Phone Calls From Jail
The uproar over Breonna Taylor has cooled off a bit. Those who feel the need will continue to stir. Whatever inconvenient facts come along will be ignored. Cognitive dissonance, and narcotizing dysfunction, are real. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. repost.
Louisville Metro Police Department compiled a 39 page report that was leaked to the press. Much of the report is transcripts of phone calls made from jail. The people in these calls do not look good. They argue, say the n-word, and generally act like a bunch of jerks. Jamarcus Cordell Glover, the primary person we are looking at today, was a known crack/fentynyl dealer. After a while, the reader is left with a feeling of disgust for the people in these calls.
JCG was a former lover of Breonna Taylor. There were indications of a continuing business relationship. Was Breonna Taylor dealing drugs? It is tough to say. Were her hands clean? Almost certainly not. Associating with drug dealers is not a reason to be killed. However, it does made this sad occurrence much more likely.
“PBI detectives … 03/13/2020 – executed simultaneous search warrants at 2424 Elliott Avenue, 2425 Elliott Avenue, 2426 Elliott Avenue, and 3003 Springfield Drive #4 (see attached). During a search of 2424 Elliott Avenue, PBI detectives were able to recover a large amount of suspected crack cocaine and suspected Fentanyl pills … Jamarcus Glover, Demarius Bowman, Rayshawn Lee, and Alicia Jones were located at 2424 Elliott Avenue at the time the search warrants were executed. … When the search warrant was executed at 3003 Springfield Drive #4, which Breonna Taylor was listed on, an officer involved shooting (OIS) occurred and as a result Breonna Taylor was killed. Present inside the apartment at the time the search warrant was executed was Breonna Taylor and Kenneth Walker.” (Demarius Bowman is the brother of Fernandez Bowman, whose body was found in a car rented by Breonna Taylor on December 3, 2016)
JCG made a series of calls from jail on March 13. It should be noted that we don’t know if he is telling the truth in these calls. There was a recorded message at the start of these calls: “This is a prepaid collect call from an inmate at Louisville metropolitan corrections department. This is not a protected or privileged phone call. This call is subject to recording and monitoring. To accept charges press one to refuse char … Thank you for using securus. You may start the conversation now.” What follows are selected quotes from these calls.
08:52 J Glover calls Kiera Bradley, the mother of JCG’s child.
KB – “Chop that girl got killed over you.”
09:27 JCG calls KB
JCG – “I’m hurt my name gettin called about Bre’s death … This ***** (Kenneth Walker) in jail … this ***** got Bre dead … At the end of the day it was not my fault. It’s this *****’s fault that’s in here. The reason why it happened, the ***** is sittin right here.”
KB – “Okay did y’all talk or is he still on some defensive shit?”
JCG – “He said they were beating on the door.”
11:30 JCG calls KB, tells her to put Domo (Dominique Crenshaw) on the line.
JCG – “What up Domo (Dominique Crenshaw) … Kenneth just got her killed *****. Sitting in this jail like it’s all good, like he’s straight, like it ain’t his fault.”
DC – “So he the one shooting the gun?”
JMG – “Yeah he shoots at the police, they shoot back, Bre in the hallway and she gets killed.”
12:27 JCG calls KB
KB – “Everybody’s calling because their saying your baby momma got killed. … Her momma (Breonna Taylor’s mother) and the no limit crew… they basically like the ***** that she was fucking with got her all caught up … the no limit they don’t play.”
JCG – “Man I don’t care.”
KB – “I know you don’t care, you don’t care about shit.”
12:58 JCG calls unknown female
JCG – “He (Kenneth Walker) said motherfuckers knocked on the door but he didn’t know who it was. They asked who it is but don’t nobody say nothin … He said they kicked that door and he “bocked” on them. He said they started shooting back and Bre was in the hallway and she caught bullets … Scott (Scott Barton – J. Glover’s attorney) know Bre, he know her, he been dealing with me and Bre the whole time I’ve been going through this shit.”
13:07 JCG calls KB
They argue over him not being honest and him, having money at other people’s house.
JCG – “Why are you doing this?”
KB – “Cuz my feelings are hurt.”
JCG – “Why cuz the bread (money) was at her house?… This is what you got to understand, don’t take it wrong but Bre been handling all my money, she been handling my money… She been handling shit for me and cuz, it ain’t just me.”…
KB – “Motherfuckers are posting videos of you and all of that.”
JCG – “Who posts videos of me?”
KB – “This bitch (Breonna Taylor) where she’s been with you, since you ain’t been over at my house… the same day you post a picture I guess she post a video, you knew it because she said what’s up she was in the bed with you, you kissing all over her. This shit is embarrassing.”
16:27 JCG calls KB
KB – “It ain’t even really about Bre because I already know… Motherfuckers done already gave me the blueprint … I know she was fuckin with you…You bounce back and forth between these bitches and I’m not doing none of that, it’s messy… That could have been me bro…”
JCG – “Could have been you because you around a *****?”
KB – “No because I’m around you … You bringin mess on yourself … You think a motherfucker trying to criticize you … You bring shit on yourself like the messiness, its how you move, how you’re so flamboyant, how you putting shit out … I don’t even know what I got myself into … You want me to text your side bitch Rica (Robrica Johnson)? She got gas to get up there to you? … You act like a motherfucker can’t be mad, I got your daughter and you tell me you got money somewhere else, when you’re out here risking your life and your freedom every motherfucking day, like I can call Bre and ask Bre to do anything for my daughter.”
17:20 JCG calls Adrian Walker
AW – “I thought you said they found some money over there?”
JCG – “It was there, it was there, it was there… They didn’t do nothing though that’s the problem … Kenneth said ain’t none of that go on.”
AW – “So they didn’t take none of the money?”
JCG – “Kenneth said that none of that go on. He said Homicide came straight on the scene and they went to packaging Bre and they left.”
AW – “He said they didn’t announce themselves or something?”
JCG – “He sayin they wasn’t, he’s sayin they were just beating so hard.”
AW – “She was in the hallway?”
JCG – “In the hallway *****. That’s just so sad bruh. … “She (Breonna Taylor) gonna turn her back on me cause she love that ***** … that ***** did this shit. At the end of the day if I would have been at that house, Bre would be alive bruh … I don’t shoot at no police.”
17:58 JCG calls KB
KB – “…You had Bre’s car on Valentine’s Day, we weren’t together …
You don’t care about nothing but the money.”
21:27 JCG calls KB
JCG – “How you gonna bond that man out of jail? This shit happened because of this ***** (Kenneth Walker)… he fired shots at the police.”
KB starts arguing with J. Glover over what if the police would have run in her house last night, and he wasn’t going to be there, and she has their daughter…
JCG – “Bre, Bre.”
KB – “I’m Kiera, I’m Kiera.”
Pauline Kael, Gina James, And James Broughton
Pauline Kael was the rockstar film critic. James Broughton was the radical faerie poet laureate. They were lovers, and had a daughter, Gina James. Pauline and James were not married, contrary to what some naysayers would tell you. This is a repost.
Much of the information in this feature is taken from online reviews of Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark, a 2012 biography written by Brian Kellow. Gina James, also known as Gina Broughton, was not interviewed for the book. Neither did she participate in the making of Big Joy, a movie about James Broughton. (A wig store, Gina Beauty Supply is located at 25 W Broughton St, Savannah, GA 31401.)
Pauline Kael was born June 19, 1919, Petaluma, CA, died September 3, 2001, Great Barrington, MA, and stood 4 feet 9 inches tall. James Broughton was born November 10, 1913, Modesto, CA, and died May 17, 1999, Port Townsend, WA. Neither one had a middle name. Both used their birth name throughout life. Both had lives, before meeting in the late forties.
When she met James Broughton, Miss Kael was living what would later be called the bohemian life. After moving to New York, and being dumped for composer Samuel Barber, Miss Kael moved back to California. “Returning to the Bay Area with her tail between her legs in 1945, Pauline became involved with the incredibly effeminate avant-garde filmmaker James Broughton. He managed to impregnate Pauline but threw her out as soon as she told him, whereupon she moved to Santa Barbara to give birth to her daughter, Gina, in 1948″
“Like her early career, Kael’s personal life was also fraught with failures. Kellow says “she had a habit of falling for gay men” earlier in her life because “they tended to share her passions and enthusiasms.” She had a daughter … with one of them, experimental filmmaker James Broughton.”
“For a time, during the 1940s, he lived with future film critic Pauline Kael. She encouraged his filmmaking endeavors but their relationship ended after she got pregnant. … Pauline Kael thought that Broughton made the biggest mistake of his life when he turned down a studio film after winning the prize at Cannes.” (Apparently Mr. Broughton was from a wealthy family, and could afford this attitude. Regarding his movie The Bed, Mr. Broughton said “It was the only film I created that ever made any money.”)
“Which brings us to the strange tale of Pauline’s only child, Gina James. … In 1948, at age 29, Kael got pregnant after she “talked her way into moving in” with James Broughton, a bisexual poet living in Sausalito. By Kellow’s account, Broughton was furious at the news of Kael’s pregnancy; he felt trapped and tricked by her. One of Broughton’s friends reported that he kicked Kael out of his house. She moved to Santa Barbara to have the baby. The birth certificate listed the father as “Lionel James, a writer”. It is one of the disappointments of the book that Kellow shines little light on Kael’s passion — or whatever it was — for Broughton, on how she processed that cruel rejection and on whether Broughton ever recognized Gina as his daughter.”
James Broughton moved on with his life. He made experimental films, got married, and fathered two more children. At some point he met Joel Singer, and began the romance that would last the rest of his life. It is tough to say whether he was genuinely bisexual, or whether he was playing the role society expected of him.
This review of Big Joy continues: “But interviews with Singer, waxing poetic about his years with the artist, are balanced by reminiscences from Broughton’s ex-wife and his abandoned son. Rather than only celebrating silliness, I found it admirable that the directors didn’t gloss over the pain he caused his wife and children. After all, when you think about it, he spent all of his life unable to decide if he was gay or straight; leaving a lot of broken hearts in his wake.
We learn from Kael that he flirted with everyone he met. “He rode off into the sunset with some guy,” his wife, Suzanna Hart tells us. “That was very sad for me, but not for him, which was…very irritating.” In her segments, Hart keeps her emotions in check but you can clearly read the sadness and anger in her face. The son doesn’t have much good to say about his absent father and the two daughters (the first by Kael and the second by Hart) both refused to be interviewed for the film. Singer has a lot to say about their blissful decades together, but he also comes off a bit heartless when he shows no guilt over breaking up what he calls Broughton’s “loveless” marriage.”
The baby daddy leaves, and the struggling writer becomes a single mom. “… Kael’s relationship with her actual daughter was something out of a Tennessee Williams play, and not in a good way. Kael home-schooled Gina and, as the girl grew up, kept her close, as a typist, projectionist, driver and right-hand man, and she banished any friend who actively encouraged the young woman to break out on her own. Though she was in many ways a loving and committed mother, helping to raise Gina’s son and always living nearby, one senses a Gothic selfishness in her mothering.”
Gina James declined to talk with Kellow for his book, but the author says Kael and her daughter had a sort of symbiotic relationship. “Pauline did not type, Pauline did not drive — Gina performed both those functions for her. And Gina was a very good critic of Pauline. She got to see Pauline’s copy before anyone else did and she often had very, very important and influential things to say. But Pauline really wasn’t wild about the idea of Gina breaking away and having her own life apart from her, and she didn’t do anything really to encourage her in that direction as far as I can see.”
Amazon one star comment: And her poor daughter – what a fate – TYPING all that. Poor Gina, — I can see her – Kellow described sitting silently in some coffee shop while her mother raved on and ON with her pet directors.
An affair with the experimental filmmaker James Broughton produced a child, Gina, whom Kael raised by herself, Mildred Pierce–like, heroically supporting them with a number of odd jobs, including running a laundry. Gina’s heart condition required expensive surgery, and Kael ended up enticing Edward Landberg, the owner of a local art-house theater, Berkeley Cinema Guild. They had begun as co-programmers. As Landberg tells it: “One day, when I was over at her place, I happened to graze her breast with my hand, and she kind of looked up and said, ‘What have you got to lose?’” Their marriage proved a fiasco, but Landberg agreed to pay for Gina’s operation, which Kellow suspects had been Kael’s motive all along…. Kellow shows more independence in assessing Kael’s treatment of her daughter Gina, whose ambitions to become a dancer or a painter she did little to encourage, preferring to keep her on “a silver cord . . . she had also grown accustomed to the steady, dependable role that Gina played—as secretary, driver, reader, sounding board—and she was loath to give her up.” Gina, for her part, was mistrustful of the dynamic she witnessed between Kael and her acolytes.“
“The closest and longest-lasting partnership of her life was with her daughter, Gina James … James considered speaking to Kellow, but finally declined, leaving a blank space at the center of this otherwise vividly detailed biography. Gina lived with her mother till she was over 30, typed up her reviews after Pauline stayed up all night writing them in longhand, and gave up both college and a shot at a dance career to serve as her mother’s caretaker, companion, and driver….
Kellow cites the text of the breathtakingly passive-aggressive eulogy that Gina delivered at her mother’s funeral in 2001: “My mother had tremendous empathy and compassion, though how to comfort, soothe or console was a mystery that eluded her … . Pauline’s greatest weakness, her failure as a person, became her great strength, her liberation as a writer and critic . … she turned her lack of self-awareness into a triumph.”
One more chapter remains. “Gina lived with Kael well into her thirties … That she married and had a child, Will, seemed to catch Kael by surprise, though she ended up adoring her only grandchild, someone with whom she could watch action movies with.
Kael died in 2001, when Will was about 19. Unfortunately, and Kellow made no mention of this in his book whatsoever, there’s a horrible postscript, one that may well have been the reason for why Gina declined to be interviewed for the book. On October 6, 2007, Will, then 25, went hiking in the East Mountain State Forest in the Berkshires. He was an avid hiker, not to mention a devoted martial artist. He had a girlfriend. He never came back. Gina reported him missing, but his body wasn’t found for more than week, on October 15. … “authorities found camping equipment nearby and while cause of death has not been determined, foul play is not suspected.”
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. UPDATE These two comments were made to the original post. Anonymous said, on June 16, 2017 at 9:18 pm Your piece on Kael and Broughton is rife with misinformation and judgements galore and unbelievably badly written. Get a life and stop spreading falsehoods. And next time you put your fingers to a keyboard do your due diligence! James’ son was NOT ABANDONED! He lived happily with the two of us after the divorce. You fail to recognize that James’ ex-wife was a classic fag hag who had been married to another gay man before her relationship with James. She had been in psychotherapy for years before they got together and for many years after they split up. James certainly did not spend the rest of his life uncertain about his sexuality. Read his autobiography COMING UNBUTTONED and you’ll discover how misinformed your take on him is. You have done a great disservice to your readers by publishing such homophobic nonsense. Joel Singer ~ Sterling Wilson said, on August 19, 2017 at 1:40 pm Curious about this autobiography, I found the following from a Publishers Weekly review “Broughton forsakes introspection for literary gossip and name-dropping: Kenneth Rexroth, Pauline Kael, Dylan Thomas, Anais Nin. The birth of a daughter is dispensed with in two sentences. Broughton’s insistence on making himself the center of attention increasingly intrudes.”
UPDATE A journey down an internet rabbit hole uncovered this item. It is from “Remembering Harry and John”, by Mark Thompson on the occasion of Harry’s 100th anniversary “I remember the night we were socializing at the San Francisco Art Institute at a gala tribute for James Broughton. Harry (Hay) and James had sparked briefly as Stanford University undergraduates, but didn’t meet again until fifty years later at a faerie gathering. Few people knew that James had fathered a daughter with esteemed film critic Pauline Kael during their bohemian Berkeley days, but Harry was alert to the fact. Kael and Broughton were having their own reunion at the moment when, with typical impudence, Harry interrupted the conversation by loudly asking, “So, who was the mother and who was the father?” The stunned silence was punctured only by the whoosh of Kael’s furious departure.”
Destabilize America
It was a glorious October afternoon. A great time to listen to podcasts, and edit pictures from The Library of Congress. Matt Lewis Interviews Glenn Greenwald About the Reordering was the entertainment. Things went well, until there were 100 mind blowing seconds.
Matt “the the thing that made it really like egregious to me wasn’t really the hacking of hillary email but like it seems like you mentioned the facebook thing that russia was involved in like stoking racial animus in america uh with these like sock puck uh sock puppet accounts um and and sort of you know really digging up just horrible you know hatred and bitterness and internal dispute here that’s that’s bigger than well arguably bigger than an election right”
Glenn “yeah i mean governments want to weaken their adversaries you know i mean there are all kinds of internal political and cultural divisions in china and iran and russia and venezuela and cuba in many other countries that the united states deliberately stokes and and tries to stimulate to destabilize those countries to make them weaker to make countries to make them weaker to make their internal conflict stronger you know i’m a little i’m really hesitant about the idea that america’s racial conflicts are the work of ex you know external forces or foreign governments i think the russians certainly … see this existing conflict these racial tensions that never have been resolved in american history and play on them as a kind of source of vulnerability to the united states but … i wish russia didn’t do that i’d prefer that the united states not be destabilized”
A lot was going on in the 2016 election. Out of respect for my mental health, I tuned a lot of it out. This was the first I heard of Russian facebook bots, trying to make America’s race problem worse. If you want to poison American society, what better way than fanning the flames of race hate?
Why didn’t the Democrats condemn the Rooskies? This was foreign interference in our election. Maybe it is because THE DEMOCRATS DID THE SAME THING.
There are a lot of negative things to say about Donald J. Trump. Unfortunately, the Democrats, and their media enablers, chose to focus on Mr. Trumps racial attitudes. Democrats knew that the turning on the racial juice would make people hate Mr. Trump far more effectively than the boring economic issues. Soon it metastasized. “If you vote for Trump, you are a RACIST.” Half of America thought the other half was RACIST, and deserved hatred. Nobody seemed to care about how American life was being poisoned. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
2020 Homicide Statistics
The FBI 2020 crime statistics have been issued. The report has a challenging format; this source will be used for today’s post. This blog published reports on homicide numbers for 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Statista is the source of murder statistics. These numbers are broken down by race, gender, ethnicity, and other factors. (Hispanic or Latino … hereafter known as Hispanic … is considered an ethnicity, rather than a race. Hispanic people are included in White/Black/Other, according to their race.) In 2020, there were 17,754 homicides. The gender breakdown is Male 14,146 (79.6%), Female 3,573 (20%), and Unknown 35 (0.2%). I don’t know how gender non-conforming people are counted.
Quick Facts, from the U.S. Census Bureau, is the source of population numbers. (This link only works in full screen.) On April 1, 2020 there were 331.4m people in the United States. White people were 252.9m (76.3%), and Black people were 44.4m (13.4%). Hispanic people were 61.3m (18.5%).
17,754 homicides breaks down into White 7,029, Black 9,913, Other/Unknown 812. Hispanic, counted separately, had 2,847 homicides. Divide the number of homicides, by the population, and you get homicides per million (hpm). Overall, this is 53.5 hpm. For White people, 27.8 hpm. For Black people, 223.8 hpm. For Hispanic people, 46.4 hpm.
50.8% of the population is Female, according to the census bureau. We will use this 50.8/49.2 breakdown in this next section, even though there are indications that the percentage of Females is higher for Black people. The Male/Female ratio for homicides is, for White people, Male 5,123 (72.8%) and Female 1,904 (37.1%). For Black people, Male 8,469 (85.4%), and Female 1,440 (14.5%). For Hispanics, Male 2,377 (83.4%)), and Female 470 (16.5%). On a per capita basis, Males had 86.7 hpm, and Females had 21.2 hpm. White Males had 41.2 hpm hpm, with White Females 14.8 hpm. Black Males had 383.2 hpm, with Black Females 64.0 hpm. Hispanic Males had 79.0 hpm, with Hispanic Females 15.1 hpm.
The Washington Post reports 1,021 people shot-and-killed by police in 2020. The breakdown: White 459, Black 244, Hispanic 171. (Using these numbers for comparison may be tricky. The FBI groups Hispanics into White/Black/Other as appropriate, while WAPO considers Hispanics to be a separate racial category.) If you divide the WAPO number by the total number of victims, you get a killed-by-police percentage. For the overall population, this is 5.7% (1021/17,754). For White people, this is 6.5% (459/7,029). For Black people, this is 2.4% (244/9,913). For Hispanics, this is 6.0% (171/2,377).
The 2020 homicide numbers show a big increase over 2019. The graphic below shows some of these numbers. For more information, go to the 2019 post.
Michael Donald
PG was looking at facebook, minding his own business. Then he saw something he could not unsee.(TRIGGER WARNING) The NSFW image showed a dead black man hanging in a tree. You can see his face. The caption: “Fox News commentator and Trump sycophant Tucker Carlson said yesterday that “white supremacy is a hoax.” I wonder if this poor man would agree? (I apologize if the image offends but sometimes right-wing idiots have to have reality stare them in the face.)”
The gut level reaction was that of being violated. What gives a facebook “friend” the right to shove a gruesome image in the viewers face? A lot more than “right-wing idiots” will see this picture. We understand that a Fox-boi said something you don’t like. That does not give you the right to disturb the community peace of mind.
There are plenty of arguments you can make. You can post your two-wrongs-make-a-right all day long. No doubt _______ did something terrible last week. That does not give you the right to post an obscene picture on facebook. UPDATE: The image has been *hidden* by facebook.
White Supremacy® is an expression that grows by leaps and bounds. It used to mean the kkk, and other hard-core racists. Now, it means whatever you want it to mean. The definition of WS has expanded to the point where the term is meaningless. It is tough to say what, if anything, Tarlson Cucker meant. We would be better off using the phrase White Supremacy® a lot less frequently.
When you are collateral damage on facebook, you have a few options. You can unfriend the perp, and say rude things about them behind their back. This has always seemed petty and childish. Another thing you can do is research the picture. PG did a google images search of the picture. It turns out to be a powerful story. Is it proper to appropriate this image to shame Tarlson Cucker? As if he would know it happened, or care.
Michael Donald is the man hanging in the tree. Here is the story of how he got there. “That week, a jury had been struggling to reach a verdict in the case of a black man accused of murdering a white policeman. The killing had occurred in Birmingham, but the trial had been moved to Mobile. To (Bennie) Hays — the second-highest Klan official in Alabama — and his fellow members of Unit 900 of the United Klans, the presence of blacks on the jury meant that a guilty man would go free. … Hays had said that Wednesday, ”If a black man can get away with killing a white man, we ought to be able to get away with killing a black man.””
“On Friday night, after the jurors announced they couldn’t reach a verdict, the Klansmen got together in a house Bennie Hays owned on Herndon Avenue. According to later testimony from James (Tiger) Knowles, then 17 years old, Tiger produced a borrowed pistol. Henry Francis Hays, Bennie’s 26-year-old son, took out a rope. Then the two got in Henry’s car and went hunting for a black man.”
“Michael Donald was alone, walking home, when Knowles and Hays spotted him. They pulled over, asked him for directions to a nightclub, then pointed the gun at him and ordered him to get in. They drove to the next county. When they stopped, Michael begged them not to kill him, then tried to escape. Henry Hays and Knowles chased him, caught him, hit him with a tree limb more than a hundred times, and, when he was no longer moving, wrapped the rope around his neck. Henry Hays shoved his boot in Michael’s face and pulled on the rope. For good measure, they cut his throat. … Henry Hays and Knowles returned to the party at Bennie Hays’s house, where they showed off their handiwork, and, looping the rope over a camphor tree, raised Michael’s body just high enough so it would swing.” For a while, it looked like the case would go unsolved.
Some people kept looking. “After hearing a lot of lies and following many unproductive leads, (Thomas H.) Figures and (James) Bodman uncovered one key fact: On the night of the murder, Tiger Knowles had returned to Bennie Hays’s house with blood on his shirt. With this new evidence, the Justice Department convened an investigative grand jury in Mobile. Incredibly, the Klansmen called to testify did not bring lawyers with them. In short order, one witness told the grand jury that young Henry Hays had admitted everything to him. This got back to Tiger Knowles, who began to worry that Henry Hays would confess — and, by trading testimony against Knowles for a reduced sentence, leave him bearing the greater burden of guilt.”
“In June of 1983, Knowles confessed to F.B.I. agent Bodman. After pleading guilty to violating Michael Donald’s civil rights, he was placed in the Federal witness protection program — a fairly standard accommodation for Klan informers — and sentenced to life in prison. In December, when Henry Hays was tried for capital murder, Knowles appeared as a prosecution witness.”
Henry Hays was found guilty. “Hays was executed in Alabama electric chair Yellow Mama after Governor Fob James refused to commute his sentence. He was the first white person executed for murder of a black in Alabama since 1913.” Mr. Hays died June 6, 1997.
“Donald’s mother, Beulah Mae Donald, in assistance of SPLC, sued United Klans of America in a civil suit. An all White jury found the Klan responsible for the lynching of Michael Donald and ordered it to pay 7 million dollars. This resulted in the Klan having to hand over all its assets including its national headquarters in Tuscaloosa.”
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
Dick Nixon TV Critic
The text below is a conversation between Mr. Nixon, John D. Ehrlichman, and H. R. Haldeman. The tape was made May 13, 1971. This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
NIXON: … CBS … glorifying homosexuality.
EHRLICHMAN: A panel show?
H. R. HALDEMAN: No, it’s a regular show. It’s on every week. It’s usually just done in the guy’s home. It’s usually just that guy, who’s a hard hat.
NIXON: That’s right; he’s a hard hat.
EHRLICHMAN: He always looks like a slob.
NIXON: Looks like Jackie Gleason.
HALDEMAN: He has this hippie son-in-law, and usually the general trend is to downgrade him and upgrade the son-in-law–make the square hard hat out to be bad. But a few weeks ago, they had one in which the guy, the son-in-law, wrote a letter to you, President Nixon, to raise hell about something. And the guy said, “You will not write that letter from my home!” Then said, “I’m going to write President Nixon,” took off all those sloppy clothes, shaved, and went to his desk and got ready to write his letter to President Nixon. And apparently it was a good episode.
EHRLICHMAN: What’s it called?
NIXON: “Archie’s Guys.” Archie is sitting here with his hippie son-in-law, married to the screwball daughter. The son-in-law apparently goes both ways. This guy. He’s obviously queer–wears an ascot–but not offensively so. Very clever. Uses nice language. Shows pictures of his parents. And so Arch goes down to the bar. Sees his best friend, who used to play professional football. Virile, strong, this and that. Then the fairy comes into the bar. I don’t mind the homosexuality. I understand it. Nevertheless, goddamn, I don’t think you glorify it on public television, homosexuality, even more than you glorify whores. We all know we have weaknesses. But, goddammit, what do you think that does to kids? You know what happened to the Greeks! Homosexuality destroyed them. Sure, Aristotle was a homo. We all know that. So was Socrates.
EHRLICHMAN: But he never had the influence television had.
NIXON: You know what happened to the Romans? The last six Roman emperors were fags. Neither in a public way. You know what happened to the popes? They were layin’ the nuns; that’s been goin’ on for years, centuries. But the Catholic Church went to hell three or four centuries ago. It was homosexual, and it had to be cleaned out. That’s what’s happened to Britain. It happened earlier to France. Let’s look at the strong societies. The Russians. Goddamn, they root ’em out. They don’t let ’em around at all. I don’t know what they do with them. Look at this country. You think the Russians allow dope? Homosexuality, dope, immorality, are the enemies of strong societies. That’s why the Communists and left-wingers are clinging to one another. They’re trying to destroy us. I know Moynihan will disagree with this, and Mitchell will. But, goddamn, we have to stand up to this.
EHRLICHMAN: It’s fatal liberality.
NIXON: Huh?
EHRLICHMAN: It’s fatal liberality. And with its use on television, it has such leverage.
NIXON: You know what’s happened [in northern California]?
EHRLICHMAN: San Francisco has just gone clear over.
NIXON: But it’s not just the ratty part of town. The upper class in San Francisco is that way. The Bohemian Grove, which I attend from time to time–it is the most faggy goddamned thing you could ever imagine, with that San Francisco crowd. I can’t shake hands with anybody from San Francisco. … Decorators. They got to do something. But we don’t have to glorify it. You know one of the reasons fashions have made women look so terrible is because the designers hate women. Designers taking it out on the women. Now they’re trying to get some more sexy things coming on again.
EHRLICHMAN: Hot pants.
NIXON: Jesus Christ.
An Old Farmer’s Advice
Many of you have heard “An Old Farmer’s Advice”. This is a repost. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
“Your fences need to be horse-high, pig-tight and bull-strong. Keep skunks and bankers and lawyers at a distance. Life is simpler when you plow around the stump. A bumble bee is considerably faster than a John Deere tractor. Words that soak into your ears are whispered…not yelled. Meanness don’t jes’ happen overnight. Forgive your enemies. It messes up their heads. Do not corner something that you know is meaner than you. It don’t take a very big person to carry a grudge. You cannot unsay a cruel word. Every path has a few puddles. When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty. The best sermons are lived, not preached. Most of the stuff people worry about ain’t never gonna happen anyway. Don’t judge folks by their relatives. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll enjoy it a second time. Don’t interfere with somethin’ that ain’t botherin’ you none. Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance. If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin’. The biggest troublemaker you’ll probably ever have to deal with, watches you from the mirror every mornin’. Always drink upstream from the herd. Good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment. Lettin’ the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than puttin’ it back in. If you get to thinkin’ you’re a person of some influence, try orderin’ somebody else’s dog around. Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. Leave the rest to G-d!”
No one knows who the old farmer is, or what he grew. Some say he really worked in an office writing ads for Massey Ferguson. Some say he had a bull farm, and believed in the product. In this age of industrial strength commodity wisdom, the first reaction of some is to look to google. In this case, you can go to a forum at Snopes. No one claims to be the grandson of the old farmer.
“My father in law is an old farmer. He’s given me some advice. It was more like: Don’t try to fix a broken porchlight in a rainstorm. corollary: Disconnect power to the sprinkler system before fiddling with the wiring. If you wear longer socks, the chiggers won’t bite you. Cool Whip makes everything taste better. Do whatever your mother in law says.”
quote: “A bumble bee is considerably faster than a John Deere tractor.” ~ “Yeah, but you try getting a bumble bee to plow your fields. With the tiny little plows attached to their wings, it could take days.”
quote: “Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly…” ~ “And above all else, verb adverbly … There’s my problem, I’ve been living deeply, loving simply and speaking generously.”
quote: “Life is simpler when you plow around the stump.” ~ “I’m not sure of the lesson here…you should leave a bunch of tree stumps in your farm fields? But then you lose valuable real estate, the crops have to compete with the tree roots, and combine harvesting is significantly more dangerous. Maybe, if you take just a little time to remove the stump properly, it pays dividends and saves you time and energy in the long run. … But life is a lot cooler, and more productive if you go down to the general store, buy a few blasting caps, and blow that mother to kingdom come.”
“The sentiments aren’t too bad, but they missed “Now get orf moy laaand!” from the end…”
quote: “Most of the stuff people worry about ain’t never gonna happen anyway.” ~ “Oh, so I shouldn’t worry about not being able outrun a bumble bee on my John Deere tractor? Thanks.”
quote: Always drink upstream from the herd. ~ “But, unless your at the absolute source of the river, there’s always another herd further upstream.”
quote: The biggest troublemaker you’ll probably ever have to deal with, watches you from the mirror every mornin’. ~ “I knew it. I knew that SOB had a camera in there. I’m going to the police.”
Under The Bus Milo
It is the friday before the super bowl. Atlanta has been disappointed by its pro teams so many times. It is tough to get excited over this game. It would be fun for the falcons to win, and it does seem like a possibility. All things are possible in a world without g-d. This is a repost from 2017.
The poem for today is part two of the Shakespeare insult generator trilogy. PG began to copy insults, with the intention of molding them into a sonnet. Before too many brain cells died, there were 32 lines. These were loaded into a double sonnet, which should make a dandy production piece. The original 32 lines were divided up 12-8-12. Today’s product is the 8 section. It has four lines that were used to sonnetize the 12 line segments, and 4 sub par lines that were left over.
Pangloss.com is the host of today’s SIG. If you go to the Pangloss home page, you will get a random quote generator. “If the great Dr. Pangloss were here, he might say something of the sort: “About the only worthwhile thing you can learn from a bore is how truly golden silence can be.” – O. A. Battista Pangloss was a character in Candide, written by François-Marie Arouet, known by his nom de plume Voltaire. Dr. P was fond of saying, “This is the best of all possible worlds.”
The Pangloss Insult Generator… not really an accurate description of the contents, but a terrific acronym… has a few more zingers. “Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy ? I don’t know and I don’t care.”-William Safire ~ “The worst of all deceptions is self-deception.” -Plato ~ “The purpose of life is a life of purpose.” – Robert Byrne ~ “Do you know what a pessimist is? A person who thinks everybody as nasty as himself, and hates them for it. – George Bernard Shaw ~ In keeping with internet custom, a source for these quotes is not given. The less famous the name after the quote, the more likely the quote is to be genuine.
The font today is candara 42. After some experimenting, the inner color is 255-224-0 yello. The border is 0-160-0 green. The pictures were taken on Peachtree Road in Chamblee, near Marta and Walmart. There is a townhouse building. At the bottom of the stairs to each unit is a brick wall. Pictures of these little walls serve as the background for this poem. The pictures were taken July 19, 2013, between 9:14 am and 9:20 am.
Lately PG has been on a Raymond Carver binge. Several of his stories are available as online audios. (here, here, here ) Short stories are good for background listening…they don’t have the time investment of a novel, and can usually be heard in one session. Mr. Carver makes PG think like the voice of the story… close attention to minor detail, always thinking about what the next move will be. The two are different. RC is straight, married twice, stone alcoholic, finally had a burst of productivity before death at 50. PG is queer, single, and retired from being a drunk before he became alcoholic. PG is 67, and gets less productive every day. But he has that next day.
The high point of the day so far is a comment on facebook about Milo Y. and Ann Coulter. They did a show together last year, when Donald Trump was sending out tweets about how his wife was prettier than some other guy’s wife. The chat ended with the two discussing DJT’s pecker… Milo said “it’s huge, I just know it.” If any of the people trashing starbucks in Berkley could hear that show, they would know that Milo is an idiot. The best thing to do is ignore Milo, and wait for DJT to throw him under the bus. Others will be waiting.
This repost did not age well. Many of the links no longer work. The less said about Super Bowl LI the better. Milo got cut down to size, and then got cut up some more. Pangloss, Ann Coulter, and Donald Trump refuse to surrender.
The Cynic’s Word Book A – D
What follows are selections from The Devil’s Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce. TDD began as a newspaper column, and was later published as The Cynic’s Word Book. TDD is in the public domain. TDD is a dictionary, going from A to Z. Today’s selection covers A to D. More selections are available. E – G Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
ABDICATION, n. An act whereby a sovereign attests his sense of the high temperature of the throne.
Poor Isabella’s Dead, whose abdication, Set all tongues wagging in the Spanish nation.
For that performance ’twere unfair to scold her: She wisely left a throne too hot to hold her.
To History she’ll be no royal riddle—Merely a plain parched pea that jumped the griddle.
ABRIDGE, v.t. To shorten. When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for people to abridge their king, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. Oliver Cromwell
ABSTAINER, n. A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.
A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention,
and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.
Said a man to a crapulent youth: “I thought You a total abstainer, my son.”
“So I am, so I am,” said the scapegrace caught— “But not, sir, a bigoted one.”
ABSURDITY, n. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one’s own opinion.
ALLIANCE, n. In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other’s pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.
AMBIDEXTROUS, adj. Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left.
APHORISM, n. Predigested wisdom.
The flabby wine-skin of his brain, Yields to some pathologic strain,
And voids from its unstored abysm, The driblet of an aphorism.
APOLOGIZE, v.i. To lay the foundation for a future offence.
BACCHUS, n. A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk.
Is public worship, then, a sin, That for devotions paid to Bacchus
The lictors dare to run us in, And resolutely thump and whack us?
BATH, n. A kind of mystic ceremony substituted for religious worship,
with what spiritual efficacy has not been determined.
The man who taketh a steam bath He loseth all the skin he hath,
And, for he’s boiled a brilliant red, Thinketh to cleanliness he’s wed,
Forgetting that his lungs he’s soiling With dirty vapors of the boiling. Richard Gwow
BLANK-VERSE, n. Unrhymed iambic pentameters—the most difficult kind of English verse to write acceptably; a kind, therefore, much affected by those who cannot acceptably write any kind.
BORE, n. A person who talks when you wish him to listen.
CANNIBAL, n. A gastronome of the old school who preserves the simple tastes and adheres to the natural diet of the pre-pork period.
CARTESIAN, adj. Relating to Descartes, a famous philosopher, author of the celebrated dictum, Cogito ergo sum—whereby he was pleased to suppose he demonstrated the reality of human existence. The dictum might be improved, however, thus: Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum— “I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.”
CAT, n. A soft, indestructible automaton provided by nature,
to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.
This is a dog, This is a cat. This is a frog, This is a rat. Run, dog, mew, cat. Jump, frog, gnaw, rat.
CHILDHOOD, n. The period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth—two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age.
CHRISTIAN, n. One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.
CIRCUS, n. A place where horses, ponies and elephants
are permitted to see men, women and children acting the fool.
CLERGYMAN, n. A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual affairs
as a method of bettering his temporal ones.
COMFORT, n. A state of mind produced by contemplation of a neighbor’s uneasiness.
CONSERVATIVE, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils,
as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.
DEAD, adj. Done with the work of breathing; done, With all the world; the mad race run
Through to the end; the golden goal, Attained and found to be a hole! Squatol Johnes
DECALOGUE, n. A series of commandments, ten in number—just enough to permit an intelligent selection for observance, but not enough to embarrass the choice. Following is the revised edition of the Decalogue, calculated for this meridian.
Thou shalt no God but me adore: ‘Twere too expensive to have more.
No images nor idols make, For Robert Ingersoll to break.
Take not God’s name in vain; select, A time when it will have effect.
Work not on Sabbath days at all, But go to see the teams play ball.
Honor thy parents. That creates, For life insurance lower rates.
Kill not, abet not those who kill; Thou shalt not pay thy butcher’s bill.
Kiss not thy neighbor’s wife, unless, Thine own thy neighbor doth caress
Don’t steal; thou’lt never thus compete, Successfully in business. Cheat.
Bear not false witness—that is low— But “hear ’tis rumored so and so.”
Covet thou naught that thou hast not, By hook or crook, or somehow, got.
DEFAME, v.t. To lie about another. To tell the truth about another.
DELIBERATION, n. The act of examining one’s bread to determine which side it is buttered on.
DENTIST, n. A prestidigitator who, putting metal into your mouth, pulls coins out of your pocket.
DESTINY, n. A tyrant’s authority for crime and fool’s excuse for failure.
DIAGNOSIS, n. A physician’s forecast of the disease by the patient’s pulse and purse.
DIE, n. The singular of “dice.” We seldom hear the word, because there is a prohibitory proverb, “Never say die.” At long intervals, however, some one says: “The die is cast,” which is not true, for it is cut. The word is found in an immortal couplet by that eminent poet and domestic economist, Senator Depew: A cube of cheese no larger than a die, May bait the trap to catch a nibbling mie.
DIPLOMACY, n. The patriotic art of lying for one’s country.
The Golden Calf
When PG was a kid in sunday school, he heard about the the golden calf. It turns out that, splendid allegory aside, he didn’t really know much about the story. With the help of google and Bible Gateway, the text of Exodus 32 showed up. G-d bless public domain, and copy paste. The Bible is the main source for this tale. It doesn’t really matter if it is the inerrant word of G-d, it is a pretty good story. And much of the message rings true today.
1 And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him. 2 And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me. 3 And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. 4 And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
This is a modern story. The church is begging the people for gold. The sons are wearing golden earrings. The church takes these ill gotten gains, and forge a make believe G-d. This time, it looks like a cow. Billy Graham will come much later.
7 And the Lord said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves: 8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. 9 And the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people:
Moving down a few verses, the story gets good. 19 And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses’ anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount. 20 And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it. 21 And Moses said unto Aaron, What did this people unto thee, that thou hast brought so great a sin upon them? 22 And Aaron said, Let not the anger of my lord wax hot: thou knowest the people, that they are set on mischief. 23 For they said unto me, Make us gods, which shall go before us: for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him. 24 And I said unto them, Whosoever hath any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it me: then I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf. 25 And when Moses saw that the people were naked; (for Aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their enemies) 26 Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, Who is on the Lord’s side? let him come unto me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him. 27 And he said unto them, Thus saith the Lord G-d of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour. 28 And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: there fell that day about three thousand men.
Lets get this story right. Moses comes back from somewhere, and sees a naked party by the golden calf. He has a hissy fit, threw the golden calf into the fire, and tells people to start killing each other. Over three thousand men are killed. This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Jim And Edna
Jim and Edna were both patients in a mental hospital. One day while they were walking past the hospital swimming pool, Jim suddenly jumped into the deep end.
He sank to the bottom of the pool and stayed there. Edna promptly jumped in to save him. She swam to the bottom and pulled Jim out.
When the Director of Nursing became aware of Edna’s heroic act, she immediately ordered her to be discharged from the hospital, as she now considered her to be mentally stable. When she went to tell Edna the news she said:
“Edna, I have good news and bad news. The good news is you’re being discharged. Since you were able to rationally respond to a crisis by jumping in and saving the life of another patient, I have concluded that your act displays sound mindedness.
The bad news is that Jim, the patient you saved, hung himself in his bathroom with the belt of his robe right after you saved him. I am so sorry, but he’s dead.”
Edna replied, “He didn’t hang himself. I put him there to dry. How soon can I go home?”
This story is from an e-mail, and was not written by chamblee54. The author deserves your thoughts and prayers. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost
Facts About Words
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is the longest common word in english.
Strengths and screeched are the two longest one-syllable words in english.
Facetious, abstemious, annelidous, arsenious contain all five vowels in alphabetical order.
Uncopyrightable is the longest english word with no repeating letters.
Stewardesses is one of the longest words typeable on a normal keyboard with left hand.
Polyphony is one of the longest words typeable on a normal keyboard with right hand.
Quattuordecillion is a cardinal number represented in the U.S. by 1 followed by 45 zeros.
Deeded is the only word that is made using only two different letters, each used three times.
Queueing is the only word with five consecutive vowels.
The word with the most consonants in a row is latchstring.
The only words with three consecutive double letters are bookkeeping and bookkeeper.
Underground is the only word that begins and ends with “und.”
If you spell out every number from 0 to 999, you will find every vowel except for “a”.
You have to count to one thousand to find an a.
Q is the only letter that is not used in the name of any of the United States.
The only words with “uu” are vacuum, muumuu, residuum, and continuum.
Subcontinental is the only word that uses each vowel only once, in reverse alphabetical order.
More English words begin with the letter s than with any other letter.
The longest English word without a true vowel (a, e, i, o or u) is rhythm.
More English words begin with the letter “S” than any other letter of the alphabet.
“I am.” is the shortest two words sentence in the English language.
If you were to write out every number name in full (one, two, three, four…),
you wouldn’t use a single letter B until you reached one billion.
In written English, only one letter in every 510 is a Q.
The shortest -ology is oology, the scientific study of eggs.
11% of the entire English language is just the letter E.
Happy is used three times more often in English than Sad.
Approximately one new word is added to the English language every two hours,
and around 4,000 new words are added to the English dictionary every year.
Only two English words in current use end in “-gry”. They are angry and hungry.
A sentence that contains all 26 letters of the alphabet is called a pangram.
The dot over the letter i and the letter j is called a “superscript dot”.
In English, the @ symbol is usually called “the at sign” or “the at symbol”.
There are only 4 English words in common use ending in “-dous”:
hazardous, horrendous, stupendous, and tremendous.
Stewardesses is the longest word that can be typed with only the left hand.
“No.” is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
What is the first four letter word in the National Anthem.
These facts originally appeared at definitions.net. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Chamblee54 
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