Names
Alan Burnett~Bill Medlock~Bill Meneely
Blaze Mills~Buddy Conine~Calvin Bunn
Danny Fields~David Chewning~David Hadden
Charlie Hall~Dwight Dunaway~Freeman Waldrop
Gary Hunton~Gene Haynes~Gene Holloway
Gibson Higgins~Glenn Krause~Greg Scott
Harold King~Hawk~Jerry Pyschka
Jim Anderson~Jim Woodward~Joe Kenney
Joe Vickery~John Harllee~Jon Gordon
King Thackston~Larry Jackson~Layton Gregory
Lee Mullis~Les Friessen~Mac Wilson
Manfred Ibis~Mark Keenum~Mark Rosen
Martin Isganitus~Michael Dollins~Micheal Mason
Moon Moore~O’Gene Donohue~Purl Sudds
Ron Davis~Sam Mitchell~Skeeter Smith
Steve Bedworth~Stuart Davis
Ti Barfield~Tom Aderhold~Tom Selman
Tom Williams~Trion~Winston Morriss
Thanksgiving Story
Thanksgiving was a time our family cherished. It was the only time all of us got together under one roof and mingled. Except for me. ~ I was the the family embarrassment. They were Catholic, and disliked my way of life. I played guitar, loved Heavy Metal, and worshiped Satan. ~ All this explains why my family shunned me. In their eyes, I was the flaw of a nearly perfect gem, but in mine, I was the cream of the crop.
I should’ve known they had something awful in mind when they asked me to join them somewhere. They drove me to the very corner of the ranch. ~ “What the fuck are we doing back here,” I asked. My only reply was, “Shut up you blaspheming fool.”
At last we got to the destination. My father, mother, and sister were standing around, wearing funeral clothes. ~ In the middle was a shallow grave. “What’s that hole for?” I asked dumbly. “Take a guess you satanic fucker!” Was the reply from my father.
I felt a thud on my head. I hit the ground with a loud thlap. I turned in spite of excruciating pain to see my uncle wielding a shovel. ~ I touched the back of my head to find my fingers coated in blood. I suddenly grew light headed and passed out. When I woke up I inhaled dirt. ~ Luckily, my family didn’t know how to properly bury someone so I was able to dig myself out. I sat there and puked for about fifteen minutes.
When I got back, it was Thanksgiving night. through the window I could see my family, sitting there, saying grace like the sheeple they were. ~ Seeing them praying made my hate for them and all Catholics grow. It went from a smouldering, muddled anger, to a flaming, outrageous hatred
I ran into the garage and found my uncle’s shotgun, sitting there, waiting for me, beckoning, saying, “Go ahead, make these fuckers pay.” ~ “Hi Mom!” I shouted as I pulled the trigger, I started laughing uncontrollably as I continued firing at my family until I was empty.
“WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!” My father asked, wounded, shot in the gut. “Wrong with me?” I asked calmly. “What’s wrong with you?” ~ With that I threw the gun away and dined. Not on Turkey, but on raw human flesh. It was the best Thanksgiving ever. ~ Text presented in twitter serialization by @creepypasta_txt. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Harold Bloom
On September 3, 2000, Harold Bloom appeared on Booknotes to promote How to Read and Why. Other C-SPAN news that day involved Vice President Al Gore and Republican Presidential candidate George W. Bush. Mr. Bloom is a professor at Yale University. He has written many books, despite not knowing how to type. There is no false modesty on display.
A teacher is an entertainer, knowing the value of a good line. Over the years, platitudes pile up. Mr. Bloom has collects both books, and clever lines about books. “Oh, I read everything and anything. I’m a desperate reader. If I can’t find anything else, my wife is likely to find me obsessively re-reading cereal box tops in the morning. … I now call myself at times, partly in self-deprication, but partly, I suppose, with a certain fury Bloom brontosaurus bardolater; that is to say, not only a worshiper of Shakespeare, but a brontosaurus, a dinosaur. I’ve never learned how to type”
Fourteen years ago, the internet was still called the “World Wide Web.” It was very much a work in progress. Mr. Bloom viewed the information superhighway with horror. “But the Internet, which I acknowledge is an economic and commercial necessity–the Internet–and many people disagree with me on this, I know–the Internet, I think, is a terrible danger to the life of the mind. It’s a terrible danger to real reading because it’s a kind of great, gray ocean in which everything merges with everything else. And extremely difficult–it is extremely difficult for a young person to establish standards of reading or to find again what could be called intellectual and aesthetic standards of judgment in relation to what is available on it. There is no guidance.”
