Chamblee54

Perro

Posted in GSU photo archive, Music by chamblee54 on January 2, 2026


It’s the first day of the new year. One feature of a new year is the Banished Words List from Lake Superior State University. I decided to celebrate by crafting a poem out of the words. Two words that were not banished, but could have been, were included to rhyme. · 6-7 Reach Out Perfect Gift, My Bad Demure Game Changer Slop, Absolutely Cooked Massive Grift, Gifted Incentivize Full Stop.

About 1730, I decided to go out and walk. I decided to listen to the rest of Freak Flag Flying podcast, episode #7. FFF is a show where David Crosby talks about things. I had about 10 minutes left on #7, then I immediately turned on #8, the last episode of the series. They are talking about If I Could Only Remember My Name, a “solo” album released in 1971. One of the prime songs on that album is “Laughing.” FFF played a demo that Cros did in 1968, which was “interesting”. A few minutes later, they played the version on IICORMN, which is magical.

“Laughing” started as I took my first step into the Ashford Forest Preserve. This is a magic place, a wooded patch across the street from Peachtree-Dekalb airport. AFP used to belong to the airport, and it was illegal to go there … which makes it more fun. I was listening to this exquisite Piece of music, while walking on this path that I had walked on many times before. It could have been a video.

I just went on, until I got to a bench that overlooks a Ravine. I decided to sit down on the bench and meditate. It was a little bit after six o’clock, and there was still some light, on the twelfth day after the solstice. The light is returning.

I was at the 24 minutes into FFF#8, and I made a note of that. The meditation was not as magical as I might have liked, and I ended it early. After putting another layer of clothes on, I tried to turn on FFF#8. The music player had other ideas, and started on something else. After getting mad and cursing, I decided to listen to FFF#8 from the start. Even though it was a full moon, the sky was dark enough to make me find my flashlight. When “Laughing” played, and Joni sang her ethereal harmony, I decided it was time to use the flashlight.

The players at Wally Heider studio called themselves the planet earth rock and roll orchestra, or perro. I found a copy of these files years ago, when I had a dialup connection. The folder was 141mg, and it took all night to download. Today, I downloaded a similar collection in less than a minute. The title : “Jerry Garcia live at Wally Heider’s, San Francisco, CA on 1971-01-02”. This 55 years ago, to the day. The plan now is to listen to the files, and eliminate the ones where they play a note or two and laugh. I may get a usable playlist from all this. Unfortunately, there are three lists, and they all have different names for each track. This may be more brain damage than it is worth. This is not the first time anyone has said that David Crosby is more brain damage than he is worth.

Pictures today are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library. The social media picture was taken July 30, 1966. “Jimmy Carter with family members in their Plains, Georgia home during Carter’s first campaign for governor” On January 2, 1971, Governor Elect Jimmy Carter was waiting to begin his term as Governor. ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah

Harry Hay And Joe Pyne

Posted in Library of Congress, Undogegorized by chamblee54 on January 1, 2026


This content was originally published January 16, 2021. … Joe Pyne was a notoriously abrasive TV personality. He pioneered many of the things that today’s shock jock hosts do, before his death in 1970. One of his guests was Georgia Governor Lester Maddox. While writing a blog post about Lester, I did a bit of research on Joe Pyne.

Wikipedia had an intriguing comment. “Gay activists Harry Hay and John Burnside—who were a couple from 1962 until Hay’s death in 2002—appeared on Pyne’s show in 1967.[citation needed]” Harry Hay is a seminal figure in certain “radical” communities. Mr. Hay had a sharp tongue, and might have given the combative Pyne a bit of pushback. I decided to look for the video. … 2026 Update: The current Wikipedia entry for Joe Pyne (born Joseph Edward Pine) does not mention the appearance by Harry Hay and John Burnside.

[citation needed] is the key phrase. Youtube has a few dozen videos of the Joe Pyne Show. None of the ones here include Harry Hay. The internet archive has a collection of Pyne tapes, but no Harry Hay. A google search provides many mentions of this interview, but no more details. Many of the references were apparently copied, verbatim, from Wikipedia. 2026 Update: Almost all of the youtube links in the original post no longer work. The internet archive did not archive most of the ones I looked for. If you search for “Joe Pyne” on youtube, you will see more than you need to see.

There is a possibility that Harry Hay was never on the Joe Pyne show. There are other urban legends about Joe Pyne. The most famous involves Frank Zappa. It is helpful to know that Joe Pyne had a rare form of cancer in 1955, and part of his left leg was amputated. In the story, Mr. Pyne asks Mr. Zappa if his long hair makes him a girl. Mr. Zappa replied, does your wooden leg make you a table?

