Clown Show
This is a repost from 2017. Milo Yiannopoulos appeared on a show hosted by Bill Maher. The program aired in the last twenty four hours. The appearance was controversial, which should translate into rating points for Mr. Maher, and the enhancement of celebrity for Mr. Yiannopoulos. Little of importance was said, except that Mr. Maher is loyal to HBO comedians.
Overtime with Bill Maher was where the fun started. Mr. Yiannopoulos said that Mr. Maher should have guests with higher intelligence quotients. Alleged comedian Larry Wilmore said, to Mr. Yiannopoulos, “go fuck yourself”. Another member of the panel, Malcolm Nance, was said to be able to talk circles around Mr. Yiannopoulos. The well spoken man said to the flamboyant Milo, “I’ve been to Port Said, and Naples, and I suspect you have been too.”
Malcolm Nance is a former US Military Intelligence dude. He was promoting a book about Russian involvement in the recent election. Mr. Nance does appear to be smarter that either Mr. Yiannopoulos or Mr. Wilmore, which is nothing to brag about. When Mr. Nance could get a few words in edgewise, he said some interesting things about Wikileaks, and the Russian mischief.
Mr. Nance said that the Russian hacking of the DNC was massive. It would take a team of intelligence officers working 24 shifts to go through all the data. The Russians/wikileaks released this data in a strategic fashion. Somebody knew what they were doing. And no, it wasn’t that the RNC was less secure than the DNC. If the Russians want to get in, they are going to get in.
Mr. Maher stars in a third video. It stars Mr. Wilmore, Mr. Nance, and incidental glasses wearer Jack Kingston. Mr. Maher begins the segment by saying the Russian election hack was the worst political scandal in USA history. Mr. Nance concurred, and said a few intelligent things, only to be interrupted by Mr. Wilmore. The discussion degenerated into four men talking over each other.
“Stop looking at the distractions and the clown show and look at what matters.” Mr. Maher said this at 0:32 in the linked video. He proceeded to have an alleged comedian tell a pearl clutching Breitbart editor to go fuck himself. Whenever the military intelligence veteran tried to say anything about the worst-political-scandal-in-american-history, he was talked over the alleged comedian. Mr. Wilmore is best known for saying the n-word at the nerd prom. He played his distraction role to perfection.
Democrats did their part in distracting amurica from the Russian problem. The Russian involvement in the election was known during the campaign. However, the Demoze thought it would help their chances of victory to call Donald Trump racist. An alleged kkk endorsement of Mr. Trump received more attention than the Russian/wikileaks connection. It is almost as if the demoze chose to talk about racism, when they knew that Russian intelligence was taking over the Trump campaign. Once again, talk about race is part of “the distractions and the clown show.” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Many of these men fought in the War Between the States.
Tussit Chronicles 020123
Another day, another rabbit hole. It started with Frank Ancona, a 2017 true crime story. “@moklansman takkkk.com I am the Imperial Wizard of the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.” TAKKKK is, by all accounts, a minor player at the Granddragoncon. They get way more attention than they deserve, which might be the idea all along.
IW Ancona is not with us anymore. “Authorities have confirmed that the body of Leadwood resident Frank Ancona, 51, … was located earlier in the day outside Belgrade near the Big River by a family who were in that area to go fishing.” ”Ancona was last seen by his wife, Malissa Ancona, Wednesday morning … (Police) also questioned Malissa about a Facebook post she wrote looking for a roommate … Malissa stated to officers she made the Facebook post because Frank told her … when he got back he was filing for divorce. … figured she would need help to pay the rent, so she put an ad out looking for a roommate.” “Malissa Ancona, 44, and her son Paul Edward Jinkerson Jr., 24, were both charged with murder in the first degree, tampering with evidence and abandoning a corpse.”
This was in 2017. On April 19, 2019, “The wife … now publicly admits she killed her husband after he asked for a divorce. Malissa Ancona pleaded guilty in a St. Francois County courtroom to second-degree murder, tampering with evidence and abandonment of a corpse.” She had previously blamed her son for the murder. Paul Jinkerson was sentenced to 59 years for his role.