PG listened to the conversation with Mr. Bloom in the background. In the foreground, pictures were being edited.This is something you cannot do with a dead tree book. This went on happily until the shockwave player crashed, and the machine needed a reboot. This is something else that does not happen with traditional publishing.
“He got rather offended and explained to me, in rather hurt tones, that Sir So-and-so was the leading British authority on information retrieval. I told him honestly, and it’s still true, I did not know what information retrieval was, and I did not wish to find out, and I still don’t know what it is. I said, `Who is the other gentleman?’ And then he said, quite coldly, `He is our leading authority on software.’ I said, `I’ve never learned to type. I’m not at all sure what software is.’ He said, `It doesn’t matter.’ He said, `In any case, Professor Bloom, you ought to come. You will represent the book.’ I said, `This is ridiculous.’ I said, `You’re going to ask me to have a discussion with an authority on something called information retrieval and an authority on software, and I, wretched creature, am supposed to represent the book? I am highly inadequate to represent the book. Anybody would be. And I will not come. Goodbye, sir.’ But that is the British Library.”
Mr. Bloom tells of a visit to Stanford University. The only pleasant time he had was a conversation with the Provost, Condoleezza Rice. (spell check suggestion: Condolence) The rest of the time he decries the custom of teaching literature based on the ethnicity of the author. He tells the story of a desk, with the legs falling off. From clumsy carpentry, he moves onto brain surgery. “If you were being wheeled in for a brain operation, and you were told that the brain surgeon had been chosen on the basis of fairness, on the basis of universalism, on the basis of multiculturalism, you would jump right off the operating table. We do not enforce these things in the medical schools.”
This sounds nice in theory. In real life, the brain surgeon was determined by the willingness of a health insurance bully to pay. Reality is more frightening than fictitious furniture.
The Booknotes conversation took place during election season. The discussion of politicians was indicated. “Leon Trotsky, who was a great, though murderous, human being, but a remarkable writer. And in his own way, a remarkable literary critic.” “I find it powerfully offensive that one of the two major presidential candidates is perhaps the least distinguished graduate of the entire history of Yale University, and I’ve taught there for 46 years, though I never taught this gentleman. But he has boasted to the press, at least until his people told him to talk differently about it, but he began by boasting to the press that he had never read a book through since he left Yale. And indeed, he laughed, he hadn’t read many through there. And, of course, I believe him”
No discussion about Harold Bloom is complete without Naomi Wolf. “In the late fall of 1983, professor Harold Bloom did something banal, human, and destructive: He put his hand on a student’s inner thigh—a student whom he was tasked with teaching and grading. The student was me, a 20-year-old senior at Yale.” Is Bill Cosby going to be teaching at Yale?
The one star comments about the book are festive. “His prose is at times crisp, yet his reasoning wanders about like somnambulist on a treadmill.” “Instead I found myself dragged into a solipsistic rant of Mr. Bloom’s favorite books.” “Please do not waste your money on this book. Each section is devoted ostensibly to a “critique” of a work that Mr. Bloom recommends to his unwashed readers.” Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Political Correctness In Self Parody Mode
From a Braves report on the new stadium…The Cumberland area has been identified as one of the most walkable communities in the region, and this will only enhance that. ~ What if these reports are not true? ~ People get offended when you tell them Santa Claus does not exist. ~ Please use your words we are all still people and be kind! There is no reason to have this animosity towards one another! ~ “But during those years as I grew into adulthood, I watched Cosby be praised by everyone from Presidents to Oprah to the Jello Corporation.” Accuser Joan Tarshis ~ This link has a popup ad. You must answer the “poll question” to read the content. This scandal is being reported by the sleazy depths of the internet. There is also an auto start ad. And now it seems that Raven Symone never said this. ~ I have serious doubts about this accuser. I don’t doubt that Mr. Cosby has some problems. It is just that Joan Tarshis is more than a little bit flaky. The spell check suggestions for Tarshis are Tarnish, Starfish, Ishtar. ~ She does seem to be jumping on the bandwagon. And, to be honest, she may have been attractive 45 years ago … she is not now. ~ Please note that @aLtwiculate will not retweet sexist, racist, homophobic tweets. The world consists of both men & women & use of male only words to describe humanity is unacceptable in the 21st century – unless you are actually describing men only. ~ twitter has a strange sense of humor ~ Dr. Loury never did get a good explanation for the phrase “people of color”. This is a problematic expression. It apparently means everybody except caucasians of European origin. POC lumps in many divergent groups, who have little in common. Many of these groups speak a language other than english. Why do we use an english expression to describe them? There is also the curious cousin of POC … colored people. CP was considered a polite expression a few years ago. CP is almost the same expression as POC. It is like profanity … POC is acceptable, CP not acceptable, because society says so. ~ “people of colour” is political correctness in self-parody mode. I find it to a highly useful expression myself, because when someone says it, it reminds me to tune them out and think about something else more interesting, because they are unlikely to say anything meaningful.~ There is a Fibonaccian synchronicity to Wednesday’s anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. The original is famous for the phrase four score and seven. If you add four and seven, you get eleven. Wednesday was 151 years after the original address, or seven score and eleven. ~ How can you be against something you believe does not exist? ~ We want to know your opinion on this issue! While arguing about an opinion or idea is encouraged, personal attacks will not be tolerated. Please be respectful of others. The editorial team will delete a comment that is off-topic, abusive, exceptionally incoherent, includes a slur or is soliciting and/or advertising. Repeated violations of the policy will result in revocation of your user account. Please keep in mind that this is our online home; ill-mannered house guests will be shown the door. ~ I had never heard of Mr. Hutchins. Mr Google says: Widely regarded as one of the most gifted, charismatic and inspirational leaders of his generation, the Rev. Markel Hutchins, embodies servant leadership. ~ Send them a box of your beautiful memories. ~ The monday morning quarterbacks have spoken. ~ “No it was sold while we were still at DHS…and I’m probably still alive because of that fact” When I first saw that, the majority of the comments were hidden. I thought you were alive because they sold the house. ~ There is an ancient device for telling if someone is racist… a mirror ~ The look on Dr. Loury’s face is priceless ~ the lady has a sense of humor ~ Yes I will unfriend you if you choose this moment to troll people who are grieving. Good night. ~ I agreed until the last part Jesus is the source of the hatred I have felt from african america ~ pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. ~ selah
Lemony Snicket And His Money
PG was trolling twitter when he found this: @Number13Press Lemony Snicket pledges up to $100,000 in racist joke apology. Who/what is Lemony Snicket? What did this person say? How can this joke be worth $100,000? Did he ever fork out the change?
Lemony Snicket is the pen name of Daniel Handler. Apparently he is not related to Chelsea Handler. Mr. Handler told a “joke” at the National Book Award affair about a black lady who was “allergic to watermelon.” Toothpaste flavor was not involved.
Knickers were twisted coast to coast. Mr. Handler was called out, and out, and out. Mr. Snicket took to twitter, and said my bad.
@DanielHandler My remarks on Wednesday night at #NBAwards were monstrously inappropriate and yes, racist. -DH [1/4]
@DanielHandler It would be heartbreaking for the #NBAwards conversation to focus on my behavior instead of great books. So can we do this? -DH [2/4]
@DanielHandler Let’s donate to #WeNeedDiverseBooks to #CelebrateJackie. I’m in for $10,000, and matching your money for 24 hours up to $100,000. -DH [3/4[
@DanielHandler Brown Girl Dreaming is an amazing novel and we need more voices like Jacqueline Woodson. -DH [4/4]
The mea culpa tweets were dated November 21. It is now November 24. Presumably, the 24 hours are over. A check on google does not reveal how much money Mr. Handler will need to match. It also is not known whether the money was ever sent. This is a problem when people make a show about donating money in the future. There is seldom any proof that the donation took place.
