Chamblee54

Peach Pundit took a timeout from lurid rumors today. They had a story about a proposed
reservoir for Atlanta. The site is the Dawson Forest . a 1000 acre tract near Dawsonville.
Water is an issue in Atlanta. Unlike New Orleans, which is sinking because of too much water, Atlanta is drying up. The metro area is 1000 feet above sea level, and 250 miles from salt water. The watershed uphill from Atlanta is tiny. The Chattahoochee River is an overgrown trout stream, and yet millions of the itp/otp crowd depend on it for water. Historically, developers have ignored this reality, and built as if there was no tomorrow.
There are two problems here. Alabama and Florida claim a share of the Chattahoochee water. The last Federal Judge to comment sided with Gators and Crimson Tide. Atlanta cannot expect to take as much water as it likes from the Chattahoochee forever.
The second problem is the unpleasant reality that there might not be any water to take. In 2007, a drought almost dried up Lake Lanier. The possibility of running dry was real. The nuclear power plant at Eufala AL came within a foot of water from being forced to shut down. ( Why a nuclear plant was built on this river is anyone’s guess.) With unstable weather likely, due to rising C02 levels and natural cycles, the possibility of a killer drought cannot be ruled out.
In 1971, the City of Atlanta bought a 10,000 acre tract of land in Dawson County. The idea was to use the land for a second airport. A similar tract of land was bought in Paulding County. Developers want to build a 2000 acre lake, and surround it with lakefront houses. There are a few issues with this plan.
There are some environmental concerns, including rare species that would be endangered. (This might help build support for the reservoir plan in certain communities.) The water for the reservoir would be flowing into Alabama..in other words, Georgia would be stealing water from Alabama. With the two states trying to negotiate a solution to their water conflict, this does not look good. There is also the history of the Dawson Forest.
From “the fifties” until 1971, this land was the site of the Georgia Nuclear Aircraft Laboratory. Lockheed and the Air Force tried to build a nuclear powered airplane here. When that did not work, the used a 10 megawatt reactor, operating in the open, to test the effects of radiation on wildlife.
The reactor was “air shielded”. It was kept in a concrete pool, and raised into the air when it was in use. A series of underground buildings and tunnels was used while the reactor was at work.
In 1960, various rat populations were introduced into the woods and fields around the reactor. “The effects on the various rat populations introduced included increased mortality rate (often 100%), immobility, disorientation, and graying or whitening of pelts.”
In 1971, the reactor was decommissioned, and the experiments halted. The land was sold to the City of Atlanta. Some local wildmen managed to get onto the site, and found some interesting things. Supposedly, the part that is going to be a reservoir is not the part where the nuclear radiation experiments were conducted. Nonetheless, you have to wonder just how accurate those claims are, when there is money to be made.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress .

This argyle may contain suppository that was prepared by an porpoise or at the direction of an hyena  in fear of, or in tactile stimulation to, imminent hibachi. It may contain the linebackers icecream impressions, omnipresent  strategy or walrus. It may be boring and pointless until the taxcode it concerns is voided. Do not release this handgrenade without first coddiling he dive  of its ladder.YOUR ATM SWIFT CREDIT CARD PAYMENT FROM THE DESK OF Dr William Colgate PRESIDENTIAL COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN PAYMENTS FOREIGN REMITTANCE DEPARTMENT CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA {CBN} Attn:Dear Sir, Going by series of petition received from International Body on the way your contract fund was handled by our correspondence office. After extensive close door meeting with Board of Directors and other Stake holders in the Government,Sub-committees of the House of Assembly and the House of Rep Federal Republic of Nigeria. It was Resolved and agreed upon that your contract fund would be released on a special method of payment, which tag name reads SWIFT CREDIT CARD. This method of payment is designed by the Government to avert fraud perpetration or stoppage fund by Some Agencies either through Anti Terrorist Certificate or other certificates. This Swift Credit Card would be issued to you upon meeting with the Bank requirement.This office has been mandated to take charge of the Issuance of the SWIFT CREDIT CARD and your payment file passed to my desk  clarification. Upon certification that your file is ok. This office would direct you on how to receive your over due contract fund payment via SWIFT CREDIT CARD. The SWIFT CREDIT CARD would be delivered to you via Courier. In the light of this aforementioned,you are required to furnish this office with the following information:1) Your full name & address.2) Your telephone and fax number.3) Amount expected to receive4) Your date of birth.5) Occupation.6) Your next of kin name.7) Your median name.This Informations would be used in opening of an account here .It’s from here that ATM would be used in issuance of The SWIFT CREDITS CARD in your favour with the Credit card Number and all your information inserted into the card. Upon completion of this issuance of the Credit Card, It would be send to you via Courier to your residential Address. Urgently furnish this office with your Contact information in order to reconfirm if it’s in line with the one contained in our payment data. Be informed that your fund has been called back and it’s now in a suspense account here in our Bank.A new account has to be opened in your name before the Swift Credit Card is issued.Waiting for an urgent response. Yours Faithfully, Dr William Colgate (Director Foreign Remittance)DEAR FUNDS OWNER, This is to notify you that during the auditing and closing of all financial records of the CENTRAL BANK OF THAILAND (CBT) it was discovered from the records of outstanding foreign beneficiaries due for payment with The Government Office. However, I wish to let you know that Your name came out as the next on the list of those who will receive their Long -awaited fund for the year 2010. Furthermore,I wish to officially notify you that your payment is being processed and will be released to you as soon as you respond to this letter.Kindly re-confirm the information below to enable this office Proceed and finalize your fund remittance without further delays.Furnish us with the information bellow:1. YOUR FULL NAME2. YOUR FULL ADDRESS3. YOUR TELEPHONE/ FAX4. AGE 5. A COPY OF YOUR PASSPORT FOR PROPER IDENTIFICATION6. YOUR OCCUPATION7. YOUR BANKING DETAILS As soon as the above information are received, your funds which is at the tune of $10,000,000,00 will be transferred to you through our online global wire transfer or through our bank delivery payment system. Awaiting your urgent response to this official Notification. BEST REGARDS,DR.FRANK SERICHAIY OURS SINCERELY,DIRECTOR, WIRE & TELEX DEPT CENTRAL BANK OF THAILAND. (CBT)The winter weather socks the south and those in need and crisis seek refuge. Atlanta Mission keeps doors open