USA Today ran a picture of IW Ancona posing with Daryl Davis. Mr. Davis is a curious figure in the KKK ecosystem. A rotund Black man, Mr. Davis claims to befriend KKK members, and get them to change their ways. His TED talk has 12.5m views.
Daryl Davis, an incontinent bullshitter, told his story on the Joe Rogan show. I had the sense that something was off, but could not really put a finger on it. Then Mr. Davis said something that could easily debunked. “President Warren G. Harding was sworn into the ku klux klan in the green room of the White House.” “Whoa, what year was that?” “Whatever year he was president…”
The Davis/Ancona picture is from a 2013 story of IW Ancona distributing recruitment handbills in Iowa. It is not known when the two met, but it is apparent that IW Ancona did not renounce his klan activities. This did not prevent the Davis/Acona duo from making a video. “I consider Frank to be my friend.” “I consider Daryl to be my friend as well.” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Billie Holiday And Tallulah Bankhead




One of Miss Bankhead’s more explosive friendships was with Billie Holliday. “The truth of the matter suggests they probably first met in the early 1930’s, well before Holiday ever became famous. What is known is that by 1948 they were bosom buddies. A year earlier, Holiday entered the Alderson Federal Reformatory for Women to serve her famous “one day and a year” sentence, after being found guilty on dope charges. Four months after her release in 1948, Holiday was appearing at New York’s Strand Theater with Count Basie on the first leg of a cross-country tour. At the same time, Tallulah Bankhead was nearby on Broadway starring in her hit play, Private Lives. Bankhead caused quite a commotion every night thundering late down the aisle during Billie’s show to sit in her special seat to stare in amazement at the gifted & stunningly beautiful Lady Day. Because Holiday’s license to perform in nightclubs had been revoked, and she was forced to earn her living in grueling tours on the road. For months after the Strand performance, Bankhead traveled with her whenever she could. Also on the tour was dancer/comedian James “Stump Daddy” Cross – nicknamed after his wooden leg, who joined the two famous ladies to make a treacherous threesome.”
“…it appears that during the late 1940s she and Holiday were also lovers. Perhaps they had been all along. Holiday later told William Dufty, who ghostwrote her autobiography, that when Tallulah visited backstage at the Strand Theatre, the thrill she took in exhibitionistic sex made her insist on keeping Holiday’s dressing room door open. Holiday later claimed that Tallulah’s brazen show of affection almost cost her her job at the Strand.”
Before long, Miss Holiday got busted again. Apparently, Miss Bankhead made a phone call to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, asking for leniency. There is a remarkable thank you – you’re welcome correspondence between Miss Bankhead and Mr. Hoover. “As my Negro Mammy used to say ‘When you pray, you pray to God don’t you … I had only met Billie Holiday twice in my life … and feel the most profound compassion for her … she is essentially a child at heart whose troubles have made her psychologically unable to cope with the world in which she finds herself … poor thing, you know I did everything within the law to lighten her burden”. “A giddy and twitterpated Hoover wrote back, “Your comments are greatly appreciated, and I trust that you will no hesitate to call on me at any time you think I might be of assistance to you.”
At some point, the two became less intimate. Miss Bankhead had her own legal headaches, and put some distance between her and Miss Holiday. When “Lady Sings the Blues” was being prepared, Miss Bankhead got an advance copy, and was horrified by what she saw. A fierce note was sent to the book’s publisher, and scenes were edited out. Miss Holiday was outraged. The letter that resulted is a poison pen classic. “My maid who was with me at the Strand isn’t dead either. There are plenty of others around who remember how you carried on so you almost got me fired out of the place. And if you want to get shitty, we can make it a big shitty party. We can all get funky together!”