TV Party might have a reason for the missing video. “Most, if not all, of the syndicated Joe Pyne programs still exist on videotape in the archives of Hartwest Productions, Inc. Here’s what Hartwest tells us: “The tapes are 2″ Quads, meaning that they are so ancient that you only get one pass before the oxides flake off. That one pass is fine to make a new digital master, but the cost (including two digital clones) comes to about $600 a show. So far, we have only transferred three shows, with the cost being paid for by people who were either in the show, or who were making a documentary, or who now seem to worship one of the guests (and I mean the last literally).”

The research turned up another story. It is from “Remembering Harry and John” by Mark Thompson, on the occasion of Harry’s 100th anniversary. “I remember the night we were socializing at the San Francisco Art Institute at a gala tribute for James Broughton. Harry (Hay) and James had sparked briefly as Stanford University undergraduates, but didn’t meet again until fifty years later at a faerie gathering. Few people knew that James had fathered a daughter with esteemed film critic Pauline Kael during their bohemian Berkeley days, but Harry was alert to the fact. Kael and Broughton were having their own reunion at the moment when, with typical impudence, Harry interrupted the conversation by loudly asking, “So, who was the mother and who was the father?” The stunned silence was punctured only by the whoosh of Kael’s furious departure.” … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The men were soldiers in the War Between The States. ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah

Ansel Adams And Dorothea Lange

Posted in History, Library of Congress, War by chamblee54 on December 31, 2025


This content was published December 10, 2022. … The facebook feed has recently had links to a story, Dorothea Lange’s Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps. Miss Lange was the photographer of the iconic Migrant Mother. After Pearl Harbor, Miss Lange took a job with the War Relocation Authority, documenting the “relocation” of Japanese-Americans to interment camps. The photographs did not please the authorities. They were censored, and only appeared recently.

Ansel Adams also took photographs at the Manzanar, California, camp. In the current stories, he is literally a footnote: quotes were used from a book about his photography. Why is Dorothea Lange receiving attention, while Ansel Adams is ignored?

One answer is that Miss Lange was hired early on, and shows the harsh reality of relocation. “On July 30, 1942, the WRA laid her off “without prejudice,” adding that the cause was “completion of work. … the WRA impounded the majority of her photographs of Manzanar and the forced detentions, and later deposited 800 image from the series in the National Archives without announcement.”

“After Lange’s departure, Manzanar’s director Ralph Merritt visited renowned environmentalist and landscape photographer Ansel Adams and suggested he document the camp — Merritt and Adams were friends from the Sierra Club. Lange, also friends with Adams, encouraged him to take the job. (Coincidentally Adams printed “Migrant Mother” for her) … Ansel Adams made several trips to Manzanar between October 1943 and July 1944 for this new personal project, and, as Alinder writes, he was primed to try the kind of documentary photography regularly practiced by Dorothea Lange and the Farm Security Administration that he had earlier shunned. Unlike Lange, a white woman who had been viewed with suspicion by her subjects, Adams was welcomed by the incarcerees, even greeted as a celebrity in a cultural community that had a deep appreciation of nature — many incarcerees at Manzanar literally opened their doors to him dressed in their finest clothes. … By 1943, Manzanar’s incarcerees had had time to settle in and enjoy the fruits of their collective work. In less than ideal surroundings, they had collectively built their own post office, town hall, library, auditorium, co-op store system, police station, jail, cemetery with memorial, published their own newspaper (the ironically named the Manzanar Free Press, which was regularly censored by the military), and even their own YMCA.”

“As for Lange, looking at the historical record, it appears that she was treated differently from the other WRA photographers. She was discouraged from talking to the incarcerees, was constantly followed by a censor, and faced harassment. She was refused access to areas after being given clearance, and she was often hounded over phone charges and receipts. … After being discharged, Lange expressed in letters her dismay that her work was ineffective in helping the people she documented. Her assistant Christina Clausen later noted the ferocity of this body of work also marked the beginning of the photographer’s bleeding gastric ulcers. Lange was unable to work for a number of years after her harrowing experience at Manzanar. She died from esophageal cancer in 1965.”

“In 1944, Adams’s photographs were published as a book, “Born Free and Equal: The Story of Loyal Japanese Americans,” and shown at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Nativists took offense. They saw Adams’s work as a slur on the war effort. He was a “Jap lover.” This quote is from a 2016 article, Let’s be honest, Ansel Adams’s images of a WWII internment camp are propaganda.

Adams visited Manzanar to take photos in 1943 at the request of camp director Ralph Merritt, who was a personal friend. “They don’t look quite as dusty and quite as forbidding as Dorothea Lange’s photos … Indeed, the place that looks barren and depressing in Lange’s pictures manages to look beautiful in Adams’. You get little sense that it was even a detention center, in part because Adams, like other photographers, was not allowed to shoot the guard towers or barbed wire …

There are scenes from a baseball game, kids walking to school, a gathering outside a chapel. Lots of smiles, too, and portraits of camp residents cropped so close, you can see every blemish and stray hair. In Adams’ vision, Manzanar comes off as a place where Japanese-Americans, dignified, resilient and optimistic in spite of their circumstances, built a temporary community in the desert.

