Insensitive Remarks
These racially insensitive remarks by Kanye West collaborator Vanessa Beecroft have the art world talking ~ What Does The Way You See Color Say About You? ~ What Are Your Political Values? ~ Are the police racist? ~ A teacher at this Alabama middle school gave students an exam with racist questions about gangs and prostitution ~ There’s Just One Flaw in Donald Trump’s New Plan to Show He’s Not Racist ~ Dramatic video shows shootout at Atlanta gas station ~ Why Is Colored Person Hurtful and Person of Color OK? A Theory of Racial Euphemisms. This Reddit thread expertly explains why you don’t need racists to perpetuate racism ~ FOF #2378 – A Beginner’s Guide to the Radical Faeries ~ Gotta Leave: The 15 Worst States To Raise Black Children ~ ‘New York Times’ columnist Charles Blow perfectly explains why black people can’t ignore Trump’s bigotry ~ The 10 Commandments of Logic ~ What Sam Harris Gets Wrong About Racism and Violence in America ~ ALTERNATIVE RIGHT ~ Hotep FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) ~ University of Chicago Tells Class of 2020 Not To Expect “Safe Spaces” or “Trigger Warnings” ~ The Culture Of The Smug White Liberal ~ Chris Matthews Refuses To Believe KKK Grand Wizard Endorsed Trump ~ Former Lost-n-Found Youth board members come out against reinstatement of Rick Westbrook ~ Transcript of Hillary’s Reno Speech ~ Today’s Vagenda ~ On Finding Your Purpose: An Extraordinary Letter by Hunter S. Thompson ~ Ghosts of White People Past: Witnessing White Flight From an Asian Ethnoburb ~ Do You Have a Male or Female Brain? ~ Bachmann: “White People Have Suffered More In The Last 8 Years Than Blacks Did During Couple Years Of Slavery” ~ The Three Piths Compromise ~ @bitchywaiter Old man: I want a cheeseburger. Me: What kind of cheese would you like? Old Man: I don’t want cheese! ~ Question Authority, because I said so. ~ Only if Sarah Palin crawled out of the pickle jar. ~ he Sponsored Listings displayed above are served automatically by a third party. Neither the service provider nor the domain owner maintain any relationship with the advertisers. In case of trademark issues please contact the domain owner directly (contact information can be found in whois). ~ What that the same play-doh used to create the twitter emoji for #blacklivesmatter ~ The community values what privacy it has left. Podcasts about fucking in the mud, and taking a trump in the woods (did anyone ever tell this person to dig a hole six inches deep?) … this is not going to be appreciated. This might be one of the milder comments you receive on this subject. ~ Is the expression strawman sexist or transphobic? ~ @randygdub #AltRightMeans nazi, but with asthma ~ @Blackedpoetry how to make new blackout poetry 1- find an old book magazine or newspaper and a black marker 2- let the phrases find you ~ Vagenda is a great word. ~ the eagerness to label human beings as racist, often for the flimsiest reason, may blow up in your face ~ @gaywonk If you think a candidate calling something “racist” is more controversial than a candidate DOING something racist you are wrong. @chamblee54 a tweeter calling another human being a racist is a useless name calling twit unlike an asshole which serves a vital function ~ If the statue is accurate, who could tell the difference between hardening and softening? ~ @Cowmunism Roses are red Violets are blue I am a cow, and I go moo ~ @KimKierkegaard It takes courage not to surrender oneself to the shrewd counsel of despair, its smoldering cat eye, an exotic smoky look that goes on easy ~ cuck ~ 11 Killer Tips For Solid Game Signup today to our free weekly newsletter and see our top 11 tips instantly ~ @WernerTwertzog It’s important, To tell the young, They can be “Anything they can dream,” So that, one day, They’ll blame themselves, Instead of the system. ~ pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. ~ selah
Was Mae West A Real Girl?
August 17 would have been birthday 123 for Mary Jane “Mae” West. Of course, she died in 1980, so the party is off. PG saw a note on facebook, and made the comment “She was rumored to be a man.” One right click google search later, this post started to take shape. This is a repost.
There is a blogspot site, maewest.blogspot.com. It is still published, with a birthday post today. Five years ago there was a post, Mae West: Penis Rumors. It seems as though Miss West liked to say, to the press, “When I die, you are going to be very surprised!”
A hollywood gossipmonger had a story, Was Mae West…A Man?! Much of her information comes from the tasteful findadeath site. The story here is that Mae West died in 1950, and the death was kept quiet. Her brother made appearances in her place, until the final death in 1980. This would have been quite a feat, considering that John Edwin West died in 1964. That doesn’t stop people from talking.
“…the real Mae West died somewhere around 1950, give or take a couple years, and rather than let the show stop, it was announced that not Mae, but her brother, died. Of course, the brother then became Mae West and carried on until November 1980. If you look carefully at photos from around 1950 on it definitely looks like a different person not to mention the big hands and masculine features, bone structure, etc. I may not have all the details 100% correct but I would almost put money on the fact that the ‘Mae West’ ‘who died in 1980 had a weenie!!”
The hands were mentioned by Raquel Welch. The two were in Myra Breckinridge, the first movie Miss West had made in 27 years. (Miss West appeared on Mr. Ed in 1964.) Miss Welch appeared at a film festival in 2012, and had stories to tell.
