Is Prayer That Great?
Prayer is not always a good idea.
That is up there with G-d and Motherhood, but somebody has to say it.
Many of my objections are in the phrase, “Prayer is talking to G-d, and Meditation is Listening.”. In our culture, we love to talk, and don’t have time to listen. Talking is yang, active, power. Listening is ying,receptive, passive, and indicates respect for the person you are paying attention to. This is difficult for many.
Of course, no one ever says “I am going to meditate for you”. Although maybe you should.
Prayer is used as an aggressive weapon. “I am going to pray for you” is the condescending conclusion of many a religious argument. I have had it shouted at me like a curse.
There is the matter of prayer as entertainment. While this may be cool to those who are on the program, it can be repulsive to others. Once I volunteered to lead the prayer before a dinner. The story is repeated below.
Now, prayer is not a completely bad thing. One of the cherished memories of my father is the brief, commonsense blessings he would give before meals. In the context of a church service, prayer plays a useful function. Some famous prayers are beautiful poetry. In Islam, the daily prayers are an important part of the observance. Who am I to say it is wrong? (A note to the Muslim haters, and opportunistic republicans …We are all G-d’s children.)
When someone is in a bad way, people want to think they can help. Arguably it does not hurt to pray for someone, but it is nothing to boast about.
My problem is when people are proud of their prayers. There are few as prideful as a “humble servant”. While it may mean something to you, not everyone is impressed. And in a religion obsessed with converting others, you should care what man thinks.
So much for world affairs. It is time to tell a story, with no moral and no redeeming social value.
In 1980, I was staying at a place called the Sea Haven Hostel, affectionately known as Sleaze Haven. This was in Seattle WA, as far as you can get from Atlanta, and still be in the lower 48. I was working through Manpower, and staying in a semi private room for $68 a month.
There was a Christian group that met in the basement on Sunday Night. Now, as some of you may know, I am a recovering baptist, who hasn’t been to church since 1971. However, the lure of a free meal was hard to resist, so I went to a few meetings.
One night, after doing quality control work on the local beer supply,I cheerfully joined in the discussion. This was the night when I realized that the Bible is not the Word of G-d. This concept has been very handy in dealing with the clumsy efforts of our Jesus-mad culture to convert me.
They seemed to like me, though, and welcomed me back. Maybe it was the southern accent.
One Sunday, after the dinner was finished , it was time to have a prayer to begin the meeting. I raised my hand.Now, Jesus Worshipers enjoy prayer as entertainment. When they bow their heads, you see them stretching and deep breathing, in anticipation of a good, lengthy, message to G-d.
My message was a bit of a disappointment. Instead of a long winded lecture about Jesus and the magic book, I said what was on my mind. “Lord, thank you for letting us be here today.” What else do you need to say? This double repost has pictures from The Library of Congress.
How To Talk To R*****S
The New York Times is continuing the slow news day tradition of publishing clickbait content about race. The piece in question is How to Talk to a Racist. If you want to read this feature without interference from the NYT paywall, go here.
The article is useless. Twitter has people sharing the link. Clever people answer the question, how to talk to a racist, with one word: don’t. PG had too much free time, and read some of the comments. A thought came through. With all of this talk about talk, does anyone say anything about listening? As it turns out, the article does. Towards the end of the piece, we see this: “They’ll listen to what you have to say if they trust you’ll listen to what they have to say back.” This is an optimistic approach.
The next paragraph is where this feature begins to wrap things up, in anticipation of the ending. There is an 83 word sentence. “When you encounter a person who believes he’s merely honoring his ancestors by driving a car with an image of the Confederate battle flag on the tag, when a Facebook friend announces that it’s disrespectful to take a knee during the national anthem, when you sit down next to someone at the church picnic who genuinely loves and respects the black people they know but who consistently votes for politicians with overtly racist policies, stop for just a moment and take a breath.” Racist or woke, that sentence is a grammar nightmare.
The first example is “a person who believes he’s merely honoring his ancestors by driving a car with an image of the Confederate battle flag on the tag.” This person paid extra money to have a status license plate with the Stars and Bars. He may be honoring his ancestors, which is not a crime, yet. He may be giving the finger to uppity liberals, like @MargaretRenkl, author of the NYT piece. He might be a genuine white supremacist, and is advertising this attitude in hope of starting trouble. It is unlikely that most people will have much contact with him, except for seeing the license plate in traffic. Maybe the state agency raising money this way should be challenged.
