The Butcher
TRIGGER WARNING: This post is a bit gross. Proceed with caution. You can skip over the text, and enjoy the pictures. These images are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost from 2019.
The post before this borrowed text from Gartalker, known to the government as Gary Simmons. PG chatted with him a few times, and we moved on. The last time PG checked in, Gartalker was fighting cancer. That was in 2017. PG decided to take another look. He googled “Gary Simmons Mississippi.”
Gruesome murder, rape case recalled: Gary ‘The Butcher’ Simmons scheduled to be executed June 20 Before we go any further, note that GTBS was executed in 2012. GTBS is a different Gary Simmons.
“Simmons, at the time 33, and his former brother-in-law Timothy Milano, 21, were convicted of the murder of Texas man Jeffrey Wolfe, to whom they owed money for marijuana, and the rape of his girlfriend, Charlene Leaser. After Wolfe was shot dead by Milano, Simmons carved the body into pieces with knives that he had possibly sharpened earlier that day at work, testimony showed. He then dumped the pieces in the bayou near his Moss Point house.”
“The one picture I remember in particular is of the head that was recovered intact, chopped off from about here,” (District Attorney Tony) Lawrence said, gesturing across the middle of his neck. Instead, about 80 percent of Wolfe’s body was recovered, Lawrence estimated. It was the testimony of Charlene Leaser that solved the case, Lawrence said. Simmons had locked her in a large steel box and raped her. The 18-year-old Leaser was wearing only a sock when she was thrown into the box.”
Gary Carl Simmons Jr. Executed June 20, 2012 “Wolfe’s father Paskiel Wolfe reacted emotionally to the execution. “Do you think God is going to forgive you for doing such a good deed? No. You are going to go to Hell. And that is where you are gonna be. And I hope you burn in Hell. When you take your last breath I will be leaving to go and have a cold beer.”
Before Mr. Wolfe had his cold beer, Mr. Simmons had his final meal. “One Pizza Hut medium Super Supreme Deep Dish pizza, double portion, with mushrooms, onions, jalapeno peppers, and pepperoni; pizza, regular portion, with three cheeses, olives, bell pepper, tomato, garlic and Italian sausage; 10 8-oz. packs of Parmesan cheese; 10 8-oz. packs of ranch dressing; one family size bag of Doritos nacho cheese flavor; 8 oz. jalapeno nacho cheese; 4 oz. sliced jalapenos; 2 large strawberry shakes; two 20-oz. cherry Cokes; one super-size order of McDonald’s fries with extra ketchup and mayonnaise; and two pints of strawberry ice cream.”
The Simmons case was similar to a case in Georgia. “On March 28, 1984 a maintenance man employed at (Robert Dale) Conklin’s apartment complex was collecting aluminum cans from the trash dumpster when he discovered dissected human body parts, knives, bloody bed clothes, screwdriver, rope, credit cards, a wallet and miscellaneous papers belonging to George Crooks, all encased in black plastic garbage bags. The body parts were identified as those of attorney George Crooks, who was acquainted with Conklin and had begun a physical relationship with him. When Conklin’s apartment was searched, police found the bed clothing was missing and the mattress appeared to be blood-soaked. The jammed kitchen garbage disposal contained what appeared to be internal organs. When questioned, Conklin stated that he and Crooks were wrestling on the bed when he grabbed a screwdriver and stuck him, then pushed the screwdriver into his ear and wriggled the weapon around. Conklin admitted to dissecting the body and disposing of incriminating evidence in the dumpster. A book describing the dissection of a body was found on the bedroom floor. At the time of the murder, Conklin was on parole for Armed Robbery and Burglary.”
Mr. Conklin had a gourmet last meal. “Filet mignon wrapped with bacon; de-veined shrimp sautéed in garlic butter with lemon; baked potato with butter, sour cream, chives and real bacon bits; corn on the cob; asparagus with hollandaise sauce; French bread with butter; goat cheese; cantaloupe; apple pie; vanilla bean ice cream and iced tea.”
Recreational Language
This facility recently printed some commentary on the english language, courtesy of Gartalker Here is part two, not to be confused with number two. Weird is spelled correctly…you can’t have weird without we. Pictures are from the “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
If all that wasn’t bad enough may I point out a few other basic flaws in our language that makes no sense to any one other than us
There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth, beeth? You have one goose, 2 geese; so one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices?
Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Why doesn’t ‘Buick’ rhyme with ‘quick’
In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.
English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all.. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.
Once I was in New England and I stopped at a Taco Bell because I actually wanted to taste something. Any thing that wasn’t boiled and maybe had just a little pepper on it. Any way by the time I had left ever kid in the place was saying, “Order that one more time Mr. We just love how you talk.” One girl asks me how long it took me to learn to talk that way. Yankees, you gotta love them.
In you are reading this, you obviously have too much free time. Here is part one.
All right, I will be the first to say I slaughter the English language. I will also admit my grammar is most likely some of the worse of any blog you might happen across.
Still with that said, allow me to try to defend myself.
English is a stupid language. I mean taking everything into consideration I say that I don’t do too bad.
Below are twenty different examples that I have to put up with everyday in order to entertain you my wonderful readers.
1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line..
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear..
19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend? This is a repost.
Eleanor Roosevelt Liberal
This is a repost from 2021. … Eleanor Roosevelt has become the focus of a facebook meme. A flattering portrait illustrates a quote about “liberal.” “Long ago, there was a noble word, liberal, which derives from the word free. Now a strange thing happened to that word. A man named Hitler made it a term of abuse, a matter of suspicion, because those who were not with him were against him, and liberals had no use for Hitler. And then another man named McCarthy cast the same opprobrium on the word … We must cherish and honor the word free or it will cease to apply to us.”
“Did Eleanor Roosevelt Say This About the Word ‘Liberal’?” Apparently, she did. The text appears in Tomorrow Is Now. The book is the last word of Mrs. Roosevelt, who died November 7, 1962. Tomorrow Is Now was published in 1963.
The l-word has had a wild time in the last 58 years. In the sixties, it essentially meant someone who supported civil rights. Liberal came to be a favored insult of many conservatives, a role that continues to this day. As with many english words, liberal continues to evolve. Today a popular phrase is “classical liberal,” which means something to people who say it. It is safe to assume that Mrs. Roosevelt had a different concept of what liberal means, than many people today.
Merriam-Webster has several definitions for liberal, some of which are not related to political ideology. The etymology: “Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin liberalis suitable for a freeman, generous, from liber free; perhaps akin to Old English lēodan to grow, Greek eleutheros free.” This compares to the etymology for liberty: “Middle English, from Anglo-French liberté, from Latin libertat-, libertas, from liber free — more at liberal.” As for Mrs. Roosevelt’s claim that liberal is the same as free … she appears to be taking *liberties* in her use of language.
A red flag is dragging Adolph Hitler into the quarrel. Hitler comparisons are an easy gimmick for cheap rhetoric. Mr. Hitler spoke in German. Der Liberale probably has different implications than the American term liberal. A google search for “did Hitler say liberal” did not yield helpful results.
Wikiquotes did have 2 direct quotes of Hitler using the l-word. “… We might have called ourselves the Liberal Party. We chose to call ourselves the National Socialists. … ” Interview with George Sylvester Viereck, 1923 … “The main plank in the National Socialist program is to abolish the liberalistic concept of the individual and the Marxist concept of humanity and to substitute therefore the folk community.” Speech in the German Reichstag (January 30, 1937). Neither of these quotes is the type of Republican rhetoric so familiar to modern Americans.
Citing Joe McCarthy is ironic in 2021 America. Today, one danger to freedom is social justice jihad. An insistence on ideological purity is ever present in the “woke” landscape. Radical anti-racism is plausibly considered to be the new McCarthyism. A “classical liberal” is open to a discussion of ideas, rather that condemning people for having incorrect opinions. One wonders if Eleanor Roosevelt would be considered liberal today.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The men pictured are Confederate soldiers, from The War Between the States.
Date Rape Drug Warning
Police are warning all men who frequent clubs, parties & local pubs to be alert and stay cautious when offered a drink by any woman. Many females use a date-rape-drug on the market called ‘Beer’.
The drug is found in liquid form and is available anywhere. It comes in bottles, cans, from taps, and in large kegs. ‘Beer’ is used by female sexual predators at parties and bars to persuade their male victims to go home and sleep with them.
A woman needs only to get a guy to consume a few units of ‘Beer’ and then simply ask him home for no-strings-attached sex. Men are rendered helpless against this approach. After several applications of ‘Beer’, men will often succumb to the desires to sleep with women to whom they would never normally be attracted. Men often awaken with only hazy memories of exactly what happened to them the night before, often with just a vague feeling that ‘something bad’ occurred.
