The Privilege Of Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates recently appeared on Bookworm. She was promoting The Sacrifice: A Novel. TSAN is a work of fiction, based on the Tawana Brawley rape allegations. Here is what the show says:
“In The Sacrifice (Ecco), a novel drawn from a notorious racially-steeped case of the late eighties, Joyce Carol Oates speaks of the domino-effect that started with one sacrifice and led to another and another, eventually eviscerating an entire town. By inhabiting her characters from the marginal to the central, Joyce Carol Oates asks herself “what would I do?” In this way she brings emotional clarity to the chaos of public experience.”
As you might recall, Tawana Brawly accused men of raping her. This created a firestorm of controversy. As the book sales pitch says, ” domino-effect … eventually eviscerating an entire town.” When the authorities investigated, the story by Miss Brawley was seen to be a lie.
At the 7:30 mark in the show, JCO said “The tremendous impact of Ferguson MO and the aftermath of the Eric Garner case in New York City are relatively recent and this has a snowballing or avalanche effect on the protests across the nation have been very exhilarating and very wonderful and I’m completely on the side of the protesters”
There are things you can say about the protests over Eric Garner and Michael Brown. There is a lot of turmoil. People saying hateful things about their neighbor. Relations between black people and white people have suffered. This is what JCO calls exhilarating and wonderful.
Many people feel caught in the middle. Yes, there probably is a problem with the way some policemen treat black people. There is also a lot of heated misinformation being generously distributed. If you don’t believe everything you are told, you might be called a racist. This is what JCO calls exhilarating and wonderful. JCO clearly has a certain amount of privilege.
Typical of the Ferguson rhetoric is a piece in PuffHo, The 10 Kinds of Trolls You Will Encounter When Talking About Mike Brown. Number two, after “The Full-Blown Racist Troll,” is “The “Wait for Evidence” Troll.” No matter how many times you are lied to, if you don’t believe what you hear, you are a troll and a racist.
This blog posted a poem in November, when the Missouri grand jury released a decision. This decision was recently confirmed by the Department of Justice, albeit accompanied by stories of police misconduct. The poem said that justice should not be a popularity contest. The men Tawana Brawly accused might agree. O.J. Simpson probably has a few thoughts on the subject as well.
The next day, there was an anonymous comment at chamblee54. “Thanks Luthor, your racism never disappoints.” This is what JCO calls exhilarating and wonderful. This repost has pictures from from The Library of Congress. These are Confederate soldiers from the War Between the States.
Blonde Stories
A blond and her boyfriend are out in the woods hunting when the boyfriend collapses. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The blond takes out her phone and calls 911.
She gasps: “My boyfriend is dead! What can I do?” The operator says: “Calm down, I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.” There is a silence, then a gunshot is heard. Back on the phone, the blond says: “OK, now what?”
A Blonde is watching the news with her husband when the newscaster says “Two Brazilian men die in a skydiving accident. The blonde starts crying to her husband, sobbing “That’s horrible!!! So many men dying that way!! Confused, he says, “Yes dear, it is sad, but they were skydiving, and there is always that risk involved.”
After a few minutes, the blonde, still sobbing, says, “How many is a Brazilian?”
A blonde had just totaled her car in a horrific accident. Miraculously, she managed to pry herself from the wreckage without a scratch and was applying fresh lipstick when the state trooper arrived.
“My goodness!” the trooper gasped. “Your car looks like an accordion that was stomped on by an elephant. Are you OK ma’am?” “Yes, officer, I’m just fine” the blonde chirped. “Well, how in the world did this happen?” the officer asked as he surveyed the wrecked car.
“Officer, it was the strangest thing!” the blonde began. I was driving along this road when from out of nowhere this TREE pops up in front of me. So I swerved to the right, and there was another tree! I swerved to the left and there was ANOTHER tree! I served to the right and there was another tree! I swerved to the left and there was ….”
“Uh, ma’am”, the officer said, cutting her off, “There isn’t a tree on this road for 30 miles. That was your air freshener swinging back and forth.
