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Coleman Cruz Hughes is a young media star, with a book, a podcast, and numerous apperances on other shows. I was leery when Glenn Loury started to promote CCH. While I did not doubt the potential of young CCH, I was waiting for him to produce something. It did not help that the first time I heard CCH, he was talking about how nobody could believe a young black man was conservative. Later, CCH appeared on episode #1781 of Joe Rogan Experience, and made a good impression. For a while, CCH was ok in my book.
Then October 7 happened. CCH is on Israel’s side. Now, CCH is certainly entitled to his opinion. As for me, I am HORRIFIED by what Israel is doing in Gaza. The Hamas/IDF attack on October 7 does not begin to justify the wholesale slaughter of human beings perpetrated by Israel.
Part of the problem is a massive propaganda campaign by Israel. CCH is a soldier in this information war. @coldxman “These is not an Israeli gov claim, Aaron. I knew you would dismiss it if it were. These are claims made by The NY Times—which, for all its flaws—tends not to invent photographs out of whole cloth. I’ll let you parse the difference between rape and driving nails into a woman’s groin. I see no meaningful difference in the context of 10/7. In other words: Whatever it would say about Hamas that they did the former, it would say the same about them that they did the latter. And you seem equally tempted to deny it in either case.”
“How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7” is an exercise in atrocity porn. “Aaron” in the tweet above is Aaron Maté. @aaronjmate and @MaxBlumenthal are the co-hosts of the @TheGrayzoneNews, which has a highly credible debunking of the “nails into a woman’s groin” story. CCH feels that it is important to defend this story.
Legal Insurrection has some non-paywalled quotes from the NYT story. Some of it reads like a bad fiction. “The first victim she said she saw was a young woman with copper-color hair, blood running down her back, pants pushed down to her knees. One man pulled her by the hair and made her bend over. Another penetrated her, Sapir said, and every time she flinched, he plunged a knife into her back. She said she then watched another woman “shredded into pieces.” While one terrorist raped her, she said, another pulled out a box cutter and sliced off her breast. “One continues to rape her, and the other throws her breast to someone else, and they play with it, throw it, and it falls on the road.”
All this is going on during a battle. Hamas is trying to move in, take hostages, and get out as quickly as possible. NYT would have you believe that in a life or death battle, with IDF killing everything they see, Hamas militants are going to play bean bag with a breast.
This is not the first time that CCH has gone full blast for Israel. He writes for The Free Press, the outlet orchestrated by baking powder truther Bari Weiss. In one column, CCH makes the bold case that Israel is not an apartheid state. “A key difference between the nature of the Israeli-Arab conflict and South African apartheid is that Israeli policies in the occupied West Bank—checkpoints, movement restrictions, and so forth—are rooted in legitimate security concerns rather than racism.”
After reading a bit of the CCH tweetfight with @aaronjmate, I went to @coldxman. Normally, when you go to the home page of someone, you see a tab in the corner. This tab allows you to either follow, or unfollow. @coldxman … which @chamblee54 is following … has a purple tab, Subscribe. If you click on the tab, you see this: “Subscribe $7.00 a month Subscribe to Coleman Hughes Support your favorite people on X for bonus content and extra perks. … Welcome to Coleman Unfiltered Get bonus content when you sign up You will have access to ad-free episodes a week early and other exclusive bonus content. – @coldxman”
This is the first time I have seen the “Subscribe” option on Twitter. If I want to hear someone defend Israeli atrocity porn, I do not have to pay $7.00 a month. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress The spell check suggestion for coldxman is commando.
Democrats Do Not Respect The Law
This is a repost from 2021. On March 30, 2023, the Tennessee Three staged a disruptive protest, during a session of the Tennessee House. … Georgia Democrats do not believe in the orderly rule of law. Three high profile incidents demonstrate this lack of orderly governance. While none of these incidents are on the same level as the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, they all show the same contempt for basic law and order.