Today is the one year anniversary of the first post illustrated by pictures from the GSU library . We are repeating those pictures today, with a bit of improved captioning. The pictures in the database have a black bar at the bottom, with the credit in white type. A while back, PG started to try to blend in the credit with the picture, so it is not as obvious.
When you have a hobby like photo editing, you are learning new gimmicks all the time. The pictures are cropped to the “golden rectangle” now, and it is amazing how often that has all the information you really need. The credit line…Special Collections Department, Pullen Library, Georgia State University…is pasted onto a blank window, with the background adjusted to fit into the picture as inconspicuously as possible.
Today, a new tactic was learned. You paste a credit onto the picture, adjust the background shade to match the picture, undo the first paste, go to the background window, adjust the shade the same amount that you adjusted the sample a minute ago, paste the credit into the background window, add the date and any more information, and copy this credit into the picture. The shade adjusted credits look a whole lot better than the ugly black bar. You should learn a new tactic every day.
PG found the photo collection at the GSU library through the Atlanta Time Machine . The bulk of the collection is the archives of two professional photography ventures, The Lane Brothers (Jack Lane and his brother W.C. Lane), and Tracy O’Neal.
The pictures in these collections show an Atlanta that does not exist anymore. Much of it was before PG’s time, or before he was old enough to appreciate what he saw. There was a time when there were grocery stores other than Kroger and Publix. The A&P and Colonial chains were major players fifty years ago. Coke machines sold 6 ounce deposit bottles.
The picture of Peachtree Street is a warehouse of memories. The Roxy theater was a fabulous place, with balconies that wrapped around the stage. It had the misfortune to be built on valuable real estate. This is the location of the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel, the tallest hotel in the world. Across the street was the S&W cafeteria, and in the background, the Coca Cola sign stood. Atlanta is bigger today, but some wonder if it is better.