One morning a blonde’s husband was watching the traffic report on TV. They were talking about some maniac who was driving along the highway in the wrong direction and disrupting traffic. He knew his wife would be on that highway on her way to work and he didn’t want her to get hurt, so he called her to let her know.
“Honey, watch out this morning, there’s a lunatic driving the wrong way up the highway” he said.
Sounding terrified, she replied “It’s not just one!”
On a plane flight from Seattle to Chicago, a blonde was sitting in economy class. About half way through the flight, she got up and moved to an empty seat in first class. A flight attendant who observed this, went over to her and politely explained that she had to move back to economy class because that was what her ticket was for. The blonde replied, “I’m blonde, I’m beautiful, I’m going to Chicago and I’m staying right here.”
After several attempts to explain to the blonde why she had to return to economy class, the flight attendant gave up. She went to the cockpit and explained the situation to the pilot and co-pilot. The co-pilot said, “Let me try.” He went up to the blonde and politely tried to explain to her why she needed to return to her seat in economy class.
But the blonde only replied, “I’m blonde, I’m beautiful, I’m going to Chicago and I’m staying right here.” Frustrated, the co-pilot returned to the cockpit. He suggested that perhaps they should have the airline call the police and have her arrested when they land.
“Wait a minute,” said the pilot. “Did you say she’s blonde? I can handle this. My wife is a blonde. I speak Blonde.” So he went up to the woman sitting in first class and whispered something in her ear.
“I’m sorry,” said the blonde, and she promptly got up and returned to her seat in economy class.
“What did you say to her?” ask the astonished flight attendant and co-pilot.
To which the pilot replied, “I just told her that first class isn’t going to Chicago.”
Two sisters, one blonde and one brunette, inherit the family ranch. Unfortunately, after just a few years, they are in financial trouble, and are down to their very last $600.00. In order to keep the bank from repossessing the ranch, they need to purchase a bull so that they can breed their own stock.
Upon leaving, the brunette tells her sister, ‘When I get there, if I decide to buy the bull, I’ll contact you to bring the trailer with the truck to me so we can haul it home.’
The brunette arrives at the man’s ranch, inspects the bull, and decides she wants to buy it. The man tells her that he will sell it for $599, no less. After paying him, she drives to the nearest town to send her sister a telegram to tell her the news. She walks into the telegraph office, and says, ‘I want to send a telegram to my sister telling her that I’ve bought a bull for our ranch. I need her to hitch the trailer to our pickup truck and drive out here so we can haul it home.’
The telegraph operator explains that he’ll be glad to help her, and then adds, it will cost 99 cents a word.’ Well, after paying for the bull, the brunette realizes that she’ll only be able to send her sister one word. After a few minutes of thinking, she says, ‘I want you to send her the word ‘comfortable.’
The operator shakes his head ‘How is she ever going to know that you want her to hitch the trailer to your pickup truck and drive out here to haul that bull back to your ranch if you send her just the word ‘comfortable?’
The brunette explains, ‘My sister’s blonde. She’ll read it very slowly… ‘com-for-da-bul.’
A blond was sitting at the local bar after work one evening watching the television. There was a news story on the tube about a man jumping off the roof of a ten story building. The bartender says “I bet $20 he will jump”. The blond says “you are on, I bet he won’t jump”. A few minutes later the man jumps and the blond starts to hand the bartender the $20 she just lost. The bartender confesses that the story was not live and he had seen it earlier in the day so he could not in good conscience take her money. The blond replies that he should take the money anyway as she had seen the story earlier in the day too and really didn’t think the guy would do it twice.
This is a repost. These whimsical tales were originally published at Rapture Ready. Pictures, from “Inter city beauties, Atlantic City Pageant, 1925,” are from The Library of Congress.
