Aaron Long
Shootings at 3 Georgia spas leave 8 dead; Man in custody blames ‘addiction to sex’ Most of you are familiar with the basics. Aaron Long is a super Baptist 21 y.o. He felt that his sexual urges were a problem. Mr. Long got kicked out of his parents house, and went to a gun store. He bought a 9mm handgun, and went to a massage parlor on Highway 92. Four people were killed: two Asian women, a white woman, and a white man.
Mr. Long went to Piedmont Road in Atlanta, just up the hill from the scene of the I85 fire. Soon, four Asian women died, in the two massage parlors where they worked. Mr. Long took off down I75. His parents called police, to tell them about a tracking device on his vehicle. The authorities caught him in Crisp County. “Yesterday was a really bad day for him and this is what he did.”
Since six of the eight victims were Asian women, the crime was immediatly assumed to be a racism motivated hate crime. Mr. Long was a twice baptized super Christian, who had severe sexual anxiety issues. The massage parlors are widely assumed to be whorehouses. To the facebook mob, this is not as important as the nationality of his victims.
Mr. Long spent a few months in Maverick Recovery, a residential, 12 step based treatment facility in Roswell GA. Mr. Long was treated for “sex addiction.” One can only imagine the things his counselors told him, to go along with the teachings of his family and church.
Did Mr. Long have same sex attractions that troubled him? Why was he unable to find a romantic partner, or even a friend with benefits? Did he have some physical limitations? Or, did he feel anger at himself for having these urges, and at those who provided an outlet? These are very powerful emotions. Mr. Long would not be the first man to kill because of sexual anxiety.
This is coming at a time of increased attacks on Asians, particularly in California and New York. Most of the reports do not specify the race of the attackers. In at least three videotaped attacks (one, two, three) the perps were black.
One high profile case is the attack on 84 y.o. Vicha Ratanapkadee, by 19 y.o. Antoine Watson. The video of the incident has been widely seen. A curious thread on twitter turned up.
@DionLimTV “WARNING: this video is hard to watch. Another shocking attack in Oakland’s Chinatown. 8th and Harrison Streets. Outside the Asian Resource Center. 20+ robbery/assault incidents in the neighborhood according to the Chinatown Chamber president.” @danieldaekim “The skyrocketing number of hate crimes against Asian Americans continues to grow, despite our repeated pleas for help. The crimes ignored and even excused. Remember Vincent Chin. #EnoughisEnough. @danielwuyanzu & I are offering a $25,000 reward.”
@but_im_kim_tran“Listen, if you don’t understand why it’s problematic to offer 25k for information about a Black man in Oakland, I need you to stay off all the goddamned panels.” @but_im_kim_tran “This is the moment we need to ask ourselves, to what end? If it was for an accountability process, okay, but I highly doubt that. Lastly, this looks a lot like a bounty on a Black person funded by Asian American celebrities. I have major, major doubts.” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Anthony Stephen Fauci
@maggieNYT “White House officials say they’ve given Fauci a lot of room to do interviews amid concerns he was being muted. But they question some of the interviews he’s given and how he has so much time for them.” Anthony Fauci has been in the hot seat before. In the eighties, he was blamed for not stopping AIDS. Now, Dr. Fauci is seen as a voice of reason. This is a repost.
“Anthony Stephen Fauci was born in New York City on Christmas Eve 1940, the second of Stephen and Eugenia Fauci’s two children. … Fauci has spent his entire professional career at the National Institutes of Health. He started as a clinical associate in the Laboratory of Clinical Investigation at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in 1968, after a two-year residency at The New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center. By 1974, he was head of the clinical physiology section of the lab. In 1980, he became chief of the Laboratory of Immunoregulation (a position he still holds) and since 1984, he has been the director of NIAID.”
Things began to change in 1981. The “aha” moment was- it was the early summer of 1981. The CDC … puts out the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report … reported on their June 5, 1981 MMWR five men from Los Angeles who presented with a very unusual kind of pneumonia that you only see in people who have dramatically-suppressed immune systems. And I looked at it and said, “Wow, five gay men.” Why all gay men, and why this strange disease that you almost never see in healthy people? And they were supposedly completely healthy other than that. I thought it was a fluke.”
“And then one month later, on the July 4th of 1981, the next MMWR appeared … “Now 26 men, not only from L.A., but from San Francisco and New York, with not only this strange pneumonia, but this strange kind of cancer that you only see in people who are immunosuppressed.” And the thing that blew me away is that all of them were gay men. And I said, “Whoa. Something is going on here that’s really bad, and this is likely a new disease.””
“And I made what I consider the transforming decision in my own career: I decided I was going to stop what I had been doing-rather successfully-for the previous nine or ten years and devote myself completely to studying what I felt would be an enormously difficult disease, and it, unfortunately, turned out that that was the case.”