In August 2017, progressives held a convention in Atlanta. Democratic candidates for Governor spoke. While Stacey Evans spoke, actors in the crowd disrupted her speech, chanting “trust Black women.” As “author and zen priest” Angel Kyodo Williams says, “This is what democracy looks like.”
Later, the candidate who was allowed to speak, Stacey Abrams, defended shouting down her opponent. “I do not believe that you silence those who feel they are voiceless, because the minute we do that we are no better than those who tell people they can’t kneel in protest.” The DSA, who staged the disruption, is far from voiceless.
As many of you know, Ms. Abrams won the Democratic primary, and came very close to winning the general election. The central issue of the Abrams campaign was voter suppression. While the votes were being counted, some actors decided to have a rally inside the state capitol. State law clearly prohibits disruptive protest inside the capitol. (O.C.G.A. 16-11-34.1 (g)) Like a church, or a court of law, some activity is not acceptable inside the state capitol.
State Sen. Nikema Williams chose to violate this law, and was arrested. She was widely praised for this action, and later elected to the U.S. Congress. Almost no Democrats condemned this illegal protest by Sen. Williams. Many of these same actors routinely call on Republicans to disavow support from anyone deemed unworthy.
Two years later, the legislature passed SB 202. This law regards voting access, and is loudly denounced by Democrats. Many observers see SB 202 as being a mild bill. One provision calls for voters to write their drivers license/state id number on absentee ballot applications. SB 202 has turned into a political disaster, with the racism-happy POTUS calling SB 202 “Jim Crow on steroids.”
The March 25, 2021, bill signing, for SB 202, was a bi-partisan embarrassment. Governor Brian Kemp held the signing at the Capitol, immediately after the bill was passed. This was possibly done to provoke Democrats, who seldom need a reason to behave badly.
State Representative Park Elizabeth Cannon took the bait, and got arrested. She made a scene outside the bill-signing. Rep. Cannon tried to get arrested February 26, but the State Patrol did not comply. Once again, this disruption was widely praised by state Democrats.
Democrats have made great gains in Georgia, and may possibly win the Governor’s office next November. They will face many problems, not least of which is declining respect for law and order. When you look at the lack of respect that Democrats show for Georgia law, you wonder how they are going create respect-for-order in the general population. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library.”
CK7 Hot Dog
Hot Dog “3 – verb to perform in a conspicuous or often ostentatious manner especially : to perform fancy stunts and maneuvers (as while surfing or skiing).” A hot dog is more than a sandwich. Show offs have been called hot dog for a long time. This is a repost. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Which brings us to Colin Kaepernick. PG has thought there was something fishy about #7 since his protest began in 2016. What would happen if you google “Colin Kaepernick Hot Dog”?
In 2013, after the Niners beat the Falcons in the NFC championship game, a restaurant in Turlock, CA, held a contest to name a hot dog in honor of the Niners young quarterback. “Kaepernick Special: Hot dog wins competition in Turlock Colin Kaepernick is a hot dog. That’s not a critique of the quarterback’s playing style; that’s a fact. The Kaepernick Special made its first appearance on the menu at Main Street Footers Thursday. The restaurant, a mainstay in downtown Turlock for decades, held a contest to come up with a hot dog named for the former Pitman High football standout. … Football and hot dog aficionados submitted a variety of ideas … One suggestion: a hot dog topped with crab, shrimp and cocktail sauce. … Jim Yettman, 76, said he entered the contest “on a whim” … Yettman’s concoction: A hot dog with chili, cabbage, red and yellow bell peppers, jalapeños and a secret sauce consisting of mustard, horseradish, thousand island dressing, and cayenne pepper. … He beat out a pulled pork-topped hot dog and a pizza-themed version with pepperoni and olives.”
