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State Fights “Voter Purge” Narrative With Address Change Notices
What are the 20 most common words?
Jordan Peterson On Why He Won’t Publicly Identify As A Christian
The ‘Secret’ Story of the Radical Faeries
History of the Faeries (Murray Edelman, Joey Cain, Agnes de Garron)
The dollar sign is among the world’s most potent symbols
Atlanta’s I-285 expansion for car commuters could be much costlier than we thought.
White man injured by use of word genocide
Man arrested after firing shots at group of friends in Atlanta, police say
Here are 24 cognitive biases that are warping your perception of reality
Woman stabbed to death on Memorial Drive in DeKalb County
How Fetal Personhood Emerged as the Next Stage of the Abortion Wars
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The Oral History of Santana and Rob Thomas’ ‘Smooth’
YouTube bans content from neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers, Sandy Hook skeptics
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Song of Ourselves? Walt Whitman and the American Imagination
On Whitman, Civil War Memory, and My South
Walt Whitman’s Secret History as a Barfly
Popular Quotes That Everyone Gets Wrong
An Oral History of Laurel Canyon, the 60s and 70s Music Mecca
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Speak of the Devil: How Demonizing “Whiteness” Spreads White Nationalism
Abrams to be grand marshal in Atlanta Pride Parade
YouTube’s purge of white supremacist videos also hits anti-racism channels
Looks like Christopher Steele has cut a deal and will turn state’s evidence
The Man Who Told America the Truth About D-Day
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Buttigieg says Stacey Abrams was robbed in Georgia governor’s race
Caleb Cain pulled a Glock pistol from his waistband
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Gay Atlanta Man Trey Peters Attacked and Killed
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DeKalb PD searching for truck related to “hate-motivated” homicide
Friends mourn gay man murdered during robbery in Decatur
3 dekalb murders ~ Dale Olson ~ The Wound Dresser
Ethiopia Saluting the Colors ~ o magnet-south ~ reconciliation
how bad is LA? ~ cooper’s do-nuts ~ Walt Whitman, America’s Phrenologist ~ jim carrey clickbait
charlie brown ~ @conor64 loses it ~ stonewall ~ conduction
rustbelt 2019 ~ Carl Whitman ~ harry hay ~ Harry Hay ~ legal opinion
I have long heard that the radical adjective is as much a marketing device as anything else. Supposedly, there were competing groups of faeries. One group literally said, we will call our group radical faeries, so we can tell it apart from your group of faeries. Does anyone know any more about this? The R word is a splendid marketing device, and creates some wonderful acronyms. However, if we are going to spend time, and energy, fussing about whether or not something is *radical*, then maybe it is time to retire the R word. ~ If you are drowning in a glass of water, does it matter if it is half empty or half full? ~ @conor64 I am explicitly telling you that your Tweet was libelous, that you should remove it, and that I will at the very least continue drawing attention to your false, defamatory statement, madenwith reckless disregard for facts, until you delete it. You’ll here from me next by email. @JonathanLKrohn Jesus Christ, dude. Maybe you should step away from the computer. Or, indeed, the profession of journalism. ~Stacey Abrams urges Hollywood to ‘#StayAndFight’ in Georgia instead of boycotting over abortion law ~ @MrChurchGuy I guess it makes sense for worship leaders to wear jeans. In the Bible, the musicians at the Temple were all in the tribe of Levi’s. ~ @J_D_Landis A difficult problem facing the non-violent is how to get rid of the violent without resorting to violence. ~ Once, there was a small town. They had a baptist church, and a methodist church. There were not enough people to have two churches. They decided to combine them, and call it the christian church. One old man was not pleased. “I was born a baptist, I was raised a baptist, and you are never going to make a christian out of me.” ~ During a service at an old synagogue in Eastern Europe, when a particular prayer was said, half the congregants stood up and half remained sitting. The half that was seated would yell at those standing to sit down, and the ones standing yelled at the ones sitting to stand up. The new rabbi, learned as he was in the Law and commentaries, didn’t know what to do. His congregation suggested that he consult a 98-year-old man who was one of the original founders of their shul, but now was bedridden in a nursing home. The rabbi hoped the elderly man would be able to tell him what the actual tradition was, so he went to the nursing home with a representative of each faction of the congregation. ~ The one whose followers stood during the prayer asked the old man, “Is the tradition to stand during this prayer?” The old man answered, “No, that is not the tradition.” The one whose followers sat said, “Then the tradition is to sit!” The old man answered, “No, that is not the tradition.” Then the rabbi desperately pleaded to the old man, “But the congregants fight all the time, yelling at each other about whether they should sit or stand!” The old man interrupted, exclaiming, “Ah yes! THAT is the tradition!” ~ I just heard the quote, “be curious not judgmental” I wondered what the context was. According to wikiquotes, #waltwhitman never said that in print @QuoteResearch ~ “O Magnet South” Specimen Days “Ethiopia Saluting the Colors” “The Wound Dresser,” ~ Proverbs 26:17 He that passeth by, and meddleth with strife belonging not to him, is like one that taketh a dog by the ears. ~ pictures today are from The Library of Congress. ~ selah
Brock Turner And Becky Doe
This is a repost from 2016. By now, most internetters know about the Brock Turner case. The Victim Impact Statement has gone viral. The 7140 words of polemic were probably not written by the accuser, known as Becky Doe. The statement is intended to motivate the court to give the defendant a more severe sentence. It was not intended to tell the truth. Was the statement made under oath? Was it subject to cross examination? How did it get such wide distribution?
The statement seems to disconnect from the truth. “I called myself “big mama”, because I knew I’d be the oldest one there. I made silly faces, let my guard down, and drank liquor too fast not factoring in that my tolerance had significantly lowered since college.” In contrast, the Stanford Daily reports: “Doe confirmed that she had previously experienced four to five blackouts in college as a result of drinking. Asked by Kianerci if the Jan. 18 blackout was different from prior ones, Doe said, “In previous blackouts I have never been half-naked outside.”
There does seem to be a bit of alcohol privilege here. Miss Doe went to a party, and got blackout drunk. (“Alice King — a supervising criminalist for Santa Clara County — … estimated that the Doe and Turner’s blood alcohol content (BAC) levels at 1 a.m. would have been .242 to .249 and .171, respectively.”) While at the party, Miss Doe was seen dancing with, and kissing, Mr. Turner. She then left the party with Mr. Turner. Becky Doe trusted a drunken stranger to get her home safely.