This is a repost. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. “Members of the Atlanta Woman’s Club, during a luncheon for retiring president W.F. Milton, in the AWC banquet hall, in Atlanta, Georgia, March 5, 1937.” The picture of Billie Holiday is from The Library of Congress.




Citizen Part Three
This is a repost from 2019. Race relations in the United States have not improved in the last four years. A google search for Claudia Rankine in the last hour has one result. This content is only available to subscribers. Get unlimited digital access. $1 for 3 Months. … PG had been putting this off. A while back, he took a copy of Citizen: An American Lyric. The idea was to produce a response to it. There would be a live show, that would include these responses.
PG started to read CAAL. He quickly realized that this was not his kind of book. The author, Claudia Rankine, is a college professor. CAAL is an academic book about racism. Reading prose poems about microaggressions is not likely to change black/white America. PG might learn a thing or two, but can also expect to be insulted. When it comes to reading material, PG prefers a story. It might not make PG a better person, but he will enjoy the time spent reading it. Reading a Yale professor talk about microaggression will be prove to be neither transformative nor enjoyable.
Then there was a meme on facebook.. “Pick up the nearest book to you. Turn to page 45. The first sentence explains your love life.” The book nearest to PG was CAAL. The first sentence on page 45 is also the only sentence on page 45. It is that kind of book. The sentence: “And when the woman with the multiple degrees says, I didn’t know black women could get cancer, instinctively you take two steps back though all urgency leaves the possibility of any kind of relationship as you realize nowhere is where you will get from here.” How this explains love life is a mystery. It will, however, motivate PG to write part three of the CAAL series.
Page 45 does not speak to PG. He has had people say preposterous things to him. The idea is to just ignore it, and be happy for your life. The consequences of speaking up are severe. You have to pick your battles. You cannot go off every time your feathers get ruffled. PG would also like to listen to “the woman with the multiple degrees,” and hear her side of the story.
CAAL is full of episodes like this. Some people enjoy this sort of thing. CAAL might get people to listen to each other, and get along better. Or it might just make people tune out, and wait until it is over. CAAL does not tell PG anything he has not heard before. Is CAAL supposed to be swallowed like medicine, to make you a better person?
Putting race aside, lets look at page 45. There is one sentence on page 45. Page 44 has a two sentence paragraph, and five lines of dialog, each separated by a blank line. CAAL is supposed to be an *art* book. It is sponsored by several foundations. The back cover has a list of awards. Is CAAL a book to be admired, or a book to be enjoyed?
Part one and part two of this series are online. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Coexist

The custom of expressing your innermost thoughts on the back of your vehicle has taken a curious turn. One popular emblem says coexist. The seven letters are equipped with symbols, both religious and secular. One hopes that no one receiving this message has forgotten to stop, and hit the car with the coexist symbol on the bumper.
When PG was young, there was a miniature golf course on Cheshire Bridge Road called Putt Putt. The first bumper sticker he saw said “I play Putt Putt.” Is coexist an improvement?
When this post was first conceived, the i in coexist was perceived to be unadorned. It was as if the religion of i was receiving due recognition. Upon closer examination, it seems as though the tittle has a five pointed star. This means that the i is a sorcerers wand. The i apparently stands for paganism.
The c, x, and t of coexist are pretty obvious. They are symbols for the three Abrahamic religions. O is a peace sign, and e has the male and female symbols. The religions they represent are not apparent. The s is a yin yang, which is somehow related to Taoism.
Buddhism, Atheism, Communism, and Hinduism are not represented. They spell out Bach. The composer Johann Sebastian Bach produced glorious music for the Lutheran church. Perhaps the e in coexist represents the left out denominations. If this E is combined with BACH, you can spell out BEACH. This is a repost. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
In This McMansion
A popular yard sign begins with “IN THIS HOUSE WE BELIEVE:” (That is the last time we will use all-caps.) There are some opinions expressed in this piece. It should be noted that what follows is merely one person’s opinions. You are free to agree, or disagree, as you see fit.
The ITH yard sign (ITHYS) states: “in this house, we believe: black lives matter, women’s rights are human rights, no human is illegal, science is real, love is love, kindness is everything” The sign is an aesthetic nightmare. You have seven lines of all-caps text. Every sans-serif line is a different size and color. There appear to be multiple fonts used.
ITHYS is annoying. People are too proud of their opinions, and too eager to share them. It does not matter whether you agree or not. Somebody is confronting you with their beliefs. Sometimes, it is worse when you do agree, or partially agree. ITHYS presents bumper sticker arguments, not a respectful discussion of complex issues.
ITHYS is a reminder that we live in a Christian society. This is more than just the widespread acceptance of the Christian doctrines. Christianity is a religion of beliefs and persuation, not practices and contemplation. Even if you move away from the specific doctrines of Christianism, you still accept the primacy of beliefs. It is important to persuade others to accept your beliefs. You see others as a collection of beliefs, rather than a person.
ITHYS begs for satire. Sacred cows need to be ground into hamburgers. I started to write down ideas. Soon, I had In This House Poem. (ITHP) It is embedded above. “In this house we are all God’s children, It is not what you say but how you say it, Don’t need to talk more need to listen more, Clever arguments are not always the truth, Science is the questioning not the trust, Beliefs are your thoughts with an attitude, Hate wins when you fight hate with hate, You are entitled to your opinion.”
The first four words are the same. ITHYS starts off “In this house we believe:”, followed by six beliefs. ITHP says “In this house we are all God’s children.” One is rhetoric, one is acceptance. It doesn’t matter how you read the fine print, you are still one of us. The ITHYS beliefs are presented in all-caps. (One of the rejected lines for ITHP was “Writing in all-caps is shouting.”) In ITHP, the doctrine is less important than your basic humanity. “Beliefs are your thoughts with an attitude.”
On May 1, 1992, Rodney King had seen the policeman who beat him acquitted. Cities coast to coast were in violent upheaval. Despite this, at 7:01 pm, Mr. King stood in front of a camera. “People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along? Can we get along? Can we stop making it, making it horrible for the older people and the kids? . . . Please, we can get along here. We all can get along. I mean, we’re all stuck here for a while. Let’s try to work it out. Let’s try to beat it. Let’s try to beat it.”
Part of the religion of beliefs is persuading other people to agree with you. You get into semantics, rhetoric, and using logic as a weapon. People confuse presenting a clever argument with speaking the truth. Ideas become more important than people. Not everyone feels this is the best way to live. “You are entitled to your opinion.”
ITHP is just eight ideas. We do not mention many important issues. Black lives matter. People disagree about the existence of God. And much, much more. Many of those issues are complicated. An alternative yard sign says: “simplistic platitudes, trite tautologies, and semantically overloaded aphorisms are poor substitutes for respectful and rational discussions about complex issues”
An amazon review has the final word today. juleskywalker “Don’t buy! So CHEAP it didn’t last 3 weeks! This sign is so cheap, that after only 3 weeks outside, one side has almost entirely peeled off, and the other side isn’t much better. It’s not from the sun either, since it’s the north facing side that is pictured. For comparison, we’ve had a BLM sign next to it for the same time period, and that one looks brand new.” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Thou Art That
It started out as joke comments. Thank G-d for secular humanism. ~ You’re welcome. PG got to thinking, and wondered what the punch line was. Is there a difference between G-d and man?
Zen and the art of motorcycle repair says that the division of G-d and man, subject and object, is the dirty work of Aristotle. PG is not philosophically grounded enough to know, but suspects that unity is better than division. Is the earth a unified whole, “thou art that”?
Now, the truth just might be that G-d is separate from man. While unity may sound appealing, it might not be the way things operate. Just because a belief makes you happy does not mean that it is true. Let no man bring together what G-d has rent asunder.
If there is a division between G-d and man, then where does the boundary lie?
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
This is a repost. Is it art?