As you may have heard, Mr. Kaepernick sat down during the National Anthem, before a 2016 pre-season game. One of the first casualties, in the uproar that followed, was the CK7 hot dog. “A hot dog named in honor of Colin Kaepernick at a restaurant in his hometown of Turlock, Calif., no longer is available. The hot dog called CK7 — Kaepernick’s initials followed by his jersey number — has been pulled off the menu at Main Street Footers after the San Francisco 49ers quarterback refused to stand for the national anthem before a preseason game against the Green Bay Packers on Friday. The hot dog that was topped with chili, coleslaw, jalapenos and “Kaep Sauce’’ was a hot item for $6.05 when Kaepernick helped lead the 49ers to the Super Bowl after the 2012 season but had become a “political football,’’ restaurant co-owner Glenn Newsum said.”
In 2016, the Carolina Panthers were coming off an NFC championship. Their star quarterback, Cam Newton, gave an interview with GQ, and said some controversial things. After the Niners played the Panthers, Mr. Kapernick and Mr. Newton were photographed together. Some twitter wits speculated about what was said. @TribalThrasher “Kaep: A hot dog isn’t a sandwhich.. Cam: SQUARE UP”
Don’t be surprised if a google search for “dog” yields a story featuring Mike Vick. “Colin Kaepernick tweets Stockholm Syndrome definition after Michael Vick advises him to get a haircut Recently retired NFL quarterback Michael Vick has some advice for Colin Kaepernick, who is still looking for a job after opting out of his contract with the San Francisco 49ers in March. “First thing we gotta get Colin to do is cut his hair,” Vick said Monday. … (photo comment) Kaepernick had short, neatly cut hair when he led the 49ers to the Super Bowl following the 2012 season. But before last season, he grew it all out, often sporting a large Afro or sometimes cornrows. … “Just go clean cut, you know? Why not?” said Vick, who sometimes wore his own hair in an Afro or cornrows in his younger days. … “The most important thing that he needs to do is just try to be presentable.” … it’s not the Colin Kaepernick that we’ve known since he entered the NFL. … I love the guy to death and I want him also to succeed on and off the field. … “He is a great kid and the reason he’s not playing has nothing to do with the national anthem, I think it’s more solely on his play.” … In what some are interpreting as a response to Vick’s comments, Kaepernick took to Twitter and Instagram on Tuesday morning and posted the definition of Stockhom Syndrome.”
The Dumbest Online Events Of The Year
The well meaning crew at BAR has produced their annual internet nonsense quiz. The dumbest online events of the year is not behind a paywall, loaded with popup ads and cookie disclaimers. TDOEOTY is of limited value, but a writing prompt is a writing prompt. As the inimitable Rachel Madcow said, after Max Blumenthal heckled her at a defense industry love-in, “coming to a substack newsletter near you.” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
7 – How much money was conservative personality Steven Crowder offered by the Daily Wire, an amount he described as a “slave contract”? … Has anyone considered that “conservative personality” is an oxymoron? Did God short them on personality, in exchange for good hair? Or conservative movement … why do I always think of bowel movement when describing a group of people following strawman ideology … So this person is getting megabucks from a dodgy website, and calls it a “slave contract.” Colin Kaepernick taught him well.
13 – “I’m done, I’m dead, you don’t understand, I do it to blow off steam,” a Penn State professor told cops in June this year after being arrested for bestiality with his dog. What breed was the dog? … Will Katie EVER quit talking about Moose?
15 – Everyone was welcome at the Pink Peacock, a “a queer, yiddish, anarchist café & infoshop in glasgow’s southside” except two groups of people. Who were they? … People who punctuate tweets properly. People who worry about their vehicle’s extended warranty.
17 – What did the same pundit describe this year as the “trans of traffic”? … Trying to discern the meaning of a Jordan Peterson monolog.
20 – In November, Bryan West, a 35-year-old from Arizona, secured perhaps the best/worst job in journalism. What was it? … Oral gratification from Monica Lewinsky.