This is not an excuse for what Mr. Turner did. He should have known that she was not capable of consent. However, for an adult to go to a party, get blackout drunk, and assume that she would be able to get home safely… this is extreme privilege. In the Victim Impact Statement Miss Doe denies any responsibility: “Campus drinking culture. That’s what we’re speaking out against? You think that’s what I’ve spent the past year fighting for? Not awareness about campus sexual assault, or rape, or learning to recognize consent. Campus drinking culture. Down with Jack Daniels. Down with Skyy Vodka. If you want talk to people about drinking go to an AA meeting. You realize, having a drinking problem is different than drinking and then forcefully trying to have sex with someone? Show men how to respect women, not how to drink less.” (Force was apparently not a factor in the January 18, 2015, incident. It is tough to say who started the fooling around.)
The Stanford Daily had another tidbit, that has gotten little publicity. “Lee discovered a mixture of at least two individuals’ DNA on the underwear’s waistband. The DNA present in larger amounts matched with Doe, while the DNA present in smaller amounts did not seem to match with Turner, assuming that it represented the DNA of only one person.”
The assault on Miss Doe was wrong, and should be punished. However, it should be noted: “Turner stated that that he took off the victim’s underwear, fingered her vagina and touched her breasts. He said that he never took his pants off, that his penis was never exposed and that he did not penetrate the alleged victim’s vagina with his penis.” While Becky Doe suffered a devastating attack, she was not at risk of pregnancy, or contracting an STI.
There is a double standard here. Many comments about the attack mention “my daughters.” People seem to be defending the damsel in distress…even when she got to the .249% percent distress on her own. Her Victim Impact Statement goes on, and on, and on about her psychological problems after the incident. If a man was attacked while passed out, and he were to issue a vitime statement about his hurt fee fees, then he would be laughed out of the courtroom.
Men and Women get robbed and beaten, while intoxicated, all the time. It is commonsense that if you go to a alcohol use facility, and get drunk, then you are in danger of being a victim later. This is especially true if someone is driving while drunk. (If a person is in an accident after drinking in a bar, the bar is liable for damages. Maybe a similar law for sexual assault is in order.) If a person goes to a bar, and gets robbed on their way home, they are seen as contributing to their own victimhood. Should sexual assault, where apparently the woman was not taken by force, be different?
Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Walt Whitman 2019
WORD over all, beautiful as the sky!
Beautiful that war, and all its deeds of carnage, must in time be utterly lost;
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night,
incessantly softly wash again, and ever again, this soil’d world:
…For my enemy is dead—a man divine as myself is dead;
I look where he lies, white-faced and still, in the coffin—I draw near;
I bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.
Reconciliation was written by Walt Whitman. During the War Between the States, Mr. Whitman served as a volunteer nurse in Washington DC hospitals. That hospital was full of the human cost of war. Mr. Whitman looked past the so-called causes … slavery, states rights, banker profits … and saw the price paid, by the men who fought.
“In 1862, Whitman received word that his brother George had been wounded at the Battle of Fredericksburg. During the worst, he traveled down to the Virginia battle site. Much to Whitman’s relief, he found that his brother had sustained only minor injuries. While he was there, Whitman was moved by an especially brutal scene. … He records a dramatic moment where he’s standing in front of this field hospital and sees at the foot of two trees a pile of amputated limbs. He says, “A full load for a one horse cart.” And these are limbs that had been thrown out the windows of the surgery in the haste of the battle and the emergencies.”
It is now 2019. The 200th birthday of Mr. Whitman was a few days ago. In recent years, the conflict of 1861-1865 has been opened up to another round of debate. Mr. Whitman, and Reconciliation, have not been left out. “Here, Whitman suggests the reunion of the nation, men on opposite sides of the war drawn together beneath the banner of reconciliation. However, in the final image of the dead, “white-faced” in the coffin, Whitman leaves out the reality of so many dead soldiers whose faces were not white. And further, according to historian David Blight, the poem highlights—in the “kinship” of the dead white brothers—“the ultimate betrayal of the dark-faced folk whom the dead had shared in liberating.” This kind of erasure would continue to dominate Civil War memory as monuments to only part of the story inscribed a narrative on the American landscape—particularly in the South.”
Walt Whitman has emerged as a type of Jesus figure. His words are analyzed 150 years later, looking to find a meaning that pleases 2019 America. At least Mr. Whitman left a written record, in english. As we will see in a few paragraphs, this does not prevent him from being misrepresented.
“Song of Ourselves? Walt Whitman and the American Imagination” is a podcast, and the primary inspiration for this post. The show talks about Mr. Whitman living in Brooklyn before the War, and how he came to be involved in that conflict. It also tries to be “woke”.
“We know in recent years, people have criticized the Confederate memorials as a kind of false attempt at reconciliation, as a kind of shallow reconciliation over the lives of African American people. How would Whitman’s ideas of reconciliation differ from those ideas of reconciliation we see in the Lost Cause?” The answers are not as obvious as some would hope.
“He was an anti-extentionist. He opposed the extension of slavery into the western territories. But he was more concerned about preventing the spread of slavery than really getting rid of it. … He denounced the proslavery southern fire eaters, but he also called abolitionists red hot fanatics. They were the angry voiced silly set, he described them. And at the same time, right, so he took that kind of stance at the time and he did not believe that African Americans were capable of exercising the vote, right? So that’s part of his story.”
Later on in the show, the hosts talk about walking into a hotel room, and seeing a framed quote, “Be curious, not judgmental.” I was curious about the context, and did a little digging. There are plenty of meme-mongers merchandising this quote in four-color glory. This does not answer the question … how did Walt Whitman come to say this?
Wikiquotes lists “Be curious not judgemental” as Disputed. “While consistently attributed to Whitman, this popular motivational quote has no source. It is occasionally listed as occurring in Leaves of Grass, but the closest phrase found in that collection is “Be not curious about God.” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Midtown
The neighborhood along Peachtree Road has always been a great place to be a freak. For a long time it didn’t have a name. It is north of downtown, between Piedmont Park and Georgia Tech. Sometime in the early eighties, people started to call it Midtown, and the name stuck.
In the time after the War Between the States, this area was a shantytown called “Tight Squeeze”. It evolved into a pleasant middle class area. In the sixties, hippies took over. The area was known as the strip, or tight squeeze. Many stories could be told.
After the flower children moved on, the area went into decline. Gays started to move in, with the battle cry “Give us our rights or we will remodel your house.” Developers, worshiping the triune G-d of location, location, location, began to smell money. The neighborhood became trendy, then expensive, then more expensive. The freaks with money remain. This is a repost. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
There is a nifty webcam up now. It shows the progress of a high rise going up now at 12th and Peachtree in midtown. The location of the camera itself is not certain, with the speculation centering on 999 Peachtree, two blocks south on Tenth Street.