Someone In Her Life
Jerry Crackhouse @HaroldBingo Azealia Banks needs someone in her life who loves her enough to change her Twitter password against her will. ~ here is a cut and paste from another chat about phones…something peeps like to talk about … i got a flip phone at a yard sale for four dollars, six or seven years ago i buy a twenty dollar time card every three months i am going to use that set up as long as it lasts … modern life … i will probably break down and get one someday but there is a certain luddite pleasure in holding out….. the irony of calling myself a luddite because i have a flip phone instead of a smart phone technological foot dragging is not what it used to be ~ lets reserve the #fword for insertive sexual activity ~ ” tens of thousands of conservatives are showing up at southern anti lgbt rallies” Do you have a link for that? I googled that phrase, and did not get anything. ~ @DarkTumbIr @TooMessedUp I don’t like #Jesus because anger comes easily once again I break my promise to my self It’s a constant battle. ~ This is one way that VHS is better than DVD or digital download. ~ If a snake offers you an apple…. ~ woke or broke? ~ It would be better if one spoke, while the other listened. It does not matter which one is which. ~ Articles like this focus on white people who don’t want black people, and ignore the white people, and black people, who don’t like white people. There are also latin, asian, etc. people….especially the etc. people … who have their own ideas of what an attractive person is. ~ the line about Ronald Reagan was that he did not dye his hair, that he was prematurely orange ~ @whitman632 Without religion repression would be impossible. ~ @unclejoestalin That’s what you think ~ Let the Arabs and Persians kill each other, while Israel eats popcorn. ~ IGWT appeared on coins during the War Between the States. ~ until I saw this tweet I did not know they existed ~ I prefer to say “dispute the belief, love the believer.” Let the Christians do the hating. ~ We all could be free and shrink if we only had the fulfillment to be truly happy and the ego to wisdom our .guts ~ The article describes “Eric”, a mixed race person in Atlanta. He says that people, whose profiles say “no asians”, hit on him, saying that he looks white. This is rather suspicious. I think saying “no asians” is more common to California, where there are a lot of asians. I don’t think I have ever seen any Georgia person say “no asians”. . ~ This article impresses me as clickbait. It feeds on concerns about racism to make money. That is something to be offended by. ~ i am working on a poem about the election i am listening to the RISK podcast the lady is telling story about having cancer i pause the show to go take a piss and get more coffee do i want to listen to rest of the show? ~ So I heard the rest of the show. I won’t do a spoiler, but I am glad I finished the show. Meanwhile, I saw some changes to make in the poem. Those improved the final product. If one person listens to this week’s RISK, this message will be worthwhile. ~ I have very little, outside of the color of my skin, in common with FLDS. Maybe we need a new way to classify people. Two wrongs do not make a right. ~ @ConnerHabib fifteen part tweet-a-thon might have been easier to read if you had posted it in reverse order -maybe twitter is wrong medium ~ @chamblee54 @ConnerHabib fifteen part tweet-a-thon might have been easier to read if you had posted it in reverse order -maybe twitter is wrong medium @ConnerHabib Thanks for the tip on how to tweet! Since you have 33,930 less followers than me, I could really use your help! ~ We noticed you still have ad blocker enabled. By turning it off or whitelisting Forbes.com, you can continue to our site and receive the Forbes ad-light experience. ~ Our systems have detected unusual traffic from your computer network. This page checks to see if it’s really you sending the requests, and not a robot ~ private prison sues state if it is not kept full ~ this doesn’t add up ~ “There is no way to peace, peace is the way” ~ bowie dj ~ @thetweetofgod is dead ~ history quiz ~ White Americans are nearly as blind to their racism as ever before ~ ‘No Blacks’ Is Not a Sexual Preference. It’s Racism ~ Quick Discrimination Index ~ 36 year-old DESTROYS 29-year-old millennial who “ripped” 25-year-old Yelp employee who got fired after complaining about her salary ~ freezer door ~ How -Splain Became Our Most Meaningless Suffix ~ baaaa ~ Did Donald Trump just retweet a famous Mussolini quote? ~ 16 Things White People Need To Stop Saying To People Of Color ~ pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. ~ selah
Open Mic
Last fall, PG read poems at a family gathering in Tennessee. There was a great response. PG decided to look for a performance outlet in Atlanta. On Oscar night, five months later, PG went to his first open mic. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Java Monkey is a coffee house. It is across the street from the Dickhater marta station. PG had been reluctant to go there, for a number of reasons. Dickhater is a long drive down skinny, four lane Clairmont Road. Red lights fester impatient drivers. Once you get to the end, there was the question of where to park.