Seven years later, after staggering amounts of deaths and suffering, Dr. Fauci was scheduled to appear at a conference in San Francisco. ACT-UP was there to greet him. “An Open Letter to Dr. Anthony Fauci” San Francisco Examiner, June 26, 1988 “Anthony Fauci, you are a murderer and should not be the guest of honor at any event that reflects on the past decade of the AIDS crisis. Your refusal to hear the screams of AIDS activists early in the crisis resulted in the deaths of thousands of Queers. … You can’t hide the fact that you are nothing but a despicable Reagan-era holdover and drug company mouthpiece. With 270,000 dead from AIDS and millions more infected with HIV, you should not be honored at a dinner. You should be put before a firing squad. … You are a pill-pushing pimp that cooperates with drug companies in forcing dangerous concoctions down the throats of a desperate community that is brainwashed into believing that taking a pill, any pill, will help them. … Ten years of hope? Fuck that. Try a decade of death and greed. Go back to Washington you bastard.”
“Carol Brown Moskowitz … recalls running into a group of leather-clad men, many of them body pierced and draped in chains, in Washington’s Omni Hotel, in the fall of 1988. … When she asked one of them who they were, he told her that they were members of “Act Up,” and that they were going out to make some noise at the FDA about the AIDS epidemic and the lack of funding for research. … Fauci asked the police and the FBI on the NIH campus not to make arrests. He also asked that a handful of the demonstration’s leaders be brought to his office.”
“That began a relationship over many years that allowed me to walk amongst them,” Fauci says. “It was really interesting; they let me into their camp. I went to the gay bath houses and spoke to them. I went to San Francisco, to the Castro District, and I discussed the problems they were having, the degree of suffering that was going on in the community, the need for them to get involved in clinical trials, since there were no other possibilities for them to get access to drugs.”
In 2005, Fauci appeared on C-SPAN. “The toughest decision you’ve ever had to make?””Well, one of the toughest decision-I had a few-was when I made a decision during the middle of the early years of the AIDS pandemic to bring the activist community into our deliberations, because most of the scientific community, including my own staff, were totally against that. They said the activists would be disruptive, that they would get in the way of what the scientific approach would be.”
One of those activists was the infamous Larry Kramer, who wrote the open letter seen above. This 1993 chat with Kramer gives you a small taste.
“Natalie Angier wrote in The New York Times in February of 1994: “And through it all, Dr. Fauci accepts the criticisms, and he accepts that someone must absorb the anger and terror that AIDS has spawned, so why not somebody of strong vertebrae who was raised on the streets of Bensonhurst? “I was on a C-SPAN program a couple of months ago with Tony, and I attacked him for the entire hour,” said Mr. Kramer. “He called me up afterwards and said he thought the program went very well. I said, ‘How can you say that? I did nothing but yell at you.’ He said, ‘You don’t realize that you can say things I can’t. It doesn’t mean I don’t agree with you.” … “Dr. Fauci claims he does not take the intermittent blasts personally. “That’s the activist mode,” he said. “When there’s a disagreement their tendency is to trash somebody. But I know that when Larry Kramer says the reason we’re all in so much trouble is because of Tony Fauci, he’s too smart to believe that.”
A few years later, the outlook started to improve. “We have drugs right now … In the early ’80s, if someone came in to my clinic with AIDS … half of them would be dead in eight months. Now, if …someone comes into a clinic who is 20-plus years old who is relatively recently infected, and I put them on the combination of three drugs … if you take your medicine regularly, you could live an additional 50-five zero-years.”
“Fauci is married to Christine Grady … “I met him (Fauci) here over the bed of a patient who happened to be from Brazil. I was called in as a translator … And so they said, ‘Could you come translate for Dr. Fauci?’ whom I had not met—the inimitable Dr. Fauci— everybody was afraid of. When he came in, I thought, ‘What are they so afraid of him for? He is not so scary.’”
As Fauci tells the story on C-SPAN: “She was just this very attractive young nurse, and I said, “Very interesting.” … I was single. So I went back to my office. About a few days later, I told the head nurse, “Could you tell that nurse, Ms. Grady, to come to my office. I want to talk to her.” … So she walked into my office completely petrified that she was in trouble, and she sat there looking very nervous. I couldn’t figure out why she was nervous. So I looked at her and said, “Well, you know, I didn’t realize you had come here until just last week.” I said, “Would you like to go out for dinner sometime?” She just fell right through the chair, and she said, “Of course, I will.” And we got married a year later.”
In today’s #metoo atmosphere, the director romancing a young nurse might not work as well. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Thanks to Holy Cross Magazine and C-SPAN
Downtown’s Architectural Heritage
The tour began at the Commerce Club, It is a glorified parking deck, with a dining club on the top two floors. It was started as a place that would allow Jews. In the early sixties, the Commerce Club was the site of a secret meeting between Atlanta City officials, and Civil Rights demonstrators. Since it was mostly parking, the activists drove in and parked unannounced.
In 1992, PG saw Dan Quayle arrive to give a speech at the Commerce Club. A couple of hours later, PG was crossing Walton Street, when the Vice President’s limousine drove by. PG waved at the vehicle, only using one finger.