At other times these unfortunate men are swindled out of their life’s savings, in a familiar scam known as ‘a relationship’. In extreme cases, the female may even be shrewd enough to entrap the unsuspecting male into a longer-term form of servitude and punishment referred to as ‘marriage’. Men are much more susceptible to this scam after ‘Beer’ is administered, and sex is offered by the predatory females. Many men cannot resist the temptation.
If you fall victim to this ‘Beer ‘ scam and the women administering it, there are male support groups where you can discuss the details of your shocking encounter with similarly victimized men. For the support group nearest you, just look up ‘Golf Courses’ in the phone book.
This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. Gender modification, for contemporary society, is available by appointment.
Brain Damage
This is a repost from 2019. Eleven months later, covid turned the world on its ear. Sleepy Joe was elected POTUS, despite the worst efforts of President Trump. The economy went into a covid depression, with the national debt increasing by a few trillion dollars. Colin Kaepernick became obsolete. The custom of telling lies is as popular as ever. Winston Churchill is still dead.
The story starts when Sleepy Joe announces yet another attempt to become POTUS. The announcement focused on the tiki torch rave in Virginia, rather than climate change, financial foolishness, police brutality, endless war, or Donald Trump’s latest hair color. The Foxnews fuddy duddies went on email jihad, focusing on what President tiny hands did, or did not say, after the tiki torches were put out. Meanwhile, the national debt went up by a $8,000,000,000.00.
At the bottom of one of the existential emails was a tag line: “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its pants on.” – Winston Churchill. The last time PG heard that chestnut, truth was putting her shoes on. This sounds like a job for google.
Before you can say trending topic, quote investigator has the answer. “In conclusion, there exists a family of expressions contrasting the dissemination of lies and truths, and these adages have been evolving for more than 300 years. … At this time, there is no substantive support for assigning the saying to Mark Twain or Winston Churchill.”
Google is not through creating mischief. NFL’s Colin Kaepernick incorrectly credits Winston Churchill for quote about lies It seems as though knee pad model Colin Kaepernick felt the need to quote Mr. Churchill. This is deep. A tweet, about a false quote, about spreading a lie. Pictures for this deplorable dispatch today are from The Library of Congress. Nobody forced you to read this.
Google It!
This is a repost from 2017. … It is becoming a cliche. Someone makes a claim. Someone else asks for a source, asks what they mean, or challenges the bully in any way. The knee jerk response is to say Google It, frequently accompanied by an insulting comment about not knowing how to do online research. Is this the best way to handle the situation?
If you go to the shrine of the search engine, and submit Google It, the first page of results is connected to the information colossus. On the second page, you get the mandatory Urban Dictionary result: “An answer to a question that you are too lazy to answer.” There is also the inevitable arrogant joke-page: www.justfuckinggoogleit.com.
Should you respond, to requests for information, with those eight magic letters, Google It? As you may have gathered by now, saying GI is both arrogant, and intellectually lazy. It has bully overtones… I am telling you this, and how dare you challenge me? In a academic setting, GI is not a replacement for a footnote. Links are easy to install. You should show where you get your information.
Google is agenda neutral, unless your program includes sponsored search results. In other words, when someone accepts your dare to Google It, they may find out something you do not want them to know. If you want someone to learn what you want them to learn, you can control the process by including a link. If they want to challenge this, and Google It, they are free to do so.
@ShaunKing “7 people were killed by American police…YESTERDAY.” When the going gets tough, the tough Google It. PG decided to investigate. Seven People Killed By Police was the result. None of the SPKBP involved questionable police conduct. When you shoot at police, they are going to shoot back. @ShaunKing probably was trying to stir the pot with his tweet. A bit of research (actually, a couple of hours worth) shoots his agenda down effectively. Pictures for today’s entertainment are from The Library of Congress.
333,333,333
This is a repost from 2017. The current US Population is 336,438,002. … U.S. and World Population Clock gives an estimate of the population for the United States, and the World. On April 26,2017, at 13:41:31 UTC, an estimated 324,935,042 people lived in the United States (50 states, and District of Columbia.) The World population is 7,386,876,180.
Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the time standard used here. UTC is similar to Greenwich Mean Time. “The reference line or starting point, the Prime Meridian, was determined to be the transit circle at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London.” UTC is four hours ahead of Eastern Daylight Time. The population reading above was at 9:41:31 EDT.