Last week, PG got some good information about where to park. This week, when Sunday evening arrived, PG decided to take the plunge. The idea was to go one week, and see how this open mic thing works. Be an observer first, before participating. Before walking out the door, PG found some poems he had printed out, and put them in his back pocket.
The show was about to start when PG arrived. He got a cup of the basic house coffee, which is the reason this report is being written after midnight the same night. The performance room is an indoor space, with an open fourth wall leading outdoors. There was an empty seat. The mild late February night was just right, neither too hot nor too cold.
People who think poetry is boring should go see it performed. The readers were a mix of black and white. Everyone was supported, and got a healthy round of applause. Some people performed from memory, while others read. The stage was well lit, unlike some stages that PG has seen. While some people did read from telephones, it was not necessary.
After a while there was a break. The MC said that the sign up list would be closed after the break. PG decided to add his name to the list. Piers Gaveston was about to make his Atlanta debut. After the featured performer, and a few more open mic peeps, Piers Gaveston was the last person to perform. The MC pronounced Piers Gaveston correctly.
The audience applauded, and several people said they enjoyed it. PG did not feel the magic that he felt in Tennessee, but was pleased overall. Next week, a carefully selected piece can be rehearsed. There is no where to go but up, unless the parking lot is full.
Post Racial America
It is a cliche among certain pundits that this is not “Post Racial America.” No one seems to know what PRA would look like. PRA might be less noisy, with fewer odors, than the current model. The opinion that we do not live in PRA seems unanimous. After PG heard the denial of PRA one too many times, he began to wonder something. Who said America is Post Racial?
Mr. Google has 119 million answers to the question “who said america is post racial?” The short answer is nobody. The closest thing on the front Google page is an NPR commentary from January 2008. This was the early stages of the BHO run for the White House. The commenter said that the election of a dark skinned POTUS might usher in a post racial era in America.
This piece will not have any fresh opinions about race relations in America. That subject has been worn out elsewhere. If someone finds it to their advantage to denounce “racism”, there will be an audience. The truth is, very few people have ever said that America is Post Racial. This is a repost. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Asp In Her Fig Basket
The inclusion of the G word is a violation of the third commandment. ~ @MikeDrucker That moment when you realize Kanye West and Donald Trump could switch tweets and you wouldn’t know the difference. ~ We haven’t had a President with facial hair since William Howard Taft. It is time for another one. ~ this is fun with the sound cut off ~ Beyoncé has hot sauce in her bag… Cleopatra asps in her fig basket? OK, OK. I won’t belabor the comparisons, but I think they’re complex and compelling. ~ Al Gore won the popular vote. ~ ARF is connected to a publicity shy facility in Central Time Zone. You will probably hear about it. They might be able to give you some input towards your community goals. ~ l And just how much of a backlash has it been? Outside of Fox news, not much. Isn’t this whole faux controversy just a gimmick to get attention for some commercial product, which is what that silly little song is. ~ @kanyewest To Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, New York Times, and any other white publication. Please do not comment on black music anymore. ~ The PSA was more about prejudice than racism. I guess the semantics were different then. ~ @miragonz look, no pop culture event will ever be as good as when britney spears shaved her head ~ Actually, you might be better off voting in Wisconsin. Georgia is generally written off as being a Republican state. In November, the Georgia electoral votes WILL go for the Republican nominee. Now, I don’t know what the primary story is in Wisconsin. The Georgia