PG stumbled onto some “killer” writing, courtesy of the Bloggingheads.tv comments. The tome is My Name is Betsy. I’m a Killer. It is a reaction to the reaction, of some, to the shooting in Tucson AZ. People say that violent imagery in politics is not a good idea, and may influence unhinged people with access to firearms.
The reaction from Betsy was similar to other conservatives. PG saw the claim of persecution, as punishment for virtue. There was one paragraph that pushed PG into action.
“We’re called greedy, stupid, and racist. We’re ridiculed with snide “slurpee” innuendos and called lewd and malicious names, such as “teabaggers.” Ordinary citizens are maligned by their own government while the pious, liberal elite get a free pass on reason and truth, while Islamists invoke their religious cloak, while the ideologue professes his moral superiority, while the media uses the power of spin, and while leftists, including Robert Gibbs and Barack Obama, employ their bully pulpit.”
Now, “teabagger” is not exactly a malicious phrase. PG enjoys Kroger’s generic tea everyday. Coffeebeaner is probably politically incorrect.
The bit that got PG’s attention was “snide “slurpee” innuendos”. What on earth did Betsy mean by that? The first stop is the trusty urban dictionary. The first definition is “A frozen drink sold at 7-eleven in many different flavors. Dispensed by machines that are broken most of the time.” UD has 27 options for slurpee, most of which deal with convenience stores, sex, getting high, frozen drinks, or combinations thereof. This does not sound like Rush Limbaugh.
A trip to Google city had a few thousand results. PG found a tribute to slurpees at some guy’s website. After a list of rules for slurpees, there was a page where people told their slurpee stories.
Elvis Presley Slurpee Hey Brad…..I’ve got a slurpee cup from 1972 that Elvis Presley autographed. My girlfriend and I walked up behind his mansion and knocked on his back door. He thought it was funny that we had done this and talked to us for about 20 minutes while we sipped our Slurpees….. he signed the bottoms of the cups. I thought it would be a neat addition to your page. Vickey Kee Cooper
Ban fat women in their bras My friend was one day filling his slurpee innocently. When he was done, he turned and saw a three hundred pound woman (conflicting reports say more) in nothing but her bra. My friend puked all over the place instantly, and was not able to have his Slurpee. My point? BAN FAT WOMEN IN THEIR BRAS!! Oh yeah, another thing… whoever said pina coloda slurpees are bad in the “dos and don’ts” section needs a good smacken! I just can’t wait for banana and pina colada at the same time. Now there’s a mix! Sam
Beer Slurpees Have you ever tried a beer slurpee? I do mine by putting a beer in the freezer until it reaches the slurpee consistency, then I pound it out of the bottle and into a pewter mug (which I have already chilled in the freezer).
Different brews have different freezing points, depending in a large part upon their alcohol content. If you keep the bottle in the freezer too long, it will explode. That drives my wife ballistic, though it hasn’t happened since we moved to our new house and new refrigerator last August. As long as the beer doesn’t explode in the freezer, however, my wife doesn’t really care, as long as SHE doesn’t have to drink it (my mother-in-law, on the other hand, goes absolutely binko-banko-bonko bonkers whenever she sees me doing it).
Slurp the beer quickly and REALLY get the rush to your head! Kenneth H. Ryesky, Esq.
Green feces Was there ever a time in your life that you actually knew you could poop out colors? Well, on one horrific day, I finally found out. One sunny day, I went out and bought a green slurpee. I know what you’re thinking: “Hmmm, who would buy a slurpee resembling the color of fungus?”. But no, I didn’t put that into consideration at the time I was considering my purchase or at the time I was making my purchase. So I went out the door, happy with my decision and I walked down the sidewalk. I was so cheerful and happy as I slurped my slurpee. When I finally came home, my body numb from the immense slurpee consumption, I decided, “I have to take a dump”. Excuse me if the term “dump” offends any of our studio listeners out there. So I ran to the can (cool rhyme, eh?), sat on the toilet and did my business. When the whole ordeal was over, I went to flush the toilet, not expecting to be shocked over the color of my feces. But there it was, green poo. I nearly fainted. How could I have ever known that my feces would come out the color of my green friend? From that day on, I knew I would never consume a slurpee of any kind again. More or less. Melissa
Loitering Hey, I thought I’d tell everyone about my Slurpee adventures. I live in West Palm Beach, FL and we don’t have too many 7-11’s in our area, so we frequent the same one over and over, and of course only late at night. I’m an innovative (and thirsty) person so i can’t just settle for the large Slurpee cup, so I always get a Double Gulp cup and fill it to the top. That’s 64 ounces for only $1.05. Unfortunately, there is pretty much just Coke and red flavors (like watermelon, hawaiin Punch, cherry) and the occasional Blue Raz.
We don’t get such gourmet Slurpee flavors as Mt. Dew or Dr. Pepper, only crap like Surge or Penis Collosus (that Pina Colada for the non Dick Joke inclined). Every time I go, me and my friends Johnny and Cody talk to the clerk, Rick, who tells us about all the times he’s gotten laid. He also likes to flirt with our friend Marie. We normally stay there for hours just hangin out as if we are Beavis and Butthead, reading all the magazines (especially the stories in YM) and talking to Rick. Sometimes Cody gets me to waste my money on a scratch-off lottery ticket, but I never win. Cody thinks this is hilarious. Well, that’s it. I quit, I don’t give a shit. Patrick Lavery
Pictures are from The Library of Congress