When googling Daniel Handler, the first suggested search is “net worth.” He wrote an article for the New York Times in 2007. It began: “Let’s start by saying I have a lot of money. I’ve acquired it by writing children’s books about terrible things happening to orphans, and this seems like such a crazy and possibly monstrous way of acquiring money that I give a lot of it away.”
The tweet at the top of the page linked to The Guardian. It has a lively comment section. ArkEton “A paltry $100k and an apology? It’s time we stop letting these people off so lightly. Making a racist joke is the worst thing in the world. It should be highly illegal and they should go to prison for a very long time. An apology? Like that makes it okay? Damn you racists.”
Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Jyoti Joan Tarshis
People are talking about Bill Cosby. More women are coming out of the woodwork to accuse him. One of them spoke, to a man with the strangely appropriate name Lemon. The video is embedded above. Mr. Lemon discusses oral sex strategy. This does not totally jibe with the original story.
The accuser is Joan Tarshis. On facebook, she is Jyoti Joan Tarshis. There is a resume, of sorts, at media bistro. The resume shows her “Total Media Industry Experience” as being 30 years. Ms. Tarshis met Bill Cosby 45 years ago. The story of the incident was told in Hollywood Elsewhere.
“I was 19 years old in autumn of 1969. I had flown to Los Angeles from New York to work on a monologue with Godfrey Cambridge. Two women I was staying with were friends of Bill Cosby, and they took me to have lunch with him in his cottage at Universal Studios, where he was shooting The Bill Cosby Show. He was always generous with his food and drinks, though he never drank alcohol. But he always topped my Bloody Mary’s with beer, which he called a ‘redeye.’
“Cosby seemed to take a liking to me, and so I was invited back a few times. … One day he asked me to stay after the shooting and work on some material with him. … In his bungalow he made me a redeye, … The next thing I remember was coming to on his couch while being undressed. Through the haze I thought I was being clever when I told him I had an infection and he would catch it and his wife would know he had sex with someone. But he just found another orifice to use. …So the day that he called, she (her mother) answered the phone and he told her he was inviting me to The Westbury Music Theater. … He sent a limo to pick me up and I was dropped off at the Sherry Netherland Hotel and went up to his suite. I remember noticing that his leather shaving kit was filled with bottles of pills, and thinking that this seemed odd. He was, of course, very friendly and I, of course, was very uncomfortable. He made me a redeye, and I, being nervous and dealing at the time with an alcohol problem (I’ve been in recovery since 1988), drank it. In the car I had something else to drink, but was already beginning to feel a bit stoned.
“When we got to Westbury and he went on, there was no seat for me. I stood in the back of the theater with his chauffeur, feeling insulted that I wasn’t respected enough to be given a reserved seat. But soon after, I remember feeling very, very stoned and asking his chauffeur to take me back to the car. I was having trouble standing up. The next thing I remember was waking up in his bed back at the Sherry, naked. I remember thinking ‘You old shit, I guess you got me this time, but it’s the last time you’ll ever see me.” The theater is on Long Island. The hotel is in Manhattan.
Lots of people are saying nasty things about Mr. Cosby these days. Some of them are probably true. This does not mean that every accuser is telling the truth. This lady comes forward 45 years later. She went to see Mr. Cosby several times, and accepted drinks from him. She was underage, for drinking, at the time. After the first rape, she went out with him again, in a different state.
One internet story is Joan Tarshis: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know. “Her Facebook page shows her to be passionate about her cats, and she also writes that she worked at Tantra to Love, a company that teaches about tantric sex.” There is a comment. Jyoti Joan Tarshis · Follow · Woodstock, New York “I have never taught Tantric sex!! haha You have me confused with Sting.”