24 – In December, the journalist Sarah Jeong wrote a piece for The Verge arguing that Twitter was a “harassment machine” which had tried to get her fired from the New York Times in 2018 for being “the reverse racist lady, the Asian who hates white people”. Which of these is not a real remark she made on Twitter? … I have not done any multiple choice questions yet, and I am morally required to do at least one. Since the last four letters of morally are ally, it would be best to choose the answer with an -ally. … b. “speak for yourself, i literally want to kill all the men literally” … @sarahjeong is a person of color who says rude things about wypipo. She displays this poc-privilege in option d. “white people smell like unseasoned chicken and they don’t wash their legs in the shower” This is reminescent of a meme. A fashion challenged wypipo plays the saxophone for a confused yard bird. “This is how white people season their chicken.”
Bari Weiss And Refaat Alareer
This might be a mistake. I am listening to blocked and reported #195 while trying to finish a poem. Certified poopyhead @bariweiss is one of the main topics today. The thought enters my pointed little head to take notes. Nothing good is going to come out of this.
Something happens at 8:33. Jesse … or is it Katie … is talking about a notorious twitter account @zei_squirrel. I pause the show, and look in the show notes for the url to zs. “You’re blocked You can’t follow or see @zei_squirrel’s posts.” There is nothing like going to an x account, for the first time, and learning you have been blocked.
The main story boils down to the question: did Bari Weiss order the IDF targeted assassination of Refaat Alareer? IMO, Bari does not have a buddy in the IDF that can arrange a targeted killing. When the IDF mows the lawn, they do not target a specific weed.
Bari does not get out of this unblemished. She has spewed out high octane rhetoric against Gaza for a long, long time. Take this quote from 2021.
“I am writing to you from the waiting room of my fertility clinic. Getting pregnant when you are gay is not so romantic, so we try to do little things to make it nice. Last night I took a bath. We watched “Mare of Easttown.” Nellie opened a bottle of red. Then she grabbed my stomach and gave me a shot to trigger ovulation.” Does Bari Weiss have a certain amount of privilege?
“I planned to take the morning off. The doctor says that stress is not good for baby-making. But sitting here, scrolling through my phone, looking at the tsunami of lies — lies that have permeated every Instagram story and every viral meme and every TikTok video and every popular Twitter account — I am weeping.” Bari Weiss enjoys over the top writing.
“It appears that standing up for the right of innocent people to protect themselves from a genocidal terrorist organization has become extremely risky to one’s “brand.” And so lies have replaced truth. Memes have replaced morality. Hashtags have replaced history. I’m speaking, of course, about Israel.”
When the killing was over in 2021, there were a lot more Gazans killed than Israelis. There is no way to tell how many of them were women and children, or how many were Hamas. Bari probably did not call her connection at the IDF to order Operation Wall Guardian. Her purple prose did help justify it. When you start a fire, you don’t get to say where it stops. … Wall Guardian is an ironic name for the 2021 operation. An alert wall guardian would have been helpful on October 7.
Reddit note: I tried to post this commentary to Reddit. Somebody/some bot decided to substitute u/bariweiss for Bari Weiss. The spell check suggestion for u/bariweiss is barbarisms. … u/zei_squirrel was substituted for _@zei_squirrel. If you click on u/zei_squirrel you see “Sorry, nobody on Reddit goes by that name. The person may have been banned or the username is incorrect.” Reddit has a few quirks. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
White Margarine
PG used to hear old timers talk about margarine being a white paste. The consumer would add the yellow color later. This bit of information had gone undisturbed for many years, until the 12:58 point of the Useless Information Podcast. There was a 1947 radio commercial for Delrich E-Z Color Pak.
Delrich E-Z margarine came in a plastic bag, along with a capsule. You broke the capsule, and yellow dye flowed out. You knead the bag, until the dye mixes with the margarine. It was considered an improvement over the mixing bowl.
Margarine was invented in 1869. “French chemist Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès … patented a lower priced spread made from beef tallow. He dubbed it oleomargarine–from the Latin oleum, meaning beef fat, and the Greek margarite, meaning pearl, this last for its presumably pearlescent luster.”