Tussit Chronicles 011223
@jordanbpeterson “Just another reason to spend tens of thousands a year to send your kids to university… “@GailHeriot “Another perfectly good word is being canceled: The USC School of Social Work is nixing the word “field” as in “field work” & “going into the field.” USC thinks this has something to do with white supremacy. Please stop.” Pictures from The Library of Congress.
The document in question is rather festive. The Daily Trojan reports: “A department of USC’s school of social work said in a press release Tuesday that it will no longer use the phrases “field work” and “going into the field” in its curriculum, instead replacing them with “practicum.” The department said the change is meant to support its anti-racist social work. … Language can be powerful, and phrases such as ‘going into the field’ or ‘field work’ may have connotations for descendants of enslaved people and immigrant workers that are not benign”
Content Warning: This paragraph will link to definitions that include a six letter word. Since I want to live this weekend, I am not going to use the expression. As a substitute, I am going to say pock. … There are two phrases to consider, field pock and house pock. Per Urban Dictionary: Field Pock “Pock that works in the field all day picking cotton instead of working inside like a house pock.” House Pock “A black person that does their best to please white people even if it means disowning their own racial identity.” House Pock is not a compliment.
“The house Negro always looked out for his master. … he didn’t want his master hurt. If the master got sick, he’d say, “What’s the matter, boss, we sick?” … When the master’s house caught afire, he’d try and put the fire out. … he was more defensive of it than the master was … But then you had some field Negroes … They felt the sting of the lash. They hated their master. … If the master got sick, they’d pray that the master died. If the master’s house caught afire, they’d pray for a strong wind to come along. … And today you still have house Negroes and field Negroes. I’m a field Negro.” Malcolm X
“We know that changing terminology can be challenging, and a complete transition will take some time, but we thank you in advance for joining us in this effort and for your patience as we transition.” This is the last sentence of the “practicum” memo. As we all know, transition is a process. A person is assigned a gender at birth. At a certain point in their evolution, this person will come to live in the gender that fits them better. This process is known as a transition. It is the root word of trans.
I was on youtube, and saw a video with Gore Vidal in 2011. He looked like death warmed over. I went to wikipedia for details, and saw that the gentleman (voice typing calls him Gore the doll) died in 2012. Wikiwaki has a few details about a feud Mr. Vidal had with Truman Capote, with a festive quote from Jackie O’s sister. Wikiwanker had a footnote to the source of this quote: At 92, Liz Smith Reveals How Rupert Murdoch Fired Her, What It Felt Like to Be Outed The story ran April 8, 2015.
Mary Elizabeth Smith “Bette Midler was pretty tough on me early on. I ran something about her dating some actor. And she called me up, furious, saying, “I don’t want to be in your f—ing column!” Which was an odd thing to hear from someone just starting a career in show business. The funny thing is, I love Bette now. She’s amazing, but she’s a volatile person. Remember the guy she was with? The funny guy with the grand piano?” Hollywood Reporter “Barry Manilow?”MES “That’s him. I used to go see them at the Continental Baths! But that partnership didn’t end so well.”
HR “You had a legendary aversion to Jackie O.’s sister, Princess Lee Radziwill. What was it that set you off?” MES ”Well, she did something terrible. She was always a close friend of Truman Capote‘s. But then Capote got embroiled in that ridiculous libel suit with Gore Vidal over his claim that Vidal had been drunkenly kicked out of the White House. Lee is the one who told Capote the story, but when it ended up in court, she threw him to the wolves. All she had to do was tell the truth. But she refused, and Truman lost the lawsuit, which devastated him. During the trial, as a last-ditch effort, he asked me to call her and beg her to testify. And you know, Truman had done everything for her. He even tried to help her start an acting career. But when I called her and said, “Lee, you really must testify for Truman,” she said, “Oh, Liz, what do we care; they’re just a couple of fags! They’re disgusting.” I was so stunned, I just hung up. I’ve never spoken to her since.”