The next stop was the Fulton National Bank building. It was the first high rise built after the depression. For many years it was red brick, until some idiot had the idea of painting it beige. Across the street is 2 Peachtree. At 41 stories, it was the tallest building in town for a while. Some say it was the ugliest building downtown, although that is tough to quantify. An 8 story brick building in front was retrofitted with black panels, so that it would look like its tall neighbor. These panels are falling off, and may eventually be taken down.
Woodruff Park is across Five Points from 2 Peachtree. The legendary head of Coca Cola, Robert Woodruff, bought several blocks of aging buildings, and tore them down to create the park. Some say he wanted the open space in front of the Trust Company building, so it could face Peachtree. The Trust Company was Coca Cola’s bank. For years, the formula for Coca Cola was held in their vault.
In one legend, Governor Gene Talmadge went into the Trust Company lobby. This would be in the old building on Pryor Street. (Now Park Place) The Governor had enjoyed a happy lunch, and was being held up by two of his aides. Soon, Governor Talmadge felt the need to use the restroom, which he did in the corner of the lobby.
Gracing the North end of Woodruff Park, at 100 Peachtree, is the Equitable Building. It, and the adjacent Georgia Pacific building, were designed by Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, or SOM. No, that is not short for SOM-bitch. These two buildings were more modern, and are sometimes called glass boxes. At least the GP building has some variation in the back.
Georgia Pacific was built on the site of the Loews Grand Theater. Across the street was a giant Coca Cola sign. GP did not think that sign fit in with their new building. Coca Cola was tired of making repairs to the sign, and was happy for an excuse to take it down.
Behind GP, on John Wesley Dobbs (formerly Houston Street, pronounced HOUSE ton) was the Belle Isle Garage. This was the original Merchandise Mart. At some point, the present Merchandise Mart was built on Peachtree. The people going to shows needed a place to stay, and John Portman started building hotels.
A few spots north, past the site of the Paramount Theater, is 191 Peachtree. John Portman had wanted to build there for years, but was never able to pull it off. Finally, the property was taken over by someone else, the S&W cafeteria was torn down, and Philip Johnson and John Burgee designed the high rise that sits there now.
PG asked if that building was still mostly unoccupied. The guide said that you read the AJC too much. After King & Spalding moved out, the building began a comeback, and is mostly occupied today. The parking garage, with faux columns outside, is a favorite.
Across the street, on the site of the Henry Grady Hotel and Roxy Theater, is the Peachtree Plaza hotel. There is a duplicate of this building in Detroit, that is 4 feet higher, but that doesn’t stop people from calling the Atlanta version the world’s tallest hotel. A few spaces north on Peachtree are the original Peachtree Center buildings.
One of the PC buildings is different from the rest. Mr. Portman was not able to buy the land for one building, but merely lease it. The lenders wanted to be able to tear the building down easily if land lease problems developed. This building has a steel frame, and is bolted together.
Another one of these buildings was all electric. This was a sixties concept, that is not much seen today. Across the street, a major tenant was the Atlanta Gas Light Company. An all electric building would not do. Natural Gas heating was installed. This building is not on the grid, but has a generator in the basement that supplies their electricity.
The tour ends with three hotels in a row. The Regency Hyatt House was revolutionary. It was the first modern hotel with a large atrium. Mr. Portman had lunch with Conrad Hilton, and described his plan. Mr. Hilton said it would not work. The management contract for the new hotel went to the Hyatt company, which was then little known outside California. The Regency has been renovated in the last few years, and does not have much of its old character.
A short walk over a sky bridge takes you to the Marriott Marquis. This is the Regency on steroids. The last time PG saw this building was during Dragon Con, when it was different. Across the street is the Hilton. It is another atrium building, with mini lobbies every few floors blocking the open space. The Hilton is built on the site of the Heart of Atlanta Motel, which is another story.
The last stop on the tour was One Peachtree Center. This was intended to be the crown jewel of John Portman’s empire, but it almost brought it down. An economic downturn hit during construction, and Mr. Portman’s lenders got nervous. John Portman went for being known as a baroque modernist, to just plain broke. He managed to survive.
Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. This is a repost. John Calvin Portman Jr. took the glass elevator to eternity on December 29, 2017.
Did Joseph Think It Was His Kid?
NOTE: This feature was originally published in March 26, 2013. This is the day after March 25, nine months before Christmas. IOW, a crucial day in the most famous unconsummated marriage in history. PG began to ponder the traditional marriage of Joseph and Mary. The question of the day is “when did Joseph and Mary get married?” Facilities such as Liberty Gospel Tracts and Fish Eaters Traditional Catholic Forum have answers.
LGT (the B got kicked out for some reason) contributes a bible passage, Matthew 1:18-19. 18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. 19 Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily.
Put her away in the privy? That is some kinky business there. Maybe the Christians and Jews have it all wrong. The thirds Abrahamic religion, Islam, might have the answer. A site, TurnToIslam, has another point of view about the traditional definition of marriage.
What about Mary, Jesus’ Mother peace be upon both of them? How old was she when she got pregnant? Not only was it a custom in the Arab society to Engage/Marry a young girl it was also common in the Jewish society. The case of Mary the mother of Jesus comes to mind, in non biblical sources she was between 11-14 years old when she conceived Jesus. Mary had already been “BETROTHED” to Joseph before conceiving Jesus. Joseph was a much older man. therefore Mary was younger than 11-14 years of age when she was “BETHROED” to Joseph. We Muslims would never call Joseph a Child Molester, nor would we refer to the “Holy Ghost” of the Bible, that “Impregnated” Mary as a “Rapist” or “Adulterer”.
“….it is possible that Mary gave birth to her Son when she was about thirteen or fourteen years of age….”Mary was approximately 14 years old when she got pregnant with Jesus. Joseph, Mary’s Husband is believed to be around 36. Mary was only 13 when she married Joseph. When she first was arranged with Joseph she was between 7 to 9 years old.”
According to the “Oxford Dictionary Bible” commentary, Mary (peace be upon her) was was 12 years old when she became impregnated. So if I want to be as silly and ridiculous as many of the Christians, I would respond to them by saying that Mary was psychologically and emotionally devastated for getting pregnant at a very young age. And speaking of “child molesting”, since most Christians believe that Jesus is the Creator of this universe, then why did G-D allow himself to enter life through a 12-year old young girl’s vagina? Please note that we Muslims love and respect Allah Almighty, Mary, Jesus and Allah’s Message to the People of the Book (The Jews and Christians). In other words, we Muslims would never make fun of Christianity through such childish topic like this one as many ridiculous Christians do make fun of Islam through our Prophet’s (peace be upon him) marriage.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Atheism Number Two
Whenever someone writes a book about religion, the writer pays tribute to mammon. Interviews are given, TED talks are given, and the printed donkey flogged within an inch of its life. The book of the moment is Religion for Atheists: A Non-believer’s Guide to the Uses of Religion. The author is Alain de Botton. A chat on blogginheadstv goes over the same material. The idea is that atheists can learn a thing or two from the believers. Mr. de Botton gave a TED Talk about this concept.
We could begin by questioning the entire belief paradigm. Christians believe G-d exists, and a few other things. Atheists do not believe G-d exists. What no one seems to be questioning is whether belief is the best way to go about the G-d issue. The word gnosis (the root of agnostic) refers to having a knowledge of G-d… to feeling her presence in your soul. There are some who say that man and G-d are one and the same. When all you have is a belief… a strongly felt thought… you just might be missing most of the picture.
Christianity is a religion based on beliefs. One of the central beliefs is the notion that having the correct beliefs will cause you to be “saved”… to go to heaven when you die, instead of hell. This is a big deal to Christians, who find it difficult to deal with someone who is not fascinated by “salvation.”
Atheism seems to be a reaction to Christianity/salvation promotion. If they Christians did not tell them about G-d, how would atheists know what to not believe in?
“they’ve argued that believing in G-d is akin to believing in fairies and essentially that the whole thing is a childish game.” Oh my, what a terrible thing to say about faeries. Maybe faeries are not something to believe in either. Just wear the fabulous fashions, and don’t worry about that silly religion business.
Mr. de Botton laments the lack of community is atheism, and he may have a point. PG has often envied the sense of extended family that churches seem to offer. If only those pesky beliefs didn’t get in the way. Does religion fulfill a tribal need for conformity, rather than spiritual fulfillment?
It is a common rule of public speaking… you treat children as though they were adults, and adults as though they were children. The concept of being “born again”, of having a second childhood… these are very appealing notions. Can an atheist church offer these good times? Or would it spoil the fun by treating “worshipers” as adults?
PG has a big, big problem with one issue. Jesus worship is an emotional affair. Powerful feelings are stirred up. This power, and fury, can be a terrifying thing if it is used against you.
This use of Jesus driven emotions is an issue in American politics today. The force and thunder of a screaming Jesus worshiper, leading his flock of angry sheep, is a terrible thing to have used against you. It is hoped that an Atheist church would be more “humanistic”.
Two wrongs do not make a right. Jesus worshipers are notorious for interrupting you if something is said they do not like. Perhaps this is another function of the belief based religion. When you believe something, and do not understand why someone does not share your belief, you don’t have time to listen. This rudeness does not speak well for Jesus. Hopefully, atheists can be a bit better.
This is a repost. Today’s edition has been edited for easier consumption. The TL/DR version linked above goes into more detail about some of the points. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the pictures in October, 1938. “Crowd, listening to the Cajun band at National Rice Festival, Crowley, Louisiana.”
Post Racial America
It is a cliche among certain pundits that this is not “Post Racial America.” No one seems to know what PRA would look like. PRA might be less noisy, with fewer odors, than the current model. The opinion that we do not live in PRA seems unanimous. After PG heard the denial of PRA one too many times, he began to wonder something. Who said America is Post Racial?
Mr. Google has 119 million answers to the question “who said america is post racial?” The short answer is nobody. The closest thing on the front Google page is an NPR commentary from January 2008. This was the early stages of the BHO run for the White House. The commenter said that the election of a dark skinned POTUS might usher in a post racial era in America.
This piece will not have any fresh opinions about race relations in America. That subject has been worn out elsewhere. If someone finds it to their advantage to denounce “racism,” there will be an audience. The truth is, very few people have ever said that America is Post Racial.
This is a double repost, on the subject that people can’t get enough of. If you can’t say anything good, you can always talk about racism. Pictures for this friday morning are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Some times you see something, and realize that you are being pushed over a line. Today’s straw, landing on the camel’s back, was a meme. It has pictures of a statesman-like BHO, and a goat smiling BS. The text was white comic sans letters, on a black background. “Regarding those who call Obama an illegitimate president because his father was born in Kenya, Bernie Sanders replied: “No one asked me if I was a citizen or not, and my dad came from Poland. Gee, what’s the difference? Maybe the color of my skin.” The comment was from a Las Vegas town hall meeting. Some things that are said in Vegas need to stay in Vegas.
No one denies that white people and black people often do not get along. Few deny that there is systemic inequality. The connection of “birther” speculation to systemic inequality is tough to see. Of course, the definition of racism is elastic, and can fit whatever situation the observer wants to critique.
Are we helping the cause of racial tranquility by making comments like that? Yes, it is foolish for “birthers” to whine about a birth certificate. But entertaining followers in a town hall debate does not mean you are going to be able to govern. Maybe BS should focus on his economic fantasies, and quit scoring cheap shots about racism.
The Color Of My Skin was originally published in February, 2016, when BS was taken seriously. As we all know, HRC eventually got the Democratic nomination, only to lose to DJT in November.
Mr. Trump was one of the original “birthers,” or people disputing the Hawaiian birth of BHO. In the general election campaign, Democrats liked to say that DJT was a racist, with birtherism frequently given as an example. The many other unappealing parts of DJT, like crookedness and mental instability, were brushed aside, in the mad rush to scream racist. Some even went so far as to say that anyone voting for DJT was a racist. When the electoral votes were counted, DJT won.
Covid Vaccine
By the start of February, I had taken three or four covid tests, all of which were negative. The news of a vaccine was recieved with skepticism. How could a vaxx be produced this quickly, and safely. The hard core, pro vaxx, sales pitches did not help. It was time to wait and see, again.
Then the email came from Northside Hospital. Since I was over 65, and worked with a Northside Doctor, I was eligible to receive the vaxx. A bout with non-covid, intestinal bug put me in bed for two and a half weeks. After I was able to stay out of bed all day, I answered the email. I felt like a sheep at first, but signed up to recieve my first dose in two days. I quit saying baa quickly. I never had to mention which Northside Doctor I worked with.
When you have a medical destination, it can be helpful to know where you are going. I had never made friends with the gps on the iphone7. After the first failed attempt, I pulled into a parking lot on Lake Hearn Drive. It was in use as a staging area for the perimeter construction tragedy. I entered the address of the building, and got a screen with a map. No helpful voice on the phone was forthcoming. This was the moment when I decided I had enough of the iphone7. I pulled the plug that afternoon.
I found the building somehow, and talked to a man. He was on the parking deck speaker box. He told me to come back on Thursday, and there would be people to tell me where to go, and what to do.
Thursday morning, a black man of indeterminate nationality told me where to take my vehicle, and to be sure to remember where it was. I could go in the building five minutes before my appointment. A pickup truck, with a black man inside, pulled up next to me. A couple of minutes before I would be allowed in, I got out of my vehicle. The man in the pickup truck got out. He wore a baseball hat, indicating some sort of military service. We has a friendly little chat as we walked up to the door.
There has been a lot of racial turmoil in America, for as long as I can remember. On this day, about half the people were black, and half were white. Maybe someone, somewhere, had problems. It was not me. It was just another day in America.
FWIW, this was a big money production. It was well organized, and took place less than a year after the meltdown. This effort was orchestrated by the government. led by Donald J. Trump. There is going to be serious re-evaluation of his presidency, and of the resistance nonsense.
I got to the doors, and was greeted by the first person. A young man asked to see my reminder text. You go to the next door, and talk to the next person. There was someone literally every twenty five feet. There was a long escalator going down. Someone asked if I was comfortable riding it.
I got downstairs, in the futuristic office class A space. I go to the desk, show my picture ID, and the man confirms my registration. The next person says to wait here, until a person waves me into a cubicle. Is Campbell Mckinnon a hyphenated name? They did not have hyphenated names in 1954.
Not looking at the needle is a basic survival skill. You are ushered into a chair, where you sit down for fifteen minutes. This is the first time I have opened my book since I got here. I did not want to leave. The fifteen minutes went by quickly. I got home, and made the appointment for shot number two. This one is supposed to be tougher. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Sedevacantism
@LearningthePath “Not enough of you are concerned about the Charismatic Roman Catholic Sedevacantist Dispensationalism of William Tapley, and it shows.” @chamblee54 “too many big words” @LearningthePath “This time, that was intended to help make the joke. Charismatic – Believes in continuing Apostolic Gifts (prophecy, healing, tongues, etc.) Sedevacantist – Believes that the office of the Papacy is Empty.” This is a repost.