The question for today is: When will the US population hit 333,333,333? Here are some hints: “Components of Population Change: One birth every 8 seconds, One death every 11 seconds, One international migrant (net) every 32 seconds, Net gain of one person every 15 seconds.”
The target population, 333,333,333, is 8,398,291 more than the current population of 324,935,042. Assuming a net gain of 5,760 per day, (one every 15 seconds, 4 per minute, 1440 minutes a day) we will hit the target number in 1458 days. 5,760×1,458=8,398,080, 211 less than the target.
Friday, April 23, 2021 is 1,458 days in the future. 211/4 is 52.75. This gives us a time of 14:34:16 UTC, or 10:34:16 AM EDT. At this time, the population of the United States will be 333,333,333.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Esther Bubley took the pictures in September, 1943. “A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals.”
#Tennessee3
#Tennessee3 has nothing to do with Johnny Cash And The Tennessee Three. One is a trending topic today. NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) “In an extraordinary act of political retaliation, Tennessee Republicans on Thursday expelled two Democratic lawmakers from the state Legislature for their role in a protest calling for more gun control in the aftermath of a deadly school shooting in Nashville. A third Democrat was narrowly spared by a one-vote margin. The split votes drew accusations of racism, with lawmakers ousting Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, who are both Black, while Rep. Gloria Johnson, who is white, survived the vote on her expulsion. Republican leadership denied that race was a factor, however. … “
You have to go down nine paragraphs to find out what the #Tennessee3 did. “Jones, Pearson and Johnson joined in protesting last week as hundreds of demonstrators packed the Capitol to call for passage of gun-control measures. As the protesters filled galleries, the three approached the front of the House chamber with a bullhorn and participated in a chant.”
In a bit of blogger synchronicity, chamblee54 reposted a story from 2021 about Democratic bad behavior in Georgia. In 2018 and 2021, Democratic legislators were arrested for disturbing the peace inside the state capitol. In both cases, the charges were quickly dropped, and Democrats cheered the bad behavior. One of the arrested legislators, Nikema Williams, was elected to the U.S. Congress. Few people seem to be concerned about the effect of this nonsense on the lawmaking process.
Getting back to the #Tennessee3, you have to dig a bit to find any details about the incident. Finally, this turned up: “Three Democratic lawmakers on Thursday led an impromptu rally in the midst of the morning session as hundreds protested against gun violence outside the door three days after a mass shooting at The Covenant School. Chaos erupted around 10:50 a.m. as the House voted on a bill dealing with expansion of the state’s education savings account program when Rep. Justin Jones complained aloud to Speaker Cameron Sexton that his voting machine was turned off. Sexton told Jones he was out of order, then called a five-minute recess. As Republican leaders huddled at Sexton’s dais, Jones of Nashville and Reps. Justin J. Pearson of Memphis and Gloria Johnson of Knoxville went to the podium armed with a megaphone, leading chants such as “Gun control now!” with people in the balcony seating areas.”
The popular response seems to be praise for the bullhorn-toting lawmakers, along with the traditional cries of racism. Nobody seems to worry that we do not seem to be capable of civil lawmaking. Is this how lawmakers will handle disagreements … cheer on disruptive visitors in the gallery, with a bullhorn? One wonders whether the #Tennessee3 will get bills passed into law, or if they are content to cause “good trouble.”
While doing research for this piece, I found a state website page for Rep. Gloria Johnson. I decided to look for Rep. Pearson and Rep. Jones. The state has already deleted the expelled two from the State House directory. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress
Why did the cow cross the road?
Why did the cow cross the road? The chicken was on vacation.
Knock knock. who’s there? boo. boo who?. Don’t cry it’s only a joke…
It’s six of one, half a dozen of the other.
A man walks up to a horse and says, “Why the long face?”
Two pretzels were walking down the street. one was a salted.
“He who laughs last thinks slowest.”
“Raise your hand if you’re here.”
Two nuns walk into a bar; the third one ducks.
Q: What did the radio say when it was dropped? A: “Ow. That hertz.”
What did the ranch say to the refrigerator door? “Close the door, I’m dressing”
Why don’t blind people skydive? It scares the heck out of their dogs…
What did the fish say when it ran into a wall? dam.
“I see.” said the blind man as he peed into the wind… “It’s all coming back to me now.”
What’s the last thing to go through a bug’s mind when it hits the windshield? Its butt.
