I’m Not A Witch
In 2010, republicans in Delaware nominated Christine O’Donnell for the US Senate. The race was to replace Vice-President Joe Biden. It turns out that Mrs. O’Donnell has already made a name for herself. In 1996, she was the President of SALT … The Savior’s Alliance for Lifting the Truth. She made an appearance on MTV to urge teenagers not to masturbate.
Public spirited citizens at MSNBC have found the video. It was introduced by Rachel Maddow, who had both hands on the desk. “you are going to be pleasing each other. If he already knows what pleases him, and he can please himself, then why am I in the picture.”
This feature is a repost from 2010. Mrs. O’Donnell lost her senate race by 16 points. One of her campaign ads proclaimed “I’m not a witch.” There was a misunderstanding with the FEC, over allegations that Mrs. O’Donnell used campaign funds for living expenses. Currently, @thechristineod is a podcast coach. The beat goes on. Pictures from The Library of Congress.
Sarah Palin
This content was posted September 12, 2010. … This weekend is the start of the NFL season. At the first game, the players, from both teams, stood silently and held a finger in the air. The gesture meant that the players were united in the negotiations with the league for a new union contract. … During the game, an announcement was made. Tom Brady, a quarterback, signed a contract. Terms were not released, but the estimate was that he would be paid $18 million a year. This works out to a bit over a million dollars a game. … The New York Times had a story this week about stadium debt in New Jersey. It seems like the old Meadowlands Stadium, now a parking lot, has roughly $100 million dollars in debt remaining. The taxpayers of New Jersey, for some reason, are responsible for this. The Giants and Jets open a new stadium this weekend. Somebody paid $1.6 billion for the new facility.
Locally, the Falcons are clamoring for a new stadium. Twenty years ago, the team threatened to move, if a new stadium was not built. A hotel-motel tax was passed to pay for it. Today, the state is broke, and Atlanta is about to run out of water. Where will the money come from to pay for a new stadium for the Falcons? … America is in an economic mess. We are borrowing to pay for two wars, eight time zones away. The needs of education, health care, and infrastructure are immense. Can we afford to pay a quarterback a million dollars a game? Where does the madness end? Is football about to become the luxury our culture can no longer afford?
This content was posted September 16, 2010. … Two years ago, Sarah Palin was the hottest name in show business/politics. Today, her star has only dimmed a bit. I saw a performance by the mama grizzly, and was duly impressed with her star power. The fact that the candidate Mrs. Palin endorsed lost, to a crook, is not a problem. … During the glory days, an actress portrayed Mrs. Palin as saying that ” I can see Russia from my back porch”. This is the basis for the post below. Before we go there, the question arises, did Sarah Palin ever say she could see Russia from her back porch? Even at a slacker blog, fairness is good form.
The next step is Google. When you type in “Did Sarah Palin…”, some answers come up. They are “die, go to college, ban books, get breast implants.” ( When I saw her speak, they did look real.) When you add “say”, the answers are “drill baby drill, she could see Russia, refudiate, and I can see Russia”. … When you click on “did sarah palin say she could see russia”, you have the option of 273k results. While no mention of her back porch came up on the first google page, there is a link to an interview Mrs. Palin gave the LA Times. She says “They’re our next-door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska — from an island in Alaska.”
There is an island called Little Diomede in the Bering Sea. A Russian island called Big Diomede is a few miles away. Little Diomede has less than 150 residents. No Alaska Governor (or ex Governor) has ever visited. Many of the residents do not have television, and do not know who Sarah Palin is. … So Sarah Palin (as played by Tina Fey) can see Russia from her back porch. The closeness of Alaska and Siberia is well known. When I started to look for information, he began with the Aleutian Islands. They string along for hundreds of miles, and cause a dent in the International Date Line. As for which is the last one, and when does Alaska turns into Russia, those are good questions.
So, another search angle was required. The Alaskan government supplied this: Alaska and Russia are less than 3 miles apart at their closest point in the Bering Strait where two islands, Russia’s Big Diomede Island and Alaska’s Little Diomede Island, are located. In winter it is possible to walk across the frozen Bering Strait border between these two islands. At its closest, the American mainland and the Russian mainland are 55 miles apart where Alaska’s Seward Peninsula and Russia’s Chukotka Peninsula reach out to each other.
Alaska is a big place. It has ten times the land mass of Georgia, with less population than Gwinnett County. There is a town on Little Diomede Island called Diomede. It checks in at 65°N 168°W. (For our purposes today, we are going to ignore minutes and seconds) Wasilla is the home of Sarah Palin. It can be found at 61°N 149°W . In other words, Diomede is four degrees north of Wasilla, and Nineteen degrees west. … Lets put this in local terms. Atlanta is 33°N 84°W . According to the atlas, 37°N 103°W is the point where New Mexico, Colorado, and Oklahoma come together. I cannot see that from his back porch. … Pictures today are by chamblee54. ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Jesus Said To Them, ‘My Wife’
This content was posted September 18, 2012. … Many of you have heard about the video. It was made at a fund raiser, and Willard Mitt Romney said things that got him in trouble. This is not surprising. Many of us already know that WMR is a jerk. … What goes around comes around. Four years ago, BHO was secretly taped at a fundraiser. He said that bitter people were clinging to their guns and bibles. A few said that it was tacky to secretly record a fundraising party like that.