HR Donald Trump … MES “I was just appalled by his treatment of Ivana! She came to me shortly after he dumped her, and she was beside herself. I said, “Look, everybody’s had a love affair where they’re rejected. It takes about two years to get over it — less if you see a psychiatrist.” I was touched by Ivana, so I spoke up for her. But, in the end, their fight wasn’t about betrayal. It was about money. She was as greedy as he was. It was a great story about nothing. But it made me world famous.”
HR Madonna … MES “She’s an extremely talented, deeply complicated woman. We were close for a while, or as close as anyone can get to her. The first time we met, she glowered at me and said, “Aren’t you scared of me?” I just laughed. We got along real well after that.”
Tussit Chronicles 010323
I woke up. Today is the third day of the new year. The 2023 plan is to try intermittent fasting for a month, and see how I feel. Today is the third day. It is one thing to say what you are going to do. It is another to actually do it.
IF changes your relationship with food. The plan now is to eat from 2pm until 10 pm. The internet folks say to go from 1-9. I like to eat a late night bowl of oatmeal, to promote regularity. This may change as we continue.
@BkL0v “all good news about Damar Hamlin so far – despite the scary cardiac arrest and 9min CPR, his vitals are good, they restarted his heart, now they say he’s in stable condition. he’a gonna play football again! just watch !!!!” … The twitter news this morning is about a football player collapsing last night. The word is that many COVID vaccinated people have fallen over dead recently. There will be no way to prove/disprove that the vaxx caused these sudden deaths.
I am vaxxed. When they became widely available, I was skeptical, but not enough of a rebel to abstain. It is becoming apparent that the deep state government rushed the vaxx into mass distribution without adequate testing. The pandemic was seen as an emergency, and extreme measures were taken. The national debt spiraled out of control. Children essentially took a year off from school. We will be dealing with the quote/unquote cure a lot longer than we dealt with the disease.
Why do I continue to write these dispatches, when few people are reading? Last year, I wrote two posts about why I enjoy listening to Joseph James Rogan. The facebook friend who trashed JJR deleted the link. When I looked at the stats a few days later, NOBODY had read the post. Writing these dispatches is fun, and may elicit some worthwhile commentary. The fact that nobody is reading should not be a problem. The only expense is my time.
Why does the caged bird sing? I have heard that line for years, but am starting to understand it. The caged bird sings because he enjoys it. He does not care if you enjoy his tunes, or if you are annoyed by it. If you want to ignore me, that is easier than filtering out a bird that will not quit singing.
I have heard the line about the caged bird for years, but never read the poem that inspired it. It turns out Maya Angelou is not talking about a privileged white man expressing his wonderful thoughts on the information superhighway. The metaphor still works. If some fuddy duddy wants to cry racist cultural appropriation, that is their privilege. In the meantime, I will look for another metaphor.
The Rogan posts mentioned above deal with the COVID clusterfuck. “JRE does tackle serious issues. You should listen, and think for yourself. I heard about 45 minutes of the Robert Malone episode. A great deal of it was nonsense. One that rang true was the government prioritizing vaccines over treatment, with disastrous results. Typical is this story: Experts say monoclonal antibody treatment is not a substitute for COVID-19 vaccines.”
“The suspicion is that the covid industrial complex does not want you to think critically. The idea is to be good little sheep. Get the vaccine, wear a mask, and watch the government borrow $3t a year. Talk trash about anyone who does not salute the Pfizer-flag. When a popular entertainer questions the status quo, he must be ridiculed, along with anyone who listens.
Pictures today are by chamblee 54. These are haiku pictures, another underappreciated expression. You take a bit of text, usually off twitter or facebook. Highlight the words you want to keep, in the 5 beat-7 beat-5 beat format. Filter out the remaining text. Have a nice day.
White Supremacy Workout
“The White Supremacist Origins of Exercise, and 6 Other Surprising Facts About the history of fitness in America.” turned up on twitter this morning. The article was promotion for a book, Fit Nation: The Gains and Pains of America’s Exercise Obsession. The book is coming out February 2, 2023. There are no one star comments available.