The dairy industry saw margarine as unfair competition for butter. In 1886, the federal Margarine Act was passed. Many oppressive taxes and regulations were put in place. Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Ohio enacted a legislative ban on the use of margarine.
Most butter is dyed. The rich yellow that we associate with butter only comes from grass fed cows. If the cows are grain fed, butter is a pale yellow.
Yellow was more appealing than pink. In an effort to further demonize margarine, Vermont, New Hampshire, and South Dakota required margarine to be dyed pink. The Supreme Court overturned the pink laws, citing the laws’ effect on interstate commerce.
During World War II, butter was in short supply. Margarine became more popular. Finally, the laws requiring the sale of white margarine were repealed. Wisconsin kept the white margarine law until 1967, and forbade use of margarine in public places, unless requested, until 1971.
99% Invisible recently did a show, “I can’t believe it’s pink margarine.” PIctures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library.” This is a repost.
Made Myself Stupid
“So many times I’ve made myself stupid with the fear of being outsmarted.” James Richardson (b. 1950) “Vectors: 56 Aphorisms and Ten-second Essays” Michigan Quarterly Review, #17 (Spring 1999) Wish I’d Said That put this up on twitter. I made a copy of the 56AATSE. … This is a repost from 2021. Per Wikipedia, James Richardson is still alive.
It sat ignored on my desktop. until this morning. I was looking for something to work with, and started to pick out aphorisms that spoke to me. The first two to make the cut were #3 and #5, which are key players in the fibonacci sequence. Why not just eliminate all the players, except for the f-numbers? Then use those actors as a writing prompt.
First, we need to look into James Richardson. Turns out he is a recently retired English Professor at Princeton. A princeton.edu document has stories about Dr. Richardson: “Some of his colleagues in English will remember how, as department secretary, he recorded the minutes of meetings in rhyming couplets. … Jim is a philosopher-poet in the tradition of … his fellow baseball fan, Walt Whitman.” Apparently, Jim is a Yankees fan, which we can forgive.
1 “No matter how fast you travel, life walks.” Dr. Richardson is fond of semantics.
2 “Desire’s most seductive promise is not pleasure but change, not that you might possess your object but that you might become the one who belongs with it.” Ditto.
3 “There are silences harder to take back than words.” This is the first one that was noteworthy. This does not mean that I agree. Sometimes, the best thing to say is nothing at all. This goes against a commodity wisdom crowd-pleaser. “The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Men Say Nothing.” As Mike Hunt once said, “Don’t just do something, stand there.”
Kyle Rittenhouse might have a few things to say about this. He heard stories of angry mobs ransacking businesses, and decided to do something. Mr. Rittenhouse was severely punished for his decision to help out. Many of the people who spoke out, about the trial, should have kept their thoughts to themself. Justice is not a popularity contest.
5 “If it can be used again, it is not wisdom but theory.” 90% of the time, when people say theory, they really should say hypothesis. It is not known how this relates to reuseable wisdom.
8 “Everyone loves the Revolution. We only disagree on whether it has occurred.” There is a activist recipe. “To make an omelette, you have to break eggs.” Whenever I hear this, I feel like an egg.
13 “Like late afternoon, a pale cirrus crosses the nearly transparent moon. They are so alike, meeting, that I feel, suddenly and childishly, They like each other. Somehow I can’t help liking them for that. Somehow I can’t help feeling that they like me liking them.” Like Joni Mitchell, Dr. Richardson really doesn’t know clouds at all. We are talking about an atmospheric mass of water droplets, and a big rock traveling 403,000 kilometers away from earth.
21 “Birds are amazing, newspapers, stoves, friends. All that happens is amazing, if you think about it. All that doesn’t happen is even more amazing, because there’s so much more of it. Only habit keeps us from seeing all this. Habit is really amazing.” Is Dr. Richardson talking to newspapers, stoves, or friends? Maybe he is talking to all three. Of course, this was back when print media was much more popular than today, so maybe a newspaper was his friend. This does not account for the stove.