Georgia is so red that it glows. WMR will probably win the electoral votes. Lets take a look at the math. … Lets make a few assumptions. Lets say one million votes will be cast in Georgia. Thirty percent, or 300k, of those voters are black. Lets go a step further and guess that ninety percent of the black votes will go to BHO. That means that BHO has 270k votes. To get to 500k and win, BHO needs 230k out of the remaining 700k. This is 32 percent of the non-black vote. He probably won’t get it.
This content was posted September 19, 2012. … I found an amusing post Wednesday morning. “Yesterday I posted a link to the New York Times article about what is being called “the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife,” and several friends commented on it. This morning my post has disappeared. I did not remove it, nor did I delete any of the comments, which I found interesting. When I tried to repost the article, I got this message from Facebook: “The content you’re trying to share includes a link that’s been blocked for being spammy or unsafe.” The New York Times is spammy or unsafe??? … As a theology geek, I find this new discovery fascinating. But as a Christian, my faith does not depend on Jesus’ celibacy. So if it were to be proven somehow that he was indeed married, it would not retroactively affect the relationship I’ve had with Jesus throughout my life. If anything, it would support the belief that Jesus was fully human as well as fully divine.”
Smithsonian magazine has a feature on this artifact. It is too long for a slack blogger. The NYT article is less than a page, and says enough to base this post on. … Here is the money quote. “A historian of early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School has identified a scrap of papyrus that she says was written in Coptic in the fourth century and contains a phrase never seen in any piece of Scripture: “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife …’ ” The faded papyrus fragment is smaller than a business card, with eight lines on one side, in black ink legible under a magnifying glass. Just below the line about Jesus having a wife, the papyrus includes a second provocative clause that purportedly says, “she will be able to be my disciple.”
The word prove is used several times in the article. Perhaps indicate would be a more accurate verb. It is tough to “prove” anything using a 1700 year old papyrus fragment. The last paragraph in the NYT says “The notion that Jesus had a wife was the central conceit of the best seller and movie “The Da Vinci Code.” But Dr. King said she wants nothing to do with the code or its author: “At least, don’t say this proves Dan Brown was right.”
Of course, none of this means anything to most contemporary Christians. They think the Bible is the word of God. This text is inerrant, sufficient, spam free, and safe. Recent discoveries about Revelations are ignored. Like the bumper sticker says, “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.” … A person’s religion is a one of a kind experience. How you are introduced to a spiritual discipline is much more important than the mechanics of the church. The facebook commenter says that it won’t matter to him if Jesus has a wife. To me, any new information would not block the memory of humiliation at the hands of aggressive Christians.
There was another commentary published recently about the separation of God and spam. It was in New Yorker magazine, written by Hendrik Hertzberg. There was a post about Mr. Hertzberg at Chamblee54 once. I sent an email to Mr. Hertzberg about the post, and got a very nice reply. … The feature in question is about the way politicians think it will help them get elected to talk about God. Some think this is a grotesque violation of the third commandment. The New Yorker feature doesn’t really cover much ground, but has a bangup last paragraph. … “It was not hard to guess what idol, and what institution, the Cardinal had in mind. On the other hand, his reference to “nature and nature’s God” was not so clear. The phrase was there to echo the Declaration of Independence.
But Dolan must know that it is pure Deism—Jeffersonian code words for a non-supernatural God, a God who creates the universe and its laws and leaves the rest up to us. Could it be that we were witnessing an unheard-of political phenomenon, a dog whistle to voters who, whether or not they believe in a rights-endowing Creator, have their doubts about the sort of deity who begets sons, writes books, performs miracles, and determines the outcome of football games? Probably not. That God won’t hunt. “ … This was written like Dan Brown. Pictures today are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library. The social media picture was taken November 22, 1967. Home show on WAII-TV ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
BIG QUESTIONS
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Israel is doing some sketchy things these days. Israel bombed Qatar while Qatar was trying to free the hostages. Israel killed hundreds of its own citizens on October 7. Anything is possible. · “He was a defender of our common Judeo-Christian civilization. He was unbelievably excited to walk in the footsteps of Jesus here. He uh he valued our bond, the bond between America and Israel.” · Here is the monday morning reader for this week. Maybe this week will have less action · So many of our problems would go away if we said agree instead of believe · What? Cisgender just means that you are the gender that you were assigned at birth. Transgender means that you do not subscribe to the gender that you were assign the sex you were assigned at birth. Okay, that’s it. Sis doesn’t mean gay or anything like that. There’s no like trans cooties or whatever.” · “There’s no like trans cooties or whatever” · The DragonCon Parade is about fantasy. In this story, the fantasy belonged to the street preacher. He displayed grossout pictures of the crucifiction. · I was the one PREACHING at Dragoncon…for a guy with a CAMERA you suyre can’t tell the difference between PHOTOS of the CRUCIFIED Christ and abortion photos! The banner I had out there today had the NAIL pierced hand and feet of JESUS along with His blood covered face writhing in agony as He suffered the WRATH of God against SIN. Your Sin! Pay closer attention to the details or you will end up in HELL when you die! · I was the one