You can tuna guitar, but you can’t tuna fish.
What do a duck and a bicycle have in common? They both have wheels… except the duck.
What’s brown and sounds like a bell? DUNGGGGG.
What’s brown and sticky? A stick
When people ask the mortician what he does for a living, he says he is a “boxer”.
What did the shy pebble say?… I wish I was a little boulder! .
What do you call an arrogant criminal falling out of a tower? Condescending.
Two guys walk into a bar… you would think the second guy woulda ducked.
A woman walks into a bar holding a duck. Bartender says, “What’s with the pig?”
Woman says, “It’s a duck.” Bartender says, “I was talking to the duck.”
Why do flamingos always lift one leg when they’re standing?
Cause if they lifted both, they’d fall over!
Q: How many Surrealists does it take to change a lightbulb? A: To get to the other side.
Did you get a haircut? Actually, I got them all cut.
One mushroom said to another mushroom, “Hey – you’re one Fungi!”
What do you call an arrogant criminal falling out of a tower? Condescending.
A dyslexic man walked into a bra …
Q: What do you call a midget, psychic, prison escapee? A: A small medium at-large.
A mule walks into a bar. The bartender says, “Hey, buddy, why the long face?”
“Because my dad is a jackass.”
I have one about the roof but its over your head.
Shall I tell you the one about the skunk? Never mind, it stinks!
There’s nothing like a good joke… and that was nothing like a good joke.
A rabbi, nun, lawyer, mime, and horse all walk into a bar.
The bartender says, “What is this, some kind of joke?”
When’s the best time to eat reindeer meat? …. When you’re hungry.
These stories are borrowed from 22 words. Pictures are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library. This is a repost.
Manley Pointer
Good Country People is a Flannery O’Connor story. Manley Pointer is a Bible salesman in rural Georgia. He calls on the Hopewell family. Manley doesn’t sell any Bibles, but he does get a date with Hulga Hopewell. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
“O’Connor portrays a one-legged, unemployed female with a Ph.D. in philosophy, who has nothing to do but stay at home and irritate her mother. When a Bible salesman, Manley Pointer, … arrives at the Hopewell house, Joy, who has changed her name to Hulga, much to the annoyance of her mother, joins her new friend in an excursion to a nearby barn, complete with a romantic hayloft.” source
The first few minutes of the Hulga-Manley date are special. “Smiling, he lifted his hat which was new and wide-brimmed. He had not worn it yesterday and she wondered if he had bought it for the occasion. It was toast-colored with a red and white band around it and was slightly too large for him. He stepped from behind the bush still carrying the black valise. He had on the same suit and the same yellow socks sucked down in his shoes from walking.”
“He crossed the highway and said, “I knew you’d come!” The girl wondered acidly how he had known this. She pointed to the valise and asked, “Why did you bring your Bibles?” He took her elbow, smiling down on her as if he could not stop. “You can never tell when you’ll need the word of God, Hulga,” he said. She had a moment in which she doubted that this was actually happening and then they began to climb the embankment. They went down into the pasture toward the woods. …”
“Wait,” he said. He leaned the other way and pulled the valise toward him and opened it. It had a pale blue spotted lining and there were only two Bibles in it. He took one of these out and opened the cover of it. It was hollow and contained a pocket flask of whiskey, a pack of cards, and a small blue box with printing on it. He laid these out in front of her one at a time in an evenly-spaced row, like one presenting offerings at the shrine of a goddess. He put the blue box in her hand. THIS PRODUCT TO BE USED ONLY FOR THE PREVENTION OF DISEASE, she read, and dropped it. The boy was unscrewing the top of the flask. He stopped and pointed, with a smile, to the deck of cards. It was not an ordinary deck but one with an obscene picture on the back of each card. “Take a swig,” he said, offering her the bottle first. He held it in front of her, but like one mesmerized, she did not move.” …
“Mrs. Hopewell and Mrs. Freeman, who were in the back pasture, digging up onions, saw him emerge a little later from the woods and head across the meadow toward the highway. “Why, that looks like that nice dull young man that tried to sell me a Bible yesterday,” Mrs. Hopewell said, squinting. “He must have been selling them to the Negroes back in there. He was so simple,” she said, “but I guess the world would be better off if we were all that simple.” source (This is the only time Black people are mentioned in “Good Country People.”)