34 “I seem to need a larger vocabulary to talk to you than to talk to myself.” There are things that you know, that you never have to describe. When you talk to another person, you need to explain.
55 “Happiness is gratitude in search of something to be owed to.” Dr. Jim is probably grateful to the University of Michigan, for publishing his 56 Bright Ideas. When you are a high level academic, you need to publish things. UM is playing Georgia on New Years Eve. Many people in Alabama would be grateful if Georgia wins. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Selah.
If I Were A Poor Black Kid
This is a repost from 2011. It was a simpler time. … “If I Were A Poor Black Kid” was behind the paywall at Forbes magazine. One of the naysayer replies is available. Another, from Angry Black Lady Chronicles, is lost in an archive. The Root has a few selections from ABLC, between the popup ads. Pictures are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library.
There is a fuss going on about an article at Forbes magazine, If I Were A Poor Black Kid. PG was reading a facebook discussion of the article, and decided he wanted to read the original. He googled white guy writing about being a poor black kid for freakin’ FORBES, and the fun began.
Angry Black Lady Chronicles tells of the day when her (white) mother took a day off, from her job as a copy editor, to get young ABL enrolled in a tougher math class. Freethoughblogs chimes in with Forbes’ Gene Marks Needs To Check His Priv. The last line says it all … “Or, as in your case, not so smart but privileged.”
If you want to read denunciations of the Forbes article, open your eyes and take a look. You might want to hurry up. because, soon, there will be another article, somewhere, that people don’t like. Maybe you can talk about the War on Christmas. This is an example of Christian Privilege gone awry. It is a safe bet that many of the poor black kids are Christians. Maybe one form of privilege will outweigh another. Or people will learn about a grain of salt.
It is ironic that the piece was published in Forbes. Malcolm Forbes was fond of saying that he was loaded with “sheer ability, spelled i-n-h-e-r-i-t-a-n-c-e.” The elder Forbes had a lavish lifestyle, with Elizabeth Taylor as a beard. His son, Steve Forbes, (Malcolm Stevenson Forbes Jr.) was quoted as saying “My father once spent $5 million on a birthday party for himself in Tangiers. Why can’t I spend a few more running for President?”.
A Real Jefferson Quote
“Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom” Thomas Jefferson. So says an unsightly graphic on /r/QuotesPorn. As the reader(s) of this blog know, I am fond of debunking quotes. Quotes about “honesty” are particularly appealing to those who enjoy quotation pedantry.
The quote is real. Mr. Jefferson wrote a letter to Nathaniel Macon on January 12, 1819. This was a reply to a letter Mr. Macon sent January 4, 1819. The exchange is included in The papers of Thomas Jefferson Retirement series, published by Princeton University Press in 2004. The Library of Congress has a photograph of the Jefferson letter.
The letter to Mr. Macon began with a delightful quote. “Dear Sir The problem you had wished to propose to me was one which I could not have solved; for I know nothing of the facts. I read no newspaper now but Ritchie’s, and in that chiefly the advertisements, for they contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.”
Sally’s babydaddy was a man of many words. In 1784, he wrote Notes on the State of Virginia. “Deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real distinctions which nature has made; and many other circumstances, will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race.” … The circumstance of superior beauty, is thought worthy attention in the propagation of our horses, dogs, and other domestic animals; why not in that of man? Besides those of colour, figure, and hair, there are other physical distinctions proving a difference of race. They have less hair on the face and body. They secrete less by the kidnies, and more by the glands of the skin, which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odour. This greater degree of transpiration renders them more tolerant of heat, and less so of cold, than the whites. . . . They seem to require less sleep. A black, after hard labour through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusements to sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the first dawn of the morning.” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
When You Can’t Say Anything Good
Writers block is real. You have all of modern media at your beck and call, and yet you don’t have a message. TwentyTwoWords posts the story of a medical study into writers block. The study wastes no words in it a pithy treatment of this issue. It is an unspoken masterpiece, the treatment that dare not speak it’s name. The research was financed by a block grant.