PREACHING at Dragoncon…for a guy with a CAMERA you suyre can’t tell the difference between PHOTOS of the CRUCIFIED Christ and abortion photos! The banner I had out there today had the NAIL pierced hand and feet of JESUS … · If that text conversation is real … a big if … then Tyler Robinson knew about George Zinn while TR was jumping off the roof 200 yards away · Charlie Kirk is said by many to be a Christian martyr. Charlie Kirk condemned Islam. God and Allah are both Yahweh. · @WallStreetApes Charlie Kirk says the Left will use Islam to bring down America “The spiritual battle is coming to the West and the enemies are woke-ism or Marxism combining with Islamism to go after what we call the American way of life” “The American way of life is very simple. I want to be able to get married, buy a home, have kids, allow them to ride their bike till the sun goes down, send them to a good school, have a low crime neighborhood, not to have my kid be taught the lesbian, gay, transgender garbage in their school. While also, not having them have to hear the Muslim call to prayer five times a day. That’s important.” “These two threats are combining forces to come after us.” · Why do we need to know that Lance Twiggs is trans? It seems like somebody wants to build prejudice against Tyler Robinson. · Charlie Kirk made a deal with the devil. The same big money players who promote the War in Palestine invested large amounts of money in TPUSA · During Operation Cast Lead, the Israel bombing of blockaded Gaza in 2008-9, “a dog – an Israeli dog – was killed by a Qassam rocket and it on the front page of the most popular newspaper in Israel. On the very same day, there were tens of Palestinians killed, they were on page 16, in two lines. · “All he wanted to do was make you laugh.” No, he wanted to sell merchandise on behalf of his sponsors. Just like Donald Trump and Charlie Kirk · “God, would you please get your tentacles off of my stomach,” I uttered as Forrest groaned and slithered away from my bed; I swear, if anyone ever finds out I am dating an octopus, it will be social suicide. · WWJD, if he could see today’s church? Matthew 21:12-13 And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, · And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves. · Follow the money. TPUSA received big bucks from the same shadowy crowd that fanatically supports Israel. Kirk made a deal with the devil. · How can you gripe about Kimmel/Kirk when Palestinian Gaza is being eliminated? · Did TPUSA get funding from the same people as Jeffrey Epstein? · We really don’t know “why” Charlie Kirk was killed. Any more than we know “why” Jeffrey Epstein had to die. Kirk and Epstein were on the same payroll. · Notes on Charliemania I am recycling a post about Charles Bukowski. Here is a man who I would have avoided in real life, whose output I enjoy. Now, lets go to Charlie Kirk. Those who knew him talk about his friendly personality, and praise his devotion to Jesus. Unfortunately, the more I read about Mr. Kirk’s output, the less I like. And lets don’t even consider my miserable experience with Jesus. · A quote about Charles Bukowski: “I don’t read him for some sort of illumination on the haggard life of the proletariat. I just see his writing as a quick source of thrills, spills, and funny things to call women that you’re angry at but also still want to fuck.” · “Was Jesus really a carpenter?”. The way “carpenter” is used in Mark and Matthew seems like a generic insult for a common working man. Who is this peasant, who has the audacity to “teach” exalted church elders? · Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the social media picture in April 1942. “Los Angeles, California. The evacuation of Japanese-Americans from West coast areas under United States Army war emergency order. Soldiers assist Japanese with their baggage as they leave for Owens Valley” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Was Jesus Really A Carpenter?
Has anyone seen a painting of Jesus holding a saw? The idea the Jesus was a carpenter is seldom questioned. People are taught this, and accept it in sheep-like fashion. Even though the gospels were written many years after the cucifixion, they are accepted as “inerrant” historic documents. Here is what US Catholic says: “Was Joseph of Nazareth really a carpenter? … Only twice is the word carpenter used in the Christian scriptures: when Jesus is identified as “the carpenter’s son” (Matthew 13:55) and “the carpenter” (Mark 6:3.)…”
The passages that say “carpenter” are not complimentary to Jesus. This man appears out of nowhere, and starts to teach at the synagogue. Who is he? Why is a mere carpenter telling educated men how to live? Who does he think he is?
The two texts are similar. Here is Mark 6:2-4
2 And when the sabbath day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue: and many hearing him were astonished, saying, From whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands?
3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him.
4 But Jesus, said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.
Matthew 13: 54-57 54 And when he was come into his own country, he taught them in their synagogue, insomuch that they were astonished, and said, Whence hath this man this wisdom, and these mighty works?
55 Is not this the carpenter’s son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas?
56 And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things?
57 And they were offended in him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house.
“In the Hebrew scriptures, the word carpenters appears 11 times, mostly in tandem with the words masons or stonecutters. The Hebrew word used means “carver,” so when building projects were underway, both carvers of wood and of stone were needed. … In the references from the Christian scriptures to Jesus as a carpenter or the son of one, the Greek word used both times is more correctly translated as “craftsman” or “artisan.” Such a person might carve stone or wood as the job required. … What’s evident to scholars of biblical lands is that trees were always in short supply around Nazareth, whereas stone quarries were plentiful. Most structures dating back to the time of Jesus around Galilee are composed of stone—those that survive, anyway. Chances are both Joseph and Jesus did more masonry than carpentry, that is, if they didn’t work exclusively in stone.”