Sedevacantism (SV) is weird business, even by Catholic standards. The word literally means the seat is vacant. SV believe that the post-Vatican II has strayed away from the correct faith. The Pope is not Catholic enough to be the Pope. The last legitimate Pope was Pius XII. He died in 1958, after looking the other way during the Holocaust.
This video uses fancier language, to say the same thing. “satyakant ism/said of account ism (you tube transcripts are not inerrant) is the position of those Catholics who refuse to recognize for gay bergoglio (Jorge Mario Bergoglio, aka Pope Francis) as a true Pope. The seed of a canister(?) found that the Copt is vacant on account of the apostasy from the faith on the part of the official hierarchy since the promulgation in 1965 of the documents of the Second Vatican Council.”
If you search for SV on google and youtube, you will find lots of material. Dealing with a Sedevacantist Priest is a video of a radio show. The caller is concerned about some of the things a priest is saying to the flock. Bible verses are trotted out, and used to justify opinions. This is true of all the SV videos. The tone is heavy, heavy Catholic. If you come from a Protestant background, you might think you’re watching science fiction.
Sedevacantism Is Modern Luciferianism is a rather lurid discussion. Alas, there is a bait and switch here. “With the crisis in the Church since Vatican II, many comparisons have been drawn with the Arian crisis of the 4th century, when the majority of the Church’s bishops fell into the heresy of Arianism. … There is the remarkable similarity between today’s sedevacantists and a group of schismatics who were spawned during the Arian crisis: the Luciferians. The Luciferians were less nefarious than their name implies. Rather than being devil-worshipers, they were simply followers of the schismatic Bishop Lucifer of Cagliari.”
There are memes, both SV and anti SV. There is a twitter account: @animesedevacant Anime Sedevacantist ☩ Lover of Pius XII and Anime! SV Singles is another manifestation. Brian-sede is “Seeking Sedevacantist Catholic Woman”. Alas, even here, man just can’t seem to get it right. “Sedevacantist Singles” Employees Not Sure Whether To Recognize Authority. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The spell check suggestion for Sedevacantism is Antisemitism.
Jordan Peterson Goes To Russia
Sometimes, things go beyond the like/dislike binary. Some stories are just so weird, that the only reaction is to observe in wonder. Just how can real life could be so bizarre? The recent chapter in the Jordan Peterson story is an example. Dr. Peterson is a Toronto psychologist/professor, and youtube personality. His signature work is a book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos.
Mikhaila Peterson, the daughter of the professor, released a youtube video on February 7, 2020. “Dad was put on a low dose of a benzodiazepine a few years ago for anxiety following an extremely severe autoimmune reaction to food. He took the medication as prescribed. Last April when my mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer, the dose of the medication was increased.” This went on for a while, until he went into rehab. This article, about the first rehab, is dated September 20, 2019.
“After several failed treatment attempts in North American hospitals, including attempts at tapering and micro-tapering, we had to seek an emergency medical benzodiazepine detox, which we were only able to find in Russia. … He’s had to spend 4 weeks in the ICU in terrible shape, but, with the help of some extremely competent and courageous doctors, he survived.”
“She and her husband took him to Moscow last month, where he was diagnosed with pneumonia and put into an induced coma for eight days. She said his withdrawal was “horrific,” worse than anything she had ever heard about. …Jordan Peterson has only just come out of an intensive care unit, Mikhaila said. He has neurological damage, and a long way to go to full recovery.”
This raises a few questions. Why Russia? France ranks as the number one healthcare system in many rankings. The World Health Organization, in their ranking of “Overall efficiency in all WHO member states,” puts Russian Federation at 130, out of 191. (The United States is 37.) USNews ranks Canada as number one. Jordan Peterson is famously Canadian.
Pride goeth before a fall. Jordan Peterson is not a humble person. It is bad manners to celebrate the misfortune of others. However, when the fallen person is famous for promoting 12 Rules for Life, it is tough not to speculate. This story has inspired some creative types. “deep in the Russian wilderness, an unholy experiment is underway. for years Peterson has attempted to transmute himself into the exalted lobster, king of the animals. but there’s been a malfunction—he’s stuck in the interstitial stage, forever to live as an eldritch abomination.” @MenshevikM “Jordan Peterson is incredible because most right wing hacks are very boring career hypocrites, whereas he went from nobody to living in Russia with brain damage in about 3 years by practicing what he preached”
There are hundreds of hours of Jordan Peterson talking online. These videos are a gold mine of ironic comments. Chamblee54 had a post about a Peterson appearance in June 2018. (The video is no longer available.) Apparently, this was after he started taking Benzos. Two quotes that stand out. “What stupid things am I doing that is making my life wretched?” “The next rule is to not let your children do anything that will make other people not like them.”
On November 29, 2018, Peterson was on the Joe Rogan Experience. Rogan “you have the schedule that you have and the amount of energy and enthusiasm you maintain with the schedule is very remarkable cuz you’re not stopping you’re not slowing down I mean you’ve had your foot on the gas for like two solid years now” Peterson “make hay while the Sun shines I guess is that how you feel about it well you know when you have an opportunity that’s completely preposterous you’re a fool to take it for granted … Tammy and I have been to a hundred cities since January.” Dr. Peterson was raking in the dough, and did not want to get off the merry go round. “What stupid things am I doing that is making my life wretched?”
Dr. Peterson started to make appearances after his first bout with rehab. PG saw a video, and noticed a difference in his appearance. PG has written about Dr. Peterson two times, in addition to the 06/13/18 post. There was a commentary about a video at Prager U. When you click the original link to that video, you get a message: “You just hit a route that doesn’t exist… the sadness.” Dennis Prager is another snark-worthy public figure.
The other video is about an appearance Dr. Peterson made in Aspen, hosted by Bari Weiss. John McWhorter asks a question. Dr. Peterson does not have a slick answer. This is a repost. Pictures, for this tabloid view of academia gone awry, are from The Library of Congress.
Another Message To #Resist
‘Resist White Supremacy’: A sign. A farm. And the fury that followed. This story floated onto facebook. The easily amused PG took the bait. Someone put a sign in the yard, saying #resist white supremacy. Some people did not like it, and said so on facebook. We are required to have an opinion.
“Maybe we should change ‘rise and resist’ to ‘resist white supremacy’…,” Lily Cox-Richard texted her. “That way, if someone takes a picture of one of our signs to post and says they are ‘saddened’ or ‘disappointed,’ they will be explicitly revealing themselves as the racist that they are.” … The vitriol only intensified in the hours that followed, which baffled Aaron. Who, other than a white supremacist, would be offended by a message condemning white supremacy? She also understood, though, that this is America in 2018, a time of such fierce division that even voicing opposition to the ugliest beliefs could be twisted or taken out of context.”
Putting labels on people, and using that label to justify badmouthing them, is an ugly practice. In Christianity obsessed America, what you believe is more important than what you do. When a person says, “Yes, generally speaking, we are comfortable excluding white supremacists,” the next step is to identify these horrible people, so you can hate on them, and feel good about yourself for doing so.
There is another reason for not appreciating the #rws message. Cox Farms appears to be located on a busy road. People have things on their mind when they are driving through there. The idiot behind you is upset because you are not driving fast enough. Your boss is insane, your co-workers are insane, and you are starting to fit in. Can I get ten percent off my auto insurance?
And now, some social justice poser is calling you a white supremacist. Did anyone ask for their opinion? Why should you care what those self important people think? This is just one more attack on your peace of mind. It is not always appreciated. And if you object, you must be a RACIST. Remember, RACIST is the worst thing you can say about someone in today’s America. If someone does not enjoy your unsolicited opinion, you respond by calling them the worst insult possible.
The average person sees thousands of messages a day. Most, though not all, are filtered out. Everybody is shouting, and very few are heard. When they don’t get the required response, they shout louder, and insult you for not having the correct reaction. Do we really need some self described hippie lecturing you on white supremacy, when you are just trying to go to the grocery store?
In the end, it did not really matter. “On Monday, Aaron wrote a follow-up post, thanking the thousands of people who had offered support (and who vastly outnumbered the critics)” This was a waste of time. This is a repost Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
The Trial Of Lenny Bruce
Towards the end of his Booknotes chat, Nat Hentoff talked about censorship. As a journalist, his views were predictable.
Mr. HENTOFF: Any words at all. Words are–I mean, there is a great–there was a great scene in New York once when Lenny Bruce, who was a friend of mine, was on trial for his words. And Richard Cue, the assistant district attorney, was making a name for himself trying to blast all of the witnesses for the defense. And he got Dorothy Kilgallen, who was a very famous then syndicated columnist, a devout Catholic, a conservative and a great admirer of Lenny Bruce. And he con–he strung together, Cue did, all of the words in Lenny’s monologues that could be considered terribly offensive, and he hit her with them. It was a barrage. `What do you think then, Ms. Kilgallen?’ `Well,’ she said, `they’re words. They’re words. That’s all. Words.’ That’s the way I feel.
When PG heard this, he remembered reading about this trial. With the aid of Mr. Google, a transcript turned up. If you like to read about lawyers saying dirty words, this is the place for you.
Dorothy Kilgallen was, to put it mildly, a piece of work. She wrote for the N. Y. Journal American, and stepped on more than a few toes. A biography, Kilgallen, tells a few of the tales. Today, Miss Kilgallen is best known as one of the original panelists on “Whats My Line?”