The findings of this study were replicated in 2007. The report is included here, in it’s entirety. The editor noted “I did not change one word, and this is a first in my tenure as editor.” There is no word on whether the report was submitted before the deadline.
Ben Hecht tells a story in his autobiography “Child of the Century”. As a young, underpaid newspaper writer in Chicago, Mr. Hecht was hired to participate in literary debates. In 1900 Chicago, this was after dinner entertainment. One night, Mr. Hecht got together with his opponent, and hatched a plan. The topic of the debate was “People who attend literary debates are idiots”. The first speaker did not say a word, but gestured towards the crowd. The second speaker said, “you win.”
The sound that you hear is one hand clapping. Those reading with one hand can participate with the other one. Vintage pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library” This is a repost. Should writer’s block should be called writer’s tackle?
Gloria Marie Steinem
@measure7x “Been struck by how difficult it is to find a full text copy of Gloria Steinem’s CIA pamphlet, ‘A Review of Negro Segregation in the United States.’ Now I see why… Supposedly only 5 (‘known’) copies in the US. Guess some people really don’t want this going around” Sometimes opening twitter is asking for trouble. This tweet sent me on a wild goose chase, looking for information about ARONSITUS. Another thread provided a bit of information.
@marina0swald “a 1967 NYT article quoted gloria steinem as saying “I found them liberal and farsighted and open to an exchange of ideas,” when describing her close work with CIA agents to send americans to disrupt youth festivals in vienna in 1959 and helsinki in 1962” @marina0swald “another report the IRS prepared was on racial segregation in the US. it should be noted that this pamphlet is notoriously hard to find and truly doesn’t appear to be digitized anywhere. only five known copies exist. why? well the contents speak for itself” @marina0swald “published near the height of the civil rights movement, the report states that the reason racism exists is because it’s self-perpetuating, and black people simply imagine they are oppressed. the report has steinem’s name stamped across the top.” @marina0swald is a pen name, and not the widow of Lee Harvey Oswald.
A google search was not helpful. Duckduckgo came through with a handful of results. Whoever wants the document suppressed has done a good job. Even Amazon does not have access.
There is a bit more information about Ms. Steinem and the CIA. If you have a taste for conspiracy theories, there is a two hour radio show from 1986. A transcript is available.
“The first revelations of Gloria Steinem’s relationship to the CIA appeared in the New York Times in 1967, in an article that stated that Steinem had a part in launching a CIA front group which was called the “Independent Research Service.” Just prior to this exposure, Ramparts magazine had disclosed that the organization was CIA-funded. … The purpose of the IRS seems to have been to subvert communist-minded youths on an international basis. The supposedly “Independent” Research Service was, in fact, totally dependent on the CIA. It is believed to have been formed in response to the Communist World Youth festivals occurring throughout the 1950s and 1960s. These festivals were held in communist countries until 1959, when the festival for that year was scheduled to take place in Vienna — neutral territory during the Cold War. The State Department did its best to discourage American youths from attending. Some did go, though, and in the meantime the CIA covertly arranged for the Independent Research Service to organize an anti-communist delegation to attend and disrupt the festivals.” …
“Another fact exhumed by the Red Stockings is the group’s publication of a pamphlet in 1959 called, “A Review of Negro Segregation in the United States.” Steinem’s name is listed on the inside cover, this time as co-director of the Independent Research Service. The pamphlet focuses on the supposed advances made by black people in the U.S. For example: “Beyond the noisy clamor of those who would obstruct justice and fair play, no alert observer can be unaware of the concerted effort to rule out segregation from every aspect of American life.” The reason some discrimination does still occur, according to the research group, is because “it is also self-perpetuating, in that the rejected group, through continued deprivation, is hardened in the very shortcomings, real or imaginary, that are given as the reasons for the discrimination in the first place.” In other words, the oppression of blacks continues not because of white, ruling-class interests, but because black people actually have become inferior. [CN: Here Red Stocking is paraphrasing how they see the IRS pamphlet’s argument.]” This quote cannot be verified. All we have today is a picture of the cover, which might be faked.
