feel better when I think about you, because maybe that will mean that eventually I won’t think about you, and sometimes I actually don’t think about you. The other night I went to some huge public event and I thought maybe this is the time — I saw so many people from so many different parts of my life even our life and it was kind of fun, I almost thought it would be okay to see you too but then I worried that would mean I wasn’t really expressing myself. So then I thought about the glass letters again, everyone smashes windows. Right now I actually feel calm. _ _A few days later someone came up to me, one of your old roommates from around when we first met and she said she couldn’t believe you were in nursing school, you’d make a good nurse. A good nurse. That interrupted the narrative arc I was building here. I don’t feel calm anymore. _ _ Lostmissing is a public art project — I’d love it if you’d participate. And here’s what lostmissing #36 says: Sometimes I think I’m done thinking about you, but then I end up thinking about you again, so I’m not done. Maybe it’s because I still haven’t run into you — 10 months now, is that really true? Everyone says this is such a small town, I guess I should be grateful that it’s not as small as they say, not grateful that I haven’t run into you because I need to run into you at some point. I guess the city is smaller if you believe. I still think about my hair, it’s longer now and I wait as much time as possible before washing it — otherwise it gets too dry. It gets too dry anyway, but at least it looks healthy. By day three or four it starts to get a bit greasy, but it mostly just looks like a styling product although it’s not the styling product I would use — day one or two might be a better time to run into you. Although that’s also when the wind blows my hair all over the place. Sometimes I wish I could use hairspray, but then that would dry it out more. The other day, one of the days when I thought I might run into you because I went somewhere where I knew I would run into a lot of people but it was kind of fun, it wouldn’t have been fun if I saw you so I guess I’m glad I didn’t. Someone I haven’t seen for almost as long as I haven’t seen you came up to me and said: you look amazing. I’m pretty sure he meant my hair, that was day two or no maybe day one because I remember leaving the conditioner in for a half-hour. Today I left the conditioner in for over an hour, but still my hair was too dry when I rinsed it out, so I put on more conditioner, a second kind. I wonder how I’d feel if I ran into you and you said: you look amazing. Sometimes I think about your therapist, when he kept giving you all those meds even though they made things worse he would just say try this one now and one time I said if you need someone to tell him not to give you those fucking meds I’d be glad to come in and talk to him and of course you told him that, and took the prescription anyway, and later your therapist said he was afraid of me. I don’t know how that came up but of course you told me and I thought it was funny but you didn’t tell me what he thought about that. I wanted to blame your therapist. Sometimes I hate you, I really do but then today I thought about calling you to tell you where to get something you were always looking for, something mundane but now I can’t even remember what it was. I thought about what it would feel like to call you and give you this tip, maybe it would seem like I was okay with losing you and I’m not. I don’t want to be okay, I mean I want to be okay but I don’t want to be okay with losing you. _ _And, just in case you can’t view it, here’s what lostmissing #42 says: Snap this attempt at narrative closure — I think about you less, but when I do think about you it hurts just as much. I almost walked to your house the other day, I mean the other day two months ago. I arrived early to meet someone nearby and I thought okay, I’ll walk around. Maybe I’ll even walk in that direction, just to see your front steps.But why would I want to see your front steps? So then I walked in the other direction.All those times when you said oh, this is something new, I need time to think about this. And then I gave you time, at least two years’ time, but you never brought anything up again, I had to ask you what you thought. You thought these were old issues, old issues you didn’t need to think about.Or when you said that I knew this was a hard time, a hard time for you, you were going through a hard time. Of course two years can be a hard time, no question about that, but then shouldn’t there be time in a difficult time for thinking about issues that might matter?I wish you didn’t matter, that’s what I’m thinking now — it’s been a year and I still haven’t seen you and I saw your old roommate again, this time she didn’t say anything, but maybe the music was too loud. We waved. Then I thought about you anyway, in the middle of the night I got all manic and decided maybe we should get together to say goodbye, even if we did it in silence. We could meet somewhere in public, stand there and look at each other and then leave. Just for some kind of closure. Maybe I would feel it._ _Then I was on the train, the train that goes right by your house, and for the first time I didn’t get all tense when we passed by the places where you might get on, instead I was thinking: go ahead, get on the fucking train, get on the fucking train and I’ll kick you in the face. I don’t mean literally — I don’t want to kick you in the face. But I was ready, finally ready. At least for a few minutes. _ _ Text today is from mattilda . Pictures are from The Library of Congress. Video is from live apartment fire.

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Luther Campbell McKinnon Sr. was born February 22, 1916, on a farm in Rowland, North Carolina. Europe was stuck in a war that would change the world, and not until The United States got involved. This didn’t happen for another year.
Luke was the youngest of four children. After life as a farm boy, he went to Wake Forest University, and then came back when his Daddy died. He ran a family dairy for a few years, and went to live in New Jersey. He lived near a prison, and saw the lights in the neighborhood dim when the electric chair was used.
In the early fifties, he came to Atlanta to live. This was where his sister Sarah stayed, with her husband and two daughters. One day he went into the C&S bank on 10th street, and took notice of one of the tellers. On October 6, 1951, he married her. Jean Dunaway was his devoted wife for the rest of his life.
At some point in this era he started selling shoes. He would go to warehouses, gas stations, and wherever barefoot men needed shoes. He was “The Shoe Man” .
Before long there were two boys, and he bought a house, then another. The second house is the current residence of my brother and myself, and is probably worth 15 times what he paid for it. He had the good fortune to not buy in an area that was “blockbusted”, as  many neighborhoods were.
And this was his life. He tended a garden, went to the gym, and was in the Lions Club for many years. When he met Mom, she let him know that going to church with her was part of the deal. They found a church that was good for their needs, and made many friends there. The Pastor at Briarcliff Baptist, Glen Waldrop, was his friend.
When I think of the character of this man, there is one night, which stands out. My brother was away at the time. The day before, Mom had discovered she had a detached retina, and was in the hospital awaiting surgery. Her job had arranged a “leaf tour” by train in North Georgia, and she got one of her friends at work to take me. There was some mechanical trouble on the train, and it did not get back into town until 3am Monday morning. And yet, Daddy stayed at home, did not panic, and had faith that all of us would be back soon, which we were.
Through all the struggles of his life, Dad was cheerful, laughed a lot, and was good company. He left me with a rich repertoire of country sayings, and had many stories to tell. He was surprising mellow about black people, if a bit old fashioned. (In the south when I grew up, this was highly unusual).
Dad was always in good, vigorous health, and I thought he would be with us for a long time. Well, that is not how things work. A cancer developed in his liver, and spread to his lungs (he did not smoke). After a mercifully brief illness, we lost him on February 7, 1992.