PG stumbled onto some “killer” writing, courtesy of the Bloggingheads.tv comments. The tome is My Name is Betsy. I’m a Killer. It is a reaction to the reaction, of some, to the shooting in Tucson AZ. People say that violent imagery in politics is not a good idea, and may influence unhinged people with access to firearms. The reaction from Betsy …
PG was starting to write a killer post for his blog, but it was getting late in the afternoon. This was day five of the snow jam, and PG knew that if he didn’t go for a walk he would regret it later. The story about Betsy could wait until later. The pictures, for the Betsy story, have waited since 1908, and one more day isn’t going to hurt.
So, he goes up the path, by the school, and up to Peachtree Road. The usual walk for PG is to go down Peachtree, until you get to a point where you can cross the railroad tracks and find a way back. The sidewalks had gotten a lot of sunshine in this part of the world, and they were pretty clear of snow and ice. Some call this combination snice, which rhymes with nice, which this treacherous substance is anything but nice. The snow fell sunday night, melted a bit on tuesday, froze back tuesday night, melted a bit more on thursday, froze back even harder on thursday night, and by friday was tough and slippery, and not good for much of anything. You walked on it at risk to your bone structure.
The first part of the Peachtree walk went smoothly. At the Chamblee city limits, there used to be this marker. It had a brick base, and some kind of brushed metal sculpture thing on top. That is, until a vehicle ran off the road and smashed into this instrument of demarcation, and distributed bits of brick over a quarter acre site.
So PG walks down Peachtree Road, until he got to the split. This is where Peachtree Industrial goes to the left, is a six lane road with lots of cars, and goes up to North Carolina. Peachtree Road, on the other hand, goes to the right, by the Marta station and into downtown Chamblee. It is the true origin road of the legendary thoroughfare that goes to Buckhead and midtown, on its journey to the zero milepost. PG only intended to go for a little way down Peachtree, which was a good thing because it was in the shadow of the Marta line, and the ice was everywhere.
If you go down Peachtree, across the street from where there used to be a Krystal and a used car lot, there is a place where the Marta trains go up in the air on stilts. This is a good place for walkers to go across the railroad tracks and back home. PG was getting tired, and thinking it would be nice to get out on the road and get some junk food, after living on boxed macaroni and peanut butter sandwiches for five days. The only problem was a freight train sitting still on the tracks. PG breathed deep, and realized that the freight train wasn’t going to move just because he wanted it to. The only alternative was to walk up to the bridge.
If you go down Peachtree, past the cement pads that used to be chemical warehouses, you come to a side road. This road comes out by a little shopping center, with a waffle house, the Pig’n’chik bar-b-q restaurant, and several other capitalist ventures. You go past the waffle house, resist the temptation to go inside, you go a few feet further, and you get to the bridge.
The bridge is a wonder of modern concrete urban improvement. In the old days, Clairmont Road ended at New Peachtree. If you wanted to go to Peachtree Industrial, you had to take a left at the light. You went across the railroad tracks on a rickety bridge made of telephone poles, before taking a left on Peachtree Road, and cutting through the parking lot of the Krystal.
The bridge was a vast improvement, with the distinct exception of walking over it on day five of a snow jam. The bridge had been snowplowed, and the pushedaside snow was piled up on the sidewalks. The bridge was not available for walking over the tracks. The next alternative was around Wal Mart.
The sidewalks to, in front of, and away from Wal Mart were covered in ice. Broken legs lawyers saw opportunity, but PG just wanted to go home. He carefully made his way over the ice covered sidewalks, under the railroad tracks ( the freight train was gone by now) and up the hill to New Peachtree Road.
The good news is, sidewalks on the south side of the railroad tracks had been in the sun all afternoon, and had almost no ice. PG was able to walk with more speed and confidence, knowing it was unlikely that he was going to be face to sidewalk. Before long he was home.

PG got an email recently with an economic theme. It started out “$1,000,000,000 How many zeros in a billion? This is too true to be funny. The next time you hear a politician use the Word ‘billion’ in a casual manner, think about whether you want the ‘politicians’ spending YOUR tax money.
A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but we can try. A billion seconds ago it was 1959.A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.  A billion hours ago our ancestors were Living in the Stone Age. A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth. A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, At the rate our government is spending it. “
PG knows how to use a calculator. We will use minutes as the unit of measure here, and if you are second conscious, multiply these figures by 60. There are 24 hours in a day, or 1440 minutes. There are 525,600 minutes in a year, or 527,040 in a leap year. In a century, there are 52,596,000 minutes. (A billion minutes is 1901 years. The quote about Jesus is a bit off.)
PG first crunched these numbers a while back, when doing a post about global warming. (It should be noted that, while PG does not “believe in” global warming, he is concerned about the damaging effects of the promiscuous use of fossil fuels.) Here is what he came up with: The atmosphere on planet earth is a marvel, quite possibly unique in the universe. It supports a wide range of life forms, from amoebas to Lady Gaga. This blanket of gas evolved over a period of billions of years. Man has changed it more in the last two hundred years than nature did in four billion before that.
Those numbers don’t mean too much like that, so lets put them into another form. Comparing 200 years to four billion years just takes a calculator. That is like comparing one minute to 38 years. What G-d created ( or nature evolved, or however you explain it), what took 38 years to create, industrial man has nearly ruined in one minute.
In the interest of showing how we got our numbers, here is the breakdown. Divide 4 billion by 200 and you get 20 million. Divide 20 million by 1440 ( the number of minutes in a day) gives us 13888 days. Dividing 13888 days by 365 gives us 38 years. Even if the earth is less than four billion years old, the fact remains that industrial man has almost destroyed, in practically no time, what took a long time to create.