The lady, allegedly, is a professional writer. “But during those years as I grew into adulthood, I watched Cosby be praised by everyone from Presidents to Oprah to the Jello Corporation.” Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Turkey Talk
Ben Franklin thought the turkey should be america’s national bird. It is identified with Thanksgiving, the holiday in November before Christmas. Mr. Franklin would not recognize the old bird today.
Turkeys have a tough life these days. Raised in factories where the lights are on 24/7, their beaks and claws are routinely broken off early on. For more details, read this piece in the New York Times, or a tasteful blog, What Would Jesus Eat.
PETA sometimes goes too far, and sometimes violates good taste. The commercial here was rejected by NBC. It uses the cliche of the little girl praying to call attention to the sorry state of the turkey. While annoying and easy to dismiss, the commercial does tell a tale.
PG should fess up at this point, and admit that he is a party to these horrors. A full blown carnivore (except for vienna sausages, which are gross), PG has no room to talk about the horrors of industrial meat production. It is Babylon…the government borrows trillions of dollars from the Chinese to pay for a war in Iraq, a book assembled by a Catholic Committee is called “The word of G-d”, and meat producing animals are raised in squalor.
A person, who is sometimes called a turkey, gave a press conference in 2008. The photo op was in front of a device that mutilates turkeys, and the meat processing continued while she talked. “At least this is fun”. This is a repost.
Cards Against Humanity
After generating your meme, it will be submitted for review.Upon approval, you’ll receive an email containing a link to your #CosbyMeme By clicking “submit”, you agree to the terms of use. ~ Ten Days Or Whatever of Kwanzaa by Cards Against Humanity ~ And I told my youth poet if he didn’t write the poem, I was gonna write the poem. He wrote the poem. ~The only word that rhymes with poem is jeroboam. Definitions: a large wine bottle (holds 4/5 of a gallon) (Old Testament) first king of the northern kingdom of Israel who led Israel into sin (10th century BC) ~ There was an article in RFD years ago. It was about a restaurant in backwoods Kentucky that was a regional hangout. The owner said, in so many words, that you could have a hundred gay men, and they would have a good time. If you have a dozen lesbians, there would be a fight. ~ @pourmecoffee Retweeting haters to get others to attack on your behalf makes you the Aquaman of Twitter. ~ “What does reality tv tell us” turn the idiot box off ~ What about the bystanders who have no interest in the quarell, and just want to work/play/live in harmony? ~ This responsibility includes determining that you are being told the truth. ~ In September, the Confederates abandoned the city. There was a fire at this time. This was the fire in “Gone with the Wind.” As for the Yankee naysayers in this comment thread … y’all are not much better, and in some cases worse. The civil rights movement was largely a southern movement, with significant white support. ~ Ok, I am through with my blog post, so I could participate in this facebook fracas. It is better to stay out of discussions, and produce something. This is especially true when the topic of discussion is none of your business. Just because a rabble rouser has your attention is no reason to wrestle with a hog. The wrestling hog does not care that you are covered in mud. All he knows is that he had a good time. ~ Many of these trouble makers have more rhetorical skills than integrity. ~ please be careful. Recovery from major surgery is recovery from major surgery. Don’t push too fast. ~ I thought this was an open thread about being an open thread ~ Now I know this is an official ARF thread. ~ I used to work for someone with a love of cliches. When he heard you say me, he would interrupt you and say this is a we company, not a me company. Does this mean that a meme should be more properly called a wewe? ~ The problem is that the haters spoil it for a lot of others. When hate is being spread behind your back, you don’t know who is infected and who is not. It is easier to just stay away. ~ You’ve reached the end of the Top Tweets for #WhyIWasFiredFromWalmart. View all Tweets. ~ This site is intended for entertainment purposes only. It in no way reflects the thoughts of Deepak Chopra. ~ @JesusIsAJerk I swear to drunk I’m not God, but seriously, stay in drugs, eat school, and don’t do vegetables.. ~ Oh, I remember. You are the French guy. ~ @punsquad Stop using mental illness symptoms as insults dear goodness ~ @punsquad @steveroggenbuck you prefer to use body parts and hygiene appliances as insults? ~ Dealing with our current healthcare mess might be a job for Satan. ~ Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. ~ selah
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