When you talk about the CIA, there are conspiracy theories galore. It can be tough to wade through the information. The focus of this story is the pamphlet about “Negro Segregation.” One story sheds a bit of light on the Steinem-CIA-Segregation axis, along with a tasteful picture of Ronald Reagan, Rupert Murdoch, and Roy Cohn. The story does have a credibility gap. When discussing Richard Nixon, the author opines “Petty shit compared to Donald Trump, but it was a different time.”
”A youthful Gloria Steinem had just spent a year and half in India … she befriended Indira Gandhi and the widow of the “revolutionary humanist” M. N. Roy, and had met a researcher who seems to have been a C.I.A. agent or contact. Attractive and progressive, Steinem was hired to run the I.S.I. [sic] and to recruit knowledgeable young Americans who could debate effectively with the Communist organizers of the festival, defending the United States against Communist criticism of segregation and other American failings.” This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress
Tommy Rotten
This is a repost from 2015. It was a simpler time. … In 1977, Rolling Stone did a piece about a “counterculture writer” named Thomas Eugene Robbins. “Tommy Rotten,” is known for colorful phrasing. It is as if Vladimir Nabokov caught butterflies with psychedelic juice in their wings, and made a lepidopterist stew that allowed him behind the looking glass. … You can tell people that my goal is to write novels that are like a basket of cherry tomatoes—when you bite into a paragraph, you don’t know which way the juice is going to squirt.” Pictures today are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library
Tibetan Peach Pie: A True Account of an Imaginative Life is a TER autobiography. This accounts for the page references. … On page 25, TER was on an Asian honeymoon. A Sing snake crossed their path. A guide invited the snake to dinner. The reptile was prepared with enough red chili paste to give heartburn to the human blowtorch. TER felt as though he had gargled napalm. Later, on page 145, TER would describe “many a hot, sticky summer night, when a restless Richmond felt like the interior of a napalmed watermelon.”
TER is thirteen years old on page 63. He has not joined the church, given his soul to Jesus, and been assured of salvation. These are important items on the Southern Baptist bucket list. At the end of the service, the congregation sings “Just as I am,” and kids are shamed into salvation. The Baptist ritual of pressuring pre pubescent youth into a “commitment of faith” is morally dubious. Yes, this is better than what the Roman Pedophile Church likes to do with little boys, but that’s a technicality. … The man assigned to win the soul of TER was Dr. Peters. “tall, gaunt, and pale, with a weak damp smile and cold damp palms: shaking hands with him was like being forced to grasp the flaccid penis of a hypothermic zombie….more creepy than refrigerated possum slobber.”
At some point TER is on a ship, and editing a newspaper. “…the paper’s adviser, a Roman Catholic chaplain who possessed the purplish physiognomy and perpetually petulant pucker of the overly zealous censor.” Soon TER is in Nebraska, and buys his first automobile, a “1947 Kaiser … looked like the illegitimate child of a sperm whale and a pizza oven.” TER did not specify the gender.
The Fan was the hippie district of Richmond VA, although the 1954 version was considerably tamer than the summer of love variety. TER was reading books about zen. Learning zen, by reading a book, was similar to learning how to swim by reading a magazine. Or telling time by reading a newspaper. As Ben Hecht put it, “Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock.” … “I’d better shut up now before the woo-woo alarms go off.”
The edited version of this nonsense ended before a purple paragraph. Purple prose has long been a derogatory phrase for overwrought wordsmithery. It is now the sunday after turkey day, in the year of our satan 2023. As TER liked to say in “Cowgirls,” the state of the world is desperate as usual. TER is either 91 or 87, depending on what mood google is in. We probably will not get another novel out of him. … There is probably a good quote to end this with, but I am too lazy to look for it.
Chamblee54 
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