Those of a certain age remember Everett Dirksen. A Republican Senator from Illinois, he was blessed with an operatic voice, and cursed with a face that could stop a clock. He is credited (or blamed) for the quote ” A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.” The Dirksen Congressional Center can neither confirm nor deny if he really said that. The discussion of this reputed quote does turn up a couple of passages, from the Congressional Record, that are germane to today’s conversation.
“As I think of this bill, and the fact that the more progress we make the deeper we go into the hole, I am reminded of a group of men who were working on a street. They had dug quite a number of holes. When they got through, they failed to puddle or tamp the earth when it was returned to the hole, and they had a nice little mound, which was quite a traffic hazard.
“Not knowing what to do with it, they sat down on the curb and had a conference. After a while, one of the fellows snapped his fingers and said, ‘I have it. I know how we will get rid of that overriding earth and remove the hazard. We will just dig the hole deeper.'”
[Congressional Record, June 16, 1965, p. 13884].
“One time in the House of Representatives [a colleague] told me a story about a proposition that a teacher put to a boy. He said, ‘Johnny, a cat fell in a well 100 feet deep. Suppose that cat climbed up 1 foot and then fell back 2 feet. How long would it take the cat to get out of the well?’
“Johnny worked assiduously with his slate and slate pencil for quite a while, and then when the teacher came down and said, ‘How are you getting along?’ Johnny said, ‘Teacher, if you give me another slate and a couple of slate pencils, I am pretty sure that in the next 30 minutes I can land that cat in hell.’
“If some people get any cheer out of a $328 billion debt ceiling, I do not find much to cheer about concerning it.” [Congressional Record, June 16, 1965, p. 13884].
Senator Dirksen went to the fundraising dinner in the sky September 7, 1969. Twelve years later, the Reagan revolution was getting started. Taxes were cut, and spending increased. In a couple of years, the national debt went over a trillion dollars. (The annual budget deficit is now over a trillion dollars.) For those new to the game, a trillion is a billion, multiplied by a thousand. For all the numbers above, multiply by a thousand, to get a trillion.
In 1965, Senator Dirksen was losing sleep, over raising the national debt to $328 billion. One of the first jobs of the new congress is to raise the debt ceiling. The national debt is over $14 trillion dollars tonight.

In 1965, the national debt was $328 billion, and we were losing 100 men every week in Vietnam. One of the more expensive things the government does is fight wars. Currently we are officially killing people in two countries, and several more that no one knows about(nudge wink).
On September 11, 2001, The United States was attacked. Revenge was the order of the day. There are now indications that this was one of the goals of Al Queda. The Soviet Union imploded, in large part, because of the strain of fighting a war in Afghanistan. Now, the United States is waist deep in the same big muddy.
Afghanistan has a gross national product of $27billion. The Congressional Research Service estimates the cost of American operations in Afghanistan for 2011 to be $119 billion. This is over four times the gross national product of Afghanistan. Pretty soon, you are talking about real money.
Pictures for this entertainment are from The Library of Congress.

This episode started out as a repost. Google and reality got in the way, and there is no telling where we will wind up. Pictures (except for the divas) are from The Library of Congress. Ansel Adams took these pictures at the Japanese Internment Camp, in Manzanar CA, in 1943.
Awful library books is one of the actors in this drama. It is a good waste of your time. (The link in the repost does not work, because Awful library books has a new web address.) On top of the shelf today is Lee the Rabbit with Epilepsy. Other uplifting volumes on the front page include Isn’t One Wife Enough?: the Story of Mormon Polygamy and When Cavemen Go Bowling.
The book that Awful Library Books chose to “weed” was Latawnya, the Naughty Horse, Learns to Say “No” to Drugs. The links in the original post no longer work, so google was enlisted to find a replacement. Believe it or not, this galloping tale has a wikipedia page.
The original book was targeted at African American youth. The author has daughters named Latawnya and Chrystal. The author has sued amazon, wikipedia, and urban dictionary about their treatment of the book.
A possibly illegal reproduction is found using the link. One of the comments tells a cautionary tale: ” It seems that many of these comments are viciously lampooning the work of a genius. I, however, see the visionary work of Mrs. Gibson. This insightful masterpiece presents the very real dangers of horse peer pressure. Just last week my daughter, Amber, was walking to school on a normal, idyllic day in suburbia. Then out of nowhere a Clydesdale galloped brazenly over to my precious princess and offered her a 40 oz bottle of Olde English 800 and a marijuana cigarette.”
Clydesdales have long been used to promote the products of the Anheuser-Busch company. When PG was younger, he worked on the mall maintenance crew at Northlake Mall. One day, the Budweiser Clydesdales made a visit. PG was given a shovel and bucket, and told to walk behind the horses.