The People v Lenny Bruce (Cafe Au Go Go Trial) was tried June 16, 1964 to July 28, 1964 in New York City. The Per Curium Opinion of Judge John Murtagh sets the tone. “All three performances of the defendant, Lenny Bruce, were obscene, indecent, immoral and impure within the meaning of Section 1l40-a of the Penal Law. While no tape is available as to the first performance [past midnight, March 31-April 1], this monologue, according to the testimony, was essentially the same as that of the second [April 1, after 10:00 p.m.] and third [April 7, after 10:00 p.m.] performances. In the latter two performances, words such as “ass,” “balls,” “cock-sucker,” “cunt,” “fuck,” “mother-fucker,” “piss,” “screw,” “shit,” and “tits” were used about one hundred times in utter obscenity. The monologues also contained anecdotes and reflections that were similarly obscene.
Dorothy Kilgallen was called as an “expert witness”. In lawyerly fashion, the prosecutor claimed she was not a genuine expert. After her credentials were established, there were questions like “Will you tell us what the artistry, or the social value, or the merit, or the good is, in the Bruce story of sexual intercourse with a chicken?” After the testimony described by Mr. Hentoff, Miss Kilgallen talks about something that does offend her.
Q. I wouldn’t take much time, but we did discuss before Lenny Bruce’s use of the words ‘mother fucker’ at his audience. Can you tell me when James Jones or Norman Mailer or Arthur Miller has called his audience ‘mother fucker?’
Mr. Garbus: Your Honor, may I object? We are talking about books against monologue. It’s completely an irrelevant question.
Judge Murtagh: We will allow it. Objection overruled.
A. I can’t tell you anything verbatim from the books, because I read them a couple of years ago or more. I would imagine–this would be my best guess–that they did not call their audiences anything. There’s another book called The Naked Lunch which I couldn’t even finish reading, but it’s published, and I think the author should be in jail and he used–
Q. Unfortunately we can’t do everything at once, Miss Kilgallen. Are you judging the non-obscene quality and the artistic quality of Bruce by the fact that The Naked Lunch is a book which, as of this date, is sold in the community?
A. No, I’m not. I just mentioned it because you asked me for some books.
Q. And The Naked Lunch is a book you found impossible to read, is that correct?
A. Yes, I found it revolting.
Q. What was revolting about it?
A. Just the way it was written.
Mr.Garbus: Objection, your Honor.
Judge Murtagh: Objection overruled.
A. It seemed to use words for shock value, not for any valid reason, and I object to that.
Q. And when Lenny Bruce–I ask you to turn to the April 1st tape . . . and read the portion starting–‘tits and ass, that’s what is the attraction, is just tits and ass and tits and ass’–and goes on all through the page, and ask you if you find some shock value in that?
A. No, I don’t think it’s particularly shocking, it’s just a word.. . .
Q.. Do you, in your column, use the words tits and ass?
A. Never.
Q. You know exactly what Lenny Bruce was talking about?
A. Yes. . . . I think there he’s being critical of the monotony of what is on view in Las Vegas.
Dorothy Kilgallen died November 8, 1965. Lenny Bruce died August 3, 1966. Kilgallen biographer Lee Israel was convicted of selling forged celebrity letters. Nat Hentoff died January 7, 2017. This is a repost. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. These images are Union soldiers from the War Between the States. The spell check suggestion for Kilgallen: Millennial.
The Other Cassius Clay
At some point in the discussion, someone talked about a speech Rand Paul made in the senate. Senator typewriter talked about two Kentuckians, Henry Clay and Cassius Clay. The only Cassius Clay that PG knows is the retired boxer, known as Muhammad Ali. For a man who was uncertain whether he would vote for the cival rights act, this was a curious subject for a speech. When you can fake sincerity , you have got it made.
Regarding the Rand Paul speech (comparing Henry Clay to Cassius Clay to Rand Paul)…
1- Someone should tell our younger viewers who Cassius Clay was.
2- When Clay the younger converted to Islam, and changed his name to Muhammed Ali, didn’t he denounce his birth name as a “slave name”?
3- Someone should ask Sen. Paul if he would have voted to end slavery. This is about as relevant as asking him if he would have voted for the civil rights act.
4- With the current demonization of Islam, this is a curious line of rhetoric.
POSTSCRIPT I have looked at the speech from Sen. Paul. Apparently, it is a different Cassius Clay.
PG should have read the speech, by Sen. Paul, before he expressed his opinions. There was a Cassius Clay that was a cousin of Henry Henry Clay. While Senator Clay compromised, and kept the Union together, Cassius Clay was an abolitionist through and through. Sometimes you have to wonder which is the best course to take.
Arguably, if the war had come in 1820, the south would have won. The fact that the Union was intact until 1860 allowed the North to grow strong enough to whip the South. But, this came at the cost of forty years of slavery. And no one knew this in 1820, or 1860, or at the Constitutional Convention.
When PG was in the fourth grade (and Rand Paul in diapers), three events took place that history would remember. John Kennedy was killed. The Beatles were on the Ed Sullivan Show. Cassius Clay defeated Sonny Liston, for the World Heavyweight Championship. Mr. Clay soon revealed that he was a Black Muslim, and his new name was Muhammed Ali. He was in the spotlights, with controversy close behind, for the next fifteen years.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost. In 1970, Mr. Ali fought in Atlanta GA.
1 comment