Time magazine had an interview with author Natalis Mehlman Petrzela. “It was super interesting reading the reflections of fitness enthusiasts in the early 20th century. They said we should get rid of corsets, corsets are an assault on women’s form, and that women should be lifting weights and gaining strength. At first, you feel like this is so progressive.”
“Then you keep reading, and they’re saying white women should start building up their strength because we need more white babies. They’re writing during an incredible amount of immigration, soon after enslaved people have been emancipated. This is totally part of a white supremacy project. So that was a real “holy crap” moment as a historian, where deep archival research really reveals the contradictions of this moment.”
Hopefully, the finished book will have more information about who “they” is. Until then, we are stuck with those few sentences. Is exercise a white supremacist activity? It looks like WS has become another clickbait gimmick. Take a fluff article about an upcoming book, put WS in the headline, and get oodles of eyeballs. @TIME apparently is not concerned that the next headline to trumpet WS will have less impact. The wolf is back, bigger and meaner than ever.
Comments to the Time tweet included a link to Racist Roots of Fighting Obesity. This article was originally published in Scientific American. Authors include Lindo Bacon (formerly Linda), and Sabrina Strings, author of Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia.
“This heightened concern about their weight is not new; it reflects the racist stigmatization of Black women’s bodies. … In the eyes of many medical practitioners in the late 19th century, Black women were destined to die off along with the men of their race because of their presumed inability to control their “animal appetites”—eating, drinking and fornicating. … Today the idea that weight is the main problem dogging Black women builds on these historically racist ideas and ignores how interrelated social factors impact Black women’s health. It also perpetuates a misinformed and damaging message about weight and health. Indeed, social determinants have been shown to be more consequential to health than BMI or health behaviors. …” (Does BMI outweigh BLM?)
“Doctors often tell fat people that dietary control leading to weight loss is the solution to their health problems. But many studies show that the stigma associated with body weight, rather than the body weight itself, is responsible for some adverse health consequences blamed on obesity, including increased mortality risk. Regardless of income, Black women consistently experience weightism in addition to sexism and racism. From workplace discrimination and poor service at restaurants to rude or objectifying commentary online, the stress of these life experiences contributes to higher rates of chronic mental and physical illnesses …”
“A 2018 opinion piece in the journal BMC Medicine argued that bias against fat people is actually a larger driver of the so-called obesity epidemic than adiposity itself. A 2015 study … found that people who reported experiencing weight discrimination had a 60 percent increased risk of dying, independent of BMI (and therefore regardless of body size). … Simply blaming Black women’s health conditions on “obesity” ignores these critically important sociohistorical factors. It also leads to a prescription long since proved to be ineffective: weight loss. … This weight-focused paradigm fails to produce thinner or healthier bodies but succeeds in fostering weight stigma.”
When I tried to retweet the @sciam link, twitter shook a finger in my face. “Want to read the article first? You’re about to share an article you haven’t opened on Twitter.” As it turned out, I opened the article in another browser, away from Elon’s watchful eye. It will be interesting to see if this happens again, with a less provocative article. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Tulsi Clickbait
This is a repost from 2019. Tulsi Gabbard and Return of Anti-Anti-Trump Left This link turned up on facebook. “I’ve read assertions from credible sources (Clinton et al) that Gabbard is a Russian asset. That and her anti-gay past that she suddenly disavowed are causes for concern.”
The “anti gay past” was news to PG. A quick trip to google turned up an article, Gabbard says deploying to the Middle East changed her views on LGBT rights PG replied, “Whatever her shortcomings, Ms. Gabbard has made opposition to regime change wars the focus of her campaign. I can see where this would be disturbing to “credible sources (Clinton et al)”. Remember who is financed by the military industrial complex.” The rest of the thread was facebook back and forth. It ended before anyone made a Hitler comparison.
@NYMag “The stage is set for Tulsi Gabbard to play the role of 2020’s Jill Stein. @jonathanchait writes” This turned up on twitter a bit later. PG decided to take the plunge, and read the article.