“When I went over to say hello to her (one day) I said, ‘Hi, it’s Raquel, remember?’ She sort of extended her hand to me and I went to kiss the ring and one false fingernail painted silver fell to the floor. I looked at the hand and I thought, ‘Oh, I’m getting a vibe.’ I really think she’s a man! At this point in her life all bets are off and you’re not going to be able to doll it up that much. I would say it’s pretty accurate that she resembled a dock worker in drag.” …
“I had this beautiful dress and it was black with a big white ruffle around the neck and a black velvet hat … Apparently Mae got wind of the fact that I was wearing this exquisite dress and I went to the studio that day for our scene together. I got coiffed, got my hair done and went to the closet to get the dress and it wasn’t there. I asked my dresser what happened to the dress and she said, ‘It’s been confiscated. Mae does not want you to wear that dress. You can wear the red dress that you wore in the last scene!’ … Welch was so outraged that she stormed off the set and refused to return until the dress was back in her closet. … “For the scene, we never appeared in a two-shot together. She left after she did her lines and I had someone off-camera reading her lines and I had to pretend she was there.”
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Two Stories From 2009
This is a double repost from 2009. In the last seven years, Iraq has continued to be a hellhole, with the conflict spreading to Syria. The drug court client finished his program, and is having a good life. President Obama was reelected, and will retire in a few months. The people under the monuments, in the pictures, have not changed.
Thursday, President BHO had a white man and a black man over to take drugs. They had a rather public disagreement, and BHO stupidly poured gasoline on the fire. Drugs were the answer.
There are those who will immediately scream that beer is legal. Yes, alcohol is legal, advertised on television, and served in the White House. It is also an addictive drug. If you take too much, it will kill you. It is easier to die using hard liquor, but the concept is the same.
There are a lot of people in the legal machinery because of drugs. Some of these drugs are legal, some are not. Your liver is not amused to hear that the alcohol it is processing is legal. Your lungs don’t care if cigarettes are legal. The worst thing about some drugs is the fact that there is a law against them.
In Dekalb County, there is something called drug court. If you are on this program, you go to endless meetings, and get screened for drugs. Every time a person is screened for drugs, a lab charges the county money to process the test. This money could be used to give school teachers a raise, or to repair the roads. Instead, it goes to testing the urine of people who got caught smoking pot.
Thursday, drug court was meeting at the same time as the White House drug party. PG attended as part of “Friends and Family” night. The alcohol industrial complex was not affected.
One thing that PG likes to do is investigate “things he has always heard”. With google, you can often find the source, and a few things more. Some urban legends are tough to trace, often because they don’t exist. Others pop up 575k results is .49 seconds.
The myth PG was chasing was the notion that government officials said our army “will be greeted as liberators” in Iraq. On March 16, 2003, Vice President Dick Cheney was on Meet the Press.
MR. RUSSERT: If your analysis is not correct, and we’re not treated as liberators, but as conquerors, and the Iraqis begin to resist, particularly in Baghdad, do you think the American people are prepared for a long, costly, and bloody battle with significant American casualties?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, I don’t think it’s likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators. I’ve talked with a lot of Iraqis in the last several months myself, had them to the White House. The president and I have met with them, various groups and individuals, people who have devoted their lives from the outside to trying to change things inside Iraq. And like Kanan Makiya who’s a professor at Brandeis, but an Iraqi, he’s written great books about the subject, knows the country intimately,… The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but what they want to the get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that.
There are a few things to say 78 months later. Why did the Vice President have this much power? The VP is supposed to dedicate buildings and go to funerals. Dick Cheney was clearly a very powerful man, and he was not elected to that job.
Mr. Russert, rest his soul, seems to have gotten one detail wrong. The conquest of Baghdad went smoothly, with relatively few American casualties. It was the occupation that would be “long, costly, and bloody …with significant American casualties”. One of the casualties has been the American economy. Thirteen years later, economic recovery is not complete.
There probably were many Iraqis who welcomed the change, Clearly, Mr. Hussein had some enemies, and there were some who did see the invasion as liberation. There were others who did not. Players in other countries saw an opportunity to come to Iraq and make trouble. The regime that was changed had many employees, who were bumped out of jobs. “The people of Iraq” were no more a monolithic force, all acting the same way, as the people of America would be if they were invaded.
Even if the Americans were “greeted as liberators”, there would be many challenges. The country had no experience in dealing with democracy. The different ethnic groups did not like each other. Sunnis were seen as having been privileged, and many were looking to settle the score. It seems obvious that these problems were not anticipated.
There is a debate in The United States about the use of torture. It seems apparent that “enhanced interrogation” was used extensively in Iraq and elsewhere. The use of torture would seem to be an admission that we were not greeted as liberators.
Self Ennobling Critique
Cam Newton on Those Versace Pants, Race in America, and Whether He Would Let His Kid Play Football ~ Cam Newton shouldn’t give racist critics a free pass ~ Philip Glass ~ Racism and Violence in America ~ SJW DEBATES #11-Katie Hopkins Vs Fat Women ~ 20 Diversion Tactics Highly Manipulative Narcissists, Sociopaths And Psychopaths Use To Silence You ~ 6 Things Everyone Knows About War (That Are Totally Wrong) ~ Trump’s Long-Time Friend Speaks Out, Reveals His TRUE Identity… ~ Ted Nugent’s 20 Reasons to Vote for Trump Go Viral… Liberals Horrified ~ 11 Out Social Media Personalities You Should Know ~ Who Said It? Famous Quotes From the Civil War Quiz ~ Inconvenient Penis Is A Huge Problem For Japanese Pole Vaulter Hiroki Ogita In Rio ~ Nice and Racist: What Ellen Degeneres Teaches Us About Racism ~ 23 Emotions people feel, but can’t explain ~ The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows ~ 4 More Half-Truths Women Regularly Tell Their Significant Others ~ 5 Excuses for Slavery That Need to STOP Five things about slavery are discussed. Two of them are true. One (slaves enjoyed having the work) is said by almost nobody. One was supported by speculation about alien abduction. This is comedy, not history. ~ David’s Ankles: How Imperfections Could Bring Down the World’s Most Perfect Statue ~ @TheHashtagGame @realJKCallaway @HashtagSkirmish This This was the inspiration for @TheEllenShow and her controversial meme ~ Internal server error ~ Kodak Black staying in jail after authorities discover outstanding warrants ~ maps ~ Where to Find the Most Mouthwatering Vegetarian Food in Atlanta ~ African-American man stabbed in Olympia, attacker mentions Black Lives Matter ~ papaya ~ @robwhisman how is sticking the flag up my ass more acceptable than burning it ~ 6 Reasons Why Being Called a Cis Person Is Not ‘Oppressive’ ~ Losing Larry Wilmore and Why It Matters—to TV, Women, and the Nation ~ #HateYouHaikus ~ Whites See Racism as a Zero-Sum Game That They Are Now Losing ~ White people think racism is getting worse. Against white people. ~ Joy Reid shames pastor for Trump lies: ‘Even a pastor cannot make things up on this show’ ~ Photographs by James Bareham ~ “NYC Parks stands firmly against any unpermitted erection in city parks, no matter how small,” ~ Trump supporter tells Joy Reid Breitbart.com isn’t racist because top writer is ‘incredibly gay’ ~ resume nonos ~ 2 dead after shooting at the Southside Inn ~ DeJarius Thurman ~ Noel Reed ~ Daniel Zeitz ~ Kenneth Hayes, Andraus Betts ~ 1 dead, 2 others shot in DeKalb County ~ Clifford Elston, Shayla Sullivan ~ Teen dead after confronting men about stolen bike ~ Royheem Delshawn Deeds ~ Which “over bloated turd” are you talking about? ~ How many of the people denouncing #CamNewton read the GQ article? ~ Is it racist for Donald Trump to say rude things about her ~ @WayneL_Jr Somebody said Cam Newton thinks he doesn’t face racism cause he dresses like a white lady ~ The old joke is true…it hurts when you laugh. ~ Peter Bogdanovich is on the Bret Easton Ellis podcast this week. He has a story about William Randolph Hearst. Someone said Mr. Soandso really hates your guts, Mr. Hearst. That’s funny, I never did him a favor. ~ is the quart the liter ally? ~ pro tip for writers: never use a word you don’t know how to pronounce ~ @chamblee54 @BretEastonEllis what does @blogdanovich think about the eagles? ~ There was a meme on twitter. “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life. Most of which never happened.” – Mark Twain After spending thirty seconds on a google search, I was directed to this The first reliable source for this quote was President elect James Garfield, in 1881. Mr. Garfield did, indeed, have something to worry about. ~ I am 35 minutes into @SamHarrisOrg chat with @GlennLoury the word talk is used often the word listen has not been used ~ Hillary, can do whatever she wants. It is Congress that will have to expand Medicare ~ @SamHarrisOrg @GlennLoury 1:16 of show…not killing someone because he steps on your shoe, in starbucks, is called privilege how strange ~ Sorry, something went wrong. We’re working on getting this fixed as soon as we can. ~ how many “self-ennobling critique” authors actually read the hines article that fired the controversy? I would guess a minority ~ Uncle Hotep @handymayhem @TheEllenShow @usainbolt ride that brutha like a horse Ellen…I know you secretly like the D ~ Ten starters on the Denver defense are black. This is the defense that shut down Carolina in the Stupid Bowl. ~ It’s a miss thing. You wouldn’t understand. ~ Isn’t Canada very picky about who they allow to move there? ~ I like to recycle overblown prose as poems. Legal writing is a productive field. These letters are no different. This quote stands out: Should we require people who are members of The Florida Bar that burn American flags to attend mandatory classes to understand how their conduct is viewed by veterans and their families? ~ “The U.S. Senate proposed the Eighteenth Amendment (mandating prohibition) on December 18, 1917. Upon being approved by a 36th state on January 16, 1919, the amendment was ratified as a part of the Constitution. By the terms of the amendment, the country went dry one year later, on January 17, 1920” That is two constitutional amendments in two years. The last two amendments to the constitution were passed in 1992 and 1971. ~ “I lost my boat, all my clothes and supplies. I’m afraid I’m a mess until I can get a shower and a change.” The man smiled at him for a long time before speaking. “It don’t matter, son,” he said in an unhurried drawl. “I’m gonna fuck you anyway.” ~ Political bribe solicitors/fund raisers are seeing an increase in donations ~ Every one? I suspect that many are, but 100%? Also, how do you decide who fits in those categories? ~ I bet campaign contributions to senators and congressmen are increasing ~ @WernerTwertzog I am not generous with interviewers who use profanity for no good purpose but vestigial antiestablismentarianism. ~ What about birth gendered? I just plain don’t like cis. ~ I doubt if a HO (Hillary Operative) installed those statues. ~ I see how we need a word for *opposite of trans*. However, I find the cis prefix to be distasteful. My suggestion would be to say that people in this category are birth gendered. ~ I did not care for reason number three. While being “encouraged to check your privilege.” is not oppression, it is not respect either. ~ @chamblee54 @mbsycamore @rabihalameddine @groveatlantic to say someone lost their mind presupposes that they had one to begin with ~ @WernerTwertzog I was not aware of any satire. ~ Having an opinion that differs from community standards should not be an act of bravery. ~ Being told you have a negative attitude works wonders. ~ It is a real shame to lose a friend over an honest attempt at discussion. I have written a blog post about this subject, but am not brave enough to post a link. If anyone is interested, send me a private message. It does have some great photos, taken at Agnes Scott College in 1937. ~ pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. The Atlanta Crackers played ball at Ponce De Leon Park until 1964 ~ selah
The Cost Of Football
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.
Linguistic Turf Wars
Read more: PUBLIC NOTE: The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the view of the Urban Intellectuals, affiliates or partners. ~ Andrew Caruso, Akron, OH, Barbara L. Pawley, Los Angeles, CA, Domingo Pestano, Caracas, Venezuela, Dorothy Harbeck, Fair Haven, NJ, Heather Fougere, Center Conway, NH, Henry Biggs, Sydney, Australia, James Siragusa, Lewiston, ME, Julie Crowley, Ballyphilibeen, Ireland, Kathryn El-Assal, Middleton, WI, Leslie Craven, Wellington, New Zealand, Neil T Godden, Nouméa, New Caledonia, Peter S. Bjorkman, Rocklin, CA, Rachel Nirenberg, Toronto, Canada, Raluca Murg, Paris, France, Randy Denker, Tallahassee, FL, Ted Downes, Cardiff, Wales, William Lattanzio, Boyertown, PA. ~ “The expression [the shit hits the fan] is related to, and may well derive from, an old joke. A man in a crowded bar needed to defecate but couldn’t find a bathroom, so he went upstairs and used a hole in the floor. Returning, he found everyone had gone except the bartender, who was cowering behind the bar. When the man asked what had happened, the bartender replied, ‘Where were you when the shit hit the fan?’ ” ~ @SecretService The Secret Service is aware of the comments made earlier this afternoon. ~ is that what happens when you get “poked”? ~ homophobia is not a phobia you are not scared you are an asshole ~ Food for thought. The trouble is, I am on a diet. ~ “Because all news is satirical” This is a satire site. ~ ABSTRACT Joke-Making Jews / Jokes Making Jews: Essays on Humor and Identity in American Jewish Fiction Beginning from the premise that humor plays a prominent role in the construction of group and individual identities, as a social phenomenon and a simultaneously alienating and assimilating force, these essays explore and examine humor and its construction of American Jewish identity within the context of various works of American Jewish fiction. ~ making a visual joke about answer to your question being that facebook graphic — i am too baptist for this ~ There is a football stadium over at Atlanta University Center. It was built as a field hockey venue, with football the use after the games. The school went out of business. The stadium is in ruins. (Full disclosure: This is from an article I do not have a link to.) ~ You currently have 285 social media contacts aka friends. 285 is the number of the dreaded perimeter highway, the barrier between itp and otp. Are your friends constantly stuck in horrific traffic, while they go roundround circumnavigating the zircon encrusted metropolis? ~ @tariqnasheed Malia Obama’s suspected white supremacists friends dry snitched on her 4 smokin weed. Blks must understand every SWS is a potential snitch ~ Is #blacklivesmatter a registered trademark? who owns the rights? How do we know they are activists, and not crooks making $$ ? ~ The Great White Hype: No One Is Energizing the White Working Class, Not Even Donald Trump That title is problematic. Many of the issues affecting white people also affect POC. Labeling concern over these issues as racism sucks. The divide and conquer lives on. ~ @Zombie_Cartman You believe in Dinosaurs yet no living human has ever seen one alive, But if I believe in what a man did 2000 years ago i’m dumb @chamblee54 if you believe you know what a man did 2000 years ago, based on 1800 yo book, you are dumb ~ I, the Prime Minister of Israel, care more about Palestinians than their own leaders do. Sounds incredible, right? ~ Reince Preibus without vowels is RNC PR BS ~ The Simple Rules That Govern Our Modern Political World 1. There is a group of very rich men who control the levers of power. 2. Those men own the media. 3. Those men sponsor political candidates on all sides to do their bidding. 4. Those men have a simple agenda of increasing their wealth and power, to be gods among men. ~ Marijuana is dangerous to the profits of the alcohol industry, and their media enablers ~ Michael Phelps reportedly used to date Carrie Prejean. She is the beauty queen who got in trouble for saying that gay marriage is yucky, and not shutting up when she had the chance. ~ comment deleted after seeing it sourced to Perez Hilton ~ There are a lot of problems with this article. ~ Clinton to Donor: In Next War, I’ll Let Israel Kill 200,000, Not Just 2,000, Gazans Luther Mckinnon “Because all news is satirical” This is a satire site. Bert LeVert McDert Oops. Those things get me all the time. Rod McCoy Hillary wrote these words in a letter to a donor. It is no satire, though disinformants may have taken the flag and run… Luther Mckinnon Do you have credible evidence for that claim? Rod McCoy I am sure you would denounce it, I have no need to convince you. Beleive what you will. This is not the only source of the information. Do your own research before you attack. You are ot open and will not receive the information from me, so I will not go beyond what I have offered.Luther Mckinnon In other words, no Rod McCoy in other words you are here to argue and attack. go do your own search, instead of habitual neysaying.Luther Mckinnon I did my google search yesterday It said the site was satire. While it is technically possible that HRC said those things, I find it unlikely. She is too slick to say something that crude. If you are making the claim, you should have the proof. Rod McCoy you did a search on the site and found what you wanted to have permission to beleive what you had already decided to beleive. ~ It is too bad that the beautiful “round bank” was not built on a better location. Or that it seems to be unusable for anything other than banking. It definitely is not a good venue for a restaurant. ~ What about “Ventriloquism for Dummies” ? (Did I just spell Ventriloquism correctly without using spellcheck?) ~ The line about Mr. Reagan was that if America had a figurehead monarch, that he would be perfect. ~ The good news is, no one is blocking interstates to protest citizen on citizen crime. ~ The blurb uses an unfortunate adjective. ~ Brad, are you implying that the men of “D town” have small dicks? ~ I googled “desegregation is a benefit of gentrification.” None of the headlines on the first page appear to say this. ~ @kat_blaque What do people think they’re going to accomplish by calling me a racist? Like, I always wonder where the conversation is supposed go after. ~ The word listen does not appear in that meme. ~ @DesertFoxMulder The same group destroying property tonight commits 55% of all homicides in the US, despite being 13% of pop. @fubaglady I think they’re down to 12% now, since they spend so much time killing each other. ~ @RuPaul Why do people who’ve been oppressed take on the same characteristics as their oppressors? ~ 4.Ghostbusters continues to bomb at box office. ~ @peterkz #BlackLivesMatter Benefit show @TheSecondCity 100% proceeds go to #BLM #onenightonly @chamblee54 how do you donate to #blm do they have a bank account? Is this *official* #blm or someone using the name to steal @peterkz sounds like someone hurt you boo boo sowwy! @chamblee54 In other words you don't know ~ @lex_looper If you're more outraged by poor people in #Milwaukee burning property than rich people on Wall Street robbing you daily, you are delusional ~ @extravaganster Fellow white ppl: If you don't understand destruction of property as an act of protest, then you have an abundance of privilege. ~ Black Lives Matter is ‘woke’ to old problems — but still sleeping on solutions ~ Shit and the Need for Data-Driven Standards ~ Scrotal Asymmetry in Man and in Ancient Sculpture, etc. ~ Don’t Shy Away From Discussing Difficult Topics Of Race And Equity At Work ~ Why Angry White Men Love Calling People “Cucks” ~ Two Years After Darren Wilson Killed Michael Brown, Police and the Media Need to Do Better ~ Police: Man running from police hit, killed by cars on interstate ~ I’m Offended By That and Your Privilege is Showing: The (Other) Inherent Problem with Poetry Slam. ~ The (Actual) Inherent Problem with Poetry Slam ~ 39 arrested in Chatham, Effingham child-sex sting ~ Becky with the Good Hair and White “Activism” Get Taken Down on Survivor’s Remorse ~ Is Neoliberalism Behind the Rise of Donald Trump? @chamblee54 article was mostly economics, & downplayed racial issues…the R word is the king of clickbait ~ @Fedup_Mom @EmoNegro1 Tell it! That’s what I fear most for the Obama girls. They’ve been so segregated from black folk they’re not prepared for racism. ~ Learning to Live With Changes to the English Language ~ Investigating the Meaning of the Gadsden Flag ~ The Great White Hype: No One Is Energizing the White Working Class, Not Even Donald Trump ~ 10 Signs You’re a Shaman & Don’t Know It ~ The Linguistic Turf Wars Over the Singular ‘They’ ~ EXCLUSIVE: ‘We ended up kissing and kissing led to other things’: Mother, 36, and son, 19, who fell in love when they met last year after she gave him up for adoption as a baby, say they’ll go to JAIL to defend their relationship ~ I’m a Judge and I Think Criminal Court Is Horrifying ~ racism clickbait The line is the blurb is from paragraph 14. It is about a judge, telling a defendent they can’t go to see a friend to eat beans and rice. ~ A 10-panel comic explores a subtle kind of racism many people of color experience. ~ Black people wait twice as long to vote as white people, a new study finds ~ poem ~ How Evangelicals are Losing an Entire Generation ~ RuPaul just gave the most politically pragmatic endorsement of Hillary Clinton` ~ Casanova Was Also a Grave Robber ~ Tim Smith ~ Man shot, killed inside metro Atlanta home ~ Tyreun Gaines, Antoine Coon ~ Jeremy Milbry ~ pictures for this preposterous waste of bandwidth today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. ~ selah
The Funeral Of Elvis
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.) This is a repost. Pictures are from the Farm Security Administration collection of The Library of Congress.
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 film. 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 or two.
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.
Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest 2016 Part Two
This is the rest of the published entries from the 2016 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Part one hit the ether yesterday. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. The Atlanta Crackers played ball at Ponce de Leon Park until 1964. If you get tired of the text, skip over it and look at the pictures.
There are no bad writers from Georgia in this contest. This is the fifth year of chamblee54 coverage, and there has never been a Georgia writer mentioned. Maybe Florida, and North Carolina, were too productive, and exhausted the southern quota.
PG read all of the material, and should recover. What follows is the product that got PG’s attention. The samples here are in alphabetical order, starting with “Knowing well.” The winner for most popular first word is the, which begins five entries. The next most popular first word is she, which is utilized four times. Maybe we should just start the bad writing party.
Knowing well the hand signals of his platoon leader, Private James Dawson silently dropped to the dirt, concealed and motionless for what seemed an eternity, a move that he had learned, coincidentally, from his parents whenever the Watchtower ladies would ring the doorbell.
Peter S. Bjorkman, Rocklin, CA
Little Jenny would stop at nothing in her ambition to become an astronaut—that way she wouldn’t end up as an unfulfilled cashier married to a dweeb like Colin Snodgrass, with a sizeable mortgage and four lazy kids who couldn’t even be bothered to pick up a book like this, never mind become astronauts. — Julie Crowley, Ballyphilibeen, Ireland
Osgood knew he wasn’t popular, well-liked, or even very good looking, and could suck the life out of a room like a fat kid sucking the filling out of a Twinkie, but surely a date with the beautiful blonde in the corner wasn’t out of the question, he thought as he licked the cream from his fingers.
Marie Gaither, Asheville, NC
Patrice— the most-feared henchman of the global terrorist mastermind Ivan Terrible—staggered back to his car, wiped the dead cocktail waiter’s blood from his hands, picked up his smartphone, and texted a terse status update to his employer’s personal assistant: “Tell IT that our server is down.”
Gwen Dallas, Austin, TX
Quiet mornings, long lazy afternoons, and spectacular sunsets were de rigueur for Elbert and Ethel Salipit since their early retirement and internment at the Happy Valley Cemetery for Eternal Rest and Relaxation. — Tim Petteys, Malden on Hudson, NY
She couldn’t decide whether it was the tail-less rat devouring another neighboring rat’s brain in his glassed cage, or just the way the doctor and his white-haired assistant were applying the saw to Aslan’s skull casing as he lay dismembered on the great table, but something told Lucy they’d tumbled through another portal and out of Narnia.— “Lionrhod,” Winter Park, FL
She walked toward me with her high heels clacking like an out-of-balance ceiling fan set on low, smiling as though about to spit pus from a dental abscess, and I knew right away that she was going to leave me feeling like I had used a wood rasp to cure my hemorrhoids. Charles Caldwell, Leesville, LA
She was like my ex-girlfriend Ashley, who’d stolen my car, broken my heart, murdered my father, robbed a bank, and set off a pipe bomb in Central Park—tall. — Rachel Nirenberg, Toronto, Canada
She was uncertain how or when it had happened, but over the years her svelte figure-8 frame had gone lopsided and become a wretched parody of the symmetrical numeral—indeed, the bottom oval was as lumpy and pear-shaped as the carelessly-thrown-aside velour sack of the average mall Santa.
April Olion, Gainesville, FL
The evidence at Evan’s Seaside Bird Sanctuary was mounting: the scattered precocial plumage, the tidal pond encircling a quartet of lifeless birds, the brine-soaked ascot, the cane—could it be that Maurice Chevalier sank Evan’s four little gulls? — Peter S. Bjorkman, Rocklin, CA
The girl screamed, the wind rustled, something moved in the night closer and closer; the moon hung heavily over the night, white as a pearl, blood dripped from Vlad’s mouth, the girl’s pale body hung in his hands, sparkling in the moonlight—he was a vampire, after all.
Heather Fougere, Center Conway, NH
The Halkan prediction of galactic revolt did indeed come true when Han Solo seized the throne of Gandolf, was overthrown by Captain Jim Kirk, all the Wookies were slaughtered by a ragtag band of renegade Hobbits, Tribbles were ground up and made the sixth flavor of Skittles, and Saurian brandy was sold as a premixed chocolate-flavored cocktail by the Martian partners of Nestle.
David S. Nelson, Falls Church, VA
The jar was oozing, and the ooze was jarring: a dank fetid oleaginous slime that slapped and slithered across the bourgeoisie marble countertop like loathsome Gerber’s Lovecraftian puree.
Marlon McAvoy, Oak Ridge, TN
The sea roiled like water in a pasta pot about to boil, an apt simile thought Captain Samuel Turner, because if they didn’t fix their engine soon he and his crew would be floating face down like overcooked manicotti—bloated, white, limp and about to be consumed by something that wished it were eating ahi tuna instead.— Alex Bosworth, Ketchikan, Alaska
Tinkerbell the Fairy and Amy the Elf were BFFFs (best fairyland friends forever), and they loved having adventures in Big-People Land, like eating marshmallows for dinner, galloping fast on the backs of tiny lizards, and taking naps on the pillows of very important people like Judges, Mayors, and Millionaires.— David S Nelson, Falls Church, VA
Watching Emily sleep in exhausted, naked bliss while bathed by the soft shower of lucid moonlight that titillatingly teased glimpses of her supple features he had come to know, Sebastian tried to remember the last time he had seen a woman’s body so beautiful, but after the collision of his ’02 Pontiac Aztek with a Bug-X exterminator truck on East Hermosa Vista Drive in Mesa, Arizona, two months ago left him with long-term memory loss, he couldn’t. — L.A. Jackson, Apex, NC
SJW Are Yucky
This is comment 66.6 I agree with you that SJW are yucky. I disagree with a blanket condemnation of Islam. I would have dealt with white self loathing, and the obsession with OPRAH…other people’s racial attitudes hello. However, you are the one who took the time to make a video. If you want my opinions, you can go to my blog. ~ Listen more than you talk. If you want to be understood, try to understand others. Labels are for jars, not people. ~ @AngryBlackLady It’s not my problem if you (a) are bad at Twitter; (b) get riled up over out-of-context screenshots; (c) can’t read; or (d) are stupid. ~ @dailyzen Find creative ways to release anger that don’t involve having a temper tantrum. ~ the third commandment includes memes ~ @SlavojTweezek great confusion, fallacious argument, intellectual masturbation…. aka the 2016 presidential election ~ Is the big announcement the retirement of Willie Wonka? ~ This would also explain Bernie Sanders. ~ 4110 glenwood road 30032 – 215 sycamore street 30030 ~ @LearningthePath @Frank_Turk @ABereanOne Given that it’s an apologetics podcast and not a discernment podcast… @chamblee54 Maybe it is just somebody that likes to use a lot of big words that they don’t understand ~ Our commenting rules are pretty simple: If you make any overly offensive comment (racist, bigoted, etc..) or go way off topic when not in an Open Post, your comments will be deleted and you will be banned. If you see an offensive or spammy comment you think should be deleted, flag it for the mods and they’ll be forever grateful and give you their first born (although, you probably don’t want that). ~ You and I used to know a few people that would benefit from knowing this. ~ Matt lives in Virginia, where you will, theoretically, have a vote. Many of us do not have a vote. The state we live in is written off to one party or another. Another thing to consider is the local races. Apparently Matt does not worry about the local races. What a conservative. ~ your right to be angry does not include my obligation to listen ~ @KingEric55 Eight years have brilliant Black man as POTUS has so damaged white racists feeling of superiority that many have suffered mental breakdown @chamblee54 8 years with mixed race POTUS has inflated constipated egos to point that many have exploded in shower of shit ~ I would like to believe this. However, the polls said the Senate and Governor’s race was close in 2014. On election day, it was a Republican rout. ~ Is the non binary dude/dudette a dud? ~ @DanaSchwartzzz Even if they want him out, I say the GOP needs to carry their candidate fully to term ~ The sidebar of other articles at the site is called “Thou Shalt Read” ~ @50NerdsofGrey ‘I’ve been a very bad girl,’ she said, biting her lip. ‘I need to be punished.”Very well,’ he said and installed Windows 10 on her laptop. ~ I quit reading when I saw “gaslighted.” ~ @RachelMcKibbens white savior poems that interrogate other white saviors is like watching the front end of a loaf of Wonder bread talk trash on its back end ~ Luther Mckinnon If you were to take a transcript (or a cis-script) of this program you could put a blank every time Kat says black or white. Then, you could put either black, or white,in many of the blank spaces, and it would be true. In a few spots, you would have to substitute prejudiced for racist, because that is how we use those words. Still, many, though not all, of the things Kat is saying about white people, are also true for black people. ~ Kat Blaque Black people have never had the history of supremacy and power that white people have had. So no, these aren’t interchangeable and you look old enough to be more aware of that than the emailer. ~ Luther Mckinnon I was referring to the concept that the community you are familiar with affects the way that you think. ~ Kat Blaque Sure. I didn’t grow up in a black community so I’m not sure how that applies to me. Sometimes switching places doesn’t work. ~ Luther Mckinnon It would have been fun to be comment six, for episode sixty six.~ @suzannahweiss A friendly reminder that even women who are open about sex don’t appreciate being objectified, disrespected, harassed, or made uncomfortable ~ @chamblee54 A friendly reminder that men don’t appreciate being objectified, disrespected, harassed, made uncomfortable ~ @TheBillyProcida Dude if you’re a listener of my podcast, I’m ashamed of you. Bye, boy. ~ @chamblee54 you have just illustrated my point ~ You are blocked from following @TheBillyProcida and viewing @TheBillyProcida’s Tweets. ~ @suzannahweiss Writer, editor, dick pic theorist. Get me drunk & I’ll talk about robot ethics. @glamourmag, @Refinery29, @bustle, @washingtonpost, etc Suzannahlweiss@gmail.com ~ @chamblee54 the manwhore podcast dude blocked me… you have the right to your opinion but men don’t deserve gratuitous abuse ~ You are blocked from following @suzannahweiss and viewing @suzannahweiss’s Tweets. ~ 2 bodies found behind Roswell Publix ~ Natalie Henderson, Carter Davis ~ Keaira Palmer ~ Woman shot in head while driving in Atlanta ~ Ariel & Alaynah ~ Jamarion Rashad Robinson ~ Dylan Scott ~ Robert Wright ~ Exposure to Sexist Humor and Rape Proclivity: The Moderator Effect of Aversiveness Ratings ~ Jessica Lynn Sanders Chicago Racist ~ Does anyone know what happened before the video started? What did MrCrim3 say, or do, to the young lady? ~ Photographer Files $1 Billion Suit Against Getty for Licensing Her Public Domain Images ~ Black Lives Matter Atlanta leaders you should know: Mary Hooks ~ MyScriptFon ~ Admitting that white privilege helps you is really just congratulating yourself ~ @SlavojTweezek In which I show that postgenderism leads to racism, classism, and marriage with animals. The Sexual Is Political ~ @jaxx_mca This should be read, if only to witness great confusion, fallacious argument, and intellectual masturbation. ~ Read Bret Easton Ellis’ excoriating monologue on social justice warriors and political correctness ~ Sky Ferreira ~ campus map ~ Trump or Jesus? ~ Letter to the Terrorists of Palestine ~ Critics See Efforts by Counties and Towns to Purge Minority Voters From Rolls ~ Airbnb’s racism problem is much bigger than a few racist hosts. ~ Black Lives Matter’s Jewish Problem Is Also a Black Problem ~ “it doesn’t matter who you love, or how you love, but that you love”. ~ @NotShaunKing SJWs are now more offended by the Gadsen and Confederate flag, than the ISIS flag. Nice job, people! ~ Wearing ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ insignia could be punishable racial harassment ~ did betsy ross own slaves ~ pictures are from The Library of Congress. ~ selah
Conservative Liberal Racist
The management of this blog is not responsible for brain damage incurred while reading this post. If you cant take the heat, get out of the kitchen. Those threatened by this discussion, or not interested, are encouraged to skip over the text, and look at the pictures. These images, of Union Soldiers of the War Between the States, are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
There is a meme, with the text a conservative is a liberal who has been labeled a racist. A few comments followed publication. Someone was paying attention. Uhm…WTF?! ~ its a long story ~ All three labels are useless and misleading. I try not to let the labels of others describe me, but sometimes it happens. It is a bit of poetic license.