(Skirball Cultural Center director Robert) Kirschner said that if Adams’ photos appear to sugarcoat the indignities of life in an internment camp, it is because he did not see himself as a social activist the way Lange did. Still, Kirscher says, Adams was challenging internment in his own way, by depicting its victims as patriotic, law-abiding Americans. Unlike Lange, Adams was given permission to publish his photos. Before the war ended, he did so in a book called “Born Free and Equal: The Story of Loyal Japanese Americans,” in which he warned about the dangers of letting wartime hysteria justify depriving U.S. citizens of their freedom.”

The NPR article mentions a third Manzanar photographer. “Before World War II, Toyo Miyatake had a photo studio in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo. When he learned he would be interned at Manzanar, he asked a carpenter to build him a wooden box with a hole carved out at one end to accommodate a lens. He turned this box into a makeshift camera that he snuck around the camp, as his grandson Alan Miyatake explains in the video below, which is featured in the exhibit.

Fearful of being discovered, Miyatake at first only took pictures at dusk or dawn, usually without people in them. Camp director Merritt eventually caught Miyatake, but instead of punishing him, allowed him to take pictures openly. Miyatake later became the camp’s official photographer.” … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Ansel Adams took the photograph in 1943. “People standing outside Catholic church at Manzanar Relocation Center, California.” … The ladies in the bridge game are Aiko Hamaguchi, Chiye Yamanaki, Catherine Yamaguchi, and Kazoko Nagahama. ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah

Bari Weiss And Refaat Alareer

Posted in Library of Congress, War by chamblee54 on December 30, 2025


This content was published December 20, 2023. Bovine Bari continues to be a source of amusement. … I am listening to blocked and reported #195, while trying to finish a poem. Certified poopyhead @bariweiss is one of the main topics today. The thought enters my pointed little head to take notes. Nothing good is going to come out of this.

Something happens at 8:33. Jesse … or is it Katie … is talking about a notorious twitter account, @zei_squirrel. I pause the show, and look in the show notes for the url to zs. “You’re blocked You can’t follow or see @zei_squirrel’s posts.” There is nothing like going to an x account for the first time, and learning you have been blocked.

The main story boils down to the question: did Bari Weiss order the IDF targeted assassination of Refaat Alareer? IMO, Bari does not have a buddy in the IDF that can arrange a targeted killing. When the IDF mows the lawn, they do not target a specific blade of grass.

Bari does not get out of this unblemished. She has spewed out high octane rhetoric against Gaza for a long, long time. Take this quote from 2021.

“I am writing to you from the waiting room of my fertility clinic. Getting pregnant when you are gay is not so romantic, so we try to do little things to make it nice. Last night I took a bath. We watched “Mare of Easttown.” Nellie opened a bottle of red. Then she grabbed my stomach and gave me a shot to trigger ovulation.” Does Bari Weiss have a certain amount of privilege?

“I planned to take the morning off. The doctor says that stress is not good for baby-making. But sitting here, scrolling through my phone, looking at the tsunami of lies — lies that have permeated every Instagram story and every viral meme and every TikTok video and every popular Twitter account — I am weeping. … It appears that standing up for the right of innocent people to protect themselves from a genocidal terrorist organization has become extremely risky to one’s “brand.” And so lies have replaced truth. Memes have replaced morality. Hashtags have replaced history. I’m speaking, of course, about Israel.” … Bari’s wife Nellie Bowles gave birth to a daughter in 2022.

When the killing was over in 2021, there were a lot more Gazans killed than Israelis. There is no way to tell how many of them were women and children, or how many were Hamas. Bari probably did not call her connection at the IDF to order Operation Wall Guardian. Her purple prose did help justify it. When you start a fire, you don’t get to say where it stops. … Wall Guardian is an ironic name for the 2021 operation. An alert wall guardian would have been helpful on October 7. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the social media picture in October 1939. “ Wife of FSA (Farm Security Administration) client fixing her daughter’s hair. Farm near Bradford, Vermont, Orange County” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah

Cold-Blooded Rule

Posted in GSU photo archive, Weekly Notes by chamblee54 on December 29, 2025



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are you a participant in the Chorus Creator Incubator Program? · Insects ravaging grain fields, orchards or vineyards were cited to appeal by counsel before a civil tribunal, and after testimony, argument and condemnation, if they continued in contumaciam the matter was taken to a high ecclesiastical court, where they were solemnly excommunicated and anathematized. · Dire Straights had a song, “Industrial Disease”, On ITV and BBC they talk about the curse, Philosophy is useless, theology is worse · At a recent military technology conference in Tel Aviv, Israeli weapons companies made some of their most explicit remarks yet connecting the value of their products to the real-world testing of that firepower on Palestinians in Gaza · There was an online quiz about cannibalism once. One of the questions: “Suppose you were in a restaurant and cooked human flesh was on the menu, what would you do?” The possible answers were: Call the police, I’d order it, I wouldn’t order it · In 2020, Indiana University displayed a photograph of the typed original lyrics to “Georgia on my mind.” The words “old sweet” were penciled in, over some words that were scratched out. This photograph is no longer available · @QuoteResearch @chamblee54 Your tweet from March 18, 2025 inspired the creation of a QI article · the winter solstice festivities included drinking and carousing. Many of these customs were continued in the Christmas season. To many people, “Merry” meant “Drunk.” IOW, when you wish someone a Merry Christmas, you are saying to get bombed. · This picture is one of my favorites. Unfortunately, the GSU library does not have much information. “Man with 5 small children” was taken in 1942. “Possibly a Georgia Power Company official? Envelope description: Georgia Power Company” · Yes, swearing can punctuate a sentence to great effect. But it should be more of a semi-colon than a comma; tricky to use correctly but amazingly useful when you know what to do with it · I debated the [ __ ] Dave Smith · The Doomsday Glacier Is Getting Closer and Closer to Irreversible Collapse · So I broke down and bought a keyboard with a touchpad. The keyboard is smaller than I like, but the touchpad seems to work just fine. We will see how this works · Cesar Alonso Sebastian Marquez · Pictures today are from Georgia State University Library. The social media picture was taken November 29, 1960. Ponce de Leon and Linwood. This is what that intersection looks like today. ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah

Hollywood Babylon

Posted in Undogegorized by chamblee54 on December 28, 2025


I recently read Hollywood Babylon: The Legendary Underground Classic of Hollywood’s Darkest and Best Kept Secrets. A yard sale had a deluxe edition on sale. The man asked how much I thought it should cost. “If you are going by the amount of truth in it, the price would be a nickel.”

HB is highly entertaining, despite those troubling concerns about the facts. The cover has an NSFW picture of Jayne Mansfield, where the top of her dress serves as a display case for her boobies. HB goes all TMI about the death of Miss Mansfield, but is a model of good taste compared to Find a Death (“Here are the dead Jayne photographs. Don’t click if you are easily oogied out.”) The *bottom line* is that Jayne Mansfield was not decapitated in that auto accident.

While asking Mr. Google whose jugs adorned the cover of HB, this article came up: Satan and Mummified Psychics: A Kenneth Anger Marathon at Sweat Records Tonight. Someone with too much free time was promoting an evening of the short films of Kenneth Anger. Mr. Anger, born Kenneth Wilbur Anglemyer, has the copyright credit for HB. I suspect that other scribes helped out. In some parts, the prose is purpler than in others. Of course, when writing about Hollywood, it is fitting that a committee produced a book filled with lies. Kenneth Anger croaked May 11, 2023.

The Miami story disputes the notion that Kenneth Anger was a child star. “… a little boy named Anger was born in Santa Monica CA. He attended a school for child stars, did dance steps with Shirley Temple, and minced about as the changeling prince in the 1935 Warner Bros. movie version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. But all that might be bullshit. There’s not much documentation of Anger’s alleged child star days. The one legit source that seems to corroborate the claim is Mickey Rooney. He played Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and he says Anger’s mommy dressed him up as the girl named “Sheila Brown” who officially played the Changeling Prince.”

A website called vice.com managed to snag an interview with Kenneth Anger. The introduction has this story. “He went on to recount the time Kenneth showed up at fellow director and mutual friend Curtis Harrington’s funeral at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery wearing a black raincoat, eyeliner, and fingernail polish. His shirt was opened to his navel, revealing the giant lucifer tattoo emblazoned across his chest, and he was accompanied by a boyish photographer who took pictures as Kenneth kissed Curtis’s corpse before its cremation. Before he was ejected from the premises, Kenneth handed John a small plastic vampire figurine that contained mint candies inside, clarifying its original use by saying, “It’s actually a dispenser for tickle-ribbed rubbers.”

The interview had a few high moments. VICE But it did attract the attention of sexologist Alfred Kinsey, whom you befriended. Did he encourage your work? KA Yes. Kinsey was doing interviews for his book Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, and I don’t know … What if you are not human? The title is kind of awkward, but that was what he called his research book. He was basically a biologist, an expert on wasps, of all things. When he came to LA to do interviews, I met him. He came to see Fireworks at the Coronet Theatre at a midnight showing, and he wanted to buy a print for his collection at Indiana University. I agreed, and that was the first copy I ever sold. But I remained good friends with him until the end of his life.