primary is March 1, and it appears the Democratic race will still not decided. Georgia is also an open state, where you can vote in either primary. Sometimes, a strategic vote in the Republican primary is the way to go. ~ After the funeral of Mr. Nixon, I noticed a very large American flag at half staff. It was over a hamburger stand. The name of the hamburger stand was “Checkers.” ~ The UDWK disbanded 12/29/2015 this site will continue to be a voice for the White American Patriot. Stay Tuned! ~ You do not have permission to add comments. ~ Stories like this cause a loss of productivity ~ @YoMikeBrown comments about beyonce are part of formation publicity i was told to shut up because of silly ditty i would rather ignore ~ if I can’t find the source on the first page of google in less than five minutes the quote is disputed ~ @griftdrift with all the race/class/sexual identity fussing it is odd to think of anti catholic prejudice who has the time and energy? ~ Every POTUS has to kill men, women, and children. BHO is behind on his quota, and it trying to make up #Libya ~ Mr. Rock said that in November 2014. ~ @dubstep4dads ME: so is the vagina like… in a girls butt? where is it? DRIVE-THRU WORKER: honestly idk either dude ~ @pourmecoffee Who can lose by ten? Cover it with spin. Take away no delegates and act like it’s a win. Rubio can. ~ Things Get Heated Between Jason Whitlock & Shaun King ~ Peyton Manning ~ twitter ~ Cam Newton ~ defense ~ Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton answer voters at Las Vegas town hall ~ “No one asked me if I was a citizen or not, and my dad came from Poland,” Sanders said, referring to the so-called “birther” movement that has questioned Obama’s legitimacy as president. “Gee, what’s the difference? Maybe the color of my skin.” ~ @TheKevinAllison 1-finished all 3 stories turned off shit-myself-story twice but came back to finish black stereotypes in 1st 2 tales @TheKevinAllison 2-then a possible reason for this shaky behavior in 3rd tale race is a tough subject for me talk about shitting himself @TheKevinAllison 3- during ritual is less obnoxious than repeated “I am black” chest thumping it was not funny, but i did finish show ~ We are electing the POTUS. This is not necessarily a saint, an honest person, or a nice person. It is someone who will work, with/against a corrupt congress and hostile foreign nations, to get results. With that in mind, this video might be the most profound endorsement of Hillary Clinton available. ~ Wasn’t Ann Hedonia performing in town last week? ~ Death, the Prosperity Gospel and Me ~ Ted Cruz says naughty word ~ Cleopatra ~ BS memes ~ Fiction Points: Tao Lin ~ No One Showed Up To That Anti-Beyoncé Rally, Which Might’ve Been A Prank To Begin With ~ There’s powerful evidence that racial attitudes drive Tea Party support ~ Chaplin Emmanuel Foster’s Monthly Sermon ” Gay Pride Gets God’s Hate” April 2015 ~ story challenge ~ BLM, N.W.A. Prove It Takes 1,000 Tweets To Hold Us Back ~ Google shows two sources for the quote, “a riot is the language of the unheard.” One is a speech at Grosse Pointe High School – March 14, 1968 The other is a 60 Minutes interview on Sept. 27, 1966 The quote appears to be legitimate. ~ Pictures are from The Library of Congress. ~ selah
Jason Whitlock And Shaun King
There was a radio show yesterday. The actors were Jason Whitlock & Shaun King. It was tough to listen to. The two actors interrupted each other, and engaged in ad hominem arguments. At one point Mr. King, whose ethnicity is disputed, shouted “I’m blacker than you.” In twitter messages, Mr. King called Mr. Whitlock a “Tom ass bastard” who “will coon for cash.”
Carolina quarterback Cam Newton got media attention before Super Bowl 50. Mr. Newton had a spectacular season, leading the Carolina Cougers to SB50. On the other hand, Mr. Newton seems to be a bit of a “hot dog.” “I’ve said this since Day One, I’m an African-American quarterback that scares people because they haven’t seen nothing that they can compare me to.”
In SB50, Denver beat Carolina. It was an ugly, defense dominated game. A week later, Mr. King published a story with dirt on Denver quarterback Peyton Manning. As Mr. Whitlock sees it, trashing Mr. Manning was revenge for Denver beating Carolina in the SB50.