1163 words later, PG had a headache. The pastel prose went off on unfathomable tangents, like “Some anti-anti-Trump leftists see impeachment not merely as a distraction from the Sanders revolution but a deliberate effort to marginalize it.”
PG began to wonder. Where was the Gabbard anti-gay rhetoric? For that matter, where was Tulsi, period. PG copied the article into a word document. He replaced “Gabbard” with “GABBARD.” Out of 1163 words, Gabbard appears three times. The last Gabbard sighting was in the third paragraph.
The article is not about Tulsi Gabbard. It is a barely comprehensible @jonathanchait rant about the evils of the incorrect resistance. Tulsi Gabbard has become clickbait. Her candidacy struggles to stay afloat. She has become a renegade who must be shamed. At the same time, Ms. Gabbard is well known enough for her picture to harvest eyeballs.
Tulsi Gabbard preaches opposition to regime change wars. These wars have killed hundreds of thousands of Muslims, while enriching the Hillary military-industrial complex. The merchants of death can easily afford to pay pundits to slime inconvenient candidates. And to use this candidate as the attention magnet, for some half witted rambling on the 2020 election.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
58 Things To Be Grateful For







There is a meme going on, 50 Happy Things: Bloggers Unite in Flood of Gratitude. PG heard about it from Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, the perpetrator of Friday Fictioneers. The idea is to set a timer for ten minutes, and write a list of fifty things you are grateful for, or that made you happy.
It has been a slow year for writing contests at chamblee54. In August of 2014, a poem, Whitehall Street, was published. Almost immediately, an email came from the yeah write writing contest. Apparently, a line had been crossed, and chamblee54 was no longer permitted to participate in the contest. PG has been slow to find another writing contest to catch his fancy. It should be noted that on the list that follows, you will not find political correctness, sjw, or judgmental bullies.
PG read the description of the contest, and realized that he needed to participate. The resulting list might make good text for a graphic poem. At the very least, the list is good text to go between pictures, from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. The remarkable photo collections that PG has acess to (the other one is The Library of Congress ) are a source of enjoyment. They did not make the list by name.
This is the way the list is. It is not supposed to be comprehensive. As soon as PG set the kitchen timer for ten minutes, he realized a touch of gratitude for this clanging device. It is the first item. Only three people names made the list, which is definitely not a reflection on the many wonderful people who were not named. (One of these names mentioned is a single letter, enclosed by quote marks. Not everyone has a friend like that.) There are a few catch alls, like healthy body, rather than naming all the parts. These parts work better than a man of PG’s age, and experience, has a right to expect.
So anyway, maybe we should just quit blabbering and print the list. There are a total of sixty one, one for each year of this life. These are not numbered… numbering them takes time away from writing down more. They are in groups of ten, in the order that they were written. UPDATE: Thinking was mentioned three times, and reading twice. Maybe editing should have been listed, or at least performed. The new total is 58 items.
kitchen timer, Mac, “J”, Robert, running honda, knees, back, teeth, feet, dick
rest of body, skepticism, sobriety, sense of wonder, computers, photography, gimp, WordPress blog, other peoples dogs, black people
mexicans, reading, thinking, faeries, short mountain, bicycle, house with roof, rain, america, georgia
georgia natives, clothes, foam rubber pad mattress, sleeping platform, sticker pictures, any friends not mentioned, not being broke, good health, listening, batteries
phones, internet, pain medicine, memory of mom and dad, food, anything i don’t think of in ten minutes, freedom from religion, g-d, back yard, rocks
poetry, soap, golden rectangle, being queer, not numbering, not wondering if i have enough, not getting caught dui, freedom from the press, reposting old features











































































































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