A glance at the image reveals a curve in the road, between the two glass boxes under construction. Atlanta does not have wide, straight boulevards extending to the horizon. It is said that Atlanta did not build roads, but paved the cow paths.
People of a certain age will remember this area as the strip. The tenth street district was a neighborhood shopping area, up until the mid sixties. At some point, the old businesses started to move out and the hippies moved in. For a while, it was a festive party. Soon enough reality returned, and the area went into a crime filled decline.
The 999 complex is the neighborhood story in a nutshell. Before 1985, it was a block of small businesses. There was a hardware store, with the peace symbol set in tiles in the sidewalk. On Juniper Street stood the Langdon Court Apartments. They were named for PG’s great uncle Langdon Quin. Ru Paul used to stay there. He would sit out on a balcony, and wave to the traffic going by.
Across the street was a chinese restaurant, the House of Eng. A staircase on the side led to the Suzy Wong Lounge. Behind the building was an apartment building. It was one of the residences of Margaret Mitchell, while she wrote “Gone With The Wind”. She called it “the dump”, which was fairly accurate. The museum on that site would have amazed her.
PG went to the House of Eng for lunch one day in 1985. He noticed that he was the only customer in the house, at 12:30 pm on a weekday. After finishing his lunch, PG knew why.
At some point, it was decided to build a high rise there. Heery was one of the equity partners, along with a law firm and an ad agency. The building was designed by Heery (duh).The ad agency folded before the building opened, followed within a couple of years by the law firm. Heery was sold to a British company. PG does not know who owns 999 Peachtree now.
This is a repost, with pictures from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. The building, at 12th and Peachtree, is finished.
91 Word Sentence About White Supremacy Part Two
This is a repost from 2016. There was a tasteful meme on the facebook thingie today. It was about BHO, who may go down in history as the Meme President. The block of JPG text began When a faithfully married black president who was the son of a single mother…
Some people quote the first sentence in a situation like this. In this rant, the first sentence has 91 words. It has more grammar mistakes than a sportscaster seminar. It boils down to: when A is considered B by C who D. And what does D do next? Those 91 words are an insult to the Queen’s English. (91 is the product of 7, a lucky number, multiplied by 13, an unlucky number.)
There are eight more words at the end. “This is white supremacy folks. Plain and simple.” A comma might help in the sentence. Does he mean that the two players in the 91 word sentence are “white supremacy folks.”? Or is the author calling the attitude described “white supremacy”.? In any event, “Plain and simple” is not a complete sentence, nor does it describe the 91 word sentence.
This is a case where the medium is as important to the story as the message. When looking for information about the meme, PG typed “When a faithfully married black president who was the son of a single mother” into the wonder window. The algorithm replied: “Did you mean: When a faithful married black president who was the son of a single mother.”
The first reply was from the dependable PuffHo, This Is Not White Supremacy. It made some good points. A few spots down the google page, we see THIS IS NOT WHITE SUPREMACY. That is the original posting of the commentary. PuffHo aggregated it, without paying the original author.
So mush much for the medium. Lets look at the message. BHO, as you may know, is mixed race. The “single mother” of the piece was white. To our racially obsessed culture, this means black. America has had nine years to get over the ethnicity of BHO. It has failed miserably. To some, any criticism of BHO is racist. They mindlessly defend anything BHO does, and say that the critics are members of the KKK. Others are upset because a dark skinned man is in the White House. To these people BHO can do nothing right, because he has dark skin.
Either way, the people who see the skin, and not the man, are doing America a disservice. After January 20, 2017, we will find some other mindless excuse to trash our leaders. (UPDATE: It is so, so easy to find fault with DJT.) This is how politics works. You say whatever you can think of that is negative about the opposition. You gloss over the negativity of your own side. After a while, a lot of people don’t believe a word that either side is saying. When everyone is shouting, nobody is heard. This is politics. The generalizations are plain, and the minds are so, so simple.
There is an attitude among some that “racism” is a metaphysical evil. The R monster must be defeated. Collateral damage is not a problem. If you are going to make an omelet, you need to break eggs. When PG hears talk like this, he feels like an egg.
One problem is that everyone has their own idea of what “racism” is. They are correct, and you are mistaken. To some, it is systemic institutional oppression. To others, it is cultural appropriation and microaggressions. Some cynics say that “racism” is anything that rubs you the wrong way. Agree or disagree, you need to check your privilege.
PG saw a video last week, A Rant Against an Anti-Millennial Rant. “And we use words like “racist” to describe someone who thinks that the word “bae” isn’t real because it didn’t originate from a white, Eurocentric vernacular.” These are strange times.
If you are getting itchy, this is almost over. If you like, you can skip over the rest, and look at the pictures. They are from The Library of Congress. Image #06663: “Fifth International Pageant of Pulchritude and Eleventh Annual Bathing Girl Revue, Galveston, Texas, August 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1930”
UPDATE: This is a repost. While looking over the text, PG saw a paragraph about an obnoxious video. It turns out the video features Dylan Marron, who says “And we understand that surface gestures are totally cool but they do nothing to dismantle systemic patriarchy.”
Alleged comedian Bill Maher got in trouble this week for saying a forbidden word on TV. A national hissy fit resulted. This communal pearl clutching is an example of a surface gesture. Screaming “MOMMY HE SAID THE N-WORD” does nothing to dismantle systemic patriarchy.
The Battle Of Fair Street Bottom
Stacey Abrams appeared on Democracy Now. “So, I was a student at Spelman. I was a freshman. It was 1992, April. And Spelman College, the Atlanta University Center (AUC,) which is a consortium of black colleges, used to sit right outside some of the oldest housing developments in Georgia. And so, after the Rodney King verdict was announced, there were riots in Los Angeles, but there were also small riots in Georgia, including in that area. The reaction from the mayor was to actually cordon off that entire community, both the universities and the housing developments and then surrounding neighborhoods. And then they tear-gassed us. I was very irate, and I organized a group of students at my college to call the television stations, who were misreporting what was happening. At a certain point, they asked who was calling, because we were tying up their phone lines. And I just told my friends, “Tell them you’re me.”
So, Stacey Abrams was calling multiple lines in multiple television stations. Eventually, the television stations decided to do a simulcast, bringing everyone together—and I was invited as the person who was one of the rabble-rousers—to come and talk to the leadership of Atlanta about what had happened and about why we were angry, about why young people were outraged. We weren’t rioting at the school, but we understood those who were angry and who felt oppressed and felt ignored. I communicated that, and at this event, Maynard Jackson was there. He disagreed with me, disagreed with my characterization of the city’s overreaction. And I told him he wasn’t doing enough for young people. He won the argument, because he was better prepared.”
PG was in the Healy Building on April 30, 1992. He was just happy to get home in one piece that day, and did not watch any news reports. He vaguely recalls hearing something about an incident at AUC. After PG heard this statement by Miss Abrams, hew went to Mr. Google for information. There are at least two versions of that incident, which more or less tell the story. One is the Atlanta Voice, LOOKING BACK: ‘No Justice, No Peace’: The battle of Fair Street Bottom, 20 plus years later. Another is a lawsuit filed by the owners of a neighborhood grocery store, Park v. City of Atlanta.
After the Rodney King verdict, in California, students at AUC led a march from the school to downtown. At some point, the march degenerated into a riot. A grocery store on Fair Street was looted. Police were called in, and tear gas was used.
The Atlanta Voice “The Korean-owned grocery store located in Atlanta’s Fair Street Bottom closed early in anticipation of trouble. And like storm clouds on the horizon trouble showed up as expected. The garage-style steel door, typical of many small businesses in economically depressed communities around the nation, however, was not enough to stop the looters from breaking the lock and prying the door up just enough to crawl under and loot the establishment. The wife of the owner pleaded with Atlanta Police who were clad in riot gear as they stood quietly by and watched. No officer responded to her crying plead to stop the looters. The officers had more important orders: Don’t let the looters go into downtown; keep them in the Bottom. The police finally dispersed the looters with tear gas after they tried to set fire to the building. The liquor store next to the 5 Star Grocery was protected from the looters. This contained riot wasn’t going to be fuel by alcohol. …
Twenty-six years ago, Fair Street Bottom was located in the heart of one of Atlanta’s notorious neighborhoods just east of the Atlanta University Center. It was called the Bottom because Fair Street running east to west from Northside Drive dips downwards before it levels off again as it passes Clark Atlanta University and Morehouse College. The Bottom was in the heart of one of the city’s oldest public housing communities – John Hope Homes. With walking distance to the west near Spelman College was another housing project – University Homes. Fenced in green lots now occupy the space with John Hope Homes once sat. They were torn down in the 1990s as part of the Atlanta Housing Authority’s massive plan to re-invent public housing. University Homes was torn down and re-built into a mixed-income housing complex. Most of Atlanta missed the “Battle of Fair Street Bottom” unless they read or watch the news. The distance never spread beyond those few blocks …
I don’t remember where the phone call came from, but we were informed that some of the marchers were causing damage as they were marching back to the campus. Unfortunate for the marchers some of the young men and high school students joined the march as they passed through John Hope Homes. … By the time, I got to the Atlanta University Center, the student organizers had lost control of the march. Those marches who had a taste of destruction downtown were hell-bent on continuing. The Korean-owned 5 Star Supermarket became the focus of the headless mob, as did a few park police cars that were either turned over or set on fire. After a few hours, and quite a bit of tear gas, the Atlanta Police quelled the disturbance before nightfall. Students retreated back to their dorms and the young looters retreated back to their neighborhoods.”
The legal opinion “This action stems from one of the despicable acts of mob violence which occurred in the tumult of the riots in Atlanta, Georgia, in the wake of the Rodney King verdict… On April 29, 1992, … students from the Atlanta University Center began an impromptu march to the Richard B. Russell Federal Building and then to the State Capitol Building. The first day’s demonstrations ended at the State Capitol after 2 a.m. The students, presumably tired but clearly still agitated, returned to the Atlanta University Center.
The businesses of the Plaintiffs were to become a focus of the disorder on the second day of the riots. Sang S. Park and Hi Soon Park owned and operated Five Star Supermarket, a grocery business located at 653 Fair Street, S.W., Atlanta, Georgia. Plaintiffs Kwang Jun No and Jin Soon No owned and operated Star Liquor Store, a package store located next door at 661 Fair Street, S.W. Both Korean-American-owned businesses were located in a small commercial area in the immediate vicinity of four historically black universities: Clark Atlanta University, Spelman College, Morehouse College and Morris Brown College (“the Atlanta University Center”). Plaintiffs’ stores were the only non-black-owned businesses within that area.
In the afternoon of April 30, 1992, a group of students swarmed off the campuses of the Atlanta University Center. A segment of the crowd headed to the downtown business district, where they looted and attacked white pedestrians. A gang of students stopped to shout racial epithets and break the windows of both the Five Star Supermarket and the Five Star Liquor Store. Glenn Park, who is the son of Plaintiffs, was working at the store; he relayed these events to a police officer.
On the following day around 1:30 or 2:00 p.m., students at the Atlanta University Center began to throw projectiles from windows of a dormitory at the corner of Brawley Avenue and Fair Street, which is located about three blocks from Plaintiffs’ stores. A police S.W.A.T. team used tear gas to disperse these students. … The Plaintiffs decided to close their stores and congregate in an upstairs apartment within the Five Star Supermarket as nearby police officers observed. … By 6:45 p.m., … members of the crowd began throwing rocks and breaking into Five Star Liquor Store. From his position in the police helicopter, Officer S.F. Patterson advised other officers over TAC I radio that approximately fifty to seventy-five students were vandalizing a small business at Elm and Fair.
… the dispatcher reported a call originating from around the Fair and Roach intersection indicating that about fifty college students were assaulting a subject there at 6:45 p.m. During the next ten to twenty minutes, the mob gained entry to the liquor store, removed cases of alcoholic beverages, and broke into the supermarket. Around 7:15 p.m., a dispatcher actually called the Plaintiffs at the request of Major Mock and Chief Bell in order to advise them to remain out of sight of the crowd below. Within minutes of the last phone conversation with 911, the mob discovered Plaintiffs and chased them onto the roof of the grocery store … Plaintiffs barricaded the door onto the roof, but were assaulted by the crowd on the street who threw bricks, rocks, stones, and items stolen from their own store, hitting Mrs. Park, and shouted racial epithets at the Plaintiffs. …
On May 4, 1992, Mayor Jackson and Chief Bell participated in another press conference in which they addressed the previous days’ events and apologized to the Korean community, but also emphasized how none of the Atlanta University students were injured. Mayor Jackson also recognized the black community’s long-standing resentment of the Korean business community and recommended that a symbolic gesture be taken such as a collection for the destroyed businesses.”
Former Atlanta Police Chief Eldrin Bell has another perspective. “Bell was out of town the first night riots erupted in Atlanta on April 30, 1992. He said more than 20 police officers were injured that day when he got a call from the Mayor. “First thing I heard was Mayor Maynard Jackson’s voice in my ear saying ‘they’re tearing up your town,'” … he called the FBI who flew him back to Atlanta. He arrived the next day on May 1, 1992 at around lunch time at took charge of handling the riots. He did not want to repeat what happened the day before when officers confronted protestors face to face. “I am not a proponent of those confrontations, police versus the community.” Bell said he ordered officers out of the riot zone while he went up in a helicopter along with the Georgia State Patrol and flew over the protestors and dropped tear gas to disperse the crowd. “And I pointed out the places that I wanted him to tear gas, There was no one for them to throw the tear gas back to because the police weren’t there.” By 10PM that night the crowd dispersed, the riots ended, and the city began cleaning up.”