If true, this is ugly. The idea seems to be that a team with a black quarterback was whipped by a team with a white quarterback, so you get even by publishing dirt on the white quarterback. It is also stupid. Mr. Manning didn’t play that well in SB50. It was the Denver defense that shut down Cam Newton. If you are going to get revenge, it should be against the Denver defense. The only problem is that they are not well known names, and will not get the attention that bashing Mr. Manning will get. Nor witll it fit the racial narrative … of eleven starters on the Denver defense, ten are black.
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. Some of the pictures are from ” the morality play “Heaven Bound,” staged by the Big Bethel African Methodist Choir, at the Atlanta Theatre (23 Exchange Place), Atlanta, Georgia, August 1937.”
Interview The Suspect
Recently, Points: The Blog of the Alcohol & Drugs History Society published an interview with Tao Lin, a traditional author. In the post Beyoncé-gate malaise, any excuse for writing will do. Here are the questions given to Mr. Lin. PG will answer them. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Two nuns and a penguin approach you at a bar, and you tell them you’re a writer. When they ask you what you write about, how do you answer? Do nuns and penguins really exist? I guess nuns do, because I have know people who went to Catholic school, and were traumatized for life. I don’t know about penguins, and probably don’t care. … Ok, so this terrible threesome approaches me in a bar. I am a retired drunk, and only go to bars to participate in jokes. I would tell them that I write musicals about the joy of abortion. I understand that should be popular on the south pole.
Points is a blog primarily for drug and alcohol historians. What do you think this audience would find most interesting about your work? The rainbow font, pictures of dogs, and the true confession stories about women who go shopping wearing hair curlers.
What led you to write about drugs and alcohol in the first place? The division of drugs and alcohol is silly. Alcohol is a drug. The only reason that duality is implicit is the legalization of alcohol. If alcohol were illegal like the other drugs, and not endorsed by politicians, media freaks, football wankers, not to mention nuns that go to bars with penguins, there would be more people in jail for alcohol use. Whether or not this is a good thing we cannot say.
How would you describe the way that drugs function in your work, whether in terms of thematic concerns or the choices you make about how to craft a narrative? Do you think there are things that you wouldn’t be able to explore as successfully if drugs weren’t in your writing arsenal? Drugs and function are two opposed concepts. The reason people take drugs is not to function, unless you are trying to get an unwilling person to have sex, in which case it is different. As for the second question, the fecal impact of Donald Trump on the body politics cannot be adequately explained without use of ibogaine, which only the late Hunter S. Thompson knows how to procure.
What do you personally find most interesting about how drugs work in your writing, and where do you see that interest leading you in future projects? Since I don’t take drugs myself, I have to vicariously function through the drug use of others. Last night, I listened to a RISK show. It was about a black man… and he said he was black about a dozen times… who had shit shame. He was ashamed of his feces, and only took two craps a week. This man went to an ayahuasca ritual, shit in his pants, and is now regular. What goes around comes around.
This led to a three part tweet to the perpetrator of RISK. @TheKevinAllison 1-finished all 3 stories turned off shit-myself-story twice but came back to finish black stereotypes in 1st 2 tales @TheKevinAllison 2-then a possible reason for this shaky behavior in 3rd tale race is a tough subject for me talk about shitting himself @TheKevinAllison 3- during ritual is less obnoxious than repeated “I am black” chest thumping it was not funny, but i did finish show
BONUS QUESTION: Let’s hope that one of your novels or other work gets made into a major motion picture. If you have your choice, which is it, and what song do you fantasize about hearing as the credits roll? Disco Duck.
Dolly Parton And Paula Deen
Last month, on January 19, Dolly Parton turned 70. The internet was a love fest for her, and deservedly so. Miss Parton has given joy to millions with her singing and acting.