VICE Do you have a favorite star from this era? KA I love the career of Rudolph Valentino, who died at 31 and had an amazing trajectory in that short time. His life continues to fascinate me. VICE Do you continue to find new information? KA I have plenty of information on him. There are facts, and then there is gossip. I go for the facts, but I will listen to the gossip. [smiles] VICE Your willingness to sift through the gossip was a point of contention with some people when Hollywood Babylon was published, especially after its second printing. Some have accused you of muckraking, and others have even gone further and claim that it contains factual inaccuracies. KA Well, I’ve never been sued…

VICE In other words, your detractors can’t prove it. KA No one ever came up to me and said, “Well, you made the whole thing up.” Because I didn’t. … HB is a fun book, with great pictures. The stories are mostly lies, but this is Hollywood we are talking about. With its continued popularity, there will be plenty of copies at yard sales and used book stores. … For the three letter initials crowd, Kenneth Anger made Kustom Kar Kommandos in 1965. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. John Vachon took the social media picture in March 1941. “Men eating at Salvation Army. Newport News, Virginia” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah

Podcasts 2025 Part One

Posted in Georgia History, Library of Congress by chamblee54 on December 27, 2025


I did a few posts about podcasts a while back. 100620 101420 120920 120321 Looking over these posts told me about a few shows that I had forgotten, and needed to catch up on. With podcasts, it is better to catch up than to mustard.

There have been some changes in the last four years. Some of this is specific to me, so if you get bored you can skip ahead to the links. The gym I went to closed, and I found a replacement. I finally replaced the flip phone with a samsung android. This phone has 128x the storage of the flip phone, and allows me to watch movies. The music players allow me to scroll forward. The ss also has the notes app. When I pause a show, I make a note of where I am in the show. The ss has the unfortunate tendency to start another show without warning, and it is good to know where to start over.

Another game changer was the October 7 incident. Many shows I once enjoyed are now unlistenable due to obnoxious Zionist rhetoric. This quote from 2021 tells the story: Bari Weiss has a dandy show. The first edition that I heard was about Amy Cooper, the “Central Park Karen.” That story has a lot of details that never got widespread circulation. Ms. Weiss is someone that I take a cafeteria approach to. Many of her podcast episodes are excellent. OTOH, some of her opinions about Israel are beyond horrible. Another opinion comes from The Root: “Bari Weiss, a fellow white woman who is in the running for Kareniest Karen who ever Karened in the history of Klanned Karenhood.”

My next chore for today tells a bit about my current habits. Every morning, I walk for a half hour, usually listening to a show. Before leaving, I update my phone. I go to the podcast folder, which I keep on the cloud. Open the list, and see if there are any fresh shows to download.

Today, the first DL is from “Freak Flag Flying”. This is a show I had forgotten, until I saw this postFreak Flag Flying was a short series, featuring David Crosby. The C in CSNY has a lot of talent. If you don’t believe it, just ask him. Mr. Crosby has some stories to tell, and ranks with Keith Richards for somehow surviving rock and roll. Mr. Crosby got on the tour bus in the sky January 18, 2023.

The next step is plugging the phone into the computer. There are two folders on the screen, podcast-od (cloud) and 001 podcast-ss (phone). Delete all files that I have listened to. Copy the new files into the phone. Move the cloud files into a sub-folder, phone. But your shoes on and go.

This is enough for one day. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. John Vachon took the social media picture in March 1941. “Bar Norfolk, Virginia” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah

War On Christmas

Posted in GSU photo archive, Holidays by chamblee54 on December 26, 2025


This content was originally published December 14, 2012. The “War on Christmas” is much less contentious in 2025. … Merry Christmas used to be a greeting of good will. It meant, I am happy that you survived the year, have a nice holiday. Saying Merry Christmas, instead of Happy Holidays, was not an in your face gesture, designed to express a religious opinion.

Christmas used to be a time of peace on earth and good will towards men. There were parties, gift giving, and holiday time from school and work. The religious part has always been there, but if you could ignore it if you wanted to.

“Some” Christians want it all. The fact that our culture is dominated by Jesus worship is not good enough. And they don’t care if it offends you. Peace on earth, and good will towards men, is obsolete.

We don’t know when Jesus was born. Some scholars say he was born in the spring, but it was a long, long time ago. When the early Christians were trying to convert the Romans, they decided to have a birthday celebration for Jesus at the time of a pagan holiday. It is the winter solstice, the time of renewal at the end of the year. It is an ideal time for a religious feast.

Many people, myself included, have been hurt by Jesus. Christianism is an aggressive religion. If you don’t agree, you can expect to be insulted and humiliated. As society becomes more and more secular, believers get more aggressive. Many people have come to see the birth of Jesus as something to be mourned, rather than celebrated.

I used to enjoy saying Merry Christmas. To me, it was a greeting of good will. Now, it is taking sides in a nasty fight. Maybe the proper thing to say is have a nice day.

And now for something completely different. I found this recently, and it is not original to me. If you really need a link to the original, we will look harder.

When I was young and impressionable, I heard the Co-Adjutor Archbishop of Bombay preach on the subject of Christmas. He made the point that the adjective “merry” actually means “to be showing the influence of alcohol”, that is to be at least partially drunk. So to wish someone a Merry Christmas is really to wish them a Drunken Christmas. Moreover, drunkenness is a sin, and it is illegal to ply an infant with alcohol. A “merry Christmas” not only treats the birth of Christ as an occasion for sin, it also excludes the guest of honour Himself from the celebration.

That is a perversion of the meaning of Christmas — yet how often do we hear “true Christians” insist on saying “merry Christmas”? Why don’t they just wish the world happiness and joy?

When preparing this feature, I googled the idea that merry means drunken. This was the AI reply: “That is an interesting assertion, but wishing someone a “Merry Christmas” is not a wish for a “Drunken Christmas.” The word “merry” simply means cheerful, lively, or happy, with no inherent connection to alcohol [1]” The footnote is to an article, which essentially says that merry means drunken. … Pictures today are from Georgia State University Library. The social media picture was taken in 1941. Atlanta Biltmore Hotel exterior. ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah

122525

Posted in Library of Congress by chamblee54 on December 25, 2025


It is Christmas, 122525. One way to begin is by looking at my podcasts. The two Thursday downloads are Infamous and Question Everything. One of them does not have a new episode. The other one has a rerun. I didn’t like that episode the first time, so I won’t listen to it again.

Blue sky is a dependable source of amusement. The first thing I stumbled onto today was RadicchioFricchioOhio asking “But have you considering literally anything else ?” There was a screen shot attached, for this story: “‘Do we look alike?’: This dad is doing OnlyFans with his 18-year-old son, and the content is WILD”

If you go to dcbrne (top 0.2% Onlyfans), you see an eight second video. @dcbrne “Just a stroll in the woods with @BcBrne1.” Father and son walk through the woods, with a pause to drop trou, and show you their butts. Other videos frequently feature iambigrob93, and have a noticeable gay vibe.

The next thing to catch my eye was Skeets of Grass, a blue sky account for Walt Whitman. SOG posts samples from “Leaves of Grass” several times a day. Today saw this: ‪@skeetsofgrass.bsky.social‬ “The person he favors by day or sleeps with at night is blessed.” In an ironic move, when you google the text, you are directed to Psalm 127:2. “It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.” Google may as well be gargle sometimes.

The Whitman poem, Song Of The Answerer, offers delightful context. “Books, friendships, philosophers, priests, action, pleasure, pride, beat up and down seeking to give satisfaction, He indicates the satisfaction, and indicates them that beat up and down also. Whichever the sex, whatever the season or place, he may go freshly and gently and safely by day or by night, He has the pass-key of hearts, to him the response of the prying of hands on the knobs. His welcome is universal, the flow of beauty is not more welcome or universal than he is, The person he favors by day or sleeps with at night is blessed.”

The entertainment on my morning walk was Mini-Stories Volume 21 from 99 Percent Invisible. One story was about the process the Catholic Church uses to approve people for Sainthood. It seems as though there is someone whose job is to find dirt on the would-be saint. This person is Advocatus Diaboli, or Devil’s Advocate. This is where the term originated.

The person was supposed to take a skeptical view about this candidate’s saintliness, questioning were these really miracles that the candidate performed? You know, if you’ve read “Paradise Lost,” you know that the devil is very good at arguing, very persuasive. I guess the idea then was that there should be a position advocating a negative view, even if it was unpopular, just so that something as important as sainthood can withstand any kind of skepticism. … the position of devil’s advocate was abolished by Pope John Paul II in 1983. This was part of streamlining the whole canonization process. They still have a procedure for presenting opposing views. For instance, Christopher Hitchens was brought in to testify when Mother Teresa was being beatified in 2002.” … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Arthur Rothstein took the social media picture in February 1942. “Brownsville, Texas. Charro Days fiesta. Member of local businessmen’s committee dressed as Mexican bandido”©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah

Georgia On My Mind

Posted in GSU photo archive, Music by chamblee54 on December 24, 2025


This content was published December 16, 2020. … Rock the Runoff: Broadway for Georgia performs “Georgia On My Mind” turned up on facebook. This video got me thinking about GOOM.

Youtube turned up the original. “© Written in 1930 by Hoagy Carmichael (music) and Stuart Gorrell (lyrics) Gorrell wrote the lyrics for Hoagy’s sister, Georgia Carmichael. However, the lyrics of the song are ambiguous enough to refer either to the state or to a woman named “Georgia”. Carmichael’s 1965 autobiography, “Sometimes I Wonder”, records the origin: a friend, saxophonist and bandleader Frankie Trumbauer, suggested: “Why don’t you write a song called ‘Georgia’? Nobody lost much writing about the South.” Thus, the song is universally believed to have been written about the state.”