The words liberal and conservative are useless. When he started to make the comment, PG intended to refer to those two expressions. Then he started to type.The realization hit … the word racist was just as obsolete as liberal and conservative, and probably misused more often.
The next day at work, PG began to think. If you saw a mushroom cloud rising over Jimmy Carter Boulevard, that is what you saw. Random thoughts began to emerge.
A- The popularity of con, lib, and rac, derive from America’s blind allegiance to the belief paradigm The general thought is that what you believe is more important than what you do. The dominant religion in America is Jesus Worship, which is based on beliefs rather than practices. While America is not officially a Christian country, their thought processes dominate the way things work here.
B- The belief paradigm filters down to the popularity of silly labels.We have people who claim to be small government conservatives, and who support sending 200k troops to a war eight time zone away. You can treat your black neighbors with kindness and grace, but if you say the wrong things on facebook you are considered a racist. It is a funny system.
C- Conservatives use liberal as an insult. Liberals use racist as an insult.
D- No one is certain what the words conservative, liberal, and racist mean. You should beware of anyone who claims to be certain of what these labels represent.
National Poetry Slam
PG thought he could help out by volunteering for the National Poetry Slam. The 2016 edition is in Decatur GA, just a few dozen red lights down Clairmont Road. Three shifts were involved. They ranged from boring, to enjoyable, to busy/enjoyable, to excruciating.
The first day was registration. There was nothing to do, except sit behind a table, hand t-shirts to people, and point out the “money lady.” Eventually, there were a couple of chats to listen in on, and an urban explorer to compare notes with. Later was volunteer orientation, which was about as interesting as you might expect.
For some reason, PG volunteered to take on another shift. It was for a “Daytime Performing Venue.” PG went to the library, then to the hotel. He saw a schedule. The event was “Rookie Showcase,” held at the dependable Java Monkey.
The poets performed in an open mic format. It was the usual OM assortment, perhaps a touch better than Java Monkey Speaks. One lady talked about the joys (?) of motherhood. A couple of men talked about dealing with G-d. All PG had to do was be there, set up chairs, and pick up chairs when the event was over. It was a pleasant enough way to spend the morning.
The third day was general support at Afternoon events. At one o’clock, the event was “Head 2 Head Haiku.” People were paired off, the green performer and the blue performer. They read a haiku, and the judges held up a green, or blue glow stick, to indicate the winner. Whoever won that round moved into the next round, against another winner. It goes on until one person wins.
The host put PG to work. Working from a list of names, PG copied the names on slips of paper, to be drawn out of a hat. Next, the names were written on postit notes, to be stuck on the wall. After a round, the winner’s postit goes to the next round, and the loser goes on the table.
After a brief intermission, the second event was “Black Poets Speak Out.” A series of poets stood on the stage, and shouted. They were concerned about people being killed, mostly by policemen. After the third performer shouted that “we are in a post racial america, with a black overseer,” PG decided not to endure the toxic rhetoric.
Wednesday morning, four miles south of the Decatur library, 15 year old Keaira Palmer went to the S&N Superette on Glenwood Road. “She was just supposed to be going to the store to get a Sprite, a bag of hot chips and a Slim Jim.” Someone else drove by the store, and started shooting. None of the black poets spoke out about this incident. At least, not before PG left.
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
The End Of Racism
One of the touted TED talks in the weekly email is Color blind or color brave? It is by Mellody Hobson, a POC in the investment business. It is the standard call to talk more about race. Talk, talk, talk, and talk some more. The word listen is not used.
At the 3:13 mark, Mrs. Hobson makes a remarkable statement. “Now I know there are people out there who will say that the election of Barack Obama meant that it was the end of racial discrimination for all eternity, right?” It is possible that someone has said that. There are also people who say the earth is flat.
PG asked Mr. Google about this. The top two results are about the TED talk. The third result is an article in Forbes magazine, Racism In America Is Over. It is written by John McWhorter, one of the “black guys at Bloggingheads.tv.” Dr. McWhorter does say racism is over, sort of. The problems that remain are a lot worse. Too much food for thought, for a population with intellectual bulimia.
There is a quote in the Forbes article that is pure gold. “When decrying racism opens no door and teaches no skill, it becomes a schoolroom tattletale affair. It is unworthy of all of us: “He’s just a racist” intoned like “nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah!””
There are a lot more results. PG is getting tired of looking. If you want to see for yourself, google “the election of Barack Obama meant that it was the end of racial discrimination for all eternity.” Except for a rogue title editor at Forbes, almost nobody has said that. This is a repost. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Chamblee54 
leave a comment