Paula Deen was born on the same day, one year later. While her star did not shine quite as bright as Miss Parton, Mrs. Deen made her contribution to american life. The only problem was a bad boss lawsuit against a company Mrs. Deen invested in. A lawyer got Mrs. Deen to admit, under oath, the she had said the n-word. Paula Deen became a pariah.
Dolly Parton and Paula Deen have a few things in common. Miss Parton is married to Carl Thomas Dean, and her legal name is Mrs. Dean. While both ladies are from the south, the hills of East Tennessee and the flatland of Albany, Georgia. Both grew up in an era where the n-word was what white people called black people.
What if the story had been different. What if it was a restaurant at Dollywood where the manager was not happy? What if this white woman, who was treated better because she was a white woman, decided to claim racial discrimination in her bad boss lawsuit? (Page 153 of deposition.) What if the disgruntled employee’s lawyer was smarter than Dolly Parton’s lawyer. We might have had tabloids screaming nonstop that Dolly Parton said the n-word.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress, taken at “Annual “Bathing Girl Parade”, Balboa Beach, CA, June 20, 1920.” No one asked these ladies if they ever said the n-word.
John S. McCain And Bernie Sanders
The latest podcast addiction is a Slate production called Whistlestop. WS (whistlestop, not water sports) is about presidential elections. On top of the home page is a header ad. At first it had a picture of Hillary, with the message “I’m with her.” Now, it is a prescription medication, side effects scrolling slowly on the right. The side effects of Hillary are more obvious.
Episode 24 is When the Straight Talk Express Rolled Through New Hampshire. In the 2000 election, George W. Bush was the anointed candidate for the Republicans. Challenging him in New Hampshire was John S. McCain. The winner in New Hampshire was Senator McCain. The winner of the nomination, and ultimately the Presidency, was George W. Bush.
The WS story is about how JSM got the New Hampshire voters on his side. The 2008 story will, no doubt, be a future episode of WS. JSM did the whole Straight Talk routine, and won the nomination. JSM chose Sarah Palin as his running mate. Whether JSM had a chance, after eight years of W, is a good question. BHO won the 2008 election, and is currently the lame duck POTUS.
In Georgia, the electoral votes are all but conceded to the Republicans. The only time we get to choose is the primary. In 2008, PG saw the two choices were John McCain and Barack Obama. Both had flaws, but both offered alternatives to the nonsense of Mike Huckabee and John Edwards. After thinking about it, PG remembered that John McCain dropped napalm on women and children. So PG voted for Barack Obama. Once elected, BHO would fire hellfire missiles at women and children.
David Foster Wallace covered the McCain campaign for Rolling Stone. He was always good for a few thousand words, often in the first sentence. DFW had a few thoughts about why JSM was so popular.
“Because we’ve been lied to and lied to, and it hurts to be lied to. It’s ultimately just about that complicated: it hurts. We learn this at like age four—it’s grownups’ first explanation to us of why it’s bad to lie (“How would you like it if … ?”). And we keep learning for years, from hard experience, that getting lied to sucks—that it diminishes you, denies you respect for yourself, for the liar, for the world. Especially if the lies are chronic, systemic, if experience seems to teach that everything you’re supposed to believe in’s really just a game based on lies. Young Voters have been taught well and thoroughly. You may not personally remember Vietnam or Watergate, but it’s a good bet you remember “No new taxes” and “Out of the loop” and “No direct knowledge of any impropriety at this time” and “Did not inhale” and “Did not have sex with that Ms. Lewinsky” and etc. etc. It’s painful to believe that the would-be “public servants” you’re forced to choose between are all phonies whose only real concern is their own care and feeding and who will lie so outrageously and with such a straight face that you know they’ve just got to believe you’re an idiot. So who wouldn’t yawn and turn away, trade apathy and cynicism for the hurt of getting treated with contempt?”
This time, the outlaw candidate is Bernie Sanders. He won a big victory in New Hampshire. BS is lying through his teeth. He says he will make college tuition free, and install single payer socialized medicine. Everyone knows these are lies (BS²) and yet the Bernoids play along. Te-Nehisi Coates even denounced BS for not supporting reparations for Black people, even though everyone knows that will never happen. If you are going to lie, you might as well lie for everyone.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
January Gun Fun
Parents Against Gun Violence have done it again. They issued a report, A few of the reasons people shot people in January, 2016. There are only 10 stories this month. In the cases where the actor is identified, 3 are white, and 3 are black. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
The fun starts in Oklahoma, on New Years Morning. Some kids were ringing doorbells, and running away, a custom called Ding Dong Ditching. You know what happened. “The shooter has not been arrested and the Mayes County district attorney is looking into whether the shooting was lawful.”
A few days later, a young man in Memphis set off a handgun. The bullet went downstairs, and killed a 13 year old girl. Her brother got revenge by killing the upstairs man. ” Memphis Police confirmed they are searching for 19-year-old Ovell Jones on voluntary manslaughter charges in the death of 20-year-old Daniel Lusk. Jones is the brother of 13-year-old LeTara Jones, who was killed when a gun accidentally went off and hit her on January 4.”
Charles Wayne Acklen was a “former Shreveport Police Officer and Vietnam veteran who’s been financially supporting his son for years. Charles Ray Acklen was a registered sex offender, convicted of forcible rape in 1993. Other neighbors said the two had a history of arguing.” A few states north, “Larry Lotz, 65, snapped after his wife, Karen, admonished him for leaving the coffee maker turned on in the couple’s Barrington, Ill., home.”
The law tries to regulate human behavior, with uneven results. In Massachusetts, Bruce O’Brien found himself behind a snow plow that was too slow. “O’Brien has been charged with firing a gun within 500 feet of a building, carrying a firearm while under the influence of liquor or drugs, disorderly conduct and assault with a dangerous weapon. He was not charged with drunk driving because his level of intoxication did not rise to the legal level.”
Beyoncé
“Seriously. Beyoncé releases an awesome video for an awesome song that empowers Black, southern women and it makes racist white people’s dicks invert. White folks: tell me more about how Black culture needs your approval. Or better yet, Just. Shut. Up.” A sentence should have more than one word, but only one period.
In case you haven’t heard, Beyoncé made a video with a political theme. If you don’t care, it is ok to skip the rest of the text, and look at the pictures. They are from The Library of Congress. These men were soldiers in the War Between the States.
Here is one way to see this. “I can critique the commodification of blackness by a middle class, privileged, light-skinned woman that wears fake blonde hair, shakes her ass professionally … Or I can appreciate a pop singer with a record-breaking level of fame laying claim to her blackness and making references to the crises in her community and its history when she’s not obligated and stands to lose at least a modicum of the cross-over appeal that made her so ridiculously famous by doing so.”
Beyoncé is a commercial entertainment content provider. She is good at what she does. Apparently, Beyoncé Inc. thinks people want entertainment product about #blacklivesmatter. She will probably make a few coins in the process, and more power to her. That is what entertainers do… they give people what they want.
Apparently, the halftime show did not amuse Fox news. A few more right wing whiners criticized the performance. Does anyone seriously think that Rudy Giuliani represents white people in America?
The whiny, fuck you whitey, attitude is beyond obnoxious. “make racist white people’s dicks invert” Really? Do you have any documentation for that, beyond a youtube comment? In all probability, most “racist white people” just ignore the song, if they even know it exists. The self loathing white sjw are the ones having a collective hissy fit.
You can’t have it both ways. If you want people to pay attention, and learn how #blacklivesmatter, then don’t shout White People: Shut Up About Beyoncé. Why would anyone want to talk about that song anyway? Beyoncé is dancing her way to the bank.
The super bowl itself was supposed to be a showcase for another talented African American. Cam Newton had a spectacular season, and led the Carolina Panthers into the big game. Mr. Newton likes to dance after scoring touchdowns, and has a talent for rubbing people the wrong way. Sunday was going to be his moment of glory. The Denver Bronco defense had other plans.
Chamblee54 
1 comment