One of the reasons for the drug problem is drug education. Many of these programs, while well intentioned, make the problem worse.
Courtesy of Awfullibrarybooks, we can see today “LATAWNYA, the Naughty Horse, Learns to say “No” to Drugs“. This uplifting story is about the afternoon when Latawnya goes out to play with her sisters Daisy and LaToya. Suddenly they meet four strange horses, Connie, Chrystal, Jackie, and Angie. They like to drink and smoke drugs.
The author of this tale was born in Mississippi, and lives in California. She says “Thank you, G-d”.
In 1986, there was an oversupply of cocaine coming into America, and new ways of using the product were needed. Someone had the idea of making crack. The media did its part, by running scare stories about the new drug sensation. “One puff makes your head feel like it is exploding”. The stories had the combined effect of scaring parents, and making crack cocaine irresistible to certain people. Crack became a part of the life.
The first time PG heard about oxycontin was a drug education flyer at work. It promised an overwhelming rush to the user who injected the substance. PG imagined the reaction of some of the druggies he had known to this promise…where can I get some?
PG is in the detoxed, old fogey stage of his life. Millions of others are not. When they read stories about horses who drink and smoke drugs, they learn to believe the opposite of what the drug educators tell them. Many will not live to be detoxed old fogeys.

One thing you can say about the war on drugs except alcohol…if you want something to write about, this subject is always there. Of course, if you want to say something good about it, you might have to be creative. Or, borrow a comment from another blog. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
If you support prohibition then you’re either a black market profiteer, a terrorist, a corrupt politician, a sadomoralist, a wing-nut socialist, fake-conservative or a prohibitionist excrementalist. If you support prohibition then you’ve helped trigger the worst crime wave in history, raising gang warfare to a level not seen since the days of alcohol bootlegging.If you support prohibition you’ve a helped create a black market with massive incentives to hook both adults and children alike. If you support prohibition you’ve helped to make these dangerous substances available in schools and prisons. If you support prohibition you’ve helped put previously unknown and contaminated drugs on the streets. If you support prohibition you’ve helped to escalate Murder, Theft, Muggings and Burglaries. If you support prohibition you’ve helped to divert scarce law-enforcement resources away from protecting your fellow citizens from the ever escalating violence against their person or property. If you support prohibition you’ve helped remove many important civil liberties from those citizens you falsely claim to represent. If you support prohibition you’ve helped create the prison-for-profit synergy with drug lords. If you support prohibition you’ve helped escalate the number of people on welfare who can’t find employment due to their felony status. If you support prohibition you’re responsible for the horrific racial disparities which have breed generations of incarcerated and disenfranchised Afro Americans.
If you support prohibition you’ve helped evolve local gangs into transnational enterprises with intricate power structures that reach into every corner of society, controlling vast swaths of territory with significant social and military resources at their disposal.If you support prohibition you’re promoting a policy which kills our children, endangers our troops, counteracts our foreign policy and reduces much of the developing world to anarchy. If you support prohibition then you are guilty of turning the federal, state and local governments into a gargantuan organized crime syndicate, interested only in protecting it’s own corrupt interests. — The very acts for which we initially created governments to protect us from, have become institutionalized. Thanks to prohibition, government now provides ’services’ at the barrel of a gun. Neurotics build castles in the sky, psychotics live in them; the concept of a “Drug-Free Society” is a neurotic fantasy and Prohibition’s ills are a product of this psychotic delusion. Prohibition is nothing less than a grotesque dystopian nightmare; if you support it you must be either ignorant, stupid, brainwashed, corrupt or criminally insane. If you support prohibition then prepare yourself for even more death, corruption, sickness, imprisonment, unemployment, foreclosed homes, and the complete loss of the rule of law and the Bill of Rights.
There are many levels to the war on drugs except alcohol. The next story deals with the issue of using marijuana for cancer patients. In our efforts to restrict the use of cannabis, we are preventing terminally ill patients from getting relief from the horrid side effects of chemotherapy. ( The issue of why a terminal patient is receiving chemotherapy is another post for another day.) In the story linked above, a lady tells her doctor that she uses marijuana to combat the side effects of chemotherapy. The doctor threatens to turn her in to her insurance provider. We live in a sick society.