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
Admitted He Made It Up
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A Dark Rainbow Hangs Over the West
Armistead Maupin and Susan Hill ~ jenner car crash ~ Sylvia Rivera
Gore Vidal & Jack Kerouac ~ wild and crazy clickbait ~ james fields ~ I saw Frank Zappa at the civic center in 1984. At one point, a giant dildo was lowered onto the stage from above. The band started to play a song called “he’s so gay” with doo-wop style singing of the phrase “he’s so gay” ~ Jeezie poo wasn’t born on December 25, any more than he was executed on the friday after the spring equinox full moon. ~ False equivalencies is another phrase we need to retire. It doesn’t matter who is worse, if both are doing harm. ~ @RichardBSpencer So many on the right view corporate capitalism’s embrace of “LGBTQ+” as some kind of trick the Left pulled on big business. ~ Loathe though I might be to agree with @RichardBSpencer I have to admit that he makes many of the same points that people like @mbsycamore are making about the commodification of #pride are we making a commodity out of #PrideMonth2019 or a commode? is there a difference? ~ Marsha P. Johnson & Randy Wicker Randolfe Wicker Luther Mckinnon I hate this interview. I am apparently mad at Marsha and I’m uncharacteristically nasty to her. That is so far from the way we generally got along. ~ pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. ~ this poem was performed in dickhater last night. It is a modern translation of Psalm 44
we are counted as sheep for slaughter ~ give up like cattle appointed for meat
for our soul will slow down at the water ~ scatter us among heathen obsolete
hallelujah with scorn and derision ~ sore broken us in the place of dragons
forgettest oppression and affliction ~ doth smack down thy people for volkswagons
praise thy satanic name for ever selah ~ belly cleaveth unto madonna gland
boasting all the day long for g-d hoorah ~ shame us hate us develop the land
belly cleaveth unto madonna gland ~ reproacheth alabama blasphemeth
shame us hate us develop the land ~ your foolish covenant shadow of death
reproacheth alabama blasphemeth ~ boasting all the day long for g-d hoorah
your foolish covenant shadow of death ~ praise thy satanic name for ever selah
Sixty Five Years Twelve Presidents
This is a repost from 2012. It is about the twelve Presidents, one fourth of the total, who have helped themselves served over the last sixty five years. Barack Obama got re-elected, and killed lots of people. The less said about Donald J. Trump, the better.
Every four years, someone will say this is the worst choice ever. Every four years, someone will say this is the most important election ever. They are always correct. The choice in 2016 was between Donald John Trump and Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton. Choosing between those two idiots was challenging. The good news is that most people live in states where the electoral votes are conceded to one of the duopoly parties. These voters can focus on local elections.
Listening to the news shows that came on before the cartoons, PG heard the phrase “President Eisenhower”. As a friends explained to him, G-d made everything, but the President is Eisenhower.
When he was six, PG moved to a new house, and started first grade. There was an election that fall, and someone named Kennedy became President. PG wasn’t old enough to pay attention to the news yet, except when it looked like the Russians were going to kill us all in 1962.
The first news story that PG clearly remembers was the day when his fourth grade teacher, Miss McKenzie, told the class that President Kennedy had been shot. One of the worst moments that weekend was the moment when a plane landed in Washington, and the new President spoke on television. THAT was the new President? Yuck.
Lyndon Johnson was a larger than life figure, and was hated by millions of Amuricuns. While there was some good done by LBJ, it was overshadowed by the War in Vietnam. When he left office in 1968, the voters had a horrible choice …Hubert Humphrey, Richard Nixon, or George Wallace.
Tricky Dick Nixon is another larger than life figure, with millions of Americans screaming for his impeachment. For some reason, there were others who passionately admired the man.
In 1973, the oil companies tried to say there was an oil shortage. Later that year, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan attacked Israel, and the Arab oil producers cut oil to the USA. After this embargo, OPEC was in charge of the oil supply, and the price of gasoline increased 200%. The era of big money oil was on. What a convenient war.
After the ethical shortcomings of Mr. Nixon became too obnoxious to ignore, Gerald Ford became President. On a policy level, Ford was like all the other Presidents…some things he got right, some things he got wrong. On a personality level…the show business part…Ford excelled. His family provided harmless fodder for the gossipmongers. He was a likable man, a welcome break from the meanness of Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson.
When PG was a kid at Ashford Park School, there had never been a President from Georgia. It seemed impossible. When Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter announced he was running, it seemed like another ego tripper running for President. The funny thing is, he won. It still seems a bit unreal, like having the Olympics in Atlanta.
Jimmy was a Democrat, with attack Republicans fighting him every step of the way. This is a problem later Democrats in the Oval Office will have. On the policy level, he did better than many realize. Many of his achievements only bore fruit after he left office. On the show biz front, his down home Georgia routine did not appeal to many Yankees. In 1980, he was defeated by an actor.
PG was worried when Ronald Reagan took office. With America’s nuclear arsenal, and the Soviet Union wheezing it’s threat, many thought that Ronnie would start the war to kill us all. The good news is, this war never happened. Whatever tough talk came out of Washington was not matched by military adventurism abroad.
Reagan was the master of show business. He was an actor, playing the greatest role of his career. It was said that if America had a figure head monarch, Reagan would have been terrific. On the policy front, taxes were cut, and the budget increased. The national debt went over a trillion dollars, which was seen as a horrible moment. (The annual budget deficit is now over a trillion dollars.)
When Mr. Reagan’s two terms were over, George H.W. Bush took over. This was an era where the Democrats could not do anything right on a national level. Bush presided over a war, and brought the troops home when the mission was over. His image never appealed, and the whiners were not pleased. A computer salesman named Ross Perot decided to run as a third party candidate.
In the winter of 1992, PG had a little job downtown. One day, there was a rally at the CNN center for a little known Presidential candidate. PG went, and said to a friend, If this guy gets elected, you are going to regret not going to see him. At the time, War Winner Bush seemed unbeatable, and PG said that with high sarcasm.
When he got to CNN center, it was obvious that a big money event was unfolding. The place was packed, with school children bused in to fill all the seats. Finally, the speakers blared “Twist and Shout” at top volume, and Bill Clinton walked on the stage. PG was not especially impressed.