The second example is “when a Facebook friend announces that it’s disrespectful to take a knee during the national anthem.” Holy red herring. A washed up quarterback does not stand for the national anthem. A orange haired politician makes political hay. Millions of football fans are offended when their ritual patriotism is not performed properly. Since Colin Kaepernick, presumably, had a black bio-dad, this is now racism. This issue is a waste of our national energy. It will have no impact, whatsoever, on the police brutality it purports to protest.
The third example is “when you sit down next to someone at the church picnic who genuinely loves and respects the black people they know but who consistently votes for politicians with overtly racist policies.” (The article has a subtle Christian slant, with a reminder to “Think of the plank in your own eye.”) Why are you talking about politicians at a church picnic anyway? What are the “overtly racist policies?” Who was the opponent? Maybe both candidates had “overtly racist policies,” as well as covertly crooked campaign financing. You are going to do a lot of breathing.
This post has gone on long enough. If you want to hear snarky comments about how yukky racists are, go online 24/7. If you want to learn how to talk to racists, or better yet, how to shut up and listen, google might be of some assistance. Or maybe not. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
The Worst Vice Presidents Of The United States
PG wrote a post yesterday. One of the topics was the “Siamese Twins”, James Buchanan and William Rufus King. (The article is reposted below.) While researching the feature, PG googled his way to a Time magazine article about the Worst Vice Presidents in American History. PG is well known for his negative attitude, and writing about the worst things in life always appeals to him. This is a repost, with pictures from The Library of Congress
The first name on the list is Aaron Burr. He had a problem with Alexander Hamilton, and shot him dead in a duel. Elbridge Gerry (the namesake of Gerrymandering) served under James Madison for twenty months, and died. John C. Calhoun served under John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, and managed to get Mr. Jackson so upset that Mr. Calhoun was fired.
Richard M. Johnson served under Martin Van Buren, and was bad at PR. “Johnson scandalized his colleagues by taking one of his slaves as his common-law wife; as a result, he barely garnered enough support to serve in Martin van Buren’s administration. While in office, he proposed an expedition to the North Pole so Americans could drill to the center of the Earth, believing the planet was hollow (his resolution was defeated). Evidently van Buren’s experience with Johnson soured him on vice presidents altogether — when he ran for re-election he dropped Johnson from his ticket and didn’t bother replacing him. Instead, he ran alone.”
William Rufus King was VP under Franklin Pierce a mere six weeks before he died. There is no word on the status of his relationship with James Buchanan at the time. The Time magazine article has a picture of Fernando Wood , which was mistakenly thought to be of Mr. King. (Wikipedia uses the same picture to illustrate an article about Mr. King.)
The VP under James Buchanan (there is no word on who was top or bottom in the Buchanan-King household) was John Breckinridge. During the War Between the States, he left the Union to fight for the Confederacy. Mr. Breckinridge was charged with treason after the war. “The town of Breckenridge, Colorado is named in his honor — although it altered the spelling of its name after the Civil War, so as not to be associated with a traitor.”
Andrew Johnson did not make the list, but maybe should have. He was drunk at his inauguration, and made a fool of himself. Mr. Lincoln had nothing to do with him, until a meeting on April 14. This was Good Friday. Mr. Lincoln went to the theater that night.
Johnson had been marked for death by the conspiracy, but Wilkes Booth had little confidence in the man assigned to kill Mr. Johnson. The afternoon of the assassination, Mr. Booth was at the Kirkwood House, where Mr. Johnson stayed. Mr. Booth left a note for Mr. Johnson at the desk of the hotel… “Don’t wish to disturb you. Are you at home. J. Wilkes Booth”. The idea was for the police to find the note, and implicate Mr. Johnson in the killing of Mr. Lincoln. This mini plot was spoiled by the secretary for the Vice President, who collected the mail that afternoon. He took the card with him. The secretary had met Mr. Booth a few years earlier, and thought the note was for him.
The other three Vice Presidents who took office after the boss was murdered… Chester Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson… were not mentioned in the Time article. All three are mentioned in conspiracy theories about the killings that promoted them into office.
When Theodore Roosevelt was elected to a full term as President, his VP was Charles Fairbanks. “Teddy once ordered a noisy and distracting crystal chandelier removed from his office because it disturbed him. He ordered it to be installed in the office of the Vice President to keep him awake.”
Getting back to Time’s honor roll, Hannibal Hamlin was Lincoln’s first VP. Thomas A. Hendricks survived nine months under Grover Cleveland, before passing away. Thomas Marshall served two terms with Woodrow Wilson, and refused to take over the office when Mr. Wilson had a stroke. Calvin Coolidge did little while waiting for Warren Harding to die. Henry Wallace was, and will be, the only third term VP in our history. He acquired a few enemies, and was replaced by Harry Truman.
Richard Nixon was ok once he got elected, but almost managed to blow that. There were charges of financial shenanigans, and some thought he should be kicked off the ticket. After the Checkers Speech he was on his way to stardom. (After Mr. Nixon died, PG saw a large flag flying at half staff. The flag belonged to a hamburger chain called Checkers.) When Mr. Nixon became President, his VP was Spiro Agnew. Once again, there were charges of financial shenanigans, and much, much more. While the nation wallowed in Watergate, Mr. Nixon needed a diversion. It was suddenly discovered that Mr. Agnew had taken bribes. He was pressured into resigning.
Dan Quayle was VP for George H.W. Bush. He was widely regarded as an idiot, although his damage as VP was minimal. The last VPOTUS on the list is Dick Chaney. For some reason, he was regarded as having more power than the President, George W. Bush. Mr. Chaney was said to be one of the major promoters of the wars which have damaged America so much during the last ten years.
2018 UPDATE: Joe Biden said the F word at a press conference, and did not run for President when Barry retired. The jury is still out on Mike Pence.
Fun loving Dick Yarbrough is up to his old tricks. The neighbor newspaper nabbler penned a post about California education. . It seems there is a new law, in the falling into the ocean state, “that will require schools to teach at all grade levels about the historical contributions of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.” Our buddy does not think this is a good idea.
The story goes on to say “Our children will find out that President James Buchanan and Vice President William R. King were more than, shall we say, good friends,” she said coyly. I didn’t want to tell Gay that the first thing the teachers need to do is tell the students who James Buchanan is before they talk about what he did. Not many people have ever heard of him. That is because he didn’t do anything while president.” Holy historic revisionism.
To start off, The Vice Prez under Mr. Buchanan was John C. Breckinridge. Mr. King was elected to back up Franklin Pierce. Mr. King died after six weeks in office. If a President has ever bumped gooberheads with his Vice President, the walls of the White House have kept quiet about it. Those rumors about John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson are too gruesome to contemplate.
Mr. King and Mr. Buchanan lived together for a number of years. Neither was married to a female, although Mr. Buchanan had been engaged. (There is speculation that his fiance’, Ann Caroline Coleman, died of an overdose of laudanum.) There are numerous indications that Mr. King and Mr. Buchanan were *good buddies*.
Mr. Buchanan was the last President before the War Between the States. It is possible that he could not have done much to prevent that unpleasantness. Historians are not kind when talking about the man, and rank him as one of the worst Presidents. Perhaps Mr. King could have helped.
The newspaper that Mr. Yarbrough opines for is delivered, free of charge, on Wednesday. (This weeks edition has not arrived. Any connection between this late delivery and the opinions of Mr. Yarbrough, is uncertain.) Some of these free papers are not taken inside by the resident. Often, a driveway will have several weeks of free adrags left behind. Soon, the rain soaks these newsprint droppings. Some are washed into the street and run over. The result is an ugly mess.
Chamblee54 had a previous discussion with Dick Yarbrough. Mr. Yarbrough is still publishing columns in 2018. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Acronyms
PG was cruising the internet, minding his own business, when he saw the initials HSAT. He was puzzled, but knew that uncle google could help. 0.28 seconds later, PG was looking at Healthy School Action Tools and Hazardous Substances Academic Training. Sensing that these were incorrect, politically and otherwise, our fearless scribe clicked on the third choice, Acronym Finder. One of the five options was Having Said All That , which fits the context of the inital HSAT.
About this time the idea light bulb went off over PG’s head…why not do a post about acronyms? With a tsunami of text flooding our capacity, acronyms help certain phrases to stand out. It can be a way to make a statement with ease, like saying TMI after hearing something you did not need to hear. Acronyms are short, and brevity is the soul of wit.
A popular misuse of acronyms is what wikipedia calls false etymology. A popular cussword does NOT mean “for unlawful carnal knowledge”. According to snopes , the urban mythbuster, acronyms are largely a twentieth century phenomenon.
Two military phrases from World War Two, snafu and fubar, are credited as being among the first acronyms to become popular. (The link for this detail no longer works.) They might be obsolete. DOD Dictionary of Military Terms does not include snafu and fubar.
This is a repost, with pictures from The Library of Congress. When you recycle a post from 2011, most of the links have gone bad. Webster’s Dictionary is now Merriam-Webster. When you look up acronyms, you find this: What’s an Initialism? “‘UNICEF’ is an acronym. ‘ACLU’ is an initialism. Why?” This is getting to be complicated. If you want to know about initialisms and acronyms, follow the link. You are responsible for any brain damage.
The Lurid Digs Interview
There is a site called Lurid Digs_NSFW. It can be very, very funny. It is also filthy. Fifty years ago. publishing pictures like this would get you sent to jail. You have been warned.
PG was trolling the internet one night, and he landed at Lurid Digs. He saw a picture that might be fun to use, to illustrate a post about NASCAR. However, at the bottom of the LD page was some troubling language about copyrights. PG decided to write LD and get permission, before he used any of their pictures. You can never be too careful.
The very next day, this arrived: Hi Luther…Sure, you can use the credited pics. Also I’m available for ‘interview’ should you have any questions you like to ask…Cheers, David K Publisher Lurid Digs
An interview with the publisher of Lurid Digs! What a coup! PG opened up a wordpad and started to think of questions. He edited them to a numerically proper twenty. The questions were sent to Lurid Digs. The reply arrived a few days later.
Oy, too convoluted for me. But thanks anyway. (I was thinking of something much more simpler.) Cheers, David K luriddigs.com
PG was disappointed. As Scarlet might say, tomorrow is another day. The questions will make a fun post by themselves. This is a repost, with pictures from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. Lurid Digs is still published, in all it’s NSFW glory. 2018 UPDATE Lurid Digs is still available for viewing. However, LD does not put a date on posts. The LD twitter was last updated 25 Sep 2017. This interior landmark may have run out of steam.
01- Are the models and decorators for Lurid Digs certified to be drug free?
02- What kind of strings do you use on your guitar?
03- Why do birds fly up in the sky, every time you walk by?
04- What can the argyle community do to fight racism?
05- If Jesus were to pose for you, would you put makeup over the holes in his hands?
06- Who asked Sarah Palin what she thought?
07- What impact does Lurid Digs have on global warming?
08- How much was the model’s bail?
09- Have residences been inspected by the fashion police?
10- Does Chenille ever go out of style?
11- Do the neighbors in the trailer park get suspicious when you do a photo shoot?
12- Why don’t we just go ahead and make murder legal?
13- Are humans as smart as dogs?
14- What do the youth of today want?
15- Why do people include the office disclaimer when sending out joke emails?
16- Is NASCAR rigged?
17- Who wrote the book of love?
18- If a model dies during a photo shoot, is he greeted in heaven by 72 virgins?
19- What do you put on pizza you order for photo shoots?
20- Do you ever play 20 questions?
Rachel Maddow Strikes Again
As you may have heard, President Trump had a press conference yesterday. He said some things that have people upset. This has been going on for a while, and will continue. In a predictable development, Rachel Maddow took to the airwaves with a barrage of Russia-did-it details. If you listen to the video, you can hear it all. The story of post-Soviet dirty deeds is well documented, with some amusing court cases on the horizon.
Ms. Madcow Maddow says that she was talking about the collusion story for some time. Since PG does not watch cable TV, he does not know whether this is true, or not. What PG does remember is what he heard on facebook, twitter, and word of mouth. The 2016 word of the day was racist. Donald J. Trump is a racist. If you vote for Mr. Trump, then you are a racist. It is as if someone thought that the best way to elect Hillary Clinton was to call Mr. Trump a racist. This was to be said as often, and as loudly, as possible. The Democratic Brain Trust assumed that everyone was just as horrified by racism as they were. This DBT thought that people would be terrified of people thinking they were racist, and would vote for Hillary, to prove that they were not racist. Unfortunately for the DBT, and the USA, this strategy did not work. Mr. Trump got more electoral votes than Mrs. Clinton.
One obnoxious canard was the notion that the KKK endorsed Donald J.Trump. A tiny Arkansas newspaper, connected to a klan community, printed an article favorable to Mr. Trump. The Washington Post said KKK’s official newspaper supports Donald Trump for president. Ms. Maddow repeated this story. It is not known whether WAPO or MSNBC ever said, in so many words, that the KKK endorsed Mr. Trump. However, when the story got out into the public, that is the way it was reported. People said, often and loudly, that the KKK endorsed Mr. Trump. This was supposed to help Mrs. Clinton get elected. It did not work.
Even if the KKK did endorse Mr. Trump, why should the talking heads mention it? The KKK is an obsolete clown show. While the three digital stooges of anonymous/facebook/twitter are focused on bedsheets, more dangerous white (and other color) hate groups are operating in darkness. With people fascinated with who is under the bedsheets, people that can do damage are buying ammunition, and buying elections.
PG got into a related twitterspat yesterday. Since other tweeter has blocked PG, their name will not be mentioned. They will be known as @045. Their reaction is another example of how your words can be twisted. If you want to skip ahead, and look at the pictures, you will not miss anything. The pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
@chamblee54 I have done research on this, and the key was the people voting for Johnson and Stein. HRC spent 3% in Michigan that she spent in Ohio. HRC lost michigan by >1%, lost ohio by 8%. Maybe the more of HRC voters saw, the less they liked her.
@045 Or maybe Russia tampered with the vote totals or Russian assets Jill Stein and Bernie Sanders siphoned off votes from the left, which they were paid to do?
@chamblee54 This is why you need to avoid insulting voters that you need. An election is not a teaching moment. It is about electing a flawed person instead of a much more flawed person. Call out racism AFTER you elect your candidate.
@045 So you’re saying Hillary/Democratic Party need racist voters to win?
@chamblee54 yes This is politics. You need the support of people you think are horrible. Could the democrats win without prejudiced black people?
@045 So you believe black people are prejudiced?
@chamblee54 duh There is a semantic game here. People say black people can’t be racist, but can be prejudiced. tomayto tomahto Until we pay the same attention to black prejudice that we pay to white racism, we will never get anywhere.
You are blocked from following @045 and viewing @045‘s Tweets. Learn more
@045 We ain’t got no more to say. You and Bernie want politics centered on white people. Hillary hurt your fee fees You believe black people not voting for Bernie means they are racist. You brought us Trump. Live it, love it and you’re BLOCKED!
@045 More If you come running up in my mentions defending racism and saying Democrats NEED to pander to racists in order to win, you’ve let me know you’ll sell my black ass off to the highest bidder for your comforts and YOU GETS BLOCKED!
The G-d Of Word
The facebook comment started with “Christ had so little regard for … ” PG gave into the temptation to comment. “Are you talking about Jesus? Not everyone agrees that he was the Christ.” The internet showed mercy, and only one stranger replied. “I think the bigger picture is being overlooked for semantics here… ” Talking, in or out of vain, is a big deal here. This is a repost.
People like to express opinions about the teaching of Jesus. The source of 99% of these thoughts is the bible. It is a fundamental belief that “the bible is the word of G-d.” PG has disagreed with this notion for a long time. This is not the same as not believing in the existence of G-d.
PG started to type a facebook reply, and then thought better of it. Sunday afternoons are a gift, even if they are uncomfortably hot. It is too fine a day to argue religion on the internet. Before he stopped, one thought did occur to him. If the bible is the word of G-d, then maybe Jehovah is the G-d of word. If you saw a mushroom cloud rising over Brookhaven …
Christianism is a religion of beliefs, rather than practices. The idea of getting people to agree with these beliefs is key to the Jesus experience. Many of these beliefs are noted in the bible. It is as if people make a G-d out of a book. When these high powered thoughts are expressed, then the semantics can get overwhelming.
As for the teaching of Jesus, all we know is what the Council of Nicea chose to tell us. We don’t have very much. What we do have is conveniently selected to fit the agenda of the speaker. What someone says about Jesus tells us more about that person than it does about Jesus. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Dr. McWhorter Vs Dr. Peterson
“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 Bloggingheaads 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.
Prager University AKA PU
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. It 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. .
Rituals
A few years ago, somebody filed a lawsuit about pre-game prayers. The idea was to have a minister say a few inspiring words, before a high school football game. Some people enjoyed this, others did not, and the other 95% just wanted the game to start. Did anyone ever become born again because of the prayer before a football game?
The Star Spangled Banner is traditionally played before sporting events. Many people think the last two words of that song are “play ball.” Playing this song has little to do with fighting wars, paying taxes, or making the trains run on time. It is a feel good patriotic ritual, and many people feel good doing it. These people believe they are honoring a country that has been good to them.
A third empty suit ritual has been introduced. Football players are not standing for The Star Spangled Banner. They say it about racism, and police brutality. This gesture will do little to prevent people dealing with police, under circumstances that lead to violence. It is an empty gesture. This kneeling is considered by many to be a gesture of disrespect for the patriotic ritual of playing The Star Spangled Banner. Both sides in this dispute are correct.
The kneeling football players don’t care that they are offending people. They say that their intention is to protest police brutality, not to disrespect the flag. Many others don’t support racism, but want to honor a country that they love. Many, many others just want the game to start. Nothing good is going to come of this. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Rednecks And Commodes
You’re An EXTREME Redneck When…..
1. You let your 14-year-old daughter smoke at the dinner table in front of her kids.
2. The Blue Book value of your truck goes up and down depending on how much gas is in it.
3. You’ve been married three times and still have the same in-laws.
4. You think a woman who is out of your league bowls on a different night.
5. You wonder how service stations keep their rest-rooms so clean.
6. Someone in your family died right after saying, ‘Hey, guys, watch this.’
7. You think Dom Perignon is a Mafia leader.
8. Your wife’s hairdo was once ruined by a ceiling fan.
9. Your junior prom offered day care.
10. You think the last words of the Star-Spangled Banner are ‘Gentlemen, start your engines.
11. You lit a match in the bathroom and your house exploded right off its wheels.
12. The Halloween pumpkin on your porch has more teeth than your spouse.
13. You have to go outside to get something from the fridge.
14. One of your kids was born on a pool table.
15. You need one more hole punched in your card to get a freebie at the House of Tattoos.
16. You can’t get married to your sweetheart because there’s a law against it.
17. You think loading the dishwasher means getting your wife drunk.
18. An East Texas couple, both real-life rednecks, had 9 children. They went to the doctor to see about getting the husband “fixed”. The doctor asked them why, after nine children would they choose to do this. The husband replied that they had read in a recent article that one out of every ten children being born in North America was Mexican, and they didn’t want a Mexican baby because neither of them could speak Spanish.
This is a two part post. The first part is a list of 15. It is fun facts about the commode. These are borrowed from a site called Listserve. LS has lots of lists. The Chamblee 54 addendum is part two.
1. The film “Psycho” was the first movie to show a toilet flushing – the scene caused an inpouring of complaints about indecency.
2. Pomegranates studded with cloves were used as the first attempt at making toilet air-freshner.
3. Hermann Goering refused to use regulation toilet paper – instead he bought soft white handkerchiefs in bulk and used them.
4. Over $100,000 US dollars was spent on a study to determine whether most people put their toilet paper on the holder with the flap in front or behind. 3 out of 4 people have the flap in the front.
5. King George II of Great Britain died falling off a toilet on the 25th of October 1760.
6. The average person spends three whole years of their life sitting on the toilet.
7. The first toilet cubicle in a row is the least used. (and consequently cleanest)
8. An estimated 2.6 billion people worldwide do not have access to proper toilet facilities, particularly in rural areas of China and India.
9. The Roman army didn’t have toilet paper. They used a water soaked sponge on the end of a stick.
10. The toilet is flushed more times during the super bowl halftime than at any time during the year.
11. 90% of pharmaceuticals taken by people are excreted through urination. Therefore our sewer systems contain heavy doses of drugs. A recent study by the EPA has found fish containing trace amounts of estrogen, cholesterol-lowering drugs, pain relievers, antibiotics, caffeine and even anti-depressants. Modern urine is expensive.
12. Lack of suitable toilets and sanitation kills approximately 1.8 million people a year.
13. The toilet handle in a public restroom can have up to 40,000 germs per square inch.
14. While he didn’t invent the toilet, Thomas Crapper perfected the siphon flush system we use today. He was born in the village of Thorne – which is an anagram of throne.
15. In a 1992 survey, British public toilets were voted the worst in the world. Following quickly behind were Thailand, Greece, and France.
Add.1-An amusing feature of the water closet is the tendency of people to die there. Elvis comes to mind immediately. There is some debate about this, as some say he was stricken on the throne, fell off, and perished on the floor. Judy Garland is also known to have met her maker while doing number two. Add.2- It seems that this is a real problem with older people that have constipation issues. When you are in delivery mode, and you push too hard, you can cause something called Valsalva’s maneuver. To make a long story short, all that squeezing can pinch the arteries going into the heart. This is not good for you. According to a commenter here, it is .06% of all deaths. This is a double repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress
Jordan Peterson
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. 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.
Chamblee54 
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