Bill Zeller decided that living was not a good idea. He left behind a beautifully written note. He tried to hang himself, but only succeeded in cutting off the oxygen to the brain . He was taken to a hospital, but the damage was done. Life support was terminated 3 days later.
Mr. Zeller tells a story of being raped as a young boy. ( We have no choice but to take his word.) This led to a “darkness”, which left him unable to enjoy life. His achievements did not allow him to escape the darkness. Finally, he felt that action was needed.
The knee jerk reaction in a case like this is that the person “should talk to someone”. Unfortunately, it is not that clear cut. Mr. Zeller describes confiding in people, and being burned. Another problem is what the well meaning person might say. Many people would say to look to Jesus for the answer, not knowing that fundamentalism was  part of Mr. Zeller’s burden.
A third factor keeping people from talking is the laws requiring professionals to report cases of sexual abuse. These laws are a case of unintended consequences. This comment tells the story.
There is a dirty secret associated with mandated reporting for mental health professionals. Patients understand the rules, and we worry that many never reveal what is troubling them most deeply because they know that the moment they do, we become police officers rather than healers–we are compelled by law to throw them into even greater emotional turmoil at the moment they most need a safe space to talk. Some individuals would no doubt choose to expose their abusers after a period of therapy, but the state has decided that patients have no right to privacy when they’ve been victimized in this most awful way.
I understand that the rationales for the reporting mandate are the protection of victims from further abuse and the protection of others who might become victims. But when the reporting mandate prevents victims from reaching out in the first place, they are further victimized.
The law doesn’t require us to report patients who reveal to us that they have committed a murder. In fact, the law requires us to maintain their confidentiality. We can only violate confidentiality if we believe that such a person poses an immediate danger to others or if we know that that a specific person is in imminent danger. But victims like Bill Zeller don’t even have the rights of a murderer when they enter the consulting room.
While he cannot claim to understand what drove Bill Zeller, PG has had trauma in his life. Much of this hurt has been caused by Jesus worshipers, and by extension Jesus. When PG tries to talk about this pain, he is interrupted, made fun of, told he does not understand, and preached to. When you multiply this pain, this feeling of helplessness and solitude, by the more explosive affair of childhood sexual abuse, and one can begin to see why Mr. Zeller felt he had no other choice. ( Mr. Zeller was 27. PG is 56. Whatever pain and disappointment he has felt, PG  appreciates the privilege of living those extra 29 years. Perhaps, if Mr. Zeller had hung in for a few more years, the darkness would have been bearable. You only get one life.)
The pictures in today’s post are from The Library of Congress . They were taken in 1864, during the War Between The States. These are details of group photos.
An army (even yankees) consists of individuals . When you go closer and closer in the pictures, you see that this is a collection of men. Every one has a mother and father. Most have sisters, brothers, wives, and children. The death of every man is a tragedy.
One of these group photos was army surgeons, who had a hideous job in that war. The pain those men heard can only be imagined. How did they deal with the darkness in the years after the killing?

JoemyG-d has been running videos of number one hits lately. Today, the numero uno is from 1966. It is by the Monkees, called “I’m a Believer”.
PG always liked the Monkees. They were the twelve year old’s band when he was twelve years old. There was an article in the Saturday Evening Post about the “Pre Fab Four”, and a classmate of PG said that he was disillusioned. Certainly no one was confused about the made for tv nature of the band. The rumors…which turned out to be true…said that the Monkees did not play the instruments on their debut album. Still, a seventh grader is easily amused, and the show was fun to watch.
“I’m a Believer” was written by Neil Diamond, aka the Jewish Elvis. Mr. Diamond played guitar on the Monkees version of IAB. ( Michael Nesmith does a convincing imitation in the video. It is not known if he was wearing the green hat.)
IAB is part of the rock tradition of misunderstood lyrics. PG thought that Mickey said he “needed sunshine on my brain”. PG did not learn the truth for many years. One afternoon, he heard a band on the radio do IAB, and the lyrics were understood. What the song really said was, “when I needed sunshine I got rain. “
The message above is a repost . The video in the original post is no longer on youtube, but there was no shortage of replacements. The video used today is one PG remembers from the TV show. The pictures are from The Library of Congress
The other video, with unfortunate sound, is from the second year of “The Monkees”. PG did not like Mickey Dolenz with frizzy hair, and quit watching the show. 13 is a year older than 12. The fall of 1967 found PG as an eighth grader, or “subbie”, at a grungy high school. This was the first year after the black schools had been closed, and a few people were not happy about it.
The other video has the word believer in the title. (The middle of the word believer is LIE.) One afternoon, the disc jockey at WQXI said he was tired of playing that stupid song by the Monkees. Before long, the Monkees were replaced by the Partridge Family.