Erik Langkjær is the possible inspiration for Manley Pointer. A Russian-Danish young man, Mr. Langkjær worked as a textbook salesman. “Klaus Rothstein, a literary critic and commentator for the national Danish newspaper Weekendavisen” got Mr. Langkjær to tell his story.
“I searched for a job in publishing, in the hope that I would be hired as an editor. I did get a job, but it was as a sales representative in the South. During these travels, I met a professor at the University of Georgia. She suggested that I pay a visit to a local woman who had had her first book published by Harcourt, Brace & Company, where I was now a sales agent in the education branch. The professor believed that this author would enjoy meeting me because of her affiliation with the publishing firm. Weakened as she was by her disease, lupus, she wasn’t in contact with many people, so it would be nice to receive a visit from outside. A few years back, her father had died from the same disease, but the doctors had told her not to worry. …”
“Flannery and I quickly became friends. I made an effort to plan my sales route in a way that made it possible for me to visit her every two or three weeks. I would arrive in my own car, and then suggest going for a ride in the surrounding countryside. She was always up for it. We talked about our family backgrounds, and she was excited to hear about my mother’s Russian heritage and my father’s career as a consul general … Flannery herself was a devout Catholic, highly conscious of living in the Protestant South. She considered it a great challenge to be surrounded by Protestants, and to belong to a minority. She had a church to go to on Sundays, but she was aware of the growing secularism, which she considered a threat.”
“I was not really in love; I simply enjoyed the company of women during my lonely travels in the South. Although Flannery was both conventional and religious, we eventually became so close that she, while the car was parked, allowed me to kiss her. At that moment, her disease revealed itself in a new way: there was no strength in her lips. I hit her teeth with my kiss, and since then I’ve thought of it as a kiss of death. …
“I visited her twelve to fourteen times, and later we started exchanging letters. As I returned to Denmark to settle down, she wrote that she would like to hear more from me, and her first letter from June 1954 ends with a reference to our drives around Milledgeville: . . . I haven’t seen any dirt roads since you left and I miss you. I think Flannery was hoping for it to be the two of us. Between April 1953 and June 1954, when my visits were frequent, there was indeed enough contact between us for her to envisage something more. Her letters might also contain a certain disappointment in the fact that the contact wasn’t as strong on my part. …”
“When I later read one of Flannery’s short stories, ‘Good Country People,’ I noticed that the main character was a travelling Bible salesman. I didn’t sell bibles, but I used to call my binder with the records of the publishing firm ‘my bible.’ Also, the salesman in the story is named Manley Pointer, which has an obvious erotic connotation.”source
Miss O’Connor wrote Mr. Langkjær many times. 13 June 54 “My mother has just attended a dairy festival in Eatonton. The governor attended and Miss America. All the cows were in rope stalls around the Courthouse and Miss America, very sunburned, my mother said and in a white strapless evening dress (11 A. M.) had to pick her way among them and admire each one while she kept the tail of the dress out of the little piles of manure. She also had to kiss a calf. Universal suffering.” 18 July 54 “Everything here is busy electing the Governor. There are 9 candidates and the ones I have heard over the radio all sound like hound dogs that have learned to declaim. They are all but one running on keep-segregation platforms and everything is geared to the boys who sit in front of the wooden stores and tell you not to run into a street car down there. (On acct. of the rotten borough system their vote is worth three or four of a city vote.”) source
“Flannery first met Erik in April 1953, she was clearly taken with him and relished their time together, especially their drives through Baldwin County in his car. When he decided to break off their friendship and return to Europe a little over a year later, O’Connor, then using a cane, felt betrayed, as revealed in their short-lived correspondence. In early 1955, O’Connor took only four days to write this story; her intense feelings about Langkjær quickly found their outlet.”source
“Unfortunately, while she may have had romantic feelings towards him, they were not reciprocated. This was especially noticeable after he returned to Denmark in 1954. Flannery would write to him, and it would be weeks before she would hear back. … Eventually, she received a letter from him stating that he had met another woman and they were intending to get married. Flannery was devastated. However, instead of wallowing in her grief she threw herself into her art, writing one of her best short stories, “Good Country People.” Shortly after this story came out, Langkjær wrote Flannery and said that he recognized himself in the character of the salesman, Manley Pointer. Flannery responded with the epistolary equivalent of Carly Simon’s You’re So Vain, telling him in essence not to flatter himself so.” source
29 April 56 “I am highly taken with the thought of your seeing yourself as the Bible salesman. Dear boy, remove this delusion from your head at once. And if you think the story is also my spiritual autobiography, remove that one too. As a matter of fact, I wrote that one not too long after your departure and wanted to send you a copy but decided that the better part of tact would be to desist. Your contribution to it was largely in the matter of properties. Never let it be said that I don’t make the most of experience and information, no matter how meager. But as to the main pattern of that story, it is one of deceit which is something I certainly never connect with you. In my modest way, I think it’s a wonderful story. I read it over and over and nobody enjoys it as much as I do—which is more or less the case with all my productions.”source
Monetizing Andrew Sullivan
This is a repost from 2018. How Trump and identity politics reinforce each other is a recent presentation of Blogginheads.tv. It is hosted by Robert Wright, and guested by Andrew Sullivan. @sullydish, as twitter affectionately calls him, was a pioneer blogger. In those days a weblog was considered a “vanity website.”
