Chamblee54

Joe Rogan Experience #1158 – Chuck Palahniuk hit the internet recently. Mr. Palahniuk (Paula Neek) writes trendy books, most famously Fight Club. Mr. Palahniuk is pleased to hear people say “the first rule of…” It makes him think he has had an impact on the culture.
Inevitably, authors talk about their writing habits. Mr. Palahniuk fills up notebooks in longhand. When he gets bored, or is killing time in an airport, he begins to type these notes. To quote Truman Capote, this is not writing, this is typing.
One of the themes of this conversation is what offends people. The author of Guts knows about giving offense. Often, people are not especially offended themselves, but are offended on behalf of other people. Mr. Palahniuk uses the phrase “white knighting,” to describe this protective umbrage taking. Per urban dictionary: “White knighting Defending someone who does not wish to be defended.” White knighting is woke whitesplaining.
Two especially tasteful stories were told. If you are inclined to get offended, for any reason at all, you probably should skip over these two stories. The pictures, by The Library of Congress, are safe. Both of these stories are by well known authors, who are named in the interview. If you want to know who they are, you will have to listen to the interview. Once again, these stories are hard core, and you should take great caution in reading them. If you like these stories, there are more in the podcast.
Upon further consideration, it has been determined that one of the stories is too much. If you want to hear it, you can listen to the podcast. … The break room at a hospital was next to the room where autopsies were performed, with a glass window looking in. A twelve year old boy was on the slab, having died in a bicycle accident. The Pathologist cut away the boy’s face, and peeled it back, so that it hung over his jaw. This exposed a dark red layer of muscle, covering the face. The man looked at this, and said “that’s the color I want to paint my den.”
Mr. Palahniuk has had a lively career. A crooked business manager stole a great deal of money from him. Since he is no longer filthy rich, but merely filthy minded, he continues to produce books. Fight Club 3 is in the pipeline. It will probably be accompanied by a promotional tour, with more grossout stories for the clamoring public.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Paul Carter, 1903-1938, photographer Date Created/Published: Sept. 1936 Untitled photo, possibly related to: Negro workers on Newport News Homesteads, Virginia Untitled photo, possibly related to: Negroes on a picnic, Newport News, Virginia Lunch hour at Newport News Homesteads, Virginia

Someone had an idea for a book. The result is Atheist Mind, Humanist Heart: Rewriting the Ten Commandments for the Twenty-first Century. The method was modern. Instead of waiting for a grumpy deity to send down tablets of stone, some academics sent a box of suggestions to a committee. committee. Here are the chosen “non-commandments.”
01– Be open-minded and be willing to alter your beliefs with new evidence.
02– Strive to understand what is most likely to be true, not to believe what you wish to be true.
03– The scientific method is the most reliable way of understanding the natural world.
04– Every person has the right to control over their body.
05– God is not necessary to be a good person or to live a full and meaningful life.
06– Be mindful of the consequences of all your actions,
and recognize that you must take responsibility for them.
07– Treat others as you would want them to treat you,
and can reasonably expect them to want to be treated. Think about their perspective.
08– We have the responsibility to consider others, including future generations.
09– There is no one right way to live.
10– Leave the world a better place than you found it.
You have to give credit for trying. It might sell a few books. The non-commandments don’t have the benefit of translation by a poetry minded Englishmen. They have a stodgy feel. It is not likely that anyone will file a lawsuit over a stone rendering of these thoughts.
The popular commandments are found in Exodus 20: 3 – 17. They are considered core beliefs of a religion that values belief over practice. In other words, just believe something, and don’t worry about what you do. There is also Exodus 20: 23. Ye shall not make with me G-ds of silver, neither shall ye make unto you G-ds of gold. This would seem to be worthy of inclusion in the big time ten. It might interfere with the capitalist free market economy, but you can always say you believe it.
When your religion is claimed by a majority of your neighbors, you enjoy #ChristianPrivilege. You can even whine about #WhitePrivilege, while enjoying the benefits of #ChristianPrivilege. One day, the pound sign will go back to meaning number, and the #hashtag will be mercifully forgotten, along with the Ten Non-Commandments.
If you get past the religious whoopeedo, the Ten Commandments hold up as good rules for living. The fact that the self anointed religious people routinely violate many of these fine rules should not be taken into consideration. They believe in the commandments, and can, loudly, explain why their actions are not a problem. After a while, PG just wants freedom from religion.
Part two is a repost. After Exodus 20, there are ten thoughts about the Ten Commandments.

1 And G-d spake all these words, saying,
2 I [am] the LORD thy G-d, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt,
out of the house of bondage.
3 Thou shalt have no other G-ds before me.
4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness [of any thing] that [is] in heaven above, or that [is] in the earth beneath, or that [is] in the water under the earth:
5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy G-d [am] a jealous G-d, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children
unto the third and fourth [generation] of them that hate me;
6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. 7 Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy G-d in vain;
for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
10 But the seventh day [is] the sabbath of the LORD thy G-d: [in it] thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that [is] within thy gates:
11 For [in] six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them [is], and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
12 Honour thy father and thy mother:
that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy G-d giveth thee.
13 Thou shalt not kill.
14 Thou shalt not commit adultery.
15 Thou shalt not steal.
16 Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
17 Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that [is] thy neighbour’s.
A The ten commandos are not meant to be believed. They are meant to be practiced.
B If you take away the religious whoopdeedoo,
the ten commandos hold up as common sense rules for living.
C If you ever meet someone who claims to practice all of the commandos,
then you are dealing with a liar.
D We are all G-d’s children. She gave you a heart and a mind. When in doubt, trust your heart. E The first commando is powerful and under appreciated.
It does not include books about G-d, or the so called son of G-d.
F There is an ongoing controversy about the public display of the ten commandos. Some say such displays violate the second commando.
PG wonders if having a sign forbidding lying and stealing is going to work in a courthouse.
G The third commando is more than G-d’s last name. It is about the proper use of a sacred name. In a perfect world, the word G-d would only be used for worship and respectful discussion. A “pledge of allegiance” to a nationalist symbol is not an appropriate use of a sacred name.
H Sunday is too fine of a day to spend inside a church house.
I When you are discussing religion, it is normal to be a hypocrite.
If you disagree with someone, the easiest argument to scream hypocrisy.
J Whenever possible, show kindness to your neighbor.
K The text for Exodus 20 is courtesy of King James Bible Online. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.

Football is just around the corner. The teams are busy with the pre season, and soon weekends will be full of hitting and drinking. Perhaps this is a good time to wonder whether football is worth the human cost. Especially now, with a national debate raging about the future of our health care. Football injuries keep hospitals hopping during the autumn.
This is the annual post about the down side of football. There is a helping of hypocrisy here, as PG enjoys watching the hits. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Football season is here. While the games are fun to watch, the players are paying the price. Your health insurance premiums just might be affected.
Football is a contact sport. On every play, the linemen block other lineman to keep them from tackling a back. Someone gets hit on every play. Most of these hits are “clean” and cause only bruises. Some are “dirty”, and cause injuries. Even the clean hits can hurt someone.
It is estimated that 187,000 emergency room visits every year are due to football. What if an illegal drug sent 187k to the er annually? There would be a hue and cry to kill the pushers.
Knee injuries are especially prevalent. An estimated 45,000 knee operations are performed each year due to football injuries. Arthroscopy is a wonderful invention.
With all those helmets slamming into each other, head injuries occur. “The researchers found that there is approximately one catastrophic head injury per every 150,000 athletes playing, or 7 catastrophic injuries yearly. There were 0.67 injuries per 100,000 players at the high school level and 0.21 injuries per 100,000 for college level football players.” Often, the coaches get caught up in the do or die spirit of a big game, and don’t get the player the medical attention that he needs. “Football is a very macho sport. Athletes are taught to play through pain,” …“But concussions range in severity and symptoms, so all a player may experience is a headache several hours after impact. High school players need to be educated in these symptoms and encouraged to self report.”
Even cheerleading squads are reporting more injuries, due to botched stunts.
When you see the players in their youthful glory, you don’t think what they will look like after they quit playing. Many players know this, but the lure of today’s glory justifies the pain of tomorrow. The heroes of yesterday often walk with pain today.

What bird doesn’t build a nest ? A cuckoo cause it lives in a clock.
A penguin walks in to a bar and says to the barman, have you seen my brother?
Batman says I don’t know, what’s he look like?
I saw this wino; he was eating grapes. It’s like ‘Dude! You have to wait!’
What do u call a girl who lives on top of a house? RUTH
Helium walks into a bar Bartender asks, “What will you have?” Helium did not react.
A Hasidic Jew with a frog on his shoulder walks into a bar.
Bartender: “where’d you get that?” Frog: “Brooklyn. There’s hundreds of them.”
We were up all night wondering where the Sun had gone, then it dawned on us
Do you know what a pink birds favorite game is?? FlaBINGO
An upset cannibal threw up his arms….
Knock! Knock! Who’s there? Control Freak. Con—Okay, now you say, “Control Freak who?”
Why do cows wear bells? Because their horns dont work
Knock, knock, Who’s there? Spitamish Spitamish who?
*Proceeds to spit on other persons shoe*
Q: Why couldn’t the leopard play hide and seek? A: Because he was always spotted.
How many abstract artists does it take to change a lightbulb? Fish
What’s the difference between a hooker and a drug dealer?
A hooker can wash her crack and resell it
What did the baby corn say to its mom? Where’s my pop corn?
What does a panda use to fry eggs? A pan. Duh.
What did Charles Dickens keep in his spice rack? The best of thymes, the worst of thymes…
Teacher: “Kids, what does the chicken give you?” Student: “Meat!”
“What does the pig give you?” “Bacon!” “What does the fat cow give you?” “Homework!”
My ex-wife still misses me…but her aim is gettin’ better!
What’s worse than finding a worm in your apple?… 1/2 a worm!
The kitten was having trouble watching her Blu-Ray. Turns out she just had the movie on paws.
There were 2 cats looking into a bird cage.
First cat: “That’s not a canary. It’s green!” Second cat: “I don’t know, maybe it’s not ripe yet”
I never wanted to believe my Dad was stealing from his job as a road worker …
But when I got home, all the signs were there
A man went into an auto parts store. “Can I get a new gas cap for a Yugo?”
The clerk thought for a second and said, “That seems like a fair trade.
Did you hear about the guy who got fired from his job at the door factory?
Yep, he just couldn’t get a handle on it.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.

The commode in the back bathroom was not working. I usually don’t use this facility, and had put off taking a look. When I took the lid off, and took a test flush, the flapper valve floated off to one side. The water was not collecting in the tank. This is a problem.
Like most reasonable people, I don’t like to work on toilets. I usually screw things up, and make them worse than before. The potential for getting hurt is there. Finally, I took a deep breath, and found a video about how to do this. It seemed pretty simple. The pipe next to the flapper has two pegs on it. The flapper has two holes, one on each side, that fit over the two pegs.
The only troubling detail was the fact that the commode to be fixed did not have mounting pegs, on the pipe. It was an older model, and the flapper was attached to the piple with a flexible rubber flap. This was going to be a problem.
After a trip to the store, to purchase a new flapper, the work started. Yes, a closer examination of the pipe did not reveal any mounting pegs. Maybe if I secure the flapper in place, then it would not float away. I took an old bicycle inner tube, cut off about 9″. I wrapped the tubing around the base of the pipe, on top of the flapper flapper. The 9″ of inner tube was held in place with a cable tie. This did not work. The good news is cutting the cable tie off, and not my finger.
Maybe what I needed to do was take off the old school flapper, take it to a store, and see if they had one. To do this, I had to remove the flapper. To remove the flapper, I had to take a bracket off the pipe. The bracket had two little holes in it. Originally, there was a pin that went through those holes to the flapper. When you flushed, a that pin went up, and the pin pulled the flapper up. The pin is long gone, but the bracket remains. Unfortunately, this metal part has been underwater for 64 years. It was not going to come off. Searching for the funny shaped screwdriver was of little use.
The next plan was to hold the flapper flapper in place, with a cable tie only. This cable tie was 8″ long, and had a few inches left over, after wrapping it around the 1″ pipe. Wrapping this around the base of the pipe did not work, until I noticed 2 holes in the side of the flapper. These holes are in the same location as the holes on the modern flapper, which you can put over the pegs on the pipe. What would happen if you twisted the cable tie, so that the leftover cable tie formed a psuedo peg, which you then thread the flapper hole through? And then you attach another cable tie to the pipe, positioning the leftover cable tie to the other side, and stick this leftover cable tie through the other flapper hole. When you turn on the water, and flush the toilet, this works. Sometimes you do more good than harm. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.

Alt-Right whiz kid Jason Kessler appeared on National Public Radio this morning. Nobody looks good in this episode. The interviewer was arrogant and dismissive. Mr. Kessler spouted nonsense about freedom of speech. If other groups organize to support themselves, white people should to. This line of reasoning has a two-wrongs-make-a-right feel to it. If black people behave badly to promote their cause, then white people should be able to do the same.
Noel King, the NPR dude, asked Mr. Kessler “What are the differences between races?” and “Do you think white people are smarter than black people?” These are not a good questions for a white supremacist. You are inviting him to spew out nonsense, and Mr. Kessler does not disappoint. There was talk about iq studies, most of which are discredited. What was not mentioned are the sociological differences. When multiple populations live apart from one another, there are going to be differences.
After getting a stupid answer, to a stupid question, Mr. King snaps back with “You don’t sound like someone who wants to unite people when you say something like that, you sound like someone who wants to tick people off.” “Kessler shot back , “Well, you sound like someone who doesn’t respect science.!” Can’t we just get along?
“… NPR transitioned to an interview with a Black Lives Matter activist, a setup implying that white supremacists and people advocating for racial justice are two sides of the same coin.” NPR made a curious choice, with Hawk Newsome, President of Black Lives Matter of Greater New York. “The Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists that shared the stage with Donald Trump supporters at the “Mother of All Rallies” on Saturday are a “fake” imitation that “does not share our principles, politics, or values,” according to the movement’s official chapter in Washington, D.C. … By the end of the event, news cameras had captured images of Trump fans — and their children — posing for pictures alongside activists from an organization called Black Lives Matter of Greater New York (BLM-NY). That scenario has created confusion for those unable to differentiate between BLM knockoff groups and official BLM chapters. “We don’t want handouts; we don’t want anything that’s yours,” Hawk Newsome, President of BLM-NY, told the crowd of mostly Trump supporters gathered on the National Mall. “We want our God-given right to freedom, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
@DMVBlackLives “.@nycDSA FYI @BLMGreaterNY is NOT part of @Blklivesmatter and does NOT share our principles, politics, or values.” Why did NPR choose Hank Newsome to represent the “BLM side”? Chamblee54 found this information in less than a minute on google. Pictures for today’s entertainment are from The Library of Congress.

Between 1950 and 1953, American soldiers fought in the Korean War. Nearly 40,000 Americans died in that war. While exact figures are not readily available, it can be safely assumed that many, if not most, of the American soldiers who died in Korea were white.
In 1988, Sarah Jeong was born in South Korea. When she was three, she moved to the United States with her parents, who had student visas. Ms. Jeong grew up in the United States, and became a naturalized citizen in 2017. “I’m a very privileged person. And I am, like, completely documented. Everything’s in order, and I’m educated. I speak English. I don’t have that much to be afraid of.”
Sarah Jeong was hired to a prominent position at the New York Times. A collection of tweets came to light, with Ms. Jeong saying hateful things about white people. A controversy ensued, and the NYT issued a statement of support. Sarah Jeong is the internet sensation of the hour.
Andrew Sullivan published a commentary, When Racism Is Fit to Print. It was widely denounced. Many took issue with its thesis that the controversial tweets are racist. @Bro_Pair I wonder if anyone at NY Magazine knows how demoralizing it is to young writers to see Andrew Sullivan, an ardent white supremacist & scientific racist, attain the lifelong perch Sarah Jeong would be denied for 100% inoffensive tweets @KaivanShroff Andrew Sullivan’s piece is problematic in many ways. But the main point of foolishness is YOU CANNOT BE RACIST AGAINST WHITE PEOPLE. You can only be prejudice against a dominant race. Racism is about in-group vs. out-group power. In the American context whites are in-group.
To PG, the racism issue is beside the point. Maybe Ms. Jeong is racist. Maybe she is prejudiced but not racist. Maybe she is bigoted, but not prejudiced or racist. Whatever. To-may-to to-mah-to. Maybe a better comment about her twitter account comes from a colleague.@mslopatto Congrats to my pal and yours @sarahjeong – just a shame for all of us her twitter is about to be a lot less fun.
“I engaged in what I thought of at the time as counter-trolling. While it was intended as satire, I deeply regret that I mimicked the language of my harassers. These comments were not aimed at a general audience, because general audiences do not engage in harassment campaigns. I can understand how hurtful these posts are out of context, and would not do it again,” This is the *apology* issued by Sarah Jeong. It is a classic of internet logic. The statement is convincing evidence of one central fact. Sarah Jeong is an asshat.
Twenty five years before Sarah Jeong was born, white American soldiers were fighting in Korea. Many white American soldiers died, to keep South Korea from being conquered by North Korea. When Sarah Jeong was three years old, she came to live in the United States, and did very well. (“I’m a very privileged person.) White American soldiers died so that Sarah Jeong could have this fabulous life. This is how Sarah Jeong says thank you. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.