Chamblee54

This content was posted December 24, 2022. … Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative arrived on a slow news day this week. Produced by a committee at Stanford University, the document lists some language that we should not be using. The screed got an unkind reaction, and was hidden from the general population. Fortunately, some thoughtful archivists saved a copy.
EHLI comes in a three part format. First is the contraindicated phrase. Second is a suggested alternative, and third is a commentary. The replacement is usually longer, and clumsier, than the original. Is “died by suicide” really any better than “committed suicide”?
abusive relationship … relationship with an abusive person … The relationship doesn’t commit abuse. A person does, so it is important to make that fact clear.
African-American … Black … Black people who were born in the United States can interpret hyphenating their identity as “othering.” As with many of the terms we’re highlighting, some people do prefer to use/be addressed by this term, so it’s best to ask a person which term they prefer to have used when addressing them. When used to refer to a person, the “b” should always be capitalized.
American … US Citizen … This term often refers to people from the US only, thereby insinuating that the US is the most important country in the Americas (which is actually made up of 42 countries).
brown bag … lunch and learn, tech talk … Historically associated with the “brown paper bag test” that certain Black sororities and fraternities used to judge skin color. Those whose skin color was darker than the brown bag were not allowed to join.
gangbusters … very successful … Unnecessarily invokes the notion of police action against “gangs” in a positive light, which may have racial undertones.
Hispanic … Latinx, use country of origin … Although widely used to describe people from Spanish-speaking countries outside of Spain, its roots lie in Spain’s colonization of South American countries. Instead of referring to someone as Hispanic because of their name or appearance, ask them how they identify themselves first.
Karen … demanding or entitled White woman … This term is used to ridicule or demean a certain group of people based on their behaviors.
people of color (used generically) … BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) … If speaking about a specific group, name that group.
“preferred” pronouns … pronouns … The word “preferred” suggests that non-binary gender identity is a choice and a preference.
shemale … transgender woman, trans woman … This slur is often used disparagingly to refer to people who don’t conform to gender expectations. Some in the community do identify with and self-describe as the term, though.
straight … heterosexual … Implies that anyone who is not heterosexual is bent or not “normal.”
stupid … boring, uncool … Once used to describe a person who could not speak and implied the person was incapable of expressing themselves.
tranny, trannie … transgender person, trans or non-gendering conforming folk … This slur is often used disparagingly to refer to people who don’t conform to gender expectations. Some in the community do identify with and self-describe as the term, though.
uppity … arrogant, stuck up … Although the term originated in the Black community to describe another Black person who didn’t know their socioeconomic place, it was quickly adopted by White Supremacists to describe any Black person who didn’t act as “expected.”
In several of the categories, you are invited to ask the person how they wish to be identified. This reinforces the “otherness” of people in these categories. English speaking White people are assumed to be the norm, and in no need of categorization. This is precisely the privilege that initiatives like the EHLI purport to be fighting, when in reality they do the opposite.
“Karen … demanding or entitled White woman …” Many of the banned words claim to be fighting the white=good trope. In the case of Karen, EHLI goes in the other direction, suggesting “entitled White woman” as an alternative. At least EHLI capitalized White. EHLI also capitalized “Latinx,” while leaving “country of origin” in lower case.
EHLI is clearly … all commentaries on social justice issues must say clearly … the work of a committee. They … assuming that is the correct pronoun here … have good intentions. Unfortunately, as we all know in 2022, it is outcome that is important, and not intentions. Maybe someone should just yell bingo, and go cash in their card. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the social media picture in October 1939. “Family of FSA client living near Bradford, Vermont. Orange County” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah

This content was posted December 12, 2020. … Prescription medication is a part of life. Most of mine deal with hypertension, aka high blood pressure. According to this website, hypertension is the number one co-morbidity for covid-19. It is helpful to take care of this.