The Dish was shuttered a few years ago, and Mr. Sullivan continues to be a thorn in the side of polite society. Towards the end of this show, he said he was “just being a contrarian,” to which Mr. Wright replied “it’s a living.” There were a few other zesty quotes in this show, some of which can lead to unsolicited blogger commentary.
Mr. Sullivan does not appreciate talk of an LBGT community. For one thing, it is structurally impossible to be more than one, or two, of those initials at one time. This segment goes into being defined by your oppressors, and the difference between gay and trans. A young boy who likes to wear dresses may be pigeonholed as trans, when he would otherwise evolve into gay. While some enjoy these semantics, PG tends to find the whole thing tiresome.
“I’m an exception, because I think about this a lot.” Actually, if you think at all, you are an exception. When consuming social media content, you quickly learn that “The advantages of extremism are great, and the advantages of moderation are very small.”
Mr. Sullivan recently penned an article about opiates. In a Bob Wright moment, there was a comparison of meditation with opiate use. Mr. Sullivan replies with a few remarks about fenatnyl. Apparently, fenatyl boosted heroin is killing 60,000 people a year.
Talk about fenatyl tnds to go over PG’s head. After years of being lied to about drugs, this is to be expected. In the current situation, with thousands of fresh od’s every month, the loudest voices PG hears are people saying that when black people had a crack problem, nobody cared. Now that white people are dying from opioid use, people are getting concerned. This is just another example of the faulty logic running rampant on anti-social media. (The spell check suggestion for fenatyl is fealty.)
“The ability to say things that are stupid and wrong is essential to the advancement of knowledge.” Eventually the time ran out, though not before Mr. Wright was reminded of some of his former articles. It was Mr. Sullivan who defended saying things wrong, stupid, and republican. Some unkind people would say he has had practice.
The Library of Congress supplies the pictures for today’s frolic. “Group singing hymns at the opening of the Sunday school. While there are no churches on the project there are five or six in the area close by. This one is just off the project and is attended by many project members. Dailey, West Virginia” Arthur Rothstein took the pictures in December, 1941.
Anita Aretha and Elton
In the early nineties, PG had too much free time. On March 25 of one year, he looked in the fishwrapper, and found a list of famous people with birthdays.
There was an unlikely trio celebrating that day. This would be (in order of appearance) Anita Bryant (1940), Aretha Franklin (1942), and Elton John (1947). All three have been paid for singing. The three have a total of five husbands, with Miss Bryant and Mr. John currently attached (Not to each other). Miss Franklin has good taste in hats.
Several other people have arrived on planet earth on March 25. They include , in 1911, Jack Ruby, the killer of Lee Harvey Oswald (d. 1967) (They don’t say alleged when it was on live TV). 1918 produced Howard Cosell, American sports reporter (d. 1995). Flannery O’Connor (d. 1964) arrived in 1925. 1934 gave us Gloria Steinem. To make room for all this talent, Buck Owens died March 25, 2006. On August 16, 2018, Aretha Franklin was heaven bound.
March 25 is after the spring equinox, and has been Easter. A few noteworthy events have gone down on this day. In 1894, Coxey’s Army departed Massillon, Ohio for Washington D.C. In 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire killed 146 garment workers in New York City. In 1939 Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli becomes Pope Pius XII, to the delight of Adolph Hitler. 1955 saw the United States Customs seizes copies of Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” as obscene. In 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono began their first Bed-In for Peace at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel.
HT and applause to wikipedia. This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Chamblee54 
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