Clinton inspired toxic hatred, but managed to keep the boat floating. He won reelection, with the Republicans seeming to self destruct. The economy was going good, the budget was balanced, and the haters went wild. After a entertaining sex scandal, the Clinton years were over.
A couple of weeks before the 2000 election, PG liked neither candidate, and did not think it made much difference. (With Georgia’s electoral votes certain to go Republican, PG did not have a vote.) He listened to someone talking, who thought that it was important that Gore won. PG remembered that conversation often during the next eight years.
George W. Bush was a disaster. It is possible that 911 was a personal vendetta against the Bush family, and would not have happened if Gore was President. The reaction of Bush to this tragedy was to start two wars that we have not been able to finish. In 2016, we are still in Afghanistan.
Next was Barack Obama, the first dark skinned President. He continued the war happy ways of the Bush regime. BHO was reelected in 2012, and given four more years to wage war. He managed to avoid the second term scandals that crippled Mr. Nixon and Mr. Clinton.
In the next election, the democrats decided that calling people racist was a good campaign strategy. As a result, Donald J. Trump was elected. America is more racially divided than ever, which the election of Mr. Obama was supposed to remedy. With the nation distracted by screaming racism, the congress has cut taxes, and produced a multi-trillion dollar budget deficit. America might survive. Pictures for this feature are from the The Library of Congress.
Road Trip
The journey started tuesday morning, as the post-memorial day freeway carnage cooled off. PG made it to Uzi’s house in Sandy Springs by 10 am. By 10:30 they were on the way. I285 was the predictable madhouse, even on midmorning tuesday. It was a relief to get on the slightly less obnoxious I20. The destination was Raleigh NC. Uzi has a nephew in Raleigh, who will soon be moving to Massachusetts, far out of road trip range.
Uzi had been championing Cracker Barrel for a while. PG remembers the horror of the nineties, when CB was firing all the gay employees, or at least saying they were. When Pguzi got near Augusta, and could not pull directions to S&S cafeteria out of GPS … the first incident of a bad week for GPS … the deal with the devil was struck. After a CB sign was spotted on the interstate, lunch was going down. PG felt a measure of relief when he saw the merchandise. A pillow, with the big pink words “Just be fabulous” next to a pink sequin flamingo, was for sale as you walk in the door. This is probably a pride month olive branch, not to be confused with olive garden, or olive oyl.
PG started to drive after lunch, and drove the toyota hybrid all the way into North Carolina, with a brief side trip to Rowland. The farm where dad grew up is still there, on the Mckinnon Pate road. Pguzi got to the I95 welcome station after it closed at 5pm, and could not get a North Carolina map. This would prove crucial in the week ahead.
A few miles further up I95, Nephew sent a text. “How is the ride going?” Since Uzi was driving, he gave the phone to PG. Type ok space so space far. Every time PG tried to hit the o key, p came on the screen. PG touched the screen in the wrong place, and another message came up. Then GPS, which refused all orders to shut up, started to give instructions for the S&S cafeteria in Augusta GA. PG hit the o key, and p appeared on the screen. What should have taken less than a second, if you were past the iphone learning curve, took twenty miles. Finally, some how, nephew got the message.
Map-less navigation was clunky. Pguzi got on I40, then I440, which was correct. Someone remembered that the hotel was near Glenwood Road. The vehicle got off the freeway, and into a gas station. After a few tense moments, GPS coughed up the directions to the hotel. You go inside, and learn that the room temperature is set for 66 degrees. We will take care of that later. Ask GPS how to get to nephew’s apartment. Be patient.
Pguzi finds the apartment, where nephew is feeding his two month old daughter. PG sits and stares into space while others talk. A decision is made to go to dinner. Go driving around the area, looking at all the places that are closed. A place is still open, they go in, and see a steak house with $80 entrees. Uzi says he will buy. PG gets a salad, and nephew gets a slice of cheesecake.
Back at the hotel, the thermostat is on the wall by the entrance, not the ac unit. The temperature is set back from 66 to 72. The rest of the week was a cycle. The ac would run, and the room is too cold. Then the ac cuts off, and the room is too hot. This battle was a stalemate the rest of the week.
PG had a book to read, On The Road, by Jack Kerouac. PG had read it in 1984, thought it was pretty cool, and moved on. OTR is the story of Sal Paradise (Jack Kerouac) and Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady.) Other famous people with declef names are Carlo Marx (Allen Ginsberg) and Old Bull Lee (William S. Burroughs.) PG has seen and heard things in 35 years, and decided to give OTR another shot. PG read/blogged The Dhama Bums (one two three four) a few years ago. TDB was the follow up to OTR, and is a lot less fun.
Back to the comparisons. PG and Uzi are a couple of slack old gentrified redneck hippies. They are different people from Sal and Dean. Going to North Carolina in a Toyota hybrid, fussing about whether to listen to satellite radio or the thumb drive, is not the same as hitching a ride across Nebraska on the back of a flatbed truck.
Wednesday morning erupted in a barrage of sunshine across the fourth floor window. PG stumbled down to the breakfast buffet, and loaded up. Taking a cup of coffee upstairs, PG saw Uzi captivated by the Trump drama on MSNBC. The story today was a statement, with no questions, by Robert Mueller. Those eleven words, with politically correct computations and permutations, were endlessly repeated by the talking heads. At 9:59:40, some blow dry bird brain said we will know in one hour and twenty seconds.
The plan was for Nephew, wife, 6 year old, and two month old, to meet Uzi, and caravan to an art museum. PG decided that this was not fun, and decided to stay at the hotel. What followed was a glorious morning. All alone, camping out in an air conditioned hotel. See what you see on the TV. Go downstairs, make a cup of hot tea, bring it upstairs, pour it over a cup of ice to get the best unsweet tea on g-d’s green earth. Read OTR. Take notes for this travelogue. Life is good.
Or at least better than chapter 4 of OTR. Sal has decided to hitchhike to Denver, and meet up with Dean. Carlo will be there to chaperone. As PG enjoys his iced tea, Sal is stuck in smalltown Nebraska. PG is writing it all down. When you write down Uzi, and try to read it later, Uzi looks like 421. All the magic of 420, with a useless digit tax added on for good measure. Meanwhile, Mr. Mueller is talking to a breathless nation. PG will hear much more, though it will tend to be the same basic details… Mueller resigns from DOJ, he could not indict DJT because you cannot indict a POTUS, repeat, repeat, repeat, skip the much needed rinse, repeat with the emotional volume turned up a few notches, repeat, repeat, repeat. It will take 67 senators to vote for impeachment, and remove numbnuts from office. You are not going to get 17 rethuglicans to vote to impeach pussygrabber.
