The 2019 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest
The 2019 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest has arrived. Every year, BLFC presents examples of terrible writing. The Grand Prize winner was submitted by Maxwell Archer, Mt Pleasant, Ontario, Canada. Mr. Archer wins thoughts and prayers.
Space Fleet Commander Brad Brad sat in silence, surrounded by a slowly dissipating cloud of smoke, maintaining the same forlorn frown that had been fixed upon his face since he’d accidentally destroyed the phenomenon known as time, thirteen inches ago.
As a value added contribution to the festivities, chamblee54 compiles a list of noteworthy names. These were chosen because of their name/and or location. Appearing in order of appearance: Gwyneth Kozma, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, Ron Pizarie, Bath, PA, Bridget Parmenter, Norman, OK, Jeremy Das, Loughborough, England, Arlen Feldman, Colorado Springs, CO, Cody Hanna, Lancaster, PA, Coby J. Scott, Hollywood, CA, Saraswathy Ashok, Trivandrum, India, Harrison Glaze, Acworth, GA, Rob Greer, Queen Creek, AZ, Amy Torchinsky, Chapel Hill, NC, Greg Homer, Diamond Springs, CA, Tzipporah Harker, Baltimore, MD, Kelley Farmer, Dripping Springs, TX, Riley Kwortnik, Ithaca, NY, Evaonne F. Hendricks, Arcata, CA, Jose Beltrán Escavy, The Hague, David Meech, Auckland, New Zealand, Jim Jones, Massillon, Ohio, Krista Epton, Edmonton, Alberta, Cass Lennox, Switzerland, Everett Roberts, Washington, DC, Krista Epton, Edmonton, Alberta.
The High Gondonderil gazed on with horror as the Elgaborian legions marched at a single, pitiless pace into the once peaceful streets of Sar-Andrada, the capital city of the kingdom of Xanthil, located in a fantasy universe which might seem extremely confusing at present but which will doubtless make perfect sense to you, dear reader, once you realize that, like most fantasy universes, it’s basically just Tolkien’s Middle-earth with different names for things. Harrison Glaze, Acworth, GA This is the only Georgia resident displayed in 2019.
Emile Zola wondered the dank and soggy streets of a gloomy Parisian night, the injustice of the Dreyfus affair weighing on him like a thousand baguettes, dreaming of some massage or therapy to relieve the tension and pain in his aching shoulders and back, and then suddenly he thought of his Italian friends and their newly invented warm water bath with air jets and he rapturously exclaimed that oft misquoted declaration — “Jacuzzi!” Robert R Moore, North Falmouth, MA
Three days without food or water, archeologist Phil Thompson with his leg hopelessly trapped in a wilderness rock-fall, and with hungry buzzards circling overhead, saw his entire life pass before him and he once again experienced, as a child, his mother’s comforting words and tender touch, as she gently awakened him from his recurring nightmare of being eaten by birds. Ron Pizarie, Bath, PA
Realising that his symptoms indicated a virtually undetectable, fast acting neurotoxin, CIA coroner Quinn Abner frantically wrote up the details, lay on the floor and, as a professional courtesy, did his best to draw a chalk outline of himself. Jeremy Das, Loughborough, England
As he pounded on the door, Billy ‘Four-Toes’ Capalone, wondered, not for the first time, if he wouldn’t have been better off in the joint, or even taking a concrete nap, but instead, he straightened his tie and gripped his bible, determined not to blow his cover in the Jehovah’s Witness Protection Program. Arlen Feldman, Colorado Springs, CO
Eyes bleary from yet another night of fruitlessly staking out the Ritz Motel in West Hollywood’s seedier quarter, hoping to get some usable dirt on Mrs. Hennigan’s wayward hubby Bill, Niles Cranworth, P.I., pushed the start button, cranked the wheel over, and pointed his well-traveled Chrysler 300 southward on La Cienega Boulevard (“La Cienega,” he noted with irony, being Spanish for “the cienega”). Andrew Lundberg, Los Angeles, CA
It was a Dark & Stormy Night; the rain fell in torrents outside the Breast Western—the country-themed strip club where the exotic dance duo of Stormy and Dark rattled the house (for it was a Tuesday), and fiercely agitated the lustful flames of the patrons who struggled in the darkness to rearrange their Wranglers. Coby J. Scott, Hollywood, CA
Stephen Douglas, that’s the “Little Giant” to you, had tried everything he could think of to stop Mr. Lincoln from arriving at their senatorial debates: giving him the wrong time and place, sleeping pills disguised as Republican muffins, kidnapping, and even some light arson but the man always turned up, like a bad penny. Rob Greer, Queen Creek, AZ
The snow scattered like fair parmesan from God’s own shaker, drifting down lightly to cling to our squirming spaghetti skin beneath robes of tomato puree, making no distinction between the whole wheat and white or tagliatelle and bucatini among us. Tzipporah Harker, Baltimore, MD
Despite being a German, vegan book-cataloger from rural and upscale Connecticut, Marion was quite ignorant and overly opinionated about almost everything, except for Atlas Shrugged and atheism, which made her the embodiment of an Arian, vegetarian, ultracrepidarian-contrarian, non-sectarian, libertarian, librarian agrarian from Darien. Eric Mellinger, New York, NY
The villa in Tuscany is abandoned now, and nature, in the form of invasive vegetation, is reclaiming the small vineyard where Rodolfo and Susannah made love each afternoon, beginning with the creeping Coccinia virginiana, followed by the woody Polemonium gloriosa, and ending, of course, with the drooping Glandularia vulgaris. John Hardi, Falls Church, VA
Part two will appear later. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
How To Start A Fight
One year, I decided to buy my mother-in-law a cemetery plot as a Christmas gift… The next year, I didn’t buy her a gift. When she asked me why, I replied, “Well, you still haven’t used the gift I bought you last year!”
My wife and I were watching Who Wants To Be A Millionaire while we were in bed. I turned to her and said, ‘Do you want to have Sex?’ ‘No,’ she answered. I then said, ‘Is that your final answer?’ She didn’t even look at me this time, simply saying, ‘Yes..’ So I said, “Then I’d like to phone a friend.”
I took my wife to a restaurant. The waiter took my order first. “I’ll have the rump steak, rare, please.” “Aren’t you worried about the mad cow?” “Nah, she can order for herself.”
My wife sat down next to me as I was flipping channels. She asked, “What’s on TV?” I said, “Dust.”
My wife was hinting about what she wanted for our upcoming anniversary. She said, “I want something shiny that goes from 0 to 150 in about 3 seconds .” I bought her a bathroom scale.
My wife and I were sitting at a table at her high school reunion, and she kept staring at a drunken man swigging his drink as he sat alone at a nearby table. I asked her, “Do you know him?” “Yes”, she sighed, “He’s my old boyfriend…. I understand he took to drinking right after we split up those many years ago and I hear he hasn’t been sober since.” “My God!” I said, “Who would think a person could go on celebrating that long?”
When our lawn mower broke and wouldn’t run, my wife kept hinting to me that I should get it fixed. But, somehow I always had something else to take care of first, the shed, the boat, making beer. It was always something more important to me. Finally she thought of a clever way to make her point. When I arrived home one day, I found her seated in the tall grass, busily snipping away with a tiny pair of sewing scissors. I watched silently for a short time and then went into the house… When I came out again I handed her a toothbrush. I said, “When you finish cutting the grass, you might as well sweep the driveway.” The doctors say I will walk again, but I will always have a limp.
Saturday morning I got up early, quietly dressed, made my lunch and slipped quietly into the garage. I hooked up the boat up to the van and proceeded to back out into a torrential downpour. The wind was blowing 50 mph, so I pulled back into the garage, turned on the radio and then I discovered that the weather would be bad all day. I went back into the house, quietly undressed and slipped back into bed.. I cuddled up to my wife’s back, now with a different anticipation and whispered, “The weather out there is terrible.” My loving wife of 5 years replied, “And, can you believe my stupid husband is out fishing in that?”
After retiring, I went to the Social Security office to apply for Social Security. The woman behind the counter asked me for my driver’s License to verify my age. I looked in my pockets and realized I had left my wallet at home. I told the woman that I was very sorry, but I would have to go home and come back later. The woman said, ‘Unbutton your shirt’. So I opened my shirt revealing my curly silver hair. She said, ‘That silver hair on your chest is proof enough for me’ and she processed my Social Security application. When I got home, I excitedly told my wife. She said, ‘You should have dropped your pants. You might have gotten disability, too.’
These human interest stories are borrowed from Expressing Myself. This is a repost, with pictures from The Library of Congress. “Halloween party at Shafter Camp for migrant agricultural workers. Shafter, California.” November 1938. Photographer: Dorothea Lange.
The Gift Of Cultural Appropriation
This is a repost from 2015. There is a tasteful video on the innertubes today, WTF is Cultural Appropriation. This is not about WTF Podcast. Hopefully Marc Maron will not wear his hair in dreadlocks. The video shows a black man, jumping around in front of the camera, sharing his ideas about cultural appropriation.
Perhaps we should summarize what @the1janitor has to say. He does not give a shit what people do with their hair. (Does he gift wrap the shit when he does give it?) T1J is not concerned over whether Iggy Azalea sings rap songs. Most culture today is a mix of influences, and T1J is cool with that. This chill does not extend to a pro football team in Hyattsville MD, whose nickname rhymes with munchkins. T1J, aka Kevin Peterson, does not think that is appropriate.
T1J wears dreadlocks. Many Amerikans see this hairstyle as connected to the Rastafarians in Jamaica. T1J is not a rasta, but is not accused of any appropriative wrongdoing by wearing his hair in dreadlocks. It seems the reason for this acceptance is his African American origin.
This is similar to the situation with BHO. The half white POTUS was raised by white people in Hawaii and Indonesia. And yet, because he has dark skin, BHO is unquestioningly accepted as a black man. The POTUS uses the style of black culture that he learned as an adult. When a white fool shoots up a black church, BHO goes to a funeral, sings “Amazing Grace,” and is praised.
Many of these cultural and racial debates are very shallow. Judgements are made on outside appearances, rather than the real person under the skin. The dream of people not “judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” has turned into a nightmare of petty wrangling over white privilege and cultural appropriation.
So much for content. What caught PG’s eye was the background. There is a Crimson Tide poster on the wall, behind the speaker, that seemed familiar. PG has seen T1J before, in a video titled Why I Disagree With Morgan Freeman. T1J says we need to talk about racism, then talk some more, and then talk more after that. The word listen is not used as often.
The University of Alabama football team poster is an ironic touch. NCAA football teams are highly exploitative of young people. The young men who play work long hours for their education. Many of the football players are rushed through school, taking easy classes so they will be eligible to play. Many of these young men will suffer crippling injuries playing a contact sport. Meanwhile, these football programs are hugely profitable for the institution, especially at a football factory like the University of Alabama. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The men in the seven photographs below were members of The Tuskegee Airmen
Look At All That Money
It started Wednesday. Steve put a note on facebook that he needed a ride, from midtown to south atlanta, sometime early afternoon thursday. It had a medical sound to it. PG had been feeling the need to do a good deed, and sent a reply. After various negotiations, PG agreed to meet Steve on Howell Mill Road at 8:30am. They go back to South Atlanta when it was all over.
Thursday started at 7:40. I-85 is crowded, as usual, but moving. After several folders on the thumb drive, PG settled on Aphex Twin. This has a science fiction feel… going down an eight lane freeway, jam packed with modern vehicles, past ghastly condo projects, before you get to the megabuck medical center. Judy Jetson is a recovery nurse.
The first sign of induction into the medical machine is getting a parking ticket. The instructions were to go to level p6 of parking. The signs were small and confusing. It took a bit of searching to find p6. By this time, Steve had called from the surgery center. He had forgotten PG’s last name.
You walk into the surgery center. Steve caught a much appreciated lyft. The driver has to stay in the building all day. They can only leave the surgery waiting room after Steve goes back to be prepped. This waiting room has a tv, with the sound cut up loud. On the tv, some lady entertainer is singing, and the audience shrieks. It is not pleasant to listen to.
After a while, Steve goes back into the machine. PG goes down to the lobby, and is directed to the cafe. $2.35 later, PG walks out with a cup of coffee. The downstairs lobby is a marvel. Big, QUIET, full of the latest in medical interior design. Generous funding is invested in this facility.
The only problem is the seating area. There are two chairs on either side of a column. A small table is in front of the column. Instead of being in the center, between the two chairs, the table is off to one side. This lack of balance disturbs PG.
Soon, PG is back in the noisy waiting room. He is ushered into a prep area. Steve is in a surgery costume, with blood pressure cuff, iv drip, and other medical paraphernalia strategically positioned. Every where you look, you see $tate-of-the-art nurse toys. PG is reminded of the time when he heard a man say, regarding a field of cattle, look at all that money.
The procedure is scheduled for 10:30. For some reason, PG is sitting by Steve this whole time. It should be noted that PG and Steve are somewhere in the spectrum between friend and acquaintance. While there is mutual enjoyment of company, the two are not terribly close. The recovery instructions that PG hears are promptly forgotten. The Piedmont buddy system does have its advantages. Once, at a competing facility, PG lay alone, prepped and glasses-less, for 45 minutes. The only advantage to that was the take-home socks that are part of the surgery outfit. Steve got some Dunwoody banana yellow socks, while PG got vibrant purple.
Steve goes back into the procedure portal, and PG goes downstairs to the quiet lobby. His book for today is Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas, read in fits and starts. The other people in the lobby are scrutinized. Places to go meditate are considered, but nothing has the perfect feng shui. Soon, a call from the facility comes. PG cannot get to his phone in time to answer. Since the surgery center is just one flight up, PG goes upstairs. All the call said was that everything was going well. PG decided to stay in the noisy waiting room, but not before getting the lady to cut down the sound on the tv. By now, it is The View, with Whoopi Goldberg going Whoo Pee Doo, in technicolor and dolby sound, to the horror of The View‘s blonde of the moment.
At 12:14, PG is ushered into the Physicians Consultation room. The PC room is a marvel. Seven feet wide, seven feet long, eight feet tall. Three chairs, a lamp, a table, a land line phone, and a tasteful framed print. Walls painted JAP beige, with not a trace of dirt to be seen. PG wishes he could have spent all his waiting time in here. At 12:37 the surgeon stuck his head in the door to say all was well. At 12:43, PG was forced to leave the PC, to make room for the next friend-of-a-procedure.
The next stop was the recovery resort, which looked very similar to the prep spa. PG sat in the chair. Small talk was made, and recovery instructions read. Eventually, it was time to get the vehicle, and drive to the patient pickup spot. PG got a couple of feet out the door, and decided to go back inside to use the restroom. Coming out of somewhere, a familiar face walked by. PG knew who it was, as did the familiar face. Somehow, when you see someone unexpectedly in a medical facility, you wonder what the story is. The two made nervous small talk for a minute, and hurried on.
PG and Steve got on the freeway, still full of vehicles. The drug store was on Boulevard. After that, the route went past the prison, and down into the ninth most dangerous neighborhood in America. The patient was dropped off, goodbyes were said, and PG got back on the interstate to go back to Brookhaven. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Thursday Racial Polemic
PG was spending a productive sunday morning. He created a map to the Living Walls grafitti festival. He was in a good mood. Even this link on facebook did not bring our slack blogger down.
Out of a masochistic sense of fairness, PG took a look at the link after he finished the map. “That’s Racist Against White People!” A Discussion on Power and Privilege is the usual headache producing polemic. Here is the third paragraph.
“These are White folks who are claiming that the Obamacare tax on tanning beds is “racist” against White people. These are White folks who are claiming that affirmative action is racist against them. These are the White folks who honestly believe they suffer more racism than people of Color.”
Lets take a look at those three links. In the first, Republican Congressman Ted Yoho complained to John Boehner about what is sometimes called the “Snooki tax”. The second link, about affirmative action, is linked to a feminist blog. The money quote “Ask any White person how they feel about Affirmative Action, and you’re almost guaranteed to hear that it is “racist against White people” and that it is “unfair” or “reverse discrimination” and that they oppose it.” This article is used as a source for the comment “These are White folks who are claiming that affirmative action is racist against them.” Is it prejudice to say “ask any white person”?
The last one, about PWOC thinking they suffer more discrimination than POC, is linked to an article in a British tabloid newspaper. Somebody did a study once, and that was one of the results. The study also showed “Blacks also perceived that racism against themselves had steeply declined from 9.7 in the 1950s to 6.1 in the 90s.”
One of the main points in the Everyday Feminism post was that the word racist is often misused. PG will not argue against that. The article was posted two days before a curious tweet by Chris Brown. “N**** done 6 months community service wit police and the DA racist ass crying to the judge that I didn’t do it. Fuck the SYSTEM! “
The entertainer, who is a POC, got in trouble for publicly beating up his girlfriend. He has had problems with his community service requirement. The amusing thing about this tweet is that the “DA racist ass” is a POC.
This is a repost. Very few things needed to be changed. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. These images are Union soldiers from the War Between the States. The primary justification for that gruesome conflict was the abolition of slavery.
Coat Of Many Colors
PG saw a story, and thought about the song, “Coat of many colors”. The b side was by Porter Wagoner, “Coat of many sequins”. COMC is about a woman who is too poor to buy her little girl a coat at the store, so she makes a quilt. The other kids make fun of her, but little Dolly knows that the coat is really made of love.
The song talks about a story in the Bible. PG had heard about the story, but didn’t remember the details. He must have been daydreaming in Sunday School when that story was taught. With the help of google, Genesis 37 appears, as if by magic. Pass the popcorn.
2 These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren; and the lad was with the sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives: and Joseph brought unto his father their evil report.
3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age:
and he made him a coat of many colours.
4 And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him.
Ok, hold on for a minute. Israel had at least two wives. The Biblical definition of marriage must be between a man and two women.
The story gets a bit weird here. Joseph has this dream, where he becomes the boss hog brother. The other brothers decide something needs to be done, that Joseph needs to die. Reuben tries to help Joseph, and has a plan to save him. Joseph is stripped of the coat of many colors, and placed in a pit, with no water. Before Reuben can sneak Joseph out of the pit, a camel caravan comes by. Twenty pieces of silver change hands, and Joseph is sold into slavery. The brothers decide to pull a cover up, and make it look like Joseph was dead. Reuben made another sandwich.
31 And they took Joseph’s coat, and killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the coat in the blood;
32 And they sent the coat of many colours, and they brought it to their father; and said,
This have we found: know now whether it be thy son’s coat or no.
33 And he knew it, and said, It is my son’s coat; an evil beast hath devoured him;
Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces.
34 And Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days.
35 And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted;
and he said, For I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning. Thus his father wept for him.
This feature was originally posted in 2012. The pictures, from The Library of Congress, are 7 years older. Dolly Parton is 7 years younger.
I Am No Longer Watching
“I am no longer watching the news or reading anything political. Life is so much better this way. Oddly, that’s exactly what Germans said as they grew tired of watching Jewish peoples businesses being burned and Jewish families being carted off by train.”
This bit of commodity wisdom appeared on facebook the other day. Half baked knowledge is part of the”anything political” we encounter everyday. The best thing to do is unfollow the perp, and go on with your life. Unfortunately, PG chose to reply.
Luther Mckinnon “Do you have any documentation for this claim?” Mike Bray “i don’t know you other than i think you are perhaps a contrarian. please be careful with how you present your questions. you are setting off my alarms as a possible Holocaust denier.”
“I am no longer watching” (IANLW) takes an American 2019 perspective, and applies it to Germany Nazi Germany. It is tough to determine exactly Mr. Good German would have said this. Kristallnacht was November 1938. The Holocaust started in stages. Lots of people, including many Jews, were killed before a secret meeting December 12, 1941, where the decision was made to start mass murder. There is little doubt as to what happened next.
In today’s America, we have the internet, cable television, and other ways to spread “anything political.” Some of it is serious news, some is commentary by comedians, some is facebook foolishness. Many people see politics as a source of entertainment. People enjoy rabble rousing, and getting their neighbor fired up. Not everything political is worth watching. Much of it is overwrought opinions, masquerading as informed commentary.
In 1941 Germany, there was radio, films, and newspapers. All were under the control of the government. Who knows what the average citizen thought? There were probably some who believed what they were told. There were some who played along to stay alive. In any event, it is highly unlikely that many people said “I am no longer watching the news or reading anything political.” What else were they going to watch?
Comparisons to Nazi Germany are a popular tactic in today’s discussions. What if the IANLW meme had used a different bit of history? “Oddly, that’s exactly what Russians said as they grew tired of watching farmers being starved and soldiers being purged by Stalin?” That was a very real horror, with millions of people killed. Of course, the state was assumed to control the press. It was a police state. What difference would the opinion of one person make? 1941 Germany was probably very similar. Except today, bashing commies is obsolete.
Maybe the best thing to do is to unfollow the perp, and move on. You should stay informed. You should also know that a great deal of what you are told is lies. It is tough to tell the difference. Lots of people want to get you upset about something. They do not always have your best interests in mind. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Tiki Torch
This is a repost from 2017. There was a wild weekend in Charlottesville VA. You probably heard about it. The media… corporate, social, anti social … is not known for restraint. The click bait happy datamongers go crazy when a racial conflict emerges. Social media swarms with virtue signalling, as the insecure/insincere masses leap at the opportunity to be seen “on the right side of history.”
The tiki torch boys enjoy bad press, and see it as as proof that they are cool. People see negative reaction as an affirmation of their virtue. One example is this purple prose headline: Procter & Gamble Release an Ad About ‘the Talk,’ and White People Respond With the Wettest, Saltiest, Stupidest White Tears Ever. A soap company decides that the hardships faced by black people are a good marketing gimmick. It is assumed that some white people will not like it, and will make stupid comments on facebook. It is all part of the game.
The white people parade friday night was breathlessly reported. The alt-right children were routinely labelled nazis. The original nazis almost conquered Europe, killed twenty million Soviets, and were one of the fiercest war machines ever created. The star performer saturday flunked out of the US Army because he could not meet their standards. Why do people routinely label these obnoxious children nazis? The Germans had standards.
Let’s do a bit of speculation. What if the tiki torch parade had been ignored? Let the idiots have their parade. Surround them with law enforcement, and keep antifa away. Repeat this on Saturday. Keep the alt right far away from antifa. Have a media blackout… don’t give these clowns, both alt right and antifa, the attention that they crave. Let the counter protesters have their sign waving party. When the rally is over, James Fields will get in his Dodge Challenger and drive back to Ohio. Everyone can go back home, eat hamburgers, and be happy. White idiots will get less attention.
Which brings us to Donald Trump. The democrats made racism a campaign issue. The slimy crookedness of DJT was ignored, and replaced by screaming racist, racist. When he won, anything perceived as racist is suddenly his fault. The black people feel more alienated than before. The lingering liberals blame anything they don’t like on the bottle blonde butthead. People are blaming the tiki torch antics, of the slobbering mob, on Donald Trump. Critical thinking is called for.
America loves to talk about police brutality. The police had a slow day Saturday. Deputies shoot, kill man who lunged at them with knife, official says. A non African American, Hispanic, man, Eduardo Navarrete, was beamed out on meth. He lunged at police with a knife, with fatal results. This was the only officer involved shooting reported on Saturday.
The role played by antifa, or anti fascism, is uncertain. Apparently, they wanted to give the alt right a fight. Since this makes the alt right seem virtuous, the offer the fight was accepted. When you wrestle with a pig, you get dirty, and the hog has a good time. The alt right is taking the blame for this mess, along with DJT, the police, and, of course, racism. Antifa is getting a free ride. If antifa had not been there on saturday, the alt right would have had to fight with themselves. Maybe antifa, whoever they are, and whoever is funding them, needs to be held accountable.
This too shall pass away. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library.” The spell check suggestion for antifa is Tiffany.
The Funeral Of Elvis
This is a repost. PG was going to write about some depressing subject. People that are not kind to each other. People in Israel and people in Gaza just don’t seem to get along. Somebody driving a “faded red F-150 pickup truck” in Livonia MI was mean to a little girl. (HT to Neo Prodigy.) < Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
There is a saying, “if a story seems too bad to be true, it probably isn’t”. PG tried to google that phrase, and got confused. Then he seemed to remember reading it in a column by Molly Ivins. Another google adventure, and there was this video. Miss Ivins, who met her maker January 31, 2007, was promoting a book. She sat down with a bald headed man to talk about it. PG could only listen to 24:30 of this video before being seized with the urge to write a story. There is a transcript, which makes “borrowing” so much easier. This film has 34 minutes to go, which just might yield another story.
Molly Ivins was a Texas woman. These days there is a lot of talk about Texas, with Governor Big Hair aiming to be the next POTUS under indictment. Mr. Perry claims that his record as Texas Governor qualifies him to have his finger on the nuclear trigger. Miss Ivins repeats something that PG has heard before… “in our state we have the weak governor system, so that really not a great deal is required of the governor, not necessarily to know much or do much. And we’ve had a lot of governors who did neither. “ It makes you wonder how much of that “economic miracle” is because of hair spray.
Texas politics makes about as much sense as Georgia politics. For a lady, with a way with words, it is a gold mine. “the need you have for descriptive terms for stupid when you write about Texas politics is practically infinite. Now I’m not claiming that our state Legislature is dumber than the average state Legislature, but it tends to be dumb in such an outstanding way. It’s, again, that Texas quality of exaggeration and being slightly larger than life. And there are a fair number of people in the Texas Legislature of whom it could fairly be said, `If dumb was dirt, they would cover about an acre.’ And I’m not necessarily opposed to that. I’m–agree with an old state senator who always said that, `If you took all the fools out of the Legislature, it would not be a representative body anymore.'”
We could go through this conversation for a long time, but you probably want to skip ahead and look at pictures. There is one story in this transcript that is too good not to borrow. For some reason, Molly Ivins went to work for The New York Times, aka the gray lady. In August of 1977, she was in the right place at the right time.
Mr. LAMB: And how long did you spend with The New York Times as a reporter?
Ms. IVINS: Six years with The New York Times. Some of it in New York as a political reporter at City Hall in Albany and then later as bureau chief out in the Rocky Mountains.
Mr. LAMB: Would you take a little time and tell us about reporting on the funeral of Elvis Presley?
Ms. IVINS: Oh, now there is something that when I’ve been standing in the checkout line at the grocery store and if I really need to impress people, I just let fall that I covered Elvis’ funeral. And, boy, people just practically draw back with awe. It may yet turn out to be my greatest claim to fame.
I was sitting in The New York City Times one day when I noticed a whole no–knot of editors up around the desk having a–a great scrum of concern, you could tell. It looked sort of like an anthill that had just been stepped on. And it turns out–The New York Times has a large obituary desk, and they prepare obituaries for anybody of prominence who might croak. But it turns out–you may recall that Elvis Presley died untimely and they were completely unprepared.
Now this is an enormous news organization. They have rock music critics and classical music critics and opera critics, but they didn’t have anybody who knew about Elvis Presley’s kind of music. So they’re lookin’ across a whole acre of reporters, and you could see them decide, `Ah-ha, Ivins. She talks funny. She’ll know about Mr. Presley.’
So I wound up writing Elvis’ obituary for The New York Times. I had to refer to him throughout as Mr. Presley. It was agonizing. That’s the style at The New York Times–Mr. Presley. Give me a break. And the next day they sold more newspapers than they did after John Kennedy was assassinated, so that even the editors of The New York Times, who had not quite, you know, been culturally aton–tuned to Elvis, decided that we should send someone to report on the funeral. And I drew that assignment. What a scene it was.
Mr. LAMB: You–you say in the book that you got in the cab and you said, `Take me to Graceland.’ The cabbie peels out of the airport doing 80 and then turns full around to the backseat and drawls, `Ain’t it a shame Elvis had to die while the Shriners are in town?’
Ms. IVINS: That’s exactly what he said. `Shame Elvis had to die while the Shriners are in town.’ And I kind of raised by eyebrows. And sure enough, I realized what he–what he meant after I had been there for awhile because, you know, Shriners in convention–I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a whole lot of Shriners in convention, but they were having a huge national convention that very week in Memphis. And they tend to wear their little red fezzes, and sometimes they drink too much and they march around the hotel hallways tooting on New Year’s Eve horns and riding those funny little tricycles and generally cutting up and having a good time. That’s your Shriners in convention, always something very edifying and enjoyable to watch. But they–every–every hotel room in Memphis was occupied with celebrating Shriners, and then Elvis dies and all these tens of thousands of grieving, hysterical Elvis Presley fans descend on the town.
So you got a whole bunch of sobbing, hysterical Elvis fans, you got a whole bunch of cavorting Shriners. And on top of that they were holding a cheerleading camp. And the cheerleading camp–I don’t know if your memory–with the ethos of the cheerleading camp, but the deal is that every school sends its team–team of cheerleaders to cheerleading camp.
And your effort there at the camp is to win the spirit stick, which looks, to the uninitiated eye, a whole lot like a broom handle painted red, white and blue. But it is the spirit stick. And should your team win it for three days running, you get to keep it. But that has never happened. And the way you earn the spirit stick is you show most spirit. You cheer for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You cheer when the pizza man brings the pizza. You do handsprings end over end down the hallway to the bathroom. I tell you, those young people will throw–show an amount of spirit that would just astonish you in an effort to win that stick.
So here I was for an entire week, dealing with these three groups of people: the young cheerleaders trying to win the spirit stick, the cavorting Shriners and the grieving, hysterical Elvis fans. And I want to assure you that The New York Times is not the kind of newspaper that will let you write about that kind of rich human comedy.
Mr. LAMB: Why?
Ms. IVINS: Because The New York Times, at least in my day, was a very stuffy, pompous newspaper.
Mr. LAMB: What about today?
Ms. IVINS: A little bit better, little bit better than it was.
Mr. LAMB: And…
Ms. IVINS: Has–has–it has a tendency, recidivist tendencies, though. You–you will notice if you read The Times, it–it collapses into pomposity and stuffiness with some regularity.
Mr. LAMB: Why did you leave it?
Ms. IVINS: Well, I–I actually got into trouble at The New York City Times for describing a community chu–chicken killing out West as a gang pluck. Abe Rosenthal was then the editor of the Times and he was not amused.
Mr. LAMB: Did–but did they let it go? Did they let it…
Ms. IVINS: Oh, no. It never made it in the paper. Good heavens, no. Such a thing would never get in The Times in my day.
POSTSCRIPT PG found some pictures, marked up the text, and was ready to post the story. He decided to listen to a bit more of the discussion between Molly Ivins and the bald headed man. When he got to this point, it became apparent that he could listen to Molly Ivins talk, or he could post his story, but he could not do both at the same time.
Ms. IVINS: Oh, well, of course, I’m gonna make fun of it. I mean, Berkeley, California, if you are from Texas, is just hilarious.
Mr. LAMB: Why?
Ms. IVINS: Well, of course, it is just the absolute center of liberalism and political correctness. And it is a veritable hotbed of people, of–bless their hearts, who all think alike, in a liberal way. And, of course, I’m sometimes called a liberal myself, and you would think I would have felt right at home there. But I just am so used to–I’m so used to Texas that I found the culture at Berkeley hysterical.
The Whitman To Ginsberg Express
“… I’ve slept with Neal Cassady who slept with Gavin Arthur who slept with Edward Carpenter who described sleeping with Whitman to Gavin Arthur. [The “Gay Succession”]” Allen Ginsberg was fond of his place in a line of gay succession.
A 1974 interview makes the same point about Whitman-Carpenter-Arthur, but does not mention Cassady-Ginsberg. Could anyone be telling stories? The Carpenter-Arthur connection happened in 1924, but is described in wonderful detail by Mr. Arthur in 1967. There are few details about the Arthur-Cassady link in the chain. As a BBC interviewer said to Mr. Ginsberg in 1994 “Both Bob Dylan and Jack Kerouac, I think, described you as a “con-man extraordinaire”. What did they mean?” AG: “Oh, maybe they were projecting their own goofiness on me.”
“Edward Carpenter (1844-1929) was a writer and gay mystic and lived in England all his life. Although ordained an Anglican priest in 1869 he soon renounced religion and became a Fabian socialist. Among his works on social reform is Towards Democracy (1883-1902), a long, un- rhymed poem revealing the influence of his friend Walt Whitman. He edited the first gay literary collection, Iolaus: An Anthology of Friendship”
Mr. Carpenter exchanged letters with Mr. Whitman. “Although Whitman was not a socialist, his writing had a profound effect on Carpenter, who made the long trip to America primarily as a pilgrimage to his literary and spiritual inspiration. He visited the poet for several weeks in 1877 and again in 1884. In 1906 he published an account of his visits to America, Days with Walt Whitman, writing a respectful, even somewhat glorified, portrait of his idol.”
“It was not until the 1966 publication of a memoir by Gavin Arthur entitled The Circle Of Sex that the intimate details of Carpenter’s visits were revealed. Arthur slept in bed with Carpenter … leaving us with our only description of Whitman’s sexual behavior, an area otherwise shrouded in mystery and controversy.” In later years, we learned that Mr. Whitman possibly spent a happy afternoon with Oscar Wilde. Mr. Whitman was also fond of cruising the Brooklyn Waterfront.
Gavin Arthur (born Chester Alan Arthur III; March 21, 1901 – April 28, 1972) is a key link in this chain. As often noted, he was the grandson of Chester Arthur. The elder Mr. Arthur was elected Vice President in 1880, and promoted after the death of James Garfield.
The younger Mr. Arthur was a piece of work. In the early 1920’s, Mr. Arthur dropped out of Columbia, got married, and moved to Ireland. Mr. Arthur somehow got to meet his idol, Edward Carpenter. At the time of this meeting, Mr. Arthur was 23, and Mr. Carpenter was 80.
THE GAY SUCCESSION “… is a document given me by Gavin Arthur in 1967.” The story goes into extravagant detail about the meeting between Mr. Arthur and Mr. Carpenter. One wonders how the elderly Mr. Arthur remembers all this 43 years later.
EC – “No, Walt was ambigenic,” he said. “His contact with women was far less than his contact with men. But he did engender several children and his greatest female contact was that Creole in New Orleans. I don’t think he ever loved any of them as much as he loved Peter Doyle.”
GA – “I suppose you slept with him?” I blurted out half scared to ask.”
EC – “Oh yes–once in a while–he regarded it as the best way to get together with another man. He thought that people should ‘know’ each other on the physical and emotional plane as well as the mental. … the best part of comrade love was that there was no limit to the number of comrades”
GA – “How did he make love?” I forced myself to ask.”
EC – “I will show you,” he smiled. “Let us go to bed.”
Mr. Arthur spares few details in what happens next.
Chester III renamed himself Gavin. After losing the financial support of his family, Mr. Arthur moved to San Francisco. For a while, he sold newspapers on the street. “And he delved deep into both astrology and sexology. Gavin took his star charts very seriously: When one self-administered reading told him he was heading to prison soon, he immediately drove to San Quentin and took a job as a teacher, the better to prevent going in as an inmate.”
“By the 1960s, Gavin Arthur had become a well-known and respected astrologer. In 1966, some Bay Area activists, cultural and political, began to plan a transformative event. They wanted to unite the cultural radicals of the Haight, and the political radicals of Berkeley. Those plans led to the Human Be-In. In order to have maximum astrological impact, its organizers asked Arthur to determine the most auspicious date. Arthur determined that January 14, 1967, would have the greatest impact.”
“I had a flashback to the time I spent with Ginsberg in Cambridge, MA, in 1982, when he told me that I was part of an erotic lineage that connected me to Whitman … a quick Google search identifies Arthur as ”a certain astrologer and San Francisco character, Gavin Arthur … gave lectures at San Quentin while Neal was a prisoner.” Another entry reports that he studied astrology with Ronald Reagan before Reagan started his political career.”
“In 1958, he (Neal Cassady) was arrested after being caught using marijuana at a San Francisco nightclub. He was sentenced for two years at San Quentin State Prison.” This was when Mr. Arthur was teaching at San Quentin. Mr. Cassady mentions him in two letters to his wife Carolyn. (For those who just got here, Neal Cassady was the model for Dean Moriarty in On The Road. Mr. Cassady also drove the bus “Further,” for the Merry Pranksters.)
August 13, 1959 from San Quentin to Carolyn Cassady “Last Saturday, “Uncle Gavin” Arthur, grandson of our twenty-first President who, Republican though he was, could hardly have been more conservative than is Gain underneath all his Occult Astrology, failed to show (again, for the third time in six weeks) to teach our class in Comparative Religion and Philosophy, about three dozen regularly in attendance, on account of a death in his group at the Global House, which he bought by selling papers on Market Street for ten years; so again it was my pleasurable duty to instruct the boys in Cayce-hood [Edgar Cayce]”
Septetmber 22 1959 from San Quentin to Carolyn Cassady “Uncle” worry-wart [Gavin Arthur] missed showing up for the class again last week and I hear, probably unfounded, rumors that it is to be discontinued, too bad if true, because it was fun to hear the old geezer expound, without at all remembering he had, on the very same things week after week. I mean his examples, and their wording were always so alike one could not only anticipate, but, with any memory at all, give in advance the exact sentence he would be about to pronounce: it was sort of a game.” Eight years later, the “old geezer” described a 1924 tryst in clinical detail.
San Quentin broke Neal Cassady. The railroad would not take him back, and Carolyn divorced him. “He, however, felt now he had utterly failed in his mission, and he knew he could never go back. He died inside; only his body survived. This he did his best to destroy. He no longer believed in suicide, but he did all he could to be killed. … He told me he swallowed handfuls of pills anyone offered, even not knowing what they were. Is this not an obvious death-wish? He admitted it was.”
During this down and out time of his life, Neal Cassady apparently connected with Gavin Arthur. In a 1974 radio interview, Allen Ginsberg recalls “That was already the ’60’s, but there was that atmosphere back in San Francisco, around Gavin Arthur, particularly. Arthur was a great friend of Neal Cassady, slept with him all the time, or whenever Neal had nowhere to go he’d wind up in Gavin’s house, sort of falling asleep, exhausted, in his bed.”
The Neal Cassady to Allen Ginsberg connection is well documented.
“A second, serendipitous event further spurred (Joey) Cain’s interest in researching Gavin Arthur. Cain found a used copy of Carpenter’s “Towards Democracy” in a used bookstore for $3.00. It had a lot of writing in it. Cain noticed the following lament among the notes in the book, “This is one of my Bibles, please return. This volume is the third I have had to buy, people being so dishonest about books.” Then he looked below and saw Gavin Arthur’s signature and address. The writing belonged to Arthur. The book in his hand had once belonged to Gavin Arthur. He went up to the cashier who said, “It’s a shame about all this writing in it.” Cain replied, “Let me pay for it first, and then I’ll tell you about this writing.” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Nappy Hair Where?
This is a repost from 2011. A link about white privilege now directs to The Story Behind ‘Alice’s Restaurant’ – the 50-Year-Old Song that Is Forever Young. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
PG was reading facebook, minding his own business, when he saw something that made his head explode. It started with a post with the splashy title White Liberals Have White Privilege Too! . There is something about online discussions about white privilege that make well meaning people want to type a lot of words into little boxes on the monitor. PG usually avoids such a conversation, as if it were an amway pitch, but made an exception this fateful afternoon.
The seminal article was written in 2007, and mentioned the media controversy of the day. It seemed as though Joe Biden said “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy … I mean, that’s a storybook, man.” Mr. Biden is currently the Vice President, serving under the FMAA.
There was a link to a bit of archaic html called ” Black People Love Us!, which tells the story of Sally and Johnny… “We are well-liked by Black people so we’re psyched (since lots of Black people don’t like lots of White people)!! We thought it’d be cool to honor our exceptional status with a ROCKIN’ domain name and a killer website!!” The fun starts when a facebook paster quoted a letter to BPLU.
“I swear, if one more white person says that they want to touch my hair, I am gonna puck a f*ckin mousetrap in it so their f*ckin hand gets caught in it. anyways… GET WITH THE PROGRAM! Have any of you ever heard of sarcasm? Irony? Satires? Canterbury Tales? Shakespeare’s “As You Like it” and “Much Ado About Nothing?” If some of you would actually get your heads out of your asses for one second and read a f*cking book or get educated, you will see that this website is NOT trying to break down PEOPLE, but break down BARRIERS and erase STEREOTYPES…With much love for Sally and Johnny… A Black University of Michigan Student with nappy-ass hair”.
The resulting visual ruined the day for PG. BUMS should keep their pants on, and not burden the world with the sight of nappy hair on their posterior. The same thing goes for any asian, latino, caucasian, native american, or zorlack with this problem.
PG was recently reading a list of rules for writing. He began to think of a few. A wordpad was opened, and before long 18 suggestions appeared. Many are only marginally about writing.
When you publish a list like this, you are placing a target on your back, with the word hypocrite written above. PG does not claim to take all these suggestions all the time. What follows is a goal to work for, not a script for a situation comedy.
When in doubt, shut up.
A halo is best worn over one ear.
If you want to be forgiven, forgive. If you want to be understood, understand.
There are few situations that cannot be made worse with anger and loud talk.
You have two ears and one mouth. Listen twice as much as you talk.
A douche is a hygiene appliance. The verb form refers to using this device, for cleaning purposes. Neither the noun nor the verb is appropriate for use as an insult.
A sentence has one period, placed at the end. Do not place a period after every word to make a point. You should find another way to show emphasis.
Not everyone enjoys the sound of your voice as much as you do.
Do not place “ass” between and adjective and the object. “Ass” is a noun that refers to either a donkey or a butt. An adverb is used to modify an adjective, and is placed before the adjective. Using “ass” as a misplaced adverb is improper. This applies to “a$$”as well.
Before you “call out” somebody for “racism”, drape a towel over your mirror.
The third commandment says to not use the word G-d “in vain”. The G word should only be used for worship and respectful discussion. Improper uses include expressing anger, swearing to, selling life insurance, and pledging allegiance to a nationalist symbol.
Dr. Jordan Peterson Triple Feature
Dr Jordan B Peterson is a smidgin less popular now than a year ago. He chose to stay on the road, and make the mo$t out of his fifteen minutes. There was a pay-per-view smackdown with Slavoj Žižek, with Dr. displayed prominently in front of JP, in case anyone forgot about the PhD. The republic survived, a year older and a trillion dollars deeper in debt. This saturday morning features a Dr. P triple feature. The posts are Jordan Peterson, Prager University AKA PU, and Dr. McWhorter Vs Dr. Peterson. Pictures, as noted elsewhere, are from The Library of Congress.
Jordan Bernt Peterson has become quite the public nuisance recently. He performed at a theater downtown Tuesday night. I did not attend. YouTube has a video of a show he did Saturday night, in San Francisco. (The video is no longer available.) It is probably similar to the Atlanta show. The performance is loosely based on the book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos.
This report is starting at forty minutes in. JBP is 3 rules into his show, out of 12. JBP says that you should only be around people who support you as a human being. This does not account for instances where you have to be around jerks to keep your job, or because they are in your family. Some of these rules for living are going to be easy to pay lip service to, but tough to actually follow. But, if you are attending the JBP show because you want to make a better person out of yourself… as JBP flatters his followers by saying … then a few inconsistencies are going to be easy to explain away. If nothing else, you just make jokes about the left, which also helps make you a better person.
JBP was talking about the advantages of having a regular sleep schedule, which has never been an issue for me. Meanwhile, I was googling to see what the B stood for. When you type in Jordan Peterson to google, the first thing to come up is sophistry. This is a word a lot of people use to describe this act. Another is “the stupid person’s smart person.” JBP is an example of what Marshall McLuhan meant when he said the medium is the message. A painfully learned man, speaking to you, in polysyllabic bursts, is teaching you how to be a better person. The specific things that he says are beside the point. BTW, the B stands for Bernt, like toast. JBP was born in 1962, in Edmonton, Ontario. He is as Canadian as Hockey, and driving to Florida on I75. June 12 is his birthday.
At 57 minutes, JBP is talking about sleeping, and eating. “What stupid things am I doing that is making my life wretched?” I am tempted to say it is listening to this video, and to motivational speakers in general. However, if I did this, I could not complete this report. I would have to talk about how DJT is screwing up the world, with the profitable assistance of the Democratic party. I could blather about racism. I could look at facebook, and see why my neighbor’s knickers are in a twist. Maybe JBP isn’t so bad after all.
@ggreenwald “Beyond the fact that she treats her audience like 8-year-olds – repeating the same banal points 5 times in increasingly dramatic fashion to make sure they retain it & believe it’s earth-shattering – she’s now the most militaristic, and the most conspiratorial, commentator on TV:” Does it really matter which blow dried talking head this is? The medium is the message. One rule of public speaking is to treat children as though they were adults, and adults as though they were children. It doesn’t matter what the suit on the stage is saying. He is talking, you are sitting quietly in your chair, hopefully your phone is in your pocket, maybe having naughty fun with the vibrate mode, and this is all going to make you a better person.
The next rule is to not let your children do anything that will make other people not like them. This is very, very important, and must be done by the age of four. JBP does not offer many specific tactics for this battle, but spends a lot of time talking about the overall strategy. It should be noted at this point that some people will say that I don’t understand what JBP is saying. This may be true. Or, it could be that I understand it too well. This is true of all criticism. If you say something negative about a leader, to a follower, the follower will say that you don’t understand the message. Maybe the medium is the problem. If the medium were well done, things would taste better.
Rule six is to put your house in order before you criticize the world. Physician heal thyself. On the surface, this is a good rule. Hypocrisy is always a handy argument when someone is generous with their opinions. In a do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do world, rule six will get a lot of praise. What blather will JBP illustrate this point with? One might be to save your document, before going back to listening. The redo post is never as good as the one that was lost because you forgot to save your work.
Save is a curious word to use at this point. As you quickly learn, JBP gives you a rule, and then says *stuff*… lots and lots of it … that has little to do with that rule. When the message was paused at 1:22, JBP was talking about creating heaven, and avoiding hell. If you don’t believe hell is real, then you are not paying attention. This is very different from the Christian message about hell, and how Jesus died on the cross… Maybe, hell is sitting in an uncomfortable chair, in a crowded tabernacle, listening to a well paid performer make a better person out of you. At least with YouTube you can pause whenever you need more coffee, or to excrete the coffee already consumed.
Rule eight is not to lie. This is similar to the ninth commandment, and just as liberally interpreted. When the wonder box was paused in self defense at 1:34:01, JBP was railing about the arrogance of using the language to deceive people. There are lots of pithy sentences strewn throughout this monologue, which, as we speak, are already appearing in facebook memes.
At 1:40, JBP says “thats all I have to say about that,” and leaves the stage. The emcee, possibly Dave Rubin, comes on, and tells people to think about what they have heard for the last TWO HOURS. This is after 100 minutes, the first ten minutes being the introduction. Maybe the truth telling rule does not apply here. “And think about what was on CNN for the last two hours… aplause and laughter … Wolf Blitzer talking about porn stars. We’re winning. ” The Atlanta show was less than a quarter mile away from CNN headquarters.
The next part of the show is Q&A. @RubinReport sits in one comfy chair, @jordanbpeterson sits in the other. We interrupt our regularly scheduled snark to bring you a pro JBP comment David Joshua Rubin, the sidekick of the Atlanta and San Francisco shows, tweeted this today: @RubinReport Hi, I’m Dave. I’m married to a dude and I eat chicken sandwiches whenever I want.” DJR is a gay Jew, and is matter of fact about both. We are into another level of gay assimilation, where an Intellectual Dark Web® member can be casually queer. The JBP show, whatever its shortcomings, seems to be free of anti-gay nonsense. Some radicals will not approve of the CFA eating assimilation. We now return to your regularly scheduled snark.
During the Q&A, JBP got onto Bill Maher, and the gratuitous, over the top, Trump bashing that went on back stage. JBP thought it was boring and stupid, and, for once, I agree. People are getting tired of the non-stop Trump hating, and it is creating a backlash. Actually, a lot of what JBP says is worthwhile, but you have to wonder how many of his followers actually do tell the truth. Maybe, with 10 minutes to go in the video, this is a good time to wrap up this report. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee was the photographer. The location was Texas, in February 1939. The spell check suggestions for JBP are JAP and BP.
It was a peaceful sunday morning. Being home churched has advantages. PG made the choice to listen to a video by Uncle Hotep. The video was about an article at the root, 10 Things I Already Know About You if You’re Listening to Nas’ New Album Nasir. Item 3: “You believe that interracial relationships produce a better grade of black hair.” PG had never heard of Nas’, and asked Mr. Google to direct him to a video. After 16 seconds, the artist used the n-word. Good times.
Dangerous People Are Teaching Your Kids is a video by Prager University, starring Jordan B. Peterson. The pregame video for UH promotes this product. PG called on Mr. Google to direct him to the PU site. One of the results was an article, Free speech champion Jordan Peterson threatens to sue professor over Twitter name calling. This is not satire. While the offending tweet is deleted, the apology is up. @THEWRENCHLEFT AS PER THREAT TO SUE FOR LIBEL, I HEREBY APOLOGIZE TO JORDAN PETERSON FOR REFERRING TO HIM AS AN INVOLUNTARY CELIBATE (INCEL), A MISOGYNIST, A COMMITTED WHITE NATIONALIST, AND SOMEONE WHO HAS DESCENDED INTO RANK BIGOTRY. The Daily Caller presents the other side of the story, Pro-Flag-Burning Prof Calls Child-Having Jordan Peterson A ‘White Nationalist’ ‘Incel’.
Incel (a portmanteau of “involuntary celibates”) is a word that has become popular recently. Popular is not a word frequently associated with incels. The Urban Dictionary defines incel as “A sexist sack of shit who thinks all women owe him sex.” The spell check suggestion for incel is Celine.
Whatever his other shortcomings, JBP has 2 grown children. He had sex twenty something years ago, so he is not an incel. Unfortunately, JBP made a video for PU. Since this show has a transcript, it will be easy to criticize. The lecture style of JBP involves throwing lots of big words at you in rapid fire succession, so you don’t have time to think. With a tranny transcript, you have the luxury of hitting pause, and spreading snark.
PG has been out of the classroom for a while, so there may be trends in higher education that he missed out on. However, is it really true that “It’s now possible to complete an English degree and never encounter Shakespeare—one of those dead white males whose works underlie our “society of oppression.””? JBP does not say which institution offers such a degree. A google search turns this up, Yale ‘decolonizes’ English dept. “Previous requirements for the major included two courses in “Major English Poets,” including Chaucer, Shakespeare, Donne, Milton and Eliot, among others. But that two-course series petitioners had deemed actively harmful due to its focus on white male poets. The series is no longer a graduation requirement for Yale’s English majors.” No longer a graduation requirement” is not the same as “never encounter.
“You’re underwriting this gang of nihilists. You’re supporting ideologues who claim that all truth is subjective …” There is a difference between not requiring a course in a subject, and saying that a graduate will “never encounter” that subject. JBP was lying when he made that statement. This is an example of truth being relative.
“Their world is instead a Hobbesian nightmare of identity groups warring for power.” You should give JBP (or his ghostwriter) credit for knowing how to turn a phrase. It should be noted that JBP is not completely wrong. “They don’t see ideas that run contrary to their ideology as simply incorrect. They see them as integral to the oppressive system they wish to supplant, and consider it a moral obligation to stifle and constrain their expression.” Social Justice Jihad does have a collateral damage problem. It is a handy target for strawman jousting jerkoffs.
“Second is rejection of the free market … Meanwhile, in once-prosperous Venezuela—until recently the poster-child of the campus radicals—the middle class lines up for toilet paper.” Holy strawman, Batman. While some “campus radicals” may be Marxist, that is far from a requirement for Social Justice Jihad. This *free market* rhetoric will play well with the conservatives who make up the bulk of PU listeners. Also, has anyone seen any posters praising the revolution in Venezuela? Maybe they are kept in the same library as the Shakespeare shredders.
“Post-modernists don’t believe in individuals. You’re an exemplar of your race, sex, or sexual preference. You’re also either a victim or an oppressor. No wrong can be done by anyone in the former group, and no good by the latter.” Here again, identity politics can be yucky, but good grief, does anyone really believe this?
The video only lasts 5:02. Staying within the attention span of your target audience is a good idea. In the last part of the message, the naughty professors are labeled as communists. The evils of this tacky ideology are fervently denounced. Does anyone notice what has happened in the Soviet Union? The former KGB dudes changed their colors. Russia is a post-Marxist kleptocracy today. Their leadership is buddy buddy with Donald J. Trump. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. .
“Jordan Peterson Questioned By Linguist John McWhorter on Pronoun Stance” is the video that started it all. Dr. Jordan Bernt Peterson, aka “The stupid person’s smart person,” was appearing at the Aspen Ideas Festival. During the Q&A, he was queried by Dr. John Hamilton McWhorter V, who is one of “the Black guys on Bloggingheads TV”. The moderator was Bari Weiss, the namer of the Intellectual Dark Web. PG posted the video link to a *radical community* facebook page, with the note “This is a thoughtful conversation about gender and pronouns.” Some were not amused.
In the video, JHM asks JBP “I teach trans students. And I’m asked often to call people singularly they. It started probably about four years ago. It struck me as very odd. I’m 52. And some of them you can tell that it’s coming from a very deep place. That’s how they feel, and they deeply need to be called they. Some of them, my horse sense says, that they’re kind of enjoying giving me a certain shock, and there’s a certain theatrical element. That’s my horse sense … my general feeling has been that whatever they ask I just go with it, and let’s change the usage of the pronouns because we have a lot to do. … You said that how you make the difference in deciding these cases is that you have psychological training, and you can tell. What I want to know is, for my own elucidation and also because many of us wondered but then it kind of went by: How do you know?”
JBP replied. “Well, first of all I wouldn’t know … I would be willing to do that despite the fact that I might be wrong. Having said that, in any reasonable situation I would err on the side of addressing the person in the manner in which they want to be addressed. But that’s not the issue for me. The issue is that now I’m compelled by law to do so. It’s like: No, not doing it. Not now, because it’s compelled by law, so that’s the end of the game so far as I’m concerned. There’s no excuse for compelling it by law. I don’t think it was an isolated legislative move. I think it was part and parcel of a whole series of legislative moves that have been made. I think it’s an attempt by a certain radical ideology to get the linguistic upper hand, which I think is a terrible thing to do…. ”
Bill C-16 was a proposal in the Canadien Parliament. It would, essentially, extend Civil Rights protection to Gender Identity issues. The bill was passed by Parliament, and is now law. JBP gained some fame, and notoriety, with his opposition to C16.
One issue in this video is whether, or not, the use of non-preferred pronouns is against the law. According to Brenda Cossman, a professor of law at the University of Toronto, Peterson is “fundamentally mischaracterizing” Bill C-16. “I don’t know if he’s misunderstanding it, but he’s mischaracterizing it,” Cossman says. … Cossman says it seems Peterson is trying to argue that the misuse of pronouns could constitute hate speech. “I don’t think there’s any legal expert that would say that [this] would meet the threshold for hate speech in Canada,” she says. Our courts have a very high threshold for what kind of comments actually constitutes hate speech, and the nature of speech would have to be much more extreme than simply pronoun misuse, according to Cossman.”
During the Facebook conversation, PG made this comment: ” I agree with Dr. McWhorter that, as a matter of respect, you should call someone by their preferred pronoun. I may have doubts about their sincerity, but I will call them what they want to be called. … I am not familiar with the C-16 struggle. Apparently, there was some Canadien legislation regarding these issues. While I don’t have a problem calling someone they, I really don’t see this as an appropriate issue for legal action. That may not be what the proposed law said, and I don’t want to research it now. However, if C-16 mandated singular they, then I would agree with Dr. Peterson…. which might be the only time I ever agree with him.” Now it appears that this notion … that the law requires the use of singular they … is a creation of JBP’s overheated imagination.
The video linked above does not include a section of the discussion preceding the question by JHM. This exchange changes the character of the conversation between JBP and JHM. PG did not know about this previous exchange when he posted his ill fated comment on facebook. Here is the exchange, between BW and JBP.
BW: “You are often characterized, at least in the mainstream press, as being transphobic. If you had a student come to you and say, I was born female, I now identify as male, I want you to call me by male pronouns. Would you say yes to that?” JBP: “Well, it would depend on the student and the context and why I thought they were asking me and what I believe their demand actually characterized, and all of that. Because that can be done in a way that is genuine and acceptable, and a way that is manipulative and unacceptable. And if it was genuine and acceptable then I would have no problem with it. And if it was manipulative and unacceptable then not a chance.”
JBP said one thing first…. that he would call a student *they* if it was “genuine and acceptable.” After the questions by JHM, the focus became whether, or not, the law was requiring the usage of non-binary pronouns. This is not the first time that JBP has been too slick for his own good.
Was the question by JHM sincere, or was he trolling JBP? JHM was clearly playing with JBP. “Are you saying that psychological theory has nothing to teach us about this? Because you’re talking around my question. You’re gorgeously articulate. You’re smarter than me. Does psychology have anything to teach us or not? Yes or no?
It is tough to say. It may have been a combination of sincerity and rhetoric. Whatever the motivation there, the question struck a nerve with PG. It is easier to just be careful, use the preferred pronouns, and keep your concerns to yourself. Trans issues are a part of modern life. You don’t have to understand everything.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The quotes are from a transcript published in this artice, Jordan Peterson Comes to Aspen.
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