On February 29,1945, a train left a secret platform beneath the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington, DC. The most important car in the train was the Ferdinand Magellan, the private ride of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The train took “the Boss” to Warm Springs, GA.
On April 12, 1945 (the day before Friday 13), the President was posing for a painting. The artist, Elizabeth Shoumatoff, was a friend of Lucy Mercer Rutherford, who was also in “The Little White House” that afternoon. Mrs. Rutherford was the long time mistress of the President. At roughly 1:00 pm, The President rubbed his brow, and said ” I have a terrific pain in the back of my head”. His head slumped onto his chest, and he died.
What happened in the next few days is the subject of FDR’s Funeral Train. PG found this book at the Chamblee library, and found it enjoyable, and thought provoking. For a story with a well known outcome, there were a lot of subplots, and food for speculation. Pictures for this book report are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”
When it became obvious what was happening, the first chore was to get Lucy Rutherford off the premises. She left quickly, along with Ms. Shoumatoff, and an assistant. Somehow, Eleanor Roosevelt learned the Mrs. Rutherford had been with her husband, and was not pleased.
Fred Patterson was called at this Atlanta funeral home, and told to come to Warm Springs to prepare the body for burial. Unfortunately, the cerebral hemorrage had clouded the President’s face beyond repair. This, and the President’s expressed dislike of open coffin funerals, led to a closed coffin at the ceremonies. The closed coffin led to speculation that the President had been dead for some time, and that an impostor had been playing the role of President.
Mr. Patterson brought a copper lined coffin with him, weighing over 600 pounds. The setup of the Ferdinand Magellan made it impossible to bring the coffin onto that car. Another car, the Conneaut, was found to carry the remains to the funeral. A passenger window was removed, and the coffin was passed in through the window. A wooden bier was built for the coffin, and covered with a Marine Corps blanket. The bier was built high enough to enable the coffin to be visable through the window.
When the coffin was about to be placed on the train, it was learned that no one had brought a flag. A flag was borrowed from a flagpole in Warm Springs to put over the coffin.
The Ferdinand Magellan was armor plated, and had bulletproof glass. It weighed 142 tons. An engine powerful enough to carry this car had to be found. When the train was leaving Washington, en route to burial in Hyde Park, NY, three couplings broke, from the strain of this car. Finally, a coupling was made to work, and the train proceeded to Hyde Park.
The part of the journey from Washington to Hyde Park had two trains, with every important official in Washington on board. Among them was the new President, Harry Truman. Truman had been a compromise choice as Vice President, and was not told very much. He was quickly educated, and produced a speech to give to Congress the following Monday.
On this Friday the thirteenth, no one foresaw an early end to the War. While Germany was in bad shape, no one knew how much longer they would hold out. As for Japan, it was assumed that a gruesome land invasion would be needed to end the conflict. Only a select few knew about the atomic bomb, which had still not been tested. Some felt it would not work.
One of the lesser known passengers on the Washington-Hyde Park train was an economics advisor to the President named Laughlin Currie. In addition to his duties for the American government. Mr. Currie was widely believed to be on the payroll of the Soviet Union. He gave regular reports to the KGB. Which leads to one of the questions …did the Soviet Union know about the atom bomb?
The answer may not be knowable. What is known is this. On August 6, the US dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima. On August 8, the Soviet Union entered the war against Japan, invading Manchuria. On August 9, the US dropped the atom bomb on Nagasaki. This may be a coincidence.
Another point to ponder involves Dr. Howard G. Bruenn, a cardiologist at Bethesda Naval Hospital. Dr. Bruenn had been treating the President, and is given credit for adding a year to the President’s life. The question today is, what if the President had died in 1944? Henry Wallace would have become President, and probably would have been elected to a term of office in the fall elections. (Or maybe not. Mr. Wallace had offended enough people to cause him to be kicked off the ticket.) How this would have played out, especially with regard to the war effort and the Yalta conference, is anybody’s guess. That extra year of life for Mr. Roosevelt may have been a very good thing for the United States.

There is a nifty new facility on the web called UnsuckIt. It has a collection of “buzzwords”, which are not about the effects of marijuana. BWs are trendy sayings that supercool business types…aka douchebags…like to say.
When you go to the site, you have a choice of using a search engine field, or browsing through an alphabetized list. When you type into the field, you can choose “UNSUCKIT” or “I’M FEELING DOUCHEY”. An example is that eighties favorite, Bottom Line. (The Bottom Line on Miss Winfrey is that it’s too big.) The word is defined, and some text below says “The douchebag who said this probably also said Bottom Line, Get Our Ducks in a Row, or Socialize.”
When you enter Bottom Line, and click “I’M FEELING DOUCHEY”, you get the word Incentivize. This means to encourage or persuade. Maybe Incentivize makes you forget that all you did was threaten to lay people off.
By now, you may have noticed a fondness for the words Douchebag and Douchey. This traditionally refers to a device used for cleaning tender regions of the human anatomy. The use of this product speaks well for the recently washed. PG is puzzled as to why these phrases are used as insults. When you enter Douchebag in the search engine, the results are Organic and Top of Mind.
While Suck has a longer history of perjorative use, it is also a bit of a puzzle. If babies didn’t Suck they wouldn’t get fed. The oral majority Sucks, and is better for it. When you enter Suck into the search engine field, the phrase that pays is Team Player.
The browse window has some fun expressions. It starts with Accelerated Emergence of High Maturity Behaviors, and ends with Wow Factor. In between we see delights like Boil The Ocean, Dog’s Breakfast, Make It Pop, Negative Growth, and Paradigm.
HT this waste of time goes to aphilosophersblog . They had a feature, on the efforts of the Pepsi Generation to stay with it. “We see the emerging opportunity to ‘snackify’ beverages and ‘drinkify’ snacks as the next frontier in food and beverage convenience.” All I wanted was a Pepsi.