Mark 6:4 is a favorite Jesusism for many people. It is more true today than ever. You do not want to be correct before everyone else. In the McCarthy era, the term “premature anti-fascist” … a person that was opposed to Nazi Germany before 1941 … meant you were a communist. The little boy who criticized the emperor’s fashion statement was severely punished.
“Was Jesus really a carpenter” is an example of asking too many questions. The way “carpenter” is used in Mark and Matthew seems like a generic insult for a common working man. Who is this peasant, who has the audacity to “teach” exalted church elders? We don’t know why the Council of Nicea chose these texts to tell the Jesus story, and why these words were translated as “carpenter.” There is also the attitude of just-shut-up-and-believe-your-elders.
US Catholic says: “Did Jesus have a real job? This is the question behind the question, which sounds a bit dismissive: as if teaching, preaching, and healing—not to mention redeeming the world—weren’t occupation enough!” In either scenario, it boils down to faith and belief … in an ancient text of uncertain origin, which has been translated many times. “God says it, I believe it, and that settles it.”
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Marjory Collins took the social media picture in August 1942. “New York, New York. Italian-Americans on [Thompson] Street relaxing on Sunday” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Post Office
This content was published September 15, 2018. … Post Office, a novel by Charles Bukowski, was on sale at a “Friends of the Chamblee Library” book sale. The author would not like this. You cannot complain when you died 24 years ago. I paid a dollar, and read the story. Hank Chinaski, the stand in for the author, got a lousy job at the post office in Los Angeles. For 196 pages, Hank drinks, works, screws, admires women’s bodies, drinks, bets on horses, fights with supervisors, has hangovers, and drinks more. The story is easy to read, suggesting the helping hand of an editor.
PO stands for both post office and pissed off. The two concepts are not mutually exclusive. To hear Hank tell the story, life at the PO was an endless cycle of sadistic bosses, and brain damaged co-workers. Administrative wanks rule over everyone. Somehow Hank made it through 11 years as a clerk. The institution survived. Mr. Bukowski perished in 1994. The headstone reads “Don’t Try.”
‘I Never Saw Him Drunk’: An Interview with Bukowski’s Longtime Publisher is an interview with John Martin, the owner of Black Sparrow press. Mr. Martin thought Hank was the next Whitman, and started Black Sparrow (initials are not always convenient) to distribute Hank’s product. When Hank quit the post office in 1969, Mr. Martin agreed to give him $100 a month. This later became $10,000 every two weeks, with more at the end of the year.
“How did his first novel, Post Office, come about? This is a good story. So we made that deal in December for $100 a month—early December, as I recall—and so he gave notice to the post office, and his last day there was going to be December 31. He said, “OK, I’m going to work for you on January 2, because January 1 is New Year’s Day and I’m going to take that as a holiday. We thought that was really funny. About three or four weeks went by, I think it was still in January, or at worst the first week in February, and he called me—oh, and I had told him earlier, “If you ever think of writing a novel, that’s easier to sell than poetry; it would help if you could write a novel”—so he called me up at the very end of January or the first week of February, out of the blue, and said, “I got it; come and get it.” I said, “What?” And he said, “My novel.” I said, “You’ve written a novel since I saw you last?” And he said, “Yes.” I asked how that was possible, and he said, “Fear can accomplish a lot.” And that novel was Post Office.” The novel includes a near fatal party in that month.
Mr. Martin has a take on Hank which differs from his image. “Hank was not comfortable among people, in a crowd, even at a small gathering; he was a real loner. He wanted to get up in the morning, have a quick breakfast with his wife, read the paper, leave the house about noon, go to the track, come home at 6:00, have dinner about 7:00, go upstairs at 8:00, and write until two in the morning, and he wanted nothing to interfere with that routine. … he was the most polite man I’ve ever known, and the most honest man I’ve ever known. He was so deferential and polite and so concerned for your comfort, and whether you were happy or not, when you were with him.”
“I went to the bathroom and threw some water on my face, combed my hair. If I could only comb that face, I thought, but I can’t.” This may be the best line in PO. There are a lot to choose from. PO is a guilty pleasure. It is sexist and misogynistic to the max. The writing is basic, and easy to consume. It is tough to believe that Hank wrote this in a month by himself, but it is also tough to believe that someone that ugly got laid all the time. If only Hank could have combed that face.
I have written about Hank one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight times, with some reruns thrown in for efficient blogging. I have written two poems about Hank. (A B) B is basically A in sonnet form. Never mind that Hank hated rhyming poems, to say nothing of posting the lines over pictures of dogs. Hank was a cat person, as if rhyme scheme blasphemy was not enough.
@bukowski_quote is a twitter facility dedicated to distributing 240 character bits of Buk. These tweets/quotes (twoats) have been packaged as two more sonnets, published in two parts each. (C D E F) Sometimes, I see this is a bit of post mortem cultural appropriation. The Hank of Tales of Ordinary Madness would have hated seeing his work used this way. How the millionaire, wine sipping Hank felt is a good question. Then, I found a quote that made me feel better.
“I got into Bukowski about five years ago on a trip to New York from North Carolina. I swallowed Ham on Rye in a single sitting while riding in the back of some clunker-type Honda thing racing north on I-95 in what I think was June of 2005. Since then I’ve read all of his novels and much of his poetry (which is a lot, do you know how much poetry he wrote?) and don’t give a shit about the literary ball bags at the Vice office who say he’s a boring, repetitive, pompous, fake-macho, southern-California-weather-system-addled boozehole, partly because I agree, and partly because I don’t read him for some sort of illumination on the haggard life of the proletariat. I just see his writing as a quick source of thrills, spills, and funny things to call women that you’re angry at but also still want to fuck.”
A book report about Post Office would not be complete without one star reviews. patricia neumannon August 8, 2014 “One star for the fact that this was even published. I was offended by Mr. Bukowski’s low regard for women. Pehaps his target audience is adolescent boys, who might twitter at Bukkowski’s vulger attempt at humor.” Auntie Mon September 1, 2014 “A book about a pathetic, selfish White man? No thanks.” gammyrayeon February 8, 2013 ” … The narrator Henry Chenaski is a low-life alcoholic who spends his life getting drunk, having sex with girlfriends and chance acquaintances, and betting at the race track, all while working at the post office. Finally he resigns from the post office. End of story. All this is written in an arrogant tone, as if the narrator feels himself to be superior to all the other characters, especially to his fellow workers. Bukowski has stated that the novel is autobiographical, and he seemed to take pride in the tumble-down life that he led. I have known guys like this–he is every drunk or drug addict who ever excused his addiction as an indication that he is too intelligent and sensitive to deal with the angst of living among the clods and drudges. Alcoholism is not hilarious and entertaining, even to the alcoholic, eventually. And it is not hilarious and entertaining to read about.” … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Marjory Collins took the social media picture in August 1942. “New York, New York O’Reilly’s bar on Third Avenue in the “Fifties”” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
BLFC 2019 Part Two
The 2019 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is out. Here is part two of chamblee54 coverage. Part one was published yesterday. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the social media picture in September 1940. “The Colson family, the children just back from school. Tobacco farmers near Suffield, Connecticut” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
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She had a captivating smile and eyes the color of a poisonous frog he’d seen on a trip to Costa Rica. Carol Hobart, Edina, MN
I knew that my husband was cheating on me, because I tasted his breath on the new maid’s lips. Andrew Kim, San Jose, CA
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After almost twenty years of baldness, Harry finally decided to splurge on an expensive, human-hair wig – after all, four hundred dollars to look twenty years younger was a small price toupée. Julian Calvin, Bellbrook, OH
They were tough men with tough jobs who frequented tough bars with rough, tough atmospheres, and the way they gripped their drinks, cigars, and cigarettes in a manly fashion never failed to impress the tough, hard-faced women who also frequented those same bars, and often ended up having their babies. Adam Johnson
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times – though any decent statistician might net those two factors together and conclude that things were fairly average all round.
David Meech, Auckland, New Zealand
His hot, fetid breath on the back of her neck pulled her from her sleep and she felt fear grip her as she recognized his presence and scrambled quickly to untangle herself from the sheets and exit the bed before Felix could hack up the forthcoming hairball. Krista Epton, Edmonton, Alberta
Standing at the altar, dressed in white, Lucy could not help but think of the suitors she had turned down—Jock, Dick, and Willy—all lovely men, but not as lovely as her ultimate choice, now standing proudly at her side, to whom the vicar turned and questioned, “Do you, John Thomas, take Lucy . . . ?” David Hynes, Bromma, Sweden
Accidentally dropping her phone, eyelids, and fake Ottawa Valley accent was not what Sarah Hemsworthington did best, or most often, or with the most confidence in her family of nine rather nasty siblings, and step-siblings, and half-to-one-quarter siblings—but it sure came close!
Marty Williams, Guelph, Ontario, Canada
It seemed a cruel irony to Nigel when he realized, only in hindsight, how mistaken he had been to abandon his youthful ambition to become a technical writer and bend to his parents’ wishes that he go into proctology. Scott Wilson, Corvallis, OR
West Bank Horror
This content was published September 29, 2010. … There is much hand wringing about Israel, Palestine, and the Peace Process. (That is a sentence you can use at any time. These things too shall pass away.) … A lot of this chatter misses the point. They talk about a threat to Israel, if this or that happens. There are several things wrong here. To begin with, Israel has the unquestioning support of the United States. The PR battle in the USA is the most important fight Israel has.
A “freeze” in building settlements ended recently. The word settlement is so antiseptic and painless. Settlements are not built on empty land. The people living on the land were evicted, and their homes destroyed. As Juan Cole tells the story: “The poor Palestinians of East Jerusalem have few assured human or civil rights. Anyone may do anything to them at any time, and they have little recourse. They can be thrown out of property they legally purchased after 1948, and made to live in tents in front of their former residences; and then the tents can be demolished by Israeli police. Aggressive, larcenous Jewish squatters continually attempt to effect a slow-motion ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, using fraud and sometimes force.
The 55,000 Palestinians of the Silwan area (formerly a village but now annexed to Jerusalem) are mad as hell and not going to take it any more. Three hundred militant settlers have been inserted in their midst on the basis of some fable that a legendary King David dwelled there in the 10th century BC (Archeology has found Jerusalem largely uninhabited in that period and has never found firm evidence of a Jewish kingdom during that era or even that a David or Solomon existed; they are not mentioned in contemporary Assyrian sources).
It is as though hundreds of armed men showed up in front of your house and demanded you take your family and leave and give it to them because their ancestor was a king and he is buried deep under its foundations. But you have the same ancestors that they do! (Jerusalem was founded some 5000 years ago by the common ancestors of most Jews and Palestinians).”
Apparently, this has gone on since 1948. An article about Israeli Author Gideon Levy tells the story of his father, who left Germany in 1939, and wound up in British Mandate Palestine. His father was traumatized by the experience of being a refugee. “Levy’s father never saw any parallels between the fact he was turned into a refugee, and the 800,000 Palestinians who were turned into refugees by the creation of the state of Israel. “Never! People didn’t think like that. We never discussed it, ever.”
Yet in the territories, Levy began to see flickers of his father everywhere – in the broken men and women never able to settle, dreaming forever of going home. Then, slowly, Levy began to realize their tragedy seeped deeper still into his own life – into the ground beneath his feet and the very bricks of the Israeli town where he lives, Sheikh Munis. It is built on the wreckage of “one of the 416 Palestinian villages Israel wiped off the face of the earth in 1948,” he says. “The swimming pool where I swim every morning was the irrigation grove they used to water the village’s groves. My house stands on one of the groves. The land was ‘redeemed’ by force, its 2,230 inhabitants were surrounded and threatened. They fled, never to return. Somewhere, perhaps in a refugee camp in terrible poverty, lives the family of the farmer who plowed the land where my house now stands.”
Many of those 800,000 wound up in the Gaza Strip. Their ancestors make up a large part of the population of Gaza. Mr. Levy tells another story. … “During Operation Cast Lead, the Israel bombing of blockaded Gaza in 2008-9, “a dog – an Israeli dog – was killed by a Qassam rocket and it on the front page of the most popular newspaper in Israel. On the very same day, there were tens of Palestinians killed, they were on page 16, in two lines.” … Sixteen years later, Gideon Levy is still at it. @gideonle “Israel has no place at Eurovision while committing atrocities in Gaza.”
But, morality aside, is this cruelty hurting Israel? Not on some esoteric level of the soul of the country, but on a practical level of survival. A blog called Unqualified Offerings makes a case that Israel has a long term plan to control the territories west of the Jordan River, and that they are winning. Israel is in a military position of strength, and might makes right. “Viewed institutionally and leaving moral questions aside, it counts as a triumph of grand strategy. Israel bought off Egypt with Egypt’s own territory. It convinced Jordan to bow out, and plain beat Syria like a rodeo clown. Lebanon could be broken any time and was, and the Lebanese were always falling all over themselves to help.
At this point, Israel has also destroyed the ability of the Palestinians to mount any consequential resistance of their own. Just as Hezbollah couldn’t occupy a single Israeli exurb in a trial of a thousand years, no Palestinian organization can stop Israel from planting its flag on any particular spot of the West Bank for so much as a week … Any large, political-military enterprise is going to have its ebb and flow. The Israeli conquest and consolidation of what we still quaintly call “the Occupied Territories” has involved tactical setbacks, occasional overreach and strategic withdrawals. The trick is not to get caught up in that. The long view is, Israel wanted control of all the territory west of the Jordan, Israel got control of all the territory west of the Jordan, Israel continues to cement its control over all the territory west of the Jordan. Everything else is details.
Turkey is not going to war for the Freedom Flotilla. It took all of a day for the United States to conclude a deal whereby Israel gets to investigate itself. The Iranians are either not trying to get nukes, or if they do get nukes will be very careful with them. The Iranians will fuck you up, but never at any substantial cost to themselves. Israel can levy a substantial cost on Iran any time it wants. The Palestinians can’t do more than annoy and neither can Hezbollah. On the other side, frequently foreigners make sad faces. I am thinking that Israel counts this among the acceptable costs.” … Pictures today are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library. The social media picture was taken September 15, 1943. “Celebrations around the awarding of a 1943 Army Navy E Award to the Avondale Mills, Sylacauga, Alabama. This photograph is of a group of very young African-American children.” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
They Bleeped “Molly”
This content was published September 28, 2013. … There is a bit of likeme trolling on facebook this morning. It is a link, Miley Cyrus Points Out Something Wrong With America — And She’s Absolutely Right. The message is from a facility called Upworthy. These missives usually have a popup ad, encouraging you to like uw on fb. The message today was a poll. “It’s nice to be reminded of the good in the world. And it should happen more often. I Agree I Disagree” I clicked disagree, and was sent through to the headline post.
Miley Cyrus has gotten attention lately. She performed at an awards show, and got people excited. I do not pay to watch TV, and missed the spectacle. Maybe this is the best approach.
The message from miss achy breaky heart is not that great. She says that some nasty things are on television, but you can’t say fuck. This is the same observation about double standards that has been around since the top half of Elvis was on the Ed Sullivan show. It is just as meaningless today as ever.
Calling someone a hypocrite is a cheap argument. Whenever someone says something, you can be sure that the standards of someone else are violated. Hypocrisy is in the eye of the beholder. Two wrongs do not make a right. Not everybody agrees with you.
2025 Update: This morning I woke up with Charlie Kirk fatigue. There is so much toxicity and bad faith rhetoric. There are politicians who don’t want to let a crisis go to waste. There is the shock of seeing quotes from the deceased. There is a government story that does not make a lick of sense.
I decided to find the pictures first. I stumbled onto a story from 2013, and decided to use the text, as well as the pictures. These pictures are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library The social media picture was taken August 16, 1949. “WBGE radio personality Roosevelt Johnson” … I found a link to the meme. Upworthy is still in business, as is mileycyrus. The quote was in Rolling Stone. Every link I clicked on was a clickbait quagmire.
Here is the quote. “America is just so weird in what they think is right and wrong. Like, I was watching Breaking Bad the other day, and they were cooking meth. I could literally cook meth because of that show. It’s a how-to. And then they bleeped out the word ‘fuck.’ And I’m like, really? They killed a guy, and disintegrated his body in acid, but you’re not allowed to say ‘fuck’? It’s like when they bleeped ‘molly’ at the VMAs. Look what I’m doing up here right now, and you’re going to bleep out ‘molly’? Whatever.” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
The Limits Of Fantasy
This content was published September 17, 2009. … These thoughts are for you to use. They were articulated by a man named Don Miguel Ruiz. They are called The Four Agreements. I do not claim to live up to these ideals. Number two is especially tough. The main thing is to try, and to always do your best. This is not about what you believe or think, it is about what you do. These are agreements, not beliefs. · 1 – “Be impeccable with your word – Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.”
2 – “Don’t take anything personally – Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.” · 3 – “Don’t make assumptions – Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.” · 4 – “Always do your best – Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.”
This content was published September 5, 2009. … I was reading about Afghanistan while waiting for the time to go downtown. Dragon Con is in town, and the parade is at ten am. I decided to go downtown and see the costumes this year, so next year I can sleep late. Meanwhile, what is being said about Afghanistan is just as much a fantasy as DragonCon. The article is a two prong discussion… Should we be fighting in Afghanistan, and are we doing it right?
Uzi just called to say he is on his way to the train station, so this needs to be wrapped up asap. There is a man named William Kristol. He writes think pieces for various newspapers. Mr. Kristol … he had a deferment and never served in the Vietnam era military … was known as the brains behind Dan Quayle. … Mr. Kristol discusses counterinsurgency in a recent oped. The classic counterinsurgency theory is that you have you have one soldier per fifty civilians in your theater of war. Afghanistan has an *estimated* population of 28 million. Do the math.
Mr. Kristol observes: “But as the military historian Fred Kagan explains, counter-insurgency theory and experience suggest that if the Afghan National Army is expanded, as Gen. McChrystal proposes to do, and if there is a surge of several brigades of American forces “to bridge the gap between current Afghan capacity and their future capacity, while simultaneously reducing the insurgency’s capabilities,” then we would have roughly the number of forces necessary to carry out the strategy.” … The fantasy downtown will have more colorful costumes.
This content was published September 5, 2009. … I made a mistake. The preacher in front of the GP plaza held a picture board, which was poorly rendered. I made the mistake of assuming it was abortion pictures. It turns out to be an image of Jesus on the cross. … The Georgia Pacific building is on the site of the Lowes Grand Theater. On December 15, 1939, Gone With The Wind had its world premiere there. In a church choir was the ten year old Martin Luther King Jr. GWTW was about as real about the ante bellum south as the starship troopers were about intergalactic warfare. … The GP plaza is where Forsyth Street comes into Peachtree. For some reason, the wind on Forsyth Street is very strong, and this volume of air beats against the GP plaza. On DragonCon parade Saturday, the wind coming back from the plaza was a measure of revenge.
A theme of the post yesterday (see comments) was the importance of knowing fantasy from reality. The preacher was living a fantasy. Few are impressed by his rhetoric. He creates ill will for Jesus. The grossout pictures of the crucifixion do the same. I posted last week about the damage that selfish preachers do to Jesus. It should be noted that photography did not exist when Jesus lived. Nor did people speak English. That does not prevent people from calling an Aramaic to Greek to English double translation the inerrant word of God. If you believe the Bible is the inerrant word of God, then it is not much of a leap to believe those pictures were real.
Another problem is the placement of the spikes. The spike that held feet to a cross was driven into a spot between the Achilles heel and the bone. No bones were broken, and the feet were secured to the cross. The spikes that held the arms were driven through a space in the wrist. Here again, no bones were broken, and the arms were not going to be pulled away from the cross. In the picture, there was a rope tying Jesus to the cross at this spot, and the spike was going to go in a couple of inches up the arm. When you believe your fantasy, details are not important. … Pictures today are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library The social media picture was taken August 15, 1949. “Davison-Paxon’s grand opening of a new part of its downtown Atlanta, Georgia, store, August 15, 1949. This photo shows the speaker’s stand outside the store, the Roxy Theatre is in the background.” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Does Silence Equal Violence?
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The social media picture is “Private Charles L. Poteat of Co. G, 22nd North Carolina Infantry Regiment.” · This is your monday morning reader for today. The picture below: “Private Charles L. Poteat of Co. G, 22nd North Carolina Infantry Regiment.” · “During the war, when lots of GIs were coming over to England, somebody interviewed an old farmer from Devon and said, so, how do you feel about the Americans coming over here? And the farmer said, well, they’re all right, aren’t they, except for the white ones.” · Pictures today are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library. The social media picture was taken September 28, 1961. Davison’s Department Store, Ellis and Peachtree Streets. · In 2012, @MZHemingway performed an anti-abortion rant on the @bloggingheads show. It was a simpler time · evidence that Israel is behind the murder of Charlie Kirk · There are times when I enjoy not being a public figure. They are expected to offer thoughts about current events, either yesterday or 24 years ago. This is a rerun of a 2009 post about weird religions. It is just text to go between the pictures · @WallStreetApes Charlie Kirk says the Left will use Islam to bring down America “The spiritual battle is coming to the West and the enemies are woke-ism or Marxism combining with Islamism to go after what we call the American way of life” “The American way of life is very simple. I want to be able to get married, buy a home, have kids, allow them to ride their bike till the sun goes down, send them to a good school, have a low crime neighborhood, not to have my kid be taught the lesbian, gay, transgender garbage in their school. While also, not having them have to hear the Muslim call to prayer five times a day. That’s important.” “These two threats are combining forces to come after us.” · This is how I learned about Charlie Kirk: @RealCandaceO Everyone please stop what you are doing and pray for Charlie Kirk. Please. · The time Rodney Dangerfield met Charlie Sheen: “So, we’re in the elevator. He says, “Hey, kid. What are you, Puerto Rican?” And I said, “No, I’m Spanish-Irish.” And he says, “Ah, you don’t know whether to start a parade or start a war.” And it’s like doors open and he just walks out.” · “… the scriptures of the past compare to the writings of a present-day Perfect Master just about the way that dust compares to honey.” · Senator Beth Liston @Liston4Ohio I have cancelled a planned legislative trip to Israel. My hope had been to learn and ask tough questions of the Israeli government actions, particularly related to humanitarian aide in Gaza. I am grateful to the constituents who helped me see the harm of this approach. 1/5 … What I decided was that I didn’t just need to guard against propaganda. I WAS the propaganda in this sponsored trip. I did not want to be used as a tool in support of the Israeli government actions. I cancelled the trip. 4/5 · There was a Cross Keys post office as early as 1846, near the present day intersection of Johnson Ferry Road and Ashford Dunwoody Road. Nobody knows why the post office was called Cross Keys, or why the High School was named that · In 2013, The Washington Post published a story about Syria, and the civil war there. It looks odd 12 years later · Pictures today are from The Library of Congress John Collier Jr. took the social media picture in November 1942. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (vicinity). Montour no. 4 mine of the Pittsburgh Coal Company. Miners’ wives learning first aid. ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Syria
This content was published September 1, 2013. … There was a feature in the Washington Post, 9 questions about Syria you were too embarrassed to ask. The WP is corporate media. The 9 questions had very little to say about Israel. This is curious. Israel is a powerful country that Syria is, technically, at war with. As conspiracy happy as the Middle East is, you would think there is something to say.
I did a search for Israel. Out of 2900 words in the article, Israel comes up twice. … “The Cold War is long over, and most of the region long ago made peace with Israel and the United States; the Assad regime’s once-solid ideological and geopolitical identity is hopelessly outdated. But Bashar al-Assad, who took power in 2000 when his father died, never bothered to update it.” · “Iran’s thinking in supporting Assad is more straightforward. It perceives Israel and the United States as existential threats and uses Syria to protect itself, shipping arms through Syria to the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah and the Gaza-based militant group Hamas.”
As is often the case online, the comments are more revealing than the main article. · “You also left out the threat that Iran has made about using nuclear arms against Israel if the US intervenes in Syria. Israel is being used as a pawn in this stupid game of chess.” · “Regarding the chemical weapon attack, only two options appear to be being considered – that it was the Syrian Regime or the Opposition forces that discharged the weapon. What about the third alternative – that an outside force such as Mossad (Israel) or the Iranians discharged these weapons … to provoke the United Sates into retaliation and involvement.” · “… the rebels opposing Assad are not all civilians who took up arms; … most of them are former Syrian soldiers who deserted to join the rebels. And seriously, if you think that “most of the region long ago made peace with Israel and the United States”, you lose all credibility in writing about “the region” – you’re blinded by your love for Israel and don’t understand anything about the Arabs …”
Pictures are from Georgia State University Library. The social media picture was taken in 1946. “University of Georgia girls playing baseball, Athens, Georgia.” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
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