National Anthems has a story about GOOM. (The 90’s website has a retro-illustration.) “STUART GRAHAM STEVEN GORRELL (1901-1963) and HOAGLAND HOWARD CARMICHAEL (1899-1981), wrote the song in 1930 almost as a lark … Hoagy Carmichael went to Indiana University, and one of his best college chums was Stuart Gorrell. Hoagy Carmichael was going to be a lawyer and Stuart Gorrell, when not hanging around the local “jazz joint” (called The Book Nook!) had promised someone that he would eventually be a success in the world of business.”

The two of them were together at a party in New York and Hoagy Carmichael played what he had of the “Georgia” music line for Stuart Gorrell and some friends. After the party broke up, the two of them went back to a friend’s apartment and worked on the tune throughout the night. Stuart Gorrell wrote what he thought would be a good lyric line on the back of a post card, (now displayed in the Carmichael Room at Indiana University) and showed it to Hoagy Carmichael. One can still plainly see the few, but important, changes that Hoagy Carmichael made on that small piece of cardboard to Stuart Gorrell’s lyrical scratchings. (see note below) The song was improved upon, and the lyrics written, in that boozy early morning, and recorded in September 1930 by a band that included Hoagy Carmichael’s great friend, Bix Beiderbecke – a recording session that proved to be Bix’s last.”

Hoagy Carmichael went on to write many more songs, some of them hits, and Stuart Gorrell kept his promise and became a Vice President at Chase Bank. Stuart Gorrell never tried to write another song lyric, but ‘Georgia on my Mind’ became a hit after World War II and Hoagy Carmichael, true to his word – although Stuart Gorrell was not legally credited as the lyricist by the music publisher – always sent Stuart Gorrell a cheque for what would have been his share of royalty. The royalty income from that song is substantial and, after Stuart Gorrell died, the income put his daughter through college.”

Mr. Gorrell wrote a letter to the Bremen (Indiana) Enquirer, August 3, 1961. “This accompanied his response to his home town’s Teen Hop patrons choosing the song as their theme song. … “Georgia on my mind” was composed more than a quarter of a century ago on a cold and stormy evening in 1930 in New York City. Hoagy Carmichael and I, in a third floor apartment overlooking 52nd street, with cold feet and warm hearts, looked out the window and, not liking what we saw, turned our thoughts to the pleasant southland. Thus was born a hauntingly sweet song. My mother, who died in Bremen in 1942, once asked a very penetrating question about the song. I had sent her a copy of the sheet music and, after reading the words over several times, she wondered aloud: “What is Georgia? A girl—or state? What do you think? Hoagy and I just love every one of you Bremen Teen Hoppers for honoring our tune by making it your theme song. Sincerely, Stuart Gorrell.”

Georgia on my mind will enter the public domain January 1, 2026. … The 2020 post had a photograph of the original lyrics. The words “old sweet” were written in pencil, over a scratched out phrase. This photograph was at the Carmichael Room at Indiana University. I could not find this photograph at the internet archive. … “Significant portions of the collection at the ATM were digitized in 1999 as part of a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences (IMLS). A website was created as part of the project, which is no longer updated.” … Pictures today are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library. The social media picture was taken in March 1953. “Atlanta Crackers, sign boards outside Ponce de Leon Park … Looking west, Sears warehouse visible on left.“ ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah

Are Your Friends Overweight?

Posted in Library of Congress, Undogegorized by chamblee54 on December 23, 2025


This content was posted December 18, 2008. … The following items come from a blog called akmal eky. · In Tibet, a common drink is butter tea – it is made from yak butter, salt, and tea · The ancient Mayans made truly hot chocolate – they added chilies and corn to it · No one really knows when donuts were invented or who invented them · Apples, potatoes, and onions all taste the same when eaten with your nose plugged · When an egg floats in water, it is “off” and should not be eaten · The consumption of natural vanilla causes the body to release catecholamines (including adrenalin) – for this reason it is considered to be mildly addictive · Banana trees are not actually trees – they are giant herbs · The term “brain freeze” was invented to explain the pain one feels when drinking a slurpee too fast · Ketchup was originally a fish sauce originating in the orient · 7-Up – invented in 1920 contained Lithium – the drug commonly prescribed now to sufferers of bi-polar disorder.

This content was posted December 17, 2008. … For a blogger with nothing to say, an online test is a great excuse to post. The test today is about cannibalism. The idea is, you are caught in a blizzard, you run out of food, and one of your buddies dies. Do you make a meal out of your pal? … I am 35% likely to consume my friends. Questions include can you outrun your friends, are your friends overweight, and are you a vegetarian. Can a vegetarian eat a friend who is brain dead?