I go to a doctor, who sends a script to the pharmacy. The doctor is part of a hospital/medical company. All the stages of this procedure are regulated, and financed, by an insurance company. Since I am over 65, this means medicare, or another layer of nonsense. I will use nick names today. The doctor/hospital is Curly. The pharmacy is Larry. The insurance company is Moe.
Once a year, I go see Curly. He takes a blood sample, and a few instrument readings. Curly sees that I have not died yet, and approves my medications for another year. I did this a few weeks ago.
Friday afternoon, I called Moe. The idea is to get a 90 day supply of the meds. After wading through Moe’s telephone system, and waiting on hold, I am directed to a telephone operator. I tell Moe what scripts I want to order.
I say carefully, and repeatedly, that I want these medications shipped mail order. It is cheaper, and easier, than going to see Larry in person. For some reason, this point often gets lost when medical machines try to work together. I say, over and over, send the meds by mail order. Unfortunately, this is prescription renewal time. Moe needs to call Curly, to confirm that the prescription is valid. Between Curly, Larry, and Moe, something is going to get screwed up.
The call to Moe takes place on friday afternoon. All goes well until 7:41 pm, when a text arrives from Larry. The prescriptions are ready for pickup. The script was sent to the pharmacy, not the mail order house. Buying hypertension medication can make your blood pressure go up.
Larry has an especially stupid phone system. I finally get to talk to a pharmacist. She explains that Curly sent them the prescription, and there is nothing that can be done about it.
This is blood pressure medication. This is not something that people take to have fun. This is boring old amlodipine and benezapril. If something this basic can get screwed up, I can only imagine what would happen with a complicated illness like cancer, or HIV. The idea that Larry is going to distribute the covid vaccine is cause for great concern.
The next step is to call Moe. The phone menu is having a bad day, and asks me to repeat my account number twice. Finally, I get through to a lady, who speaks with a serious accent. The lady asks me to repeat the account number one more time. The lady says that Curly sent the script to Larry, and there is nothing Moe can do about it. I am beyond angry.
It is now friday night. Curly has quit doing business. I will have to wait until Monday morning. Curly has an obnoxious phone system of his own. Curly is a giant bureaucracy. I have no idea who to talk to about this. I just have to wait until Monday morning, call the phone number, and hope for the best. Sometimes, if the first attempt does not work, then the second try will turn out better.
Eventually, this is going to work out. It has so far every time in the past. It can be frustrating, though, and scary. This is a non emergency situation. What would happen if I had to deal with the institutional shadiness of Curly/Larry/Moe, when every second counts?
2025 Update: I now repeatedly tell the doctor to send the drugs by the mail order pharmacy. The last time I had to deal with the local pharmacy, the phone system was so dysfunctional that I do all my business in person. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the social media picture in October 1941. “Mr. Albert Brissant and his niece who are still living in the Pine Camp relocation area near Evans Mills, New York. They had an antique shop here which they have sold out and are now looking for a new farm.” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah

This content was published November 18, 2021. … There is something to be said for wanting to speak up, but not having anything to say. To prove that, I am going to talk about a word…esoteric. According to Wiktionary, esoteric is :”1. Having to do with concepts that are highly theoretical and without obvious practical application. 2. Understood only by a chosen few or an inner circle.”
The “E word” plays a role in a story from 10th grade English. We were discussing a story, “The Rocking Horse Winner”, by D.H. Lawrence. The story was boring and obscure, just like most of what I have seen by Mr. Lawrence.
The summer after 10th grade I worked in a movie theater. The ushers wore ghastly yellow uniforms, and saw the movies over and over. When I started, the Lenox Square 2 theater was showing “Women in Love”, based on a novel by D.H. Lawrence. Glenda Jackson copped an oscar for her portrayal of Gudrun Brangwen, and young Larry Kramer was one of the screenwriters. It did not improve my opinion of D.H. Lawrence. If the censors had not touched “Lady Chatterly’s Lover”, D.H. Lawrence would be forgotten today.
Back to 10th grade english. We were discussing this wretched story, and a girl raised her hand. Why would any author write something so esoteric? The teacher had never heard of this word before, and was amazed to hear it.
The Lenox Square 2 theater was a long, slender thing with a small screen. This was in 1970. The multiplex concept had not matured. LS2 was under a grocery store. When their automatic door openers operated, you could hear the motors in the theater below. The movies the rest of the summer were Fellini Satyricon, The Christine Jorgenson Story, and The Landlord.
Back to esoteric…or did I ever go away? Before you can understand esoteric, you must plumb the depths of pedantic “1. Like a pedant, overly concerned with formal rules and trivial points of learning. 2. Being showy of one’s knowledge, often in a boring manner. 3. Often used to describe a person who emphasizes his/her knowledge through the use of vocabulary; ostentatious in one’s learning. 4. Being finicky or picky with language.”
Pedantic is an adjective that describes itself. The technical term for this is autological. Here is a poem using autological words. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Marion Post Wolcott took the social media picture in May 1939. “A scene from a play, “History of Ashwood Health Association,” written and presented by tenth grade at May Day-Health Day program. Ashwood Plantations, stage of auditorium, South Carolina” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah

This content was published November 6, 2014. … The headline in the fb feed was not subtle. Rose McGowan: ‘Gay Men Are As Misogynistic As Straight Men, If Not More So’. I had heard the little known celebrity say similar things on the Bret Easton Ellis Podcast a month earlier. Why was she flogging the same donkey twenty eight days later? … It turns out the barrage of McGowan media mulch is based on the podcast. When I heard them the first time, it was dismissed as somebody with too many opinions. Now these same offerings were broadcast with wider distribution. Are we supposed to care what Rose McGowan thinks?
One issue is the Beverly Hills Hotel. It is owned by someone the community deems unworthy. A boycott was announced. The people working at the BHH were financially hurt by this boycott. … What Miss McGowan does not mention is the zero sum nature of the game. When the trendy people quit going to one facility, they find another one. The people who work at the new designated watering hole will make more money. The chances are good that the next legal drug emporium is owned by someone with opinions contrary to popular fashion. When one service industry employee loses, another service industry employee wins. It is not fair.
It is curious that misogyngate is getting attention now. It is as if a press agent hit on a story, and all the media outlets on the chain got the call. Does Miss McGowan have some product that needs publicity? Is a more important story being pushed into the background? Why was this interview not the center of attention a month ago? Inquiring minds want to know. … Another ironic touch is the spectacle of a woman crying “gay misogyny” on the BEEP. Mr. Ellis, a gay man, has been dogged by charges of misogyny since the publication of “American Psycho.”
BEE takes it in stride. *Insert profound comment about public figure dealing with accusations of incorrect thinking.* Miss McGowan has issued an apology of sorts. Miss McGowan references a comment, by a gay man, about a character in a fictional tv show. It is tough to see how the comment justifies trash talk by a neo-celebrity. These things too shall pass away.
This content was published November 7, 2014. … After the media stormette about Rósa Arianna McGowan this week, I decided to give the Bret Easton Ellis Podcast episode a second listen. In the opening monolog, BEE discusses a quote he was blamed for. It was about women who direct movies. BEE was mistakenly quoted as saying half the population cannot direct films. He learned to never give an interview over drinks. … The monolog rambled over something called the male gaze, or the male oriented viewpoint of most movie makers. Soon, RAM was in the show, and talking misogyny. “I can tell you stories that would curl your hair.”
RAM then mentioned the time when she called out a young man for calling “Golden Girl” Blanche a slut. This is a story that RAM likes to tell. … The first movie RAM worked on was six weeks after her boyfriend was murdered. “I had never acted before. I was discovered standing on a street corner. I never tell that part of the story.” The director was Gregg Araki. RAM noted that “gays can be as misogynistic as …” She would return to that theme later. “I have an indictment of the gay community.” BEE “I do too.”
The Beverly Hills Hotel issue soon came up. For those who are new here, BHH is owned by the Sultan of Brunei. A proposal to enact Sharia law was enacted over there. “Armchair activists” in Southern California decided not to do business with the BHH. The trendy people went elsewhere for their $20 martinis, to the delight of people who work elsewhere. … RAM is not pleased. She mentions Richard Branson denouncing BHH, after making a deal with Saudi Arabia. As someone who puts Arab gasoline in his vehicle, I am loath to throw stones.
No such inhibitions were on display during the podcast. At the 32 minute mark, RAM says “I have heard nobody in the gay community, no gay male, standing up for women on any level.” At 35 minutes, “no help for the African American community, no help for lesbians.” At the 44 minute mark is a commercial break. Larry King, and his ?th wife, have a podcast. They invite you to see what it is like to live with him, and her. It is a material world. … After the break, BEE and RAM talked shop. The film industry is not as much fun as it never was. At the 57:29 mark, RAM says “I digress. Damn, I digress so much I forgot what I was talking about. … you know, Tom Cruise’s q rating isn’t what it used to be.” I wonder what RAM’s q rating is today. … Pictures today are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library. The social media picture was taken August 3, 1956. “WSB-TV’s Officer Don and the Clubhouse Gang.” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah

It is a T shirt treasure, and a coffee cup classic. “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” This gem is blamed on Allan Steward Konigsberg, better known as Woody Allen. The percentage goes up and down, and life is sometimes substituted for success.
The quote was recently featured at WIST, or Wish I’d Said That. This quote site is known for giving a source, unlike the sites featuring purring platitudes in front of a cultural kitten. The current top offering is “Bach almost persuades me to be a Christian.” Virginia Woolf attributes the baroque comment to Roger Fry, who was not afraid of the author.
Lets get back to Mr. Allen, and success statistics. He accepts full responsibility for the remark. In 1989, notorious conservative columnist William Safire asked Mr. Allen about whether he said life or success. The answer was rather surprising.
“The quote you refer to is a quote of mine which occurred during an interview while we were discussing advice to young writers, and more specifically young playwrights. My observation was that once a person actually completed a play or a novel he was well on his way to getting it produced or published, as opposed to a vast majority of people who tell me their ambition is to write, but who strike out on the very first level and indeed never write the play or book.”
In other words, you don’t just show up empty handed. If you have an idea, you have to employ the writing formula, ass + chair. You have to turn the tv off, leave the beer in the refrigerator, sit down, and push buttons on the keyboard.

I was listening to an interview with a fiction writer. Someone said “Inspiration is for amateurs.” I have always been more impressed by action than beliefs, and this phrase made sense.
IIFA is from a painter named Chuck Close. His output is expensive, and widely enjoyed. A spinal injury left him paralyzed, but did not stop him from producing. Here is the full quote:
“The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case.”
A man once made pottery. It was said that the man only worked with passion. If he didn’t feel this passion, he did not work. If I worked that way, I would never finish anything. Most of the sticker pictures take a while to finish. I always gets tired of the picture before it is through. The idea is to go to the studio, start to do stuff, and before long the enthusiasm will return. Any image requires a certain amount of time with the belly pressed against the work table, or the digital equivalent.
The formula for writing is ass plus chair. A teacher once said to not stare at the blank page, waiting for a bolt of lightning. Start to write something, and the ideas will start to sputter out of the pipeline.
It is not enough to have a bright idea. You have to work the problems out. Sometimes, you spend more time finding out what does not work, than what does. You have to do it wrong before you can do it right. Genius is ninety nine percent perspiration and one percent inspiration. If any cliches have been overlooked, please add them to the comments.
Focus is helpful. The internet can be a problem. When you should be working on your product, it is very tempting to see the latest on Facebook or Twitter. … Chuck Close passed away August 19, 2021. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The social media picture was taken June 13, 1922. Viola LaLonde & Eliz. Van Tuyl. ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah