How Twitter Causes Brain Damage
The story starts when Sleepy Joe announces yet another attempt to become POTUS. The announcement focused on the tiki torch rave in Virginia, rather than climate change, financial foolishness, police brutality, endless war, or Donald Trump’s latest hair color. The Foxnews fuddy duddies went on email jihad, focusing on what President tiny hands did, or did not say, after the tiki torches were put out. Meanwhile, the national debt went up by a $8,000,000,000.00.
At the bottom of one of the existential emails was a tag line: “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its pants on.” – Winston Churchill. The last time PG heard that chestnut, truth was putting her shoes on. This sounds like a job for google.
Before you can say trending topic, quote investigator has the answer. “In conclusion, there exists a family of expressions contrasting the dissemination of lies and truths, and these adages have been evolving for more than 300 years. … At this time, there is no substantive support for assigning the saying to Mark Twain or Winston Churchill.”
Google is not through creating mischief. NFL’s Colin Kaepernick incorrectly credits Winston Churchill for quote about lies It seems as though knee pad model Colin Kaepernick felt the need to quote Mr. Churchill. This is deep. A tweet, about a false quote, about spreading a lie. Pictures for this deplorable dispatch today are from The Library of Congress. Nobody forced you to read this.
This is a repost from 2019. Eleven months later, covid turned the world on its ear. Sleepy Joe was elected POTUS, despite the worst efforts of President Trump. The economy went into a covid depression, with the national debt increasing by a few trillion dollars. Colin Kaepernick became obsolete. The custom of telling lies is as popular as ever. Winston Churchill is still dead.
A Man Without a Country
A meme turned up on facebook the other day. Here is what it said: “For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes (Matthew 5). But, often with tears in their eyes, the demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course, that’s Moses, not Jesus. I haven’t heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere. “Blessed are the merciful” in a courtroom? “Blessed are the peacemakers” in the Pentagon? Give me a break!”
This bit of commodity wisdom is blamed on Kurt Vonnegut. It does sound like something he would say. The copy-friendly version of the quote gives a source, A Man Without a Country. This is a memoir, which is like a meme with an oir glued on.
PG ordered AMWAC from the library, and read it. It would be fun to say that AMWAC is great, but it isn’t. It is the same stuff you heard KV saying for years. AMWAC was published in 2005, two years before KV took his dirt nap. ANWAC might have been a good idea, but just doesn’t work. Not that the humanist talk isn’t true, or inspiring. The novels had humanism, but they were window dressing for a story, with plots and characters. The novels were fun to read.
One item stands out, which is not to say that it is outstanding. “Jazz historian Albert Murray claimed that the suicide rate among American slave owners was higher than that of their slaves.” This is on page 68 of AMWAC. The source thinks that this is because the slaves could sing the blues, and slave owners could do nothing but count money.
Reddit had 22 comments devoted to this factoid. The truth is, nobody knows. It may be true. It may have been true in the Mississippi Delta, but not true in Virginia. Maybe seeing snow in the winter was the factor. There is a problem with asking why, before you are sure that the statement is true.
Classics Illustrated: The Man Without A Country #63 is a comic book version of another book titled AMWAC. (all pages are there, this is meant for reading, not collecting) In this epic, a man says that he wishes to never hear of the United States again. A judge sentences him to go on a ship, where people are forbidden to speak of America in his presence. Talk about specialty punishment! In the end, the man is so patriotic nobody can stand him. It is highly unlikely that there will be a comic book version of the Kurt Vonnegut AMWAC.
This is a repost. On January 17, 2020, Bill Maher appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience. He lamented the political divisions in America, and how obnoxious both sides were. At 58:06, Mr. Maher said: “I feel like, as I’m sure as you do sometimes, a man without a country.”
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. Dorothea Lange took the pictures in June 1937, in Texas The spell check suggestion for AMWAC is AMWAY.
This Is Your Life
Am all caps graphic washes up on the digital shores from time to time. The author, and copyright status, are not known. It was not written here. Reading it can be a chore, even though it looks cool. It is also selfish… the only opinion that matters is the individual reading it. It doesn’t have a good beat, but you can dance to it. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
This is your life.
Do what you love, and do it often.
If you don’t like something, change it.
If you don’t like your job, quit.
If you don’t have enough time, stop watching TV.
If you are looking for the love of your life, stop:
They will be waiting for you when you start doing things you love.
Stop over analyzing, life is simple
All emotions are beautiful.
When you eat, appreciate every last bite.
Open your mind, arms, and heart to new things and people,
We are united in our differences.
Ask the next person you see what their passion is,
And share your inspiring dream with them.
Travel often, getting lost will help you find yourself.
Some opportunities only come once, seize them.
Life is about the people you meet, and the things you create with them
So go out and start creating.
Life is short. Live your dream, and wear your passion.
“Do you have to be a poet? If you don’t have to be a poet, be a prose writer. You’ll get further faster. Poetry — there’s probably more poetry published today than any time in the history of the world. Nevertheless, there is this — people think they have this blindness when they see a line in the typography of poetry, and it just blocks them. So if you can say the same thing in prose, you’ll probably be better off” Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Georgia Democrats
Georgia Democrats did not do well in the recent controversy over voting access. Their over-the-top rhetoric makes it difficult to believe anything they have to say. “Jim Crow on steroids” takes crying wolf to a new low. Democrat media enablers lost control while cheering them on.
Maybe it started August 12, 2017. Candidates for Governor were speaking. When Stacey Evans spoke, audience members started to chant “trust black women.” One of the other candidates, Stacey Abrams, defended the disruption. “I do not believe that you silence those who feel they are voiceless, because the minute we do that we are no better than those who tell people they can’t kneel in protest.”
What happened next is well known. Miss Abrams won the Democratic primary, and almost won the November election. Her number one campaign issue was voter suppression. When Miss Abrams lost the November election, she claimed that the election was stolen. This claim was uncritically accepted, and repeated ad nauseam.
After the election, a rally was held inside the State Capitol. State law clearly forbids disruptive rallies inside the Capitol. (O.C.G.A. 16-11-34.1 (g)) State Representative Nikema Williams decided that the law did not apply to her, and got arrested. Rep. Williams was praised for this arrest, and elected to the US Congress in 2020.
Republicans legislators proposed a law governing voting access. Democrats went into hysterical disruption mode. A rally inside the Capitol was dispersed, but not before Rep. Park Elizabeth Cannon was physically removed by authorities.
A few weeks later, Rep. Cannon succeeded in getting herself arrested. SB 202 passed, and Governor Brian Kemp decided to sign it immediately. Rep. Cannon got into a confrontation with State Troopers outside the Governor’s office, and got herself arrested. This arrest was over a ceremonial bill signing. Rep. Cannon may be the first legislator in history to get arrested at a bill signing.
What does all this say about the Democrats? They do not seem to be interested in the orderly process of running the state. The Democrats think it is proper to engage in juvenile confrontations. The Democrats do not appear to be capable of governing the state, if they should be elected to power. Pictures for this feature are from The Library of Congress.
SB 202
Last week, PG wrote a post about SB 202, the much maligned Georgia law about voting access. The post focused on a shameful stunt, by a Democratic legislator.
There is a personal connection to SB 202. “PG has his story from 2020. He applied for an absentee ballot in the July primary. An unsolicited AB was sent for the next three elections, along with dozens of unsolicited AB applications. SB 202 will prohibit this. How will not sending out unsolicited AB applications suppress the minority vote?”
“The NPR story does not mention AB applications requiring a copy of the voter’s ID. This requirement would impose a logistical burden on the counties, as well as inviting fraudulent ID copies. This requirement, if it is imposed, would be a mistake.”
Send-in-a-copy-of-your-id may have been in an early version of SB 202, and dropped later. This is was in the final bill: “Page 57: In order to verify that the absentee ballot was voted by the elector who requested the ballot, the elector shall print the number of his or her Georgia driver’s license number or identification card … in the space provided on the outer oath envelope.”
When the voter applies for an absentee ballot, they must write down the number of the drivers license/photo id. This can be confusing. PG got a time sheet rejected one time. He put his Social Security number on the sheet, instead of the DL number. However, it is difficult to see how this requirement impacts People of Color more than People Without Color.
Part of the problem is overkill rhetoric. SB 202 is a flawed piece of legislation, and probably will be thrown out by the courts. Unfortunately, Democrats see this as an opportunity to kick up a fuss. They are making the most of the situation. The fawning corporate media goes along.
Biden falsely claims the new Georgia law ‘ends voting hours early’ One exception is the Washington Post, usually a dependable cheerleader for the Democrats. They note that a claim made by the President is simply not true. “The president earns Four Pinocchios.”
This article came out before President Biden encouraged Major League Baseball to move the All Star Game. The game had been scheduled for Truist Park, before the President said that SB 202 was “jim crow on steroids.” MLB agreed, and will take the game elsewhere. In the 2020 elections, Georgia gave her electoral votes to Joe Biden. This is how your President returns the favor. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
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Hawaiian Good Luck Sign
Dear Grand-daughter, The other day I went up to our local Christian book store and saw a ‘Honk if you love Jesus’ bumper sticker . I was feeling particularly sassy that day because I had just come from a thrilling choir performance, followed by a thunderous prayer meeting.
So, I bought the sticker and put it on my bumper. Boy, am I glad I did; what an uplifting experience that followed. I was stopped at a red light at a busy intersection, just lost in thought about the Lord and how good he is, and I didn’t notice that the light had changed. It is a good thing someone else loves Jesus because if he hadn’t honked, I’d never have noticed. I found that lots of people love Jesus!
While I was sitting there, the guy behind started honking like crazy, and then he leaned out of his window and screamed, ‘For the love of God!’ ‘Go! Go! Go! Jesus Christ, GO!’ What an exuberant cheerleader he was for Jesus! Everyone started honking! I just leaned out my window and started waving and smiling at all those loving people. I even honked my horn a few times to share in the love!
There must have been a man from Florida back there because I heard him yelling something about a sunny beach. I saw another guy waving in a funny way with only his middle finger stuck up in the air. I asked my young teenage grandson in the back seat what that meant. He said it was probably a Hawaiian good luck sign or something. Well, I have never met anyone from Hawaii , so I leaned out the window and gave him the good luck sign right back. My grandson burst out laughing. Why even he was enjoying this religious experience!! Praise the Lord!!!
A couple of the people were so caught up in the joy of the moment that they got out of their cars and started walking towards me. I bet they wanted to pray or ask what church I attended, but this is when I noticed the light had changed. So, grinning, I waved at all my brothers and sisters, and drove on through the intersection. I noticed that I was the only car that got through the intersection before the light changed again and felt kind of sad that I had to leave them after all the love we had shared.
So I slowed the car down, leaned out the window and gave them all the Hawaiian good luck sign one last time as I drove away. Praise the Lord for such wonderful folks!! Will write again soon, Love, Grandma. This repost is written like J. D. Salinger. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Is Dennis Prager Dennis The Menace?
Why Are So Many Good Things Being Destroyed? is a recent offering from public nuisance Dennis Prager. It is a doozy. If you want to see the video, you can follow the link. Prager University (PU) has a transcript, and a study guide. The original concept of this post was to work with the study guide, and answer questions like “Why do you think that the Left destroyed the Boy Scouts?” Before we could get to those questions, there is an internet rumor to consider.
Did Dennis the Menace grow older, and become Dennis Prager? As some of you know, cartoonist Hank Ketcham really did have a son named Dennis. “The comic-strip Dennis was conceived … in 1950 … Alice Ketcham stormed into his studio, fuming “Your son is a menace!”
“But the years have not been as kind to Dennis, the cowlicked kid who innocently launched a cartoon empire. Now 46 (in 1993), he works as a tire retreader, living with his second wife, Janet, a part-time office cleaner, in a trailer park in Grove City, Ohio, just south of Columbus.
It is more than just geography and lifestyle, though, that distance father and son. For the past 28 years, they have barely seen each other and spoken only occasionally by phone. “I hear from Dennis about once a year, mostly when he needs money,” says Hank tersely. “I don’t want a closer relationship—nor do I want a confrontation.” “Dad can be like a stranger,” counters Dennis, who has never met his two half-siblings. …
” … Alice meanwhile … became an alcoholic. In 1959 she filed for divorce, and as her condition deteriorated, Dennis, then 12, was sent to a boarding school near Carmel. “I didn’t know what was going on,” says Dennis, “except that I felt Dad wanted me out of the way.” A few months after he left for school, his mother died from an accidental overdose of alcohol and barbiturates at the age of 41.”
“Shaken by his wife’s sudden death, Hank could not bring himself to break the news to Dennis over the phone. Nor could he even tell him in person—until shortly after Alice had been buried. “Mom had always been there when I needed her,” says Dennis. “I would have dealt with losing her a lot better had I been able to attend her funeral. …”
“…In 1966 he joined the Marines; during his subsequent year-long tour of duty in Vietnam, he says, “my grandmother and aunt sent me letters. But never Dad.” … Discharged in 1970, Dennis underwent three months of counseling for post-traumatic stress syndrome at a VA hospital and drifted through a succession of jobs—ranch hand, poultry-farm worker, prison guard.”
Meanwhile, Dennis Prager was born August 2, 1948 into an Orthodox Jewish family in New York City. Through various twists and turns, he became a radio star. Mr. Prager, known for hawkish military opinions, apparently did not serve in the United States military. This contrasts to Dennis Ketcham’s service in Vietnam. In all probability, Dennis Prager is not Dennis the Menace.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the pictures in April, 1941. Ironing. Family on relief. Chicago, Illinois WPA (Work Projects Administration) work on playground on southside of Chicago, Illinois This is a repost.
David And Elton
On page 327 of David Bowie: A Life, the Live Aid show goes down. “There wasn’t much love lost between David and Elton–perhaps they’d fallen out at some point …” This is a repost.
Elton John says he fell out with David Bowie over ‘token queen’ remark “David and I were not the best of friends towards the end. We started out being really good friends. We used to hang out together with Marc Bolan, going to gay clubs, but I think we just drifted apart…. He once called me “rock’n’roll’s token queen” in an interview with Rolling Stone, which I thought was a bit snooty. He wasn’t my cup of tea. No; I wasn’t his cup of tea”.
1975 was a different time. David Bowie was moving out of Ziggy Stardust, and became the Thin White Duke. At some point he starting doing lots of cocaine. On page 196 of DB:AL, Jayne County has stories. “It was pretty obvious the David was taking coke. He became very skeletal in his appearance and began rattling off speeches that sounded meaningless to the rest of us–strange things about witchcraft, demons, and sexual prostitution in ancient times … weird things that made everyone nervous. He began to get paranoid and accusing people of ripping him off and stealing his drugs…. He had to have cartilage removed from one part of his body and put in his nose because the coke had eaten his nose cartilage away.”
While David was popular in 1975, and had a certain aesthetic aroma, Elton John was a phenomenon. Everything Elton touched went to Number One. Elton was one of the most popular solo acts the market ever sold. Maybe David was jealous of Elton’s success.
By all accounts, Elton did his share of “hooverizing.” In 1975, Elton was officially in the closet, although a lot of people knew otherwise. In one impossible to confirm story, a friend of PG was working in an Atlanta club called Encore, later known as Backstreet. One busy night, he was in a hurry to get somewhere, and bumped into someone. The person he knocked over was Elton John.
The infamous Rolling Stone interview was part of the damage. “Rock & roll has been really bringing me down lately. It’s in great danger of becoming an immobile, sterile fascist that constantly spews its propaganda on every arm of the media. …. I mean, disco music is great. I used disco to get my first Number One single [“Fame”] but it’s an escapist’s way out. It’s musical soma. Rock & roll too — it will occupy and destroy you that way. It lets in lower elements and shadows that I don’t think are necessary. Rock has always been the devil’s music. You can’t convince me that it isn’t.”
Cameron Crowe How about specifics? Is Mick Jagger evil? David Bowie “Mick himself? Oh Lord no. He’s not unlike Elton John, who represents the token queen — like Liberace used to. No, I don’t think Mick is evil at all. He represents the sort of harmless, bourgeois kind of evil that one can accept with a shrug…. Actually, I wonder … I think I might have been a bloody good Hitler. I’d be an excellent dictator. Very eccentric and quite mad.”
Playboy Magazine gave David another chance to talk about Hitler. “I’d love to enter politics. I will one day. I’d adore to be Prime Minister. And, yes, I believe very strongly in fascism.” “Rock stars are fascists, too. Adolf Hitler was one of the first rock stars.” “#54: PLAYBOY: How so?” BOWIE: “Think about it. Look at some of his films and see how he moved. I think he was quite as good as Jagger. It’s astounding. And, boy, when he hit that stage, he worked an audience. Good God! He was no politician. He was a media artist himself. He used politics and theatrics and created this thing that governed and controlled the show for those 12 years. The world will never see his like.”
#77: PLAYBOY: “Last question. Do you believe and stand by everything you’ve said?” BOWIE: “Everything but the inflammatory remarks.” We don’t know whether a jab at Elton was inflammatory. “I consider myself responsible for a whole new school of pretensions–they know who they are. Don’t you, Elton? Just kidding. No, I’m not.”
Seven daily grams of coke (DB:AL, p.223) did not kill David Bowie. He soon moved on to make The Man Who Fell to Earth. People magazine helped out with the publicity. “No role could have suited David Bowie better in his first major movie than that of an inscrutable interplanetary traveler outfitted with human skin, sex organs, Ronald Reagan hair and humanoid pupils to slip in over his horizontal, mismatched feline slits.” Forty years before Donald Trump made the tangerine toupee cool, Ronald Reagan was prematurely orange. Pictures for this deplorable dive into hissyfit history are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Loose Cannon
Georgia Elections were thrown into chaos by covid 19. One of the results is SB 202. It makes changes in election law. This story details some of the changes. It appears that many of the hysterical “Jim Crow Voter Suppression” claims are exaggerated.
PG has his story from 2020. He applied for an absentee ballot in the July primary. An unsolicited AB was sent for the next three elections, along with dozens of unsolicited AB applications. SB 202 will prohibit this. How will not sending out unsolicited AB suppress the minority vote?
The NPR story does not mention AB applications requiring a copy of the voter’s ID. This requirement would impose a logistical burden on the counties, as well as inviting fraudulent ID copies. This requirement, if it is imposed, would be a mistake.
In some cases, voting is becoming easier. “Earlier law required three weeks of in-person early voting Monday through Friday, plus one Saturday, during “normal business hours. The new bill adds an extra Saturday, makes both Sundays optional for counties, and standardizes hours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. or as long as 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.”
Georgia being Georgia, SB 202 is getting screwed up. The Republicans are acting in a high-handed matter, and imposing foolish regulations. One of these is a ban on giving food and water to voters waiting in line. The Democrats are screaming RACISM at every opportunity. The public is being poorly served by the process. Many people are completely taken in by the RACISM rhetoric, and think anyone who does not drink the kool-aid is a RACIST.
SB 202 was passed, and the real fun begins. Usually, a bill being signed into law is a boring formality. Thursday was not. For some reason, Governor Brian Kemp signed SB 202 at the Capitol, immediately after passage. This may have been done as a gesture of disrespect to the race-baiting opposition.
State Representative Park Elizabeth Cannon decided to disrupt the bill signing. Rep. Cannon tried to get arrested February 26, but the State Patrol did not comply.
Rep. Cannon made a scene outside the bill-signing. We don’t know what the State Trooper said the her, or what happened before the video started. It is possible that Rep. Cannon had been threatening to disrupt the event. The unusual manner of the signing may have been a reaction to provocation by Rep. Cannon. This is not how government should be conducted.
The charges are on the Fulton County website. “EW-0324353 Willful Obstruction Of Law Enforcement Officers By Use Of Threats Or Violence – Felony … EW-0324354 Preventing Or Disrupting General Assembly Sessions Or Other Meetings Of Members; Etc. (3Rd Offense)” The site does not specify the first two offenses.
The matter is now in the courts … both the court of law, and the court of public opinion. Facebook has been full of nonsense, until the next media circus comes along. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Bath Suit Fashion Parade, Seal Beach, Cal., July 14, 1918, photographed by M.F. Weaver. WISC. Varsity, 1914, was photographed by Bain News Service.
Gerrymandering
99% Invisible recently had an episode about gerrymandering. It was based on a series at FiveThirtyEight, The Gerrymandering Project Gerrymandering is like the weather: many people talk about it, but few know how it works. One former governor of California likes to say that we should terminate gerrymandering. The Austrian accent is a nice touch. This is a repost.
Gerrymandering is “the division of electoral districts for partisan political advantage.” The name dates back to Elbridge Gerry, one of the founding fathers. (…we should remember eight men who signed the Declaration of Independence, and later attended the Constitutional Convention … Elbridge Gerry (the namesake of gerrymandering) refused to sign the Constitution because it did not have a Bill of Rights.) When Mr. Gerry was Governor of Massachusetts, a bizarre district was drawn. It was said to look like a salamander, thus gerrymander.(Some purists say gary-mander.)
OK. How does it work? There are two terms used in the show, Cracking and Packing. “Cracking: Spreading like-minded voters apart across multiple districts to dilute their voting power in each. This denies the group representation in multiple districts. Packing: Concentrating like-minded voters together in one district to reduce their voting power in other districts. This gives the group representation in a single district while denying them representation across districts.” When you put these concepts into play, you start to cause brain damage.
The idea behind “The Voting Rights Act of 1965” was to safeguard the right of minorities to vote. The devil is in the details. “Section 2 of the Act, which closely followed the language of the 15th amendment, applied a nationwide prohibition against the denial or abridgment of the right to vote on the literacy tests on a nationwide basis. Among its other provisions, the Act contained special enforcement provisions targeted at those areas of the country where Congress believed the potential for discrimination to be the greatest. Under Section 5, jurisdictions covered by these special provisions could not implement any change affecting voting until the Attorney General or the United States District Court for the District of Columbia determined that the change did not have a discriminatory purpose and would not have a discriminatory effect.”
“In 1982, the North Carolina state legislature approved redistricting plans for the North Carolina State Senate and the North Carolina House of Representatives. The maps were challenged in United States District Court. The challengers alleged that the new maps “impaired black citizens’ ability to elect representatives of their choice in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.” The district court ruled that six legislative districts violated the Voting Rights Act “by diluting the power of the black vote.” The decision was appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States.
On June 30, 1986, the high court ruled unanimously in Thornburg v. Gingles that five of the aforementioned six districts “discriminated against blacks by diluting the power of their collective vote.” … In Thornburg v. Gingles, the court also established three criteria that must be met in order “to prove claims of vote dilution under section 2 [of the Voting Rights Act]:” “The minority group must be able to demonstrate that it is sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single-member district.” “The minority group must be able to show that it is politically cohesive.” “The minority must be able to demonstrate that the white majority votes sufficiently as a bloc to enable it usually to defeat the minority’s preferred candidate.”
In the post 1990 census redistricting, an effort was made to create “majority-minority” districts. This did enable some minorities, mostly African American, to elect people to congress. It also had the effect of creating highly republican districts. When you pack the (mostly democrat) black people in a district, the neighboring districts become more white, and more republican.
One of the states affected by this is Georgia. Congressional districts in the peach state have long resembled abstract expressionism. It got so bad in 1995 that the US courts had to draw the new districts. Court Draws Georgia Map Of Congressional Districts “The State Legislature, which is controlled by Democrats, ceded responsibility for drawing new Congressional lines to the courts in September when it failed to agree on a plan in a 20-day special session. That session was called after the United States Supreme Court ruled in June that Georgia’s 1992 Congressional map was unconstitutional because race played a dominant role in the configuration of the 11th District. Represented by Cynthia A. McKinney, who is black, the 11th snakes 260 miles through east Georgia, pulling pockets of black voters into a gerrymandered district that was intended to elect a minority candidate.” The bizarre district lines continue to this day.
There are probably not any easy solutions. We you try to remedy one problem, like racial imbalance, you aggravate another one, like overly republican districts. Arizona tried using an independent commission. The meetings wound up on the Jerry Springer show. Do we want to choose our representatives, or do our representatives want to choose their voters? Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
RuPaul
PG often does not fit into pigeonholes. Liberal or conservative. Ally or enemy. Racist or whatever. After a while, it becomes apparent that labels are part of the packaging, and usually have little to do with the product inside the box.
Then a facebook friend (a person who PG likes, and respects, in real life) put up a link to a RuPaul interview, Real Talk With RuPaul. The FBF is over RuPaul. PG read the interview, and found many things that he agreed with. Is it possible to be a conservative because you like RuPaul?
The Vulture feature is similar to the WTF podcast that RuPaul did. Chamblee54 wrote about that interview. The Vulture chat is better for bloggers, since it is a copy friendly text affair. When you see quotes, you can include them verbatim.
RuPaul has a talent for snappy sayings, to be remembered for later use. An example would be “I’d rather have an enema than have an Emmy.” Some unkind people say that if you were to give RuPaul an enema, you could bury her in a shoebox.
A persistent theme of RuPaul’s moving lips is “the matrix.” “Because you get to a point where if you’re smart and you’re sensitive, you see how this all works on this planet. It’s like when Dorothy looks behind the curtain. Like, “Wait a minute. You’re the wizard?” And you figure out the hoax. That this is all an illusion. There’s only a few areas you can go. First, you get angry that you’ve been hoaxed and you get bitter. But then, take more steps beyond the bitterness and you realize, “Oh, I get it. Let’s have fun with it. It’s all a joke.”
The Bosslady of “RuPaul’s Drag Race’ is an African American. Duh. In the Vulture piece, there are 4355 words. Racism/racist is not included. Could it be that America’s obsession with other people’s racial attitudes is part of the illusion? “Derogatory slurs are ALWAYS an outward projection of a person’s own poisonous self-loathing.”
RuPaul is not always politically correct. She supports Shirley Q. Liquor. RPDR was instrumental in the rise to fame, (or descent into the abyss), of Sharon Needles. “But if you are trigger-happy and you’re looking for a reason to reinforce your own victimhood, your own perception of yourself as a victim, you’ll look for anything that will reinforce that.”
Years ago, PG worked with someone who liked to say “and a ru hu hu.” This was shortened to ru, and was usually said very loud. Ru became a greeting.
About this time, Ru Paul was living in Atlanta. Many people remember her (“RuPaul Andre Charles, best known mononymously as RuPaul”) as a spectacular self promoter. Ru Paul would sit in an apartment balcony, and wave at cars passing by. Posters for her band, Wee Wee Pole, were on telephone poles up and down Ponce de Leon Avenue.
One night, Ru Paul was working as a gogo dancer in a club called Weekends. During a break, PG went over to talk to her. The use of ru as a greeting was mentioned. Soon, some people came over, and PG started to leave. Before PG could get away, Ru Paul turned to PG, lifted her index finger, and said “Keep on saying my name.”
Ru Paul went on to become famous. Weekends was torn down, and is the site of the Federal Reserve Bank. PG does not watch much TV, and has never seen an episode of “Ru Paul’s Drag Race.” This is a TV show about a TV.
There is a recent controversy about RPDR. It seems that the phrase shemale has been used. Some people are offended by this. The expression is no longer used on the show.
PG has only one trans person friend. Sashia is the first person that PG heard use the expression shemale. PG does not know if Sashia still uses this expression. It has been a while since PG learned this expression, and ideas about language do change. Spell check suggestion for Sashia: Hashish.
The use of offensive language is to be avoided. If you know something is going to hurt people, then you should avoid saying it. There is a good possibility that Ru Paul knew what she was doing, and just didn’t care. The problem comes when you haven’t received the latest update from the language authorities. Keeping up with with is cool to say can be a full time job. Is it still ok to say ru?
RuPaul is no stranger to attention being thought strange. The latest bit of publicity… there is no bad publicity, and they spell the name right … is an article in the eyeball grabbing HuffPo, RuPaul Responds To Controversy Over The Word ‘Tranny’. (Spell check suggestion: Granny) PG gave into temptation, and clicked on the link. It seems as though there was an appearance on the WTF podcast. Why settle for a sensational sample, when you can hear the entire show?
If you have an hour and twenty four minutes to spare, listen to this show. If you like, you can skip the first thirteen minutes, which is host Mark Maron talking about himself. The show is highly entertaining. A theme is that the world is the matrix, a fake construction. Some people look behind the curtain and see the wizard. Some people believe the matrix is reality. You should already know which side RuPaul takes. He was not born blonde.
The quote about the T-word comes toward the end of the show. PG has mixed feelings about the whole affair, and does not completely agree with RuPaul. However, this human being is entitled to an opinion. Even if he wasn’t, he is going to share it anyway. RuPaul does not suffer from false modesty.
For a show that gets attention about language, it is a bit strange at times. While describing his career trajectory, RuPaul says he went through a phase of “gender f-word.” The show is called WTF. Twice a week, the host says fuck a dozen times in the first sixty seconds. And RuPaul said “gender f-word.”
Even more amazingly, RuPaul said that things were “n-word rigged”. RuPaul did break down and say the ultimate dirty word. When his mother saw his act on television, she said “N****** you crazy.”
RuPaul has had quite a career. He mentions that he has been sober for fifteen years, and had some therapy to get there. This was not the case when he lived in Atlanta. Many stories from those days are in the show. The bs detector went off a couple of times. PG saw the Now Explosion, and did not remember seeing a tall black guy.
This is a rich seventy five minutes. Like saying that Madonna is a curator, that most fashion designers don’t know how to sew. The part that is getting the attention is towards the end of the show, and is just a small part. It is all part of the matrix.
This feature is a repost. Some of the pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. Other pictures are from The Library of Congress. The images are of women, training to be bus drivers and taxi drivers. This was in Washington DC, November 1942. The photographer was Andreas Feininger, working for the Office of War Information. The picture of a dipstick demonstration is #8d36666.
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