Chamblee54

PG found a feature about BHO from three years ago. It was posted just after Hilary gave up the struggle, and it was obvious who the Democratic nominee was going to be. At the time, many considered BHO to be a charismatic speaker with no substance. The feature below appeared in the fishwrapper , outlining some positions on key issues. PG thought it would be festive to go back to this post, three years later, and see how the man is doing.
There were two game changers before the World Series in 2008. The little known governor of Alaska was chosen as the repubs vice president candidate, and instantly became a superstar. A few weeks later, the economy melted down. Both of these events have affected the BHO presidency.
To the surprise of nobody, the repubs have done everything they could to hurt BHO. The “Tea Party” has erupted, and the corporate media has been on the offensive since Aretha finished singing. The opera is supposed to be over when the fat lady sings, but this one was just beginning.
IRAQ.. has said the goal of increasing troop strength so Iraq’s leaders can establish a stable government has failed. Would remove all U.S. combat brigades from Iraq within 16 months of taking office, except some to protect our embassy and diplomats. ON THE COST OF WAR..”I will spare no expense to ensure our troops have the equipment and support they need … But we also have to understand that the more than $10 billion we’re spending each month in Iraq is money we could be investing here at home.”
At the time this was written, Afghanistan was the forgotten war. It has been escalated and spread to Pakistan. Drone strikes have been increased, with thousands of women and children killed by planes controlled in Nevada. The flow of heroin from Afghanistan has increased. It is tough to see how things are getting better there.
In Iraq, American is supposed to be out by the end of 2011. Whether this will happen is a good guess. The violence and corruption in Iraq continues, although not at the levels of 2006. The issue of taking care of the wounded soldiers from these conflicts is ongoing, and will be for quite some time.
TAXES… would create a tax credit of $500 per person, or $1,000 per working family, for up to 150 million workers; and simplify IRS tax filings for millions of Americans. ECONOMIC STIMULUS.. would index minimum wage to inflation; invest in job creation, training and manufacturing HEALTH INSURANCE.. would make a national health insurance plan available to all Americans and a National Health Insurance Exchange as a watchdog group for all private insurance plans, ensuring fairness and afford ability. SOCIAL SECURITY… is opposed to privatization and would work with Congress on a payroll tax reform package to keep Social Security solvent. ON ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY..”If we unite this country around a common purpose, if we act on the responsibilities that we have to each other and to our country, then we can launch a new era of opportunity and prosperity.”
The economic meltdown, and republican obstructionism, have affected everything BHO tries to do. If the tax proposals went through, we didn’t see it. The stimulus (began by GWB) helped avert a total disaster, but has not made a positive difference. It also has increased the national debt.The health insurance debate, aka Obamacare, has been a partisan bloodbath. The sausage law that was enacted is being phased in, and we will have to wait and see. Social Security has been pushed aside as an issue. As for Economic Opportunity, the rhetoric sounds just as good today as it did in 2008. Yes we can.
STEM CELL RESEARCH… favors relaxing restrictions on federal financing MARRIAGE… opposes a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, supports civil unions. ABORTION… has consistently defended a woman’s right to choose. DEATH PENALTY… supports the death penalty in cases “so heinous the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage.”GUN CONTROL… favors measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners while keeping guns away from children and criminals. CAMPAIGN FINANCE… supports public financing of campaigns combined with free television and radio time to reduce the influence of special interests.
PG wonders when the last time he heard about Stem Cell Research. Same Sex Marriage marches on, with our without the support of POTUS. BHO has done little about Abortion, and a couple of million babies died. The Death Penalty is mostly a state issue, except for Osama Bin Ladin. As for gun control and campaign finance reform, little has been done. These six issues have little to do with POTUS, but are dynamite for exciting the excitable. The spectacle of Congress giving 29 standing ovations to Mr. Netanyahu shows both the need for campaign finance reform, and the difficulty of enacting it.
EDUCATION… would reform No Child Left Behind, expand Head Start programs and make math and science education a national priority. HOMELAND SECURITY… would improve security for chemical plants, keep better track of spent nuclear fuel and upgrade security for public drinking water systems. GLOBAL WARMING… would reduce carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050, invest in clean energy technologies, reduce America’s foreign oil consumption and address climate and environmental issues with the United Nations The homeland security position is common sense.
BHO gave a charming speech to schoolchildren on the first day of school in 2009. It is tough to see much else done about education. Regarding homeland security, that mess seems to be getting worse. We have fewer rights than before, airport screenings are more invasive, and pictures of Andrew Weiner’s goober are being shown. To be fair, there has not been a major terror attack. As for global warming, almost nothing has been done. The deniers are well funded, and telling the people what they want to hear. This might be a time for POTUS to get on the bully pulpit, and say loudly that if we don’t quit playing with the atmosphere we might not have a world fit to live in. On the other hand, BHO hopes to raise a billion dollars for his reelection.
IMMIGRATION… would improve security at borders; supports legalization for undocumented workers after they pay a fine and learn English; and favors a guest worker program. Supports giving legal status to immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, who finish two years of college or military service. TRADE… would fight for a policy that opens up foreign markets to support American jobs, amend the North American Free Trade Agreement to favor American workers.
Whatever has been done about immigration has happened at the state level. Georgia agribusiness is in trouble. BHO can do little right on this issue, and has just done little. As for trade, it is tough for a slack blogger to know what is going on there. BHO has not been outstanding, but we haven’t fallen off the side of the planet, yet.
Overall, it is tough to see much good the man has done. To be fair, there is a lot he does not have control over, and the republicans have openly said they want him to fail. The problem with that is that if BHO fails, American fails with him. You have to wonder about the patriotism of people who want to pay for wars by enacting tax cuts.
Getting back to BHO, this blog gives him a C-. It is a very tough job, but then he knew. Most Presidents have horrible problems in the second term, which makes you wonder why he wants to be reelected. The way the Republicans look now, he will probably win a second term. Maybe then he can do something. Maybe we can.

In an early morning discourse, I said that Martin Niemoller was rolling in his grave looking for the royalties from his poem, “First they came…“.For those of you with very short memories, here it is.
When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews, I remained silent; I wasn’t a Jew.
When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.
Martin Niemoller was the son of a Lutheran minister. In World War 1, he served on a U boat crew. Harold Marcuse tells this story: “Niemöller was a commander of a German U-boat in World War I. A seminal incident in his moral outlook, as he related in many public speeches later in his life, occurred when he commanded his submarine crew not to rescue the sailors of a boat he torpedoed, but let them drown instead. “ After the war he became a Lutheran Minister. He was originally a supporter of Mr. Hitler, but became an opponent. He was imprisoned in Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps from 1937 to 1945.
After the war, he began to speak out. The famous poem was derived from these speeches. It was never written down in typical poet fashion. There are several versions of it from him, and many more as the years rolled by. It has been quoted, updated, and quoted again.
In addition to the four groups mentioned above, the Nazis also came for mentally ill, incurably ill, or people in occupied countries. The legend is that when asked if he included Catholics, he said “I never said it. They can take care of themselves.” When the McCarthy fever hit America, he declined to mention Communists.
With regard to the royalties, PG could not see that it was ever copyrighted. Who knows who “owns the rights”? Some have even speculated that the poem was not composed by Mr. Niemoller.
“First they came”… is a favorite of rebels looking for a cause. Many people just want to fight about something, and the cause is secondary to the lust for battle. When a poem like this is used to fire up people for a shaky cause, it brings discredit to the poem.
There is the matter of the “Next Hitler” argument. During the run up to the first war against Iraq, Saddam Hussein was routinely called the next Hitler. While this may be a valid argument at times, it is like the boy who cried wolf if used too much. Maybe a general moratorium is needed on the use of “First they Came…”
This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress,

Juan Cole has an amusing commentary today about American news compared to Al Jazeera. It seems as though Americans are fed a diet of scandal and celebrity misadventure, while Arabs are told about fighting the power. It as if one people were eating fruits and vegetables, and the other people is on an all weiner diet.
“Americans live in a late capitalist society where the rich have gotten many times richer and the middle class has gotten poorer, where Wall Street bankers have stolen us blind and blamed us for living above our means, where persistent unemployment is worse than in the Great Depression, where most politicians and some judges have been bought by corporations or special interests, where authorities actively conspire to keep people from voting, where the government spies on citizens assiduously without warrant or probable cause, and where the minds of the sheep are kept off their fleecing by substituting celebrity gossip, sex scandals, and half-disguised bigotry for genuine news.
In the Arab world, masses of 20-year-olds have challenged their corrupt politicians and manipulative billionaires in the streets, demanding transparency, an end to arbitrary secret police, and free and fair elections untainted by influence-peddling and plutocracy. I have Arabic satellite t.v. on in the background most of the day, with its dramatic stories of personal risk and human tragedy and bold challenge to a rotten status quo. And I channel surf over to the American cable news and mostly find fluff or de-contextualized reports or, frankly, propaganda. So here is my life, the day’s news given synoptically, our news and their news.”
Much of what is said, and not said, is true. It becomes a matter of what the gate keeper lets through. There is only room for so many stories, and what we are told is often not what we need to hear. How many people know that our allies in Afghanistan export heroin to Russia? Or that saber rattling Israel continues to do business with Iran ?
On June 3, the fishwrapper posted a story about efforts of the state of Georgia to get access to water from the Tennessee River. As some of you know, Atlanta does not have a dependable supply of water. We are one drought, or one court order, away from drying up. The story about water was sandwiched between three stories about Herman Cain. The water story got 17 comments. The stories about Mr. Cain got 238 comments.
While researching this post, PG went back to the fishwrapper’s political page. The top story is State blocks info on ‘violent incidents’ at Valdosta State Prison. It seems like there was trouble in a prison recently, and the government has something to hide. The next story… Herman Cain says he would appoint gays to cabinet – if they weren’t Muslim .
The clip below is 29 seconds, and is fun. The headline is just a bit misleading. The fun loving Spacey G has this to say about Mr. Cain’s latest…”Note that pizza delivery guy’s effete, nervous little giggle at end. Dude is just a freakin’ weirdo.” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress .

As three young men learned recently, heroin is a deadly substance. The drug is produced from opium, which is made from the juices of the poppy flower. Most of the world’s poppy is grown in Afghanistan. Since 2001, Operation Enduring Freedom has brought the US Army ( assisted by NATO forces) into battle in Afghanistan. How does military action affect the opium trade?
According to Truthistreason, the result is a profit center for “friends” of the United States. Their story is US & Afghan Forces Are the World’s Largest Drug Cartel. According to Phantom Report, relatives of Afghan President Hamid Karzai are the drug lords running the operation.
Some say the country with the worst heroin problem is Russia. In the story “Russia slams NATO for losing Afghan opium war”, the “Federal Drug Control Services” estimates heroin usage at 711 tons in Europe, 549 tons in Russia, and 212 tons in North America. An estimated 30k Russians die of overdoses every year.
The Russian government is upset with the reaction of the NATO forces to opium production. Supplies for the NATO forces are going into Afghanistan through Russian Airspace, with the consent of the government. Russia would like for the NATO forces to eradicate the poppy production, in a manner similar to the eradication of coca fields in South America.
RT.com has an interview with the “head” of Russia’s Federal Drug Control Service, Viktor Ivanov .
RT: It is also ironic that when the Taliban controlled Afghanistan, the drug trade, drug trafficking and even poppy cultivation were limited, but when the United States and NATO forces invaded Afghanistan, both production and trafficking skyrocketed. How do you explain this? And how can we even believe NATO when it says it is fighting the drug trade?
VI: You’re right. I had a meeting with my Pakistani colleagues here in Islamabad, and they, too, were amazed at this phenomenon. There is only one way to explain this. When the Taliban sought official recognition for its Kabul regime, they took unprecedented measures to eradicate opium poppy crops. They consistently took serious steps in 1998, 1999 and 2000, when they introduced capital punishment for poppy cultivation. As a result, they succeeded in eradicating drug crops on 90 per cent of Afghanistan’s territory, i.e., in all the provinces they controlled. The only place they couldn’t do it was northern Afghanistan, which was controlled by the so-called Northern Alliance.
But then Operation Enduring Freedom started, and the situation changed drastically. Only a competent government that has the support of the people can really control the country and take serious steps to destroy drug production.
This is no surprise to observers in the USA. For years, the Government has played both ends of the drug game. They maintain a legal prohibition, which keeps prices high, and gives the Government a tool to control the population. On the other hand, the Government *allegedly* is involved in importing and selling drugs. In the eighties, a “terrorist” operation in Central America was *allegedly* financed by by selling cocaine in the USA. ( This was the same operation which saw Israel as the middleman of arms sales to Iran.)
The profits of the drug trade were a powerful incentive to get into, and stay in, Afghanistan. This may be the motivation for allowing the 911 attacks to happen. It might also explain why *former* cocaine user Barack Obama is so eager to see the war in Afghanistan continue.
Pictures for this commentary are from The Library of Congress

This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress
A few days ago, the possibility that the government allowed Jane Fonda to go to Hanoi was discussed. Ms. Fonda’s trip to North Vietnam had numerous propaganda/p.r. advantages to the American government. Direct government sponsorship cannot be ruled out. Another scenario would have the government knowing about the trip, having the ability to stop the trip, but allowing it to happen. For the purposes of today’s discussion, we will call this the “Hoover Option”(HO). It is named for John Edgar Hoover, the publicity savvy director of the FBI until his death in 1972.
HO is a favorite of conspiracy theorists. It is difficult to prove or disprove, and explains a lot of things.
Another conspiracy rich event is the shooting of John Kennedy on November 22, 1963. The various hypotheses on this event are well known. Numerous people wanted JFK to retire…gangsters, teamsters, Republicans, Lyndon Johnson, Vietnamese… to the point to where it is tough to sort out all the possible candidates. The thinking goes here, that J. Edgar Hoover knew of the plot to kill JFK, could have stopped it, but chose to allow it to happen. Even conspiracy skeptics think this is plausible.
The concept of Lee Harvey Oswald working alone does not eliminate the possibility of HO. Here was a sketchy character, known to have traveled to the Soviet Union, and favor “fair play for Cuba”. He worked in a building on the parade route. As much as the FBI knew…especially about those with Soviet connections…is it possible that Mr. Hoover knew what Mr. Oswald was going to do that Friday? And decided to allow him to go through with it. And why did Jackie choose that photogenic pink outfit?
A few years later, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered in Memphis, TN. Mr. Hoover had a well known hatred of Dr. King. How did a sketchy character get a room, within gunshot range of the hotel Dr. King stayed in ? How did he know when Dr. King would be stepping on the balcony? Did Mr. Hoover know all of this, and still allow the shooting to take place? Why was Jesse Jackson there?
J. Edgar Hoover died on May 2, 1972. This was 13 days before Arthur Bremer shot George Wallace, six weeks before the Watergate burglary, and eight weeks before Jane Fonda went to Hanoi. Mr. Hoover died at the height of the Nixon administrations “dirty tricks”, just a few weeks before they got caught. No doubt, Mr. Hoover knew what Tricky Dick was up to.
HO has probably been in existence throughout history. Most leaders have blood on their hands, and it is always better to get someone else to do the dirty work.
Pearl Harbor has long been the object of this speculation. There is little doubt that Mr. Roosevelt wanted the United States to join the war, but was having a tough time with an isolationist public. After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Mr. Roosevelt got what he wanted. It has long been speculated that he knew in advance about the attack, and let it go down. There were obvious advantages to him.
Which brings us to the Pearl Harbor of the modern era, 911. The attacks that day were a political jackpot for George W. Bush. He was able to ram many restrictions on civil liberties through congress, and begin a war in Iraq, that had clearly been planned for some time. Did our government know about plans for the 911 attacks, and quietly let them happen?

PG was in the audience for the Howl-A-Thon Friday night. He sat in the back row, so he could discreetly leave when he got bored. To his surprise, he stayed to the end.
The scene of the event was the E church in Candler Park. ( This should not be confused with the Existential Church of Stupidity ) The church is a classic granite chapel, originally built for an African American congregation. . PG used to attend a “circle of healing”, that was held in the sanctuary. Some of that magic came back during the Howl-A-Thon.
PG found an updated version of “Howl”, which he called Howl 2011 (a.k.a. the anti howl). He thought it would be fun to read at the event. However, the Howl-A-Thon was tightly planned, and there was no room at the inn. It was suggested that PG read the updated Howl on the steps of the church.
At 7:20 pm, PG stood up, and read I saw the greatest hopes of my Christian nation destroyed…. No body stopped to listen, although a few did yell their approval of key phrases. Most of the time, PG was reading for himself. It had an artistic feel to it. When he went inside, PG introduced himself to someone he had known 13 years ago. This person asked if PG had written that poem.
After a while, the MC smashed a pie pan against the microphone, and the performance began. He introduced Mr. Ginsberg to the audience, noting that the self promoting bard sent a copy of his work to William Faulkner. After this presentation, a young lady stood up and began to read a poem. She alternated reading with another man, until the first part of the show was over.
An evening of reading poems, by a dead Jew, sounds dreadfully dull. The Howl-A-Thon was cleverly staged, and made the time go by fast. The title poem was read by 6 authors, with cheers for the parts that got the work banned in 1956. PG kept an eye on the door, but the police never arrived.
There was one part of the evening that PG would have changed. A young man read a poem about Mr. Ginsberg’s last day job, as a baggage handler at the Greyhound station in San Francisco. (The facility used to have a seedy building next door, The Atlanta Hotel.) If anyone had asked, PG would have said, please turn the intensity down a couple of notches. After the young man was through, the MC asked if anyone had a phone book for him to read.
The high point of the evening was reading Kaddish . The poem is the story of Naomi Ginsberg, the poet’s crazy mother. There is an image of the 12 y.o. Allen riding a bus, depressed because he couldn’t do anything for his mother. To anyone who has grown up with madness, it is a powerful image. The healing magic from 20 years ago came pouring out of the walls, to surround PG in lavender light.
PG left his camera in the car. Pictures , and More pics , of the event are available when you click the link.

The text below is a repost. Allen Ginsberg would be 85 today, if nature had not made other plans in 1997. There is going to be a Howlfest tonight. Rumor has it that PG will create a disturbance by reading Howl 2011.It should be a festive evening.
Writerspot, in addition to some exercises that PG abuses, a selected author of the month. Today, it is Allen Ginsberg. When going to the inevitable website, PG learned that Peter Orlovsky died May 30, 2010. Mr. Orlovsky was the longtime lover of Mr. Ginsberg. Clearly, it was time to hit the keyboard.
Allen Ginsberg had a part in many new age dramas, with a few musicals and comedies thrown in for good measure. Hippie, beatnik, gay, artist, peace promoter, Buddhist convert…these are a few of the labels. He became famous for being famous, well known to people who never read a word of his poems. Two of the more famous were howl and kaddish.
Howl became scandalous in 1956 when it was busted for obscenity. It is mild by today’s standards, but almost landed Mr. Ginsberg in prison. PG heard about howl in the early nineties, and looked high and low for a copy. He could not find one. Today on the internet, not only is the print widely available, there are recordings of Mr. Ginsberg reading his work.
The original plan was to listen to Mr. Ginsberg read while editing photos. PG was going to listen to the words, and think of something to say while listening to the bard. About the seventeenth time Mr. Ginsberg shouted “Moloch”, the plan began to fall apart.
The next poem was Kaddish. This is about Naomi Ginsberg, the mother of the poet, who evidently had some issues. This was tough for PG to listen to. The other night, PG had a disturbing dream about his own late mother. In this dream, a fearsome shouter came in wearing a black suit, which meant that he intended to do some scary shouting. PG went into another room, where his recently deceased mother was laying on a table.
In the aftermath of his mother’s passing, PG worked closely with an aggressive Jesus worshiper, who enjoyed humiliation for Jesus. This person declared war on PG, when asked to turn his radio down. PG feels like Jesus let him down, and finds it difficult to forgive the so called son of G-d.
1956 was the year of the obscenity trial for howl. This took place on the other side of america, from the Brookhaven where PG was two years old. This was the year when his brother was born, the year when the Georgia legislature voted in a new flag, for whatever reason. In 1955, President Eisenhower had a heart attack. Many wondered if it was a good idea to have Richard Nixon as the vice president.
Finally, PG could stand no more of that voice. The player was turned off, the files stored on an external hard drive, never to be heard again. PG just is not a poetry person. The pictures, edited while listening to Allen Ginsberg in performance, are from the ” Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”

The tweet came from @blogcontrol a few minutes ago…600 words on anthony weiner by 420 or ur toast. PG takes messages like that seriously. The internet is full of comments about Anthony David Weiner at the moment. Alledgedly he sent an inappropriate tweet to a young lady in Seattle. One person who has not contributed a sound bite is the mohel who performed the procedure on young Mr. Weiner. PG thought that, with google and free long distance, maybe he could have a word or two with the gentleman. He might have more answers than Mr. Weiner does in this interview.
The top result for “who is Anthony Weiner’s mohel?” was a comment at Huffington Post by KennebunkportIndependent, who said ““That was removed by a mohel on the 8th day.” The second result was a snide discussion of a proposed ban on circumcision in San Francisco .
The third, and fifth, results are for Dr. Anthony Weiner MD who practices psychiatry in Medford, MA. His page has an ad for the Moen Banbury Showerhead, available at Home Depot. While visiting his website, you can visit these pages: How Injections Help Schizophrenia, 10 Facts About Schizophrenia, and Have a Crisis Plan for Schizophrenia.
The fourth result was posted August 24th, 2005 at the Canonist , and it is a doozie. PG does not claim to understand the issues that this post addresses. He has heard lurid stories about versions of the Bris Mila that involve a ritual fellatio, and some complications that have arisen. We are going to copy this post in it’s entirety.
The Mayor, The Mohel, And The Weiner I’ve got a story coming out in tomorrow’s Forward about the latest in the herpes mohel situation, with updates on the development of the case and how it has become an election issue. It seems the dailies have done a poor job of explaining exactly what’s happened: New York City’s Department of Health has obtained a temporary restraining order barring Rabbi Yitzchok Fischer from performing metzitzah b’feh; they are, according to Rabbi David Zwiebel of Agudath Israel, pursuing a permanent restraining order. There’ll be more details in the story.
The biggest revelation, however, is that Democratic mayoral candidate Congressman Anthony Weiner  is with the Satmars on this one: “It is not the place of the department of health to be deciding on a religious practice,” he told me, adding “I am troubled, based on the facts of this case, about whether or not the city has overreached here.”
Result number six if from the funlovers at Free Republic . “Weiner’s rep today said was the work of a hacker… I believe the correct term is “mohel”. The next five results are repeats of Dr. Weiner, the San Francisco story, and the New York story.
Result number twelve is a comment thread from 03-02-11 ( Evidently, Mr. Weiner has made a spectacle of himself for quite a while now. PG lives in Cynthia McKinney’s old district, and is reluctant to throw stones.) “Wiener is a fraud. I have a feeling when Weiner’s weiner was circumcised, that the mohel might have taken too much off-the-top and now wee weiner Weiner is compensating with his mouth. Megyn Kelly has him on because he’s a putz who’s easy to rile. He’s a fucking zhid drama queen.” ( Rachel Maddow asks Mr. Weiner if the organ belongs to him. At 4:25, he says ” I wish”.)
At the end of google page one, there is no information about the mohel who did Anthony Weiner. The congressman was born in 1964, and the odds are good that the man in question is retired or deceased. Pictures for this story are from The Library of Congress

As we started to discuss the other day, PG is reading I Remember Margaret Mitchell by Yolande Gwin. It starts with August 11, 1949. Margaret Mitchell, known to her friends as Peggy Marsh, went to to see “A Canterbury Tale” at the Peachtree Art Theater. She left her apartment on Piedmont Avenue, accompanied by her husband John. They parked across the street, and Mrs. Marsh was struck by a taxi, driven by Hugh D. Gravitt. She died August 16,1949.
This story contradicts what PG heard about the accident. The other story is that Mrs. Marsh had been at the Atlanta Women’s Club, having cocktails, where her husband met her. In this account, Mrs. Marsh was bombed, and never knew what hit her. ( One mile away, and fifty five years later, PG had an encounter with a speeding taxi. His story has a happier ending.)
On page 23, another myth is challenged. The traditional story is that if you asked Margaret Mitchell if she based Scarlet O’Hara on herself, she would look horrified, and say “Scarlet O’Hara was a hussy”. This view is challenged by an Atlanta native, who went to a party, and saw that Margaret Mitchell was the life of the party. The Atlanta native said her father “Scarlet O’Hara is certainly the personification of Margaret Mitchell”.
Margaret Mitchell was a reporter for the Atlanta Journal. She married John Marsh on July 4, 1925, and injured her ankle in 1926. Every day Mr. Marsh brought home books to his bedridden wife. One day, he brought home a writing pad, and said “You have read everything I’ve brought you so now you write a book.”
The couple lived in a small apartment on Crescent Avenue, across from a mural of a southern colonel. (He said, I would even go north for Southern Bread.) They moved out of “the dump”, in 1932, to an apartment at 4 17th Street. When Peggy sold a few books, and John’s career at Georgia Power prospered, they moved to the Della Manta. This was at the corner of Piedmont and South Prado, across from her beloved Piedmont Driving Club.
Mrs. Marsh wrote and wrote, preferring a typewriter to a writing pad. Each chapter was kept in a manila envelope, which were piled up all over the place. Some chapters were re written sixty times. In 1935, Harold Latham, of MacMillan Publishers, was in the south looking for talent. He persuaded Mrs. Marsh to let him look at her book, and would not give it back to her.
The title of her book was borrowed from a poem by Ernest Dawson, Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae . The line of the poem was “I have been faithful to thee, Cynara, (spell check suggestion: Canary) in my fashion; I forgot much Cynara, Gone With The Wind!”
The book became a runaway best seller. Macy’s of New York helped by ordering 50,000 copies. The idea was to offer GWTW as a loss leader, as Gimbels was doing. Federal price controls ruled this to be illegal, and Macy’s returned 35,000 copies to the publisher.
The first printing of GWTW has a mistake on the back page. The book was published June 30, 1936. The first edition says, on back of the title page, “Published May 1939”.
David Selznick bought the rights to GWTW, and you probably know the rest of that story. Shortly before the premiere of GWTW, someone at the Piedmont Driving Club pulled a chair out from under Mrs. Marsh. She had not started to stand up. Mrs. Marsh  crashed hard on the floor, and hurt her back. This would require two rounds of back surgery.
Celestine Sibley tells a story about the Atlanta Women’s Press Club. Miss Sibley moved to Atlanta in 1941, and went to her first AWPC meeting, at the Henry Grady Hotel. “A plump little woman in a funny Carmen Miranda style hat” noticed the newcomer, and started to talk to her. In the early days of the war, there were blackouts, to save the city from German bombers. The plump little woman was an air raid warden in the area around Piedmont Park. Finally, Miss Sibley said she had to go catch the Piedmont-Morningside bus. Peggy Marsh said she had a car, and could take her home.
Pictures today are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.

Chamblee54 is normally a profanity free blog. However, for this piece, certain cuss words are essential to the free flow of information. In other words IF YOU DON’T LIKE CUSS WORDS, YOU DO NOT NEED TO READ THE TEXT.
This text is going to be gender insensitive and use the male form throughout. Just remember, when you read he, it also means she and it. Or, she it. Those from the south will enjoy that last comment.
Recently, a radio whiner referred to a study, that said that one third of all people were not qualified to have opinions. This was said before a commercial break, without saying why this percentage should be without opinions. Possible reasons would be lack of education, inability to think critically, or a disturbing tendency to disagree with the person doing the study.
When it comes to opinions about opinions, there are several classic lines. There is the crowd pleaser “opinions are like assholes, everybody’s got theirs”.
This is missing the mark. Opinions have more in common with the shit that comes out of an asshole. Feces is the product of  food  fed into the digestive system. Opinions are the result of information (and misinformation) fed into the thought system. Doodoo is influenced by the digestive system,  like opinions are influenced by the attitudes, and thought patterns, of the individual. They all stink.
Another golden oldie is “Four Jews, Five opinions”. The numbers in the formula change from time to time, but that is the basic concept. There is also “You are entitled to your opinion”. This is usually said when you disagree with what you have just heard.
When the Supreme Court issues a ruling on a case, It is called an Opinion. Sometimes, a justice will write a dissenting opinion. When getting an insurance company to pay for a procedure, you often need to get a second opinion.
Opinions are frequently more valued by the giver than by the receiver. Some opinions are best kept to the owner. You should be wary of someone who feels that his shit does not stink, because he will usually feel the same about his opinions.
Opinions are seldom humble, no matter what the owner of the opinion might say. In fact, the act of holding an opinion is often self aggrandizing, and contrary to humility.
You don’t have to have an opinion about everything. Many things are beyond or control, or do not interest you. Also, you should be wary of those who try to “fire up” your opinions. Often these people do not have the best of motives.
Opinions are seen as a way of asserting ones individuality. Many people have lives of quiet desperation, full of struggle and turmoil. There are many situations where what the individual thinks is simply useless to the powers that be. In times like this, having opinions can restore a sense of self worth to the individual. I am somebody. I have my opinion.
The commentary above is a repost . It goes along with the recent two part episode on the dodgy subject of truth. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. These men fought in the War Between the States. Pictures one, two, seven, and eight (from top to bottom) are Confederates. Pictures three through six are Union soldiers.

PG is reading I Remember Margaret Mitchell by Yolande Gwin. It is a collection of memories of Peggy Marsh, who wrote “Gone with the Wind”. ( If you didn’t know that, just close this window, and go look for your “friends” on facebook.)
Yolande Gwin was for many years the society editor of the Atlanta Constitution. She wrote a review of GWTW in 1936, before it’s publication. Mrs. Marsh sent her a letter of appreciation… “I never dreamed you were going to give me so much space. I thought, as the resume of the story was so long. that you’d just give an introductory paragraph and let me ride. And I’d have ridden, just as happy as a n—-r at a hog killing. But all that space, so long a story. so completely flattering a story – well. I’m still blushing about the ankles, as Jurgen once remarked … And oh, Yolande. how nice of you to refer to me as a “young author!” Me, who have passed the broiling stage and the frying stage and am rapidly approaching the roasting and baking stage. “
There is probably going to be a second post about I Remember Margaret Mitchell. Chamblee54 is not responsible for GWTW junkies who overdose on Margaret Mitchell trivia. This post is about fact checking, google, and how a couple of simple questions can turn into an all afternoon goose chase.
There are two basic questions: Was Yolande Gwin married, and did she work for the Journal or the Constitution? As for the first, the expression Ms. sounds like a mosquito with a speech impediment, and is not appropriate for use with an society page writer. The trouble is, Miss or Mrs. depends on the marital status of the woman. After an hour or so of looking up google results, PG cannot find out whether or not Yolande Gwin was married. Sometimes, the correct answer is “I don’t know”.
As for the second, an obituary for the lady says that she wrote for the Journal-Constitution for fifty years. The fact is, the Journal and Constitution were competing papers until they were combined in 1982. ( Cox Enterprises bought the Constitution in 1950, making them sister papers rather than competitors.) As for who Yolande Gwin wrote for, there are contradictory stories on the internet. A google book about rural electrification says that Yolande Gwin wrote for the Constitution, and that is good enough for PG. (The Atlanta History Center says the Yolande Gwin wrote for the Journal. They have a picture of the lady, with a ghastly AHC watermark across her face.)
Another google book, The last linotype: the story of Georgia and its newspapers since World War II By Millard B. Grimes confirms that Yolande Gwin worked for the Constitution. “”One day I was sitting there looking at a blank sheet of paper; I didn’t have any news. And that’s when I happened to remember kidding Peggy (Margaret Mitchell) about writing the “Great American Novel.” so I called her up and said, ‘How about that Great American Novel. have you ever finished it? I need some news.’ She said, ‘You won’t believe it, but Macmillan has taken it.’ And I said, ‘Goody, goody. Grand.’ And I put a piece in the column (written under the name Sally Forth) about it, never expecting it to be what it was, you know.” The dale was February 9, 1936.”
One more google result links to a fishwrapper story about Real Housewives of Atlanta . A commenter named Beatrice P. says Yolande Gwin is turning over in her grave! The pictures (except for Yolande Gwin) are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.