12:25 PG is on chapter 5 of OTR. Sal is on the best ride of this life, a flatbed truck, going from Nebraska into Wyoming with an assortment of characters. There will be quotes from this when this gets typed, but that is getting ahead of the game. … not so fast cowboy. The OTR.pdf is the redacted version. Whole chapters are either paraphrased, or edited out. While there are other quotes available in copy/paste form, this narrative is going to depend on the booknook paperback that PG read 35 years ago. … That moment when PG quits looking at the google page for OTR quotes. One of the results advertised Road Trip Quotes: Top 50 Inspiring Quotes About the Road! Maybe the answer is to get away from the internet and write your own quotes.
That is part of the fun for Internet addict PG, in going inkpen and paper. A dollar store notebook, a home depot inkpen, and a plexiglass clipboard of uncertain origin. There is a computer downstairs that PG could use, but the thought of going completely analog for a few days has a lot of appeal. These notes will look completely different when they are typed… the medium is the message.
The idea hit to spend a half hour meditating. A picture behind the desk could be the mandala. The stupid phone has a timer. The rest of chapter 5 will be waiting, as will the swimming pool, McDonalds, and more. The meditation was a delight. The phone alarm is birds chirping, instead of the hard core buzz of traditional alarm clocks. PG had such a smile, he wanted to do it again.
The lady came to clean the room. PG took OTR to the pool. He finished chapter 5. Sal gets off the flatbed truck, and sadly realizes he will never see those people again. Meanwhile UZI sends a text. “We will be eating at the Golden Corral tonight.” Raleigh is the home of GC, and we will eat at the flagship store. At 1:59, Uzi texts “Heading home.” PG replies “Ok so far.” This seven letter two space message took less than a second on a stupid phone, but required an act of congress on a smart phone.
4:13 Uzi is back. He is listening to Randi Rhodes on a sputtering smart phone speaker. It sounds horrible. PG goes to the pool to read and write. … Sal has made it to Denver. Carlo and Dean have become a unit unto themselves, with numerous other people mad at them.
Dean is a mess. He is screwing his soon-to-be-divorced wife, and screwing a girlfriend at the same time, and having an intense thing with Carlo. Dean and Carlo were known to be bumping gooberheads at one time, maybe in 1947 Denver, maybe not. Whatever they did with their peckers, Dean and Carlo would get beamed up on benzedrine and have intense all night conversations.
Dean/Neal is part of a chain of faggotry. Walt Whitman screwed someone named Carpenter, who screwed someone named Arthur…. the grandson of Chester Arthur, a POTUS. Grandpa Chester had an impressive set of sideburns, and was VPOTUS when Garfield got offed. Mr. Arthur conducted the procedure with Neal Cassady, who did his homework with Allen Ginsberg. There is the son-of-a-dunwoody-housewife named Marcus Ewert, who claims to have lost his jailbait virginity to Ginsberg. This is the next level of the conveyor belt … Neal Boortz is fond of saying that Randi Rhodes is in love with him. Please, for the love of Hilary’s e-mails, please make sure that they used protection, and that a cross pollination between these two does not happen.
On page 38, chapter 7, there is a reference to sleepint stillness. It will be fun to see if this is intentional, or a typo in the signet edition of OTR … sleeping stillness, or anything like it, does not appear in the pdf. A more durable copy of OTR has been ordered from the library. It will be fun to see which version of OTR appears … There is no indication when this edition was printed. The best guess is the early seventies. The book cost $1.25 new, which was pricey for a paperback in 1957. The style of the cover design, and use of the phrase “the book that turned on a generation” indicates a Nixon era publication date. PG would have been clueless in either 1957 or 1972.
At the end of chapter 7, Dean is screwing a lot, and doesn’t have the time to work. Carlo keeps tagging along, saying he thought they were going to talk. Sal is broke, and going to sleep in the cool Denver air. … It is 4:47. Randi Rhodes will be on a couple of hours more. Maintaining your sanity can be tough. The idea that people enjoy listening to that idiot can make your head swim.
After a while, Pguzi is guided by faithful GPOS GPS to nephew’s apartment. Soon, the crew… nephew and three women … will head out to Golden Corral. … after dinner, Pguzi went into town, and walked around the state capitol looking at Confederate statues … before heading back to the hotel to see a movie about sharks. After PG tried to go to sleep, Uzi turned the TV to the drone of talking heads, telling you what to think about the Mueller statement.
Thursday starts bright and early. Pguzi went to nephews, and followed to a pair of museums by the state capitol. PG was bored silly, but realized this was his one chance to see this museum. YOLO … after getting back to hotel, Uzi took a nap, while PG got into the hotel slack lifestyle.
OTR roars on. Dean is screwing as though his life depended on it, which it might have. Carlo tags faithfully along, waiting for a chance to talk to the busy boy. “He wrote of Dean as a “child of the rainbow” who bore his torment in his agonized priapus.” Sal leaves Denver, to go hang out in a ghost town. He misses Carlo and Dean, but realizes they would be out of place, “… rising from the underground, the sordid hipsters of america, a new beat generation that I was slowly joining.”
Thursday dinner was at a chinese restaurant, run by Filipinos. The attraction is the piano man, a non stop human jukebox. Pguzi went back to the hotel, and saw a series of tv shows about ghosts, and how to manage them in your properties. PG took his semi-annual hit of dope, and was a better person for it. The road trip adventure was slouching to an end.
Friday was checkout/back to town day. The trip out was a bit smoother than the trip in. One exception is when you left the air conditioned universe of the vehicle, and stepped into the blast furnace air of the gas station parking lot. The thumb drive got used, with Linda Ronstadt and Billie Holiday leading the way. Uzi decided to go through downtown, instead of i285, and it worked out very well. PG got home about eight ish.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The chamblee54 On The Road series is complete. part one part two part three part four part five part six part seven
I Sing The Body Electric
1
I sing the body electric,
The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.
Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?
And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?
And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul?
And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?
2
The love of the body of man or woman balks account,
the body itself balks account,
That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.
The expression of the face balks account,
But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face,
It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of his hips and wrists,
It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist and knees,
dress does not hide him,
The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth,
To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more,
You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side.
The sprawl and fulness of babes, the bosoms and heads of women,
the folds of their dress, their style as we pass in the street,
the contour of their shape downwards,
The swimmer naked in the swimming-bath, seen as he swims through
the transparent green-shine, or lies with his face up and rolls
silently to and from the heave of the water,
The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-boats,
the horse-man in his saddle,
Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their performances,
The group of laborers seated at noon-time with their open dinner-kettles,
and their wives waiting,
The female soothing a child, the farmer’s daughter in the garden or cow-yard,
The young fellow hosing corn, the sleigh-driver driving his six horses
through the crowd,
The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite grown, lusty,
good-natured, native-born, out on the vacant lot at sundown after work,
The coats and caps thrown down, the embrace of love and resistance,
The upper-hold and under-hold, the hair rumpled over and blinding the eyes;
The march of firemen in their own costumes, the play of masculine muscle
through clean-setting trowsers and waist-straps,
The slow return from the fire, the pause when the bell strikes suddenly again,
and the listening on the alert,
The natural, perfect, varied attitudes, the bent head, the curv’d neck
and the counting;
Such-like I love—I loosen myself, pass freely, am at the mother’s breast
with the little child,
Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line
with the firemen, and pause, listen, count.
3
I knew a man, a common farmer, the father of five sons,
And in them the fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons.
This man was a wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person,
The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and beard,
the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes,
the richness and breadth of his manners,
These I used to go and visit him to see, he was wise also,
He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old, his sons were massive,
clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome,
They and his daughters loved him, all who saw him loved him,
They did not love him by allowance, they loved him with personal love,
He drank water only, the blood show’d like scarlet
through the clear-brown skin of his face,
He was a frequent gunner and fisher, he sail’d his boat himself,
he had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner,
he had fowling-pieces presented to him by men that loved him,
When he went with his five sons and many grand-sons to hunt or fish,
you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of the gang,
You would wish long and long to be with him, you would wish to sit by him
in the boat that you and he might touch each other.
4
I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly
round his or her neck for a moment, what is this then?
I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as in a sea.
There is something in staying close to men and women and looking on them,
and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well,
All things please the soul, but these please the soul well.
5
This is the female form,
A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,
It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,
I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor,
all falls aside but myself and it,
Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth,
and what was expected of heaven or fear’d of hell, are now consumed,
Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it,
the response likewise ungovernable,
Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all diffused,
mine too diffused,
Ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh swelling
and deliciously aching,
Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of love,
white-blow and delirious juice,
Bridegroom night of love working surely and softly into the prostrate dawn,
Undulating into the willing and yielding day,
Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh’d day.
This the nucleus—after the child is born of woman, man is born of woman,
This the bath of birth, this the merge of small and large, and the outlet again.
Be not ashamed women, your privilege encloses the rest,
and is the exit of the rest,
You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.
The female contains all qualities and tempers them,
She is in her place and moves with perfect balance,
She is all things duly veil’d, she is both passive and active,
She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as daughters.
As I see my soul reflected in Nature,
As I see through a mist, One with inexpressible completeness,
sanity, beauty,
See the bent head and arms folded over the breast, the Female I see.
6
The male is not less the soul nor more, he too is in his place,
He too is all qualities, he is action and power,
The flush of the known universe is in him,
Scorn becomes him well, and appetite and defiance become him well,
The wildest largest passions, bliss that is utmost, sorrow that is utmost
become him well, pride is for him,
The full-spread pride of man is calming and excellent to the soul,
Knowledge becomes him, he likes it always, he brings every thing
to the test of himself,
Whatever the survey, whatever the sea and the sail
he strikes soundings at last only here,
(Where else does he strike soundings except here?)
The man’s body is sacred and the woman’s body is sacred,
No matter who it is, it is sacred—is it the meanest one in the laborers’ gang?
Is it one of the dull-faced immigrants just landed on the wharf?
Each belongs here or anywhere just as much as the well-off, just as much as you,
Each has his or her place in the procession.
(All is a procession,
The universe is a procession with measured and perfect motion.)
Do you know so much yourself that you call the meanest ignorant?
Do you suppose you have a right to a good sight,
and he or she has no right to a sight?
Do you think matter has cohered together from its diffuse float,
and the soil is on the surface, and water runs and vegetation sprouts,
For you only, and not for him and her?
7
A man’s body at auction,
(For before the war I often go to the slave-mart and watch the sale,)
I help the auctioneer, the sloven does not half know his business.
Gentlemen look on this wonder,
Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for it,
For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one animal or plant,
For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily roll’d.
In this head the all-baffling brain,
In it and below it the makings of heroes.
Examine these limbs, red, black, or white, they are cunning in tendon and nerve,
They shall be stript that you may see them.
Exquisite senses, life-lit eyes, pluck, volition,
Flakes of breast-muscle, pliant backbone and neck, flesh not flabby,
good-sized arms and legs,
And wonders within there yet.
Within there runs blood,
The same old blood! the same red-running blood!
There swells and jets a heart, there all passions, desires, reachings, aspirations,
(Do you think they are not there because they are not express’d
in parlors and lecture-rooms?)
This is not only one man, this the father of those who shall be fathers
in their turns,
In him the start of populous states and rich republics,
Of him countless immortal lives with countless embodiments and enjoyments.
How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring
through the centuries?
(Who might you find you have come from yourself,
if you could trace back through the centuries?)
8
A woman’s body at auction,
She too is not only herself, she is the teeming mother of mothers,
She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be mates to the mothers.
Have you ever loved the body of a woman?
Have you ever loved the body of a man?
Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all nations
and times all over the earth?
If anything is sacred the human body is sacred,
And the glory and sweet of a man is the token of manhood untainted,
And in man or woman a clean, strong, firm-fibred body, is more beautiful
than the most beautiful face.
Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body?
or the fool that corrupted her own live body?
For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves.
9
O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women,
nor the likes of the parts of you,
I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the soul,
(and that they are the soul,)
I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems,
and that they are my poems,
Man’s, woman’s, child, youth’s, wife’s, husband’s, mother’s, father’s,
young man’s, young woman’s poems,
Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears,
Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eyebrows, and the waking
or sleeping of the lids,
Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the jaw-hinges,
Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition,
Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck-slue,
Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind-shoulders,
and the ample side-round of the chest,
Upper-arm, armpit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm-bones,
Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger,
finger-joints, finger-nails,
Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast-side,
Ribs, belly, backbone, joints of the backbone,
Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and outward round,
man-balls, man-root,
Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above,
Leg-fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under-leg,
Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel;
All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your body
or of any one’s body, male or female,
The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and clean,
The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame,
Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity,
Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes from woman,
The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping,
love-looks, love-perturbations and risings,
The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud,
Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming,
Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and tightening,
The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes,
The skin, the sunburnt shade, freckles, hair,
The curious sympathy one feels when feeling with the hand
the naked meat of the body,
The circling rivers the breath, and breathing it in and out,
The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips,
and thence downward toward the knees,
The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the marrow
in the bones,
The exquisite realization of health;
O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul,
O I say now these are the soul!
Text for this adventure is from the Project Gutenberg.
The text was reformatted by Chamblee54.
“I sing the Body Electric” was written by Walt Whitman.
An audio version of this poem is available from Librivox.
Pictures from The Library of Congress.
Chamblee54 
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