One festive question was “Suppose you were in a restaurant and cooked human flesh was on the menu, what would you do?” The possible answers were: Call the police, I’d order it, I wouldn’t order it. … This test is sponsored by an online dating service. You have to click through a screen inviting you to join before you can get your results. Will your test score is shared with your prospective sweetie?

@SpyTalker “CBS took down a link to the 60 Minutes El Salvador prison piece but @allisongill @MuellerSheWrote posted another.” In the comments, there is a link to another copy, Pulled 60 Minutes segment on CECOT “This is a screen recording of a 60 Minutes segment about the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT) prison in El Salvador, which was intended to be aired December 22, 2025 but was pulled last minute for unclear reasons. Despite being pulled, it aired on Global-TV in Canada anyway.”

Live From The Table had a lively discussion, with @noam_dworman hosting @josh_hammer. It promised to be a rather unpleasant affair, that I would be better off not listening to. However, I realized that I did not know what Joshua Benjamin Hammer sounded like, so I recklessly scrolled ahead to a random spot in the show. Lo and behold, JBH was talking about a TPUSA event, where “I debated the moron Dave Smith.”

I am a Dave Smith fan. I don’t agree with him on everything, but on many important issues I agree 110 percent. Dave tells a story. He was appearing with JBH. They had a very friendly conversation in the Green Room before the show. JBH then gets on stage and says that he’s disgusted to be here on the same stage as Dave Smith. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the social media picture in August 1941. “Children of Albert Lynch, FSA (Farm Security Administration) client near Dummerston, Vermont” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah

Non-Christian Sources

Posted in Library of Congress, Weekly Notes by chamblee54 on December 22, 2025



The display of a link on this page does not indicate approval of content.
JD Vance Is the White Kendi Against indigenous ways of knowing for hillbillies
Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes to get second opinion on torn ACL before …
The Sinister Origins of ‘Fascinate’ It’ll hold you spellbound.
Reiners’ son made guests uneasy at party day before his parents were found dead
10 Historical Facts About Jesus From Non-Christian Sources
Truth, Love, & Rage Bait Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics
History Impossible in the New York Times Okay, only kinda Alexander von Sternberg
Fatigue and Irritation – An Addendum (and Correction) to the Martyr Made Situation
How Bibi Boosts Antisemitism Plus: Elon’s sleuth fail; Eric Schmidt’s China envy; drugged …
james ransome · gaza · hasanabi · erika frantzve kirk · washington ut
piers morgan · curious about god · lou reed · stadiums · steven ho
fashion · fascinate · fascism · karl’s substack · nick reiner
genocide · The Warrior Princess · L5P · fashion · fascinate
are you a participant in the Chorus Creator Incubator Program? · This is the monday morning reader for a chilly December day. The picture below is Captain Levi Harrison Cullers – 1836-1907. Captain Cullers served in the Virginia Infantry Regiment and Virginia Cavalry Regiment. He was wounded at Brandy Station, Virginia, and lost an arm later in the war.” · Update On Monday December 15, the execution of Stacey Humphreys was been suspended, until further notice, by the State Board of Pardons and Paroles. · Happy Solstice Happy Solstice Happy Solstice Happy Solstice Happy Solstice · um, then they talk about how he did a Wordle. He did a Wordle like right before Charlie’s assassination. Uh, by the morning of September 10th, 3 days later after this this earlier exchange he had online, which is irrelevant. Um, Robinson had made the the drive north to Utah Valley University. That’s where Charlie was killed. According to prosecutors, he texted his Wordle score to his friend at 11:28 that morning. At 1:51, he allegedly walked onto campus and then made his way onto the roof of the building. In the courtyard below, a crowd had gathered to hear Charlie. At 12:23 p.m., I mean, it’s remarkable. So, the word score was texted to his friend at 11:28. Less than 60 minutes later, he shot Charlie, according to prosecutors. · set up what tonights gonna look like · Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with the important matters. Albert Einstein. Erika Kirk: Deleted Tweets & Secret Past Exposed · 51-49 with James Li · Jetsons technology governed by Flintstones management · Some say that you should only use a quote when you have read the book the quote came from. In the case of Oscar Wilde’s definition of a cynic, this means watching a production of “Lady Windemere’s Fan.” · John Vachon took the picture in November 1938. “These men are both past sixty. Neither of them expect ever to work again. They ride freight trains from Omaha to Kansas City to St. Louis and back again. Omaha, Nebraska” · elote · Pictures today are from The Library of Congress Russell Lee took the social media picture in July 1942. “Rupert, Idaho. Former CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) camp now under FSA (Farm Security Administration) management. In the clinic at the camp which now houses Japanese-American farm workers. Medical care is provided by the sugar beet companies” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah