Stacey Ian Humphreys
Georgia is planning to execute Stacey Ian Humphreys on Wednesday, December 17, 2025. He was convicted of the 2003 murders of Cyndi Williams and Lori Brown. Here is the story from
FindLaw: “At approximately 12:40 p.m. on November 3, 2003, Humphreys, a convicted felon who was still on parole, entered a home construction company’s sales office located in a model home for a new subdivision in Cobb County. Cindy Williams and Lori Brown were employed there as real estate agents. Finding Ms. Williams alone in the office, Humphreys used a stolen handgun to force her to undress and to reveal the PIN for her ATM card. After calling Ms. Williams’s bank to learn the amount of her current balance, Humphreys tied her underwear so tightly around her neck that, when her body was discovered, her neck bore a prominent ligature mark and her tongue was protruding from her mouth, which had turned purple.”
“While choking Ms. Williams, Humphreys forced her to get down on her hands and knees and to move into Ms. Brown’s office and behind Ms. Brown’s desk. Humphreys placed his handgun at Ms. Williams back and positioned a bag of balloons between the gun and her body to muffle the sound of gunshots. He then fired a shot into her back that went through her lung and heart, fired a second shot through her head, and left her face-down on her hands and knees under the desk.”
“Ms. Brown entered the office during or shortly after Humphreys’s attack on Ms. Williams, and he attacked her too. Ms. Brown suffered a hemorrhage in her throat that was consistent with her having been choked in a headlock-type grip or having been struck in the throat. Humphreys also forced Ms. Brown to undress and to reveal her PIN, called her bank to obtain her balance, and made her kneel with her head facing the floor. Then, while standing over Ms. Brown, Humphreys fired one gunshot through her head, this time using both a bag of balloons and Ms. Brown’s folded blouse to muffle the sound. He dragged her body to her desk, took both victims’ driver’s licenses and ATM and credit cards, and left the scene at approximately 1:30 p.m. When the builder, whose office was located in the model home’s basement, heard the door chime of the security system indicating that someone had exited the sales office, he went to the sales office to meet with the agents. There he discovered Ms. Brown’s body and called 911. The responding police officer discovered Ms. Williams’s body.”
“After interviewing the builder and canvassing the neighborhood, the police released to the media descriptions of the suspect and a Dodge Durango truck seen at the sales office near the time of the crimes. In response, someone at the job site where Humphreys worked called to advise that Humphreys and his vehicle matched those descriptions and that Humphreys did not report to work on the day of the crimes. The police began to investigate Humphreys and made arrangements through his parole officer to meet with him on the morning of November 7, 2003. Humphreys skipped the meeting, however, and eluded police officers who had him under surveillance.” …
“Cobb County police determined that Humphreys had left his home on foot on the morning of November 7, 2003, they learned that he had rented a vehicle and departed the area. Subsequently, police arranged with the U.S. Marshals Service for the issuance of a nationwide “Attempt to Locate” (ATL) lookout notice for Humphreys and his rental vehicle.”
“Officer Paul Schmitt of the Brookfield, Wisconsin, Police Department testified that he was on patrol when he received the lookout notice at 5:16 a.m. on November 8, 2003. The lookout was for a silver Jeep Grand Cherokee with a Budget rental car company license-applied-for or “paper” tag. It identified Humphreys by name as the driver of the Jeep, gave his date of birth, and described him as a white male, six feet three inches tall, 295 pounds, and bald. The lookout also stated that, according to the U.S. Marshals Service, Humphreys was a suspect in a double homicide in Georgia, was considered to be armed and dangerous, was possibly attempting to flee the country, was being tracked by his cellular telephone signal, and was last known to be near Schmitt’s vicinity traveling on Interstate 94.”
“Schmitt drove to Interstate 94 to observe the passing traffic, which was light because it was an early Saturday morning. At approximately 5:30 a.m., the officer observed a silver Jeep Grand Cherokee with a paper tag pass his vehicle, and he began to follow it from a distance of four to five car lengths. Schmitt notified Waukesha County communications that he was following the suspect vehicle, and other officers were dispatched to assist him. A few minutes later, the officers activated their blue lights and sirens. In response, the Jeep rapidly accelerated, leading to a 35-minute high-speed chase before Humphreys’s vehicle finally crashed and he was apprehended.” … (This story has dashcam footage of the chase. It also has more details on the capture.) …
“It is undisputed that, when the police activated their lights and sirens, Humphreys accelerated and attempted to flee, traveling at up to 110 miles per hour, driving recklessly through residential areas, running stop signs, and swerving off the road. His vehicle came to a stop only after running over multiple sets of “stop sticks” set out by law enforcement and after the police rammed the vehicle in a “pit” maneuver, pushing it into a concrete edifice in a medical center parking lot.” …
“Humphreys was apprehended the following day. Police there recovered from the console of his rental vehicle a Ruger 9-millimeter pistol, which was determined to be the murder weapon. Swabbings from that gun revealed blood containing Ms. Williams’s DNA. A stain on the driver-side floormat of Humphreys’s Durango was determined to be blood containing Ms. Brown’s DNA.”
“After the murders, the victims’ ATM cards were used to withdraw over $3,000 from their accounts. Two days after the murders, Humphreys deposited $1,000 into his account, and he had approximately $800 in cash in his possession when he was arrested. Humphreys claimed in a statement to the police that he did not remember his actions at the time of the crimes. However, when asked why he fled, he said: “I know I did it. I know it just as well as I know my own name.” He also told the police that he had recently taken out some high-interest “payday” loans and that he “got over [his] head with that stinking truck.”
Stacey Humphreys was convicted of the murders, and assorted other crimes. He was sentenced to death. The death sentence turned out to be controversial. “The Supreme Court on Monday refused to review the case of Stacey Humphreys, who was sentenced to death in Georgia after a single juror “bullied” the others into voting for death. In an opinion joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented from the Court’s decision “allowing a death sentence tainted by a single juror’s extraordinary misconduct to stand.” …
“During jury selection for his trial in 2007, the dissent recounted, juror Chancey said a convicted murderer who had escaped from a mental institution attempted to rape and rob her in her home, but she escaped before he got inside the house. She swore under oath she could be a fair juror and would “honestly consider” all three sentencing options—life with parole, life without parole, and death.”
“The jury convicted Mr. Humphreys, and the State sought the death penalty. During deliberations at the penalty phase, Chancey revealed to the other jurors that her attacker actually had assaulted her while she was naked in her bed. Based on that experience, the jury foreperson later reported, she “had her mind made up” from “day one” of trial that Mr. Humphreys “deserved to die.”
“On the second day of deliberations, the other 11 jurors voted for life without parole, but “Chancey would not even consider it.” … The judge instructed the jury to keep deliberating, and Chancey “snapped”—she yelled, cursed, and screamed she would “stay here forever if” that’s what it took for Mr. Humphreys “to get death.” She threw the victims’ photos across the table, demanding, “Do you want this to happen to someone you know?” and reminded jurors of the similarities of her own attack. She falsely told them “they had to reach a unanimous decision or [Humphreys] would be paroled,” personally attacked them, and refused to engage in discussions. People in the courtroom heard screaming from the jury room, and jurors were seen crying on several occasions. One juror “took a swing” at Chancey and punched a hole in the wall. Another juror said later that “it was as if an evil force took over” Chancey. The foreperson wrote a note to the judge asking to be removed from the jury because of the “hostile nature of one of the jurors.” But rather than investigate, the trial judge instructed jurors to keep deliberating and rejected the defense’s motion for a mistrial. On the third morning of deliberations, the jury returned a unanimous verdict for death.”
Stacey Ian Humphreys, GDC ID: 0000679146, had been incarcerated twice before. (07/30/1997 – 10/10/2002, 11/05/1993 – 08/01/1996) Mr. Humphreys was born in May 1973, stood 6’ 3”, weighed 305#. Previous crimes include THEFT BY REC, STOLEN PROP, POSS FIREARM CONVCT FELON, BURG, ENTERING VEHICLE, THEFT BY TAKING, FORG 1ST.
“Humphreys requested a last meal of barbecue beef brisket, pork ribs, bacon double cheeseburger, french fries, cole slaw, cornbread, buffalo wings, meat lovers pan pizza, vanilla ice cream and two lemon-lime sodas.” … Oxygen had a show, “The Real Murders of Atlanta.” Season 2, Episode 5 is devoted to this case. Previews are available at the link. The full episode is apparently not available now. … Update On Monday December 15, the execution of Stacey Humphreys was suspended until further notice, by the State Board of Pardons and Paroles. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. John Vachon took the social media picture in March 1941. “Construction worker from Ohio who lives in trailer with his family. Portsmouth, Virginia” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Divine Intervention
A strange thing happened on my walk this morning. I was listening to this show about David Foster Wallace. It was a dystopian commentary, about a lot of different things. One of the chief problems is the general f***** up nature of the medical industrial complex.
I was about to turn around, and do another lap, when the phone rang. I decided to take a chance, and answer the call. The call was a lady calling from the sleep disorder clinic. Some of the Medicare claims had been rejected. I went back into the house, got my reading glasses, and woke up the computer. I got a new Medicare card last December, and apparently the sleep disorder clinic never got the new Medicare number. It was synchronistic that I would answer this call, and that it would be an illustration of the story I was listening to.
I had a similar experience a while back. I was riding on the exercise bike at the gym, while watching Female Trouble by John Samuel Waters. FT was just so strange. I was being pulled into this narcatonic vortex that JSW induces in people. He will render them mentally incompetent by the facilitation of “Divine intervention.” In this scene, Divine chopped a ladies arm off, and held her prisoner in a giant birdcage. At this point in the procedure, I get a spam risk phone call. I decided what the hell, life is so much fun right now, what’s another spam phone call?
So I answer the call. It’s from Piedmont Care Connect. PCC was this program that my primary doctor wanted to sign me up for. You would pay to have a PCC blood pressure monitor installed in your house. The device would transmit the BP readings to Piedmont heathcare. I was very skeptical of the whole thing. I got even more skeptical when I talked to the people from the program, because they didn’t know what they were doing. I had already told them not to call me again. After I hung up the phone, I learned that Divine was going to prison, for her crimes against hairstyling.
So yesterday went on and on and finally ended. I listened to the last of the story about Dave Wallace. I was pleased to get to the part about gnosticism. I wanted to listen to it again because I thought I might have missed something the last time. Later, I read a piece about Yahweh. (I did not copy the link). It seems that Yahweh was a minor Israeli God, until there was a hostile takeover of the whole system. Yahweh then issued the Ten Commandments, saying that I am the only God. It is very curious that I never heard this. All Christians ever talk about is life after death.
Meanwhile, the gnostics were saying that Yahweh was the demiurge, or the anti-god. If you go by the Old Testament, there may be a grain of truth to this. You don’t really hear much about God in the New Testament, which is mostly about Jesus, the illegitimate son of Yahweh. … The second thing that I find really bizarre about Yahweh is that two of the nicknames for Yahweh are Allah and God. You heard that right … Allah and God are the same thing.
It is now 121225. When I get up and moving … slowly … I turn on the noise machine, to provide background sounds. Inevitably, I will need to turn it off, so I can hear something else. Today, the first turnoff of the day was a 23 second video about how to pronounce bhagavad gita. To pronounce BG, remember that the h should be after the a, instead of before. BAH ga vahd GE tuh. It is similar to saying Bah Humbug. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the social media picture in August 1942. “Nashville, Tennessee. Welding parts for fuel pumps. Vultee Aircraft Corporation plant” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Slow Service Night
What follows is the story of my wednesday night. On certain wednesdays, a meditation group meets at a house in town. In this group, after sitting, the meditators journal. This is what I came up with: These coca cola pens don’t last very long. I have already retired one, and this one is not long for the world · I hear a lot about mindfulness, and yet don’t really know what it means. Maybe the phrase should be mindemptyness · The world is so bright when I pull the mask off. I turned to my bag, and got out my pen and paper, and never thought to look up to my right. When I did, after a few minutes, I saw Ashley, which was a bit surprising · This coaster is an octogon, with uneven sides. It is one inch squares, four inches wide, with four blocks cut in half in the corners.
I googled mindemptyness, and saw this was not an original thought. Google has several links for ME. Once you brave the popups and cookie alerts, you can find this: “Practice meditation and mindfulness as a means of getting to mindemptyness (ie, the Monkey Mind is calmed)”. You should open the door to your thoughts, but do not serve them tea.
Eventually, it was time to go home, including a stop at Burger King. In the drive through, I dictated the next part of our story: I’m in the Drive-Thru of the Burger King on North Druid Hills Road. I come here on my way home from meditation. This is what I do when I’m in this area. I go by here, or the Taco Bell on Buford Highway, to get junk food. The last time I was in here, I got three Whopper Juniors for $7. This was too much. Tonight, I’m only going to get two. It’s better to get less food than you think need, than more.
I’m listening to this monolog. It’s about David Foster Wallace and Derek Swanson. They are going to talk about gnosticism later on, which is one of the reasons I’m listening to this a second time. I listen to very few stories twice, especially when I have to download the MP4, and run it through a device to extract the MP3 sound, so that I can play it on my device.
It’s such a thrill to go into town these days. I see things that were never there. I’ve heard about this place on Cheshire Bridge Road. It’s a novelty shop, and it’s got this ruby red shoe that you walk through to get in there. I’m not really sure what it was, but it’s across the street from The Colonnade Restaurant, and the now closed Cheshire Motor Inn.
North Druid Hills has always been a busy street. They’ve been tearing it up now because they built a hospital. They’re doing a lot of work on I-85 to get there. It’s a big mess right now. NDH has never been an easy street to drive on. I only come here at night, when I’m not really sure of where I’m going, and I just go through it, and hope for the best, get through, and go on to Buford Highway which is another f***** up road, which is more f***** up now than it’s ever been.
I’ve spent about 5 minutes saying this, and that one car ahead of me hasn’t moved. The device quit taking dictation. I’ve been talking so long, it just put this red notice on the screen, and told me I’d been talking too long. Imagine that. The car that was ahead of me finally pulled off. Am I going to have to wait another 10 minutes? I don’t know why this is taking so long. … The car in front of me has this thing around his license plate saying Phi Beta Sigma. I think that’s one of those black fraternities.
That is it for the drive through narration. BK seemed to be having a slow service night. I eventually got my Whopper Juniors, and went home. I put them in the microwave for 93 seconds, which improved the taste. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. John Collier Jr. took the social media picture May 14, 1942. “Washington D.C.” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Stanford Bad Words List
This content was posted December 24, 2022. … Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative arrived on a slow news day this week. Produced by a committee at Stanford University, the document lists some language that we should not be using. The screed got an unkind reaction, and was hidden from the general population. Fortunately, some thoughtful archivists saved a copy.
EHLI comes in a three part format. First is the contraindicated phrase. Second is a suggested alternative, and third is a commentary. The replacement is usually longer, and clumsier, than the original. Is “died by suicide” really any better than “committed suicide”?
abusive relationship … relationship with an abusive person … The relationship doesn’t commit abuse. A person does, so it is important to make that fact clear.
African-American … Black … Black people who were born in the United States can interpret hyphenating their identity as “othering.” As with many of the terms we’re highlighting, some people do prefer to use/be addressed by this term, so it’s best to ask a person which term they prefer to have used when addressing them. When used to refer to a person, the “b” should always be capitalized.
American … US Citizen … This term often refers to people from the US only, thereby insinuating that the US is the most important country in the Americas (which is actually made up of 42 countries).
brown bag … lunch and learn, tech talk … Historically associated with the “brown paper bag test” that certain Black sororities and fraternities used to judge skin color. Those whose skin color was darker than the brown bag were not allowed to join.
gangbusters … very successful … Unnecessarily invokes the notion of police action against “gangs” in a positive light, which may have racial undertones.
Hispanic … Latinx, use country of origin … Although widely used to describe people from Spanish-speaking countries outside of Spain, its roots lie in Spain’s colonization of South American countries. Instead of referring to someone as Hispanic because of their name or appearance, ask them how they identify themselves first.
Karen … demanding or entitled White woman … This term is used to ridicule or demean a certain group of people based on their behaviors.
people of color (used generically) … BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) … If speaking about a specific group, name that group.
“preferred” pronouns … pronouns … The word “preferred” suggests that non-binary gender identity is a choice and a preference.
shemale … transgender woman, trans woman … This slur is often used disparagingly to refer to people who don’t conform to gender expectations. Some in the community do identify with and self-describe as the term, though.
straight … heterosexual … Implies that anyone who is not heterosexual is bent or not “normal.”
stupid … boring, uncool … Once used to describe a person who could not speak and implied the person was incapable of expressing themselves.
tranny, trannie … transgender person, trans or non-gendering conforming folk … This slur is often used disparagingly to refer to people who don’t conform to gender expectations. Some in the community do identify with and self-describe as the term, though.
uppity … arrogant, stuck up … Although the term originated in the Black community to describe another Black person who didn’t know their socioeconomic place, it was quickly adopted by White Supremacists to describe any Black person who didn’t act as “expected.”
In several of the categories, you are invited to ask the person how they wish to be identified. This reinforces the “otherness” of people in these categories. English speaking White people are assumed to be the norm, and in no need of categorization. This is precisely the privilege that initiatives like the EHLI purport to be fighting, when in reality they do the opposite.
“Karen … demanding or entitled White woman …” Many of the banned words claim to be fighting the white=good trope. In the case of Karen, EHLI goes in the other direction, suggesting “entitled White woman” as an alternative. At least EHLI capitalized White. EHLI also capitalized “Latinx,” while leaving “country of origin” in lower case.
EHLI is clearly … all commentaries on social justice issues must say clearly … the work of a committee. They … assuming that is the correct pronoun here … have good intentions. Unfortunately, as we all know in 2022, it is outcome that is important, and not intentions. Maybe someone should just yell bingo, and go cash in their card. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the social media picture in October 1939. “Family of FSA client living near Bradford, Vermont. Orange County” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Fruitcake
This content was originally posted December 10, 2011. … A facebook friend put these fruitcake facts on the internet. I saw a chance for some snappy text to put between some pictures. I would be nutty as a fruitcake to turn down a chance like this. … Fruitcakes were buried with the dead in Ancient Egypt. It’s true. Ancient Egyptians used to fill the tombs of the dead with all the supplies that they would need to enjoy the afterlife, including food and water. Fruitcake was often put into the tomb of a deceased person because a fruitcake soaked in a natural preservative like alcohol or fruit juice would last a long time. It was thought that the preserved fruitcake would not spoil on the journey to the afterlife. Fruitcake was a staple food of other ancient cultures as well.
Candied fruits are used in fruitcake because using sugar was the only way to preserve the fruit long enough to get it back to Europe from the Middle East. When the Crusaders began carrying exotic fruits back to their European home the fresh fruit would spoil long before they were able to get it home. Ingenious traders began drying the fruits by candying them with sugar which made them an even more delicious treat and preserved them indefinitely. Once the candied fruits were sent to Europe and to other parts of the world they were baked into cakes so that they could be shared with family and friends on special occasions.
Fruitcakes will last for years without spoiling. It’s true. A fruitcake that is properly preserved with an alcohol soaked cheesecloth that is then wrapped in plastic wrap or foil can be kept unrefrigerated for years without spoiling. In the past, before refrigerators came along, families would make fruitcake for holidays and special occasions months in advance of the actual event. The fruitcakes would sit wrapped in an alcohol soaked cloth until the event happened. As long as the cloth was remoistened with alcohol occasionally the cakes not only didn’t spoil, they actually tasted richer and sweeter because they had been soaking in brandy and rum for a couple of months.
To millions of fruitcake consumers, the town of Claxton GA is very special. This south Georgia town, just down the road from Reidsville, is home to Claxton Fruit Cake. The story of the Claxton Fruit Cake company is a sweet one. Savino Tos founded the Claxton Bakery in 1910. He hired Albert Parker in 1927, and sold him the business in 1945. Mr. Parker decided to sell Fruit Cake to America.
No story about fruitcake is complete without mentioning the “Fruitcake Lady.” Marie Rudisill, an aunt of Truman Capote, wrote a book of fruitcake recipes. She became a tv celebrity, before going to the bakery in the sky on November 3, 2006.
The urban dictionary has many listings for fruit cake. The ones for homosexuals and crazy people are there. UD gets creative with this selection: “The act of releasing green chunky diarrhea onto your partners face, then ejaculating on it, then punching them in the nose causing the colors to mix together to form a fruit cake like color.”
If you tire of jokes about fruitcake, you can go to The society for the protection and preservation of fruitcake. (If you click on the “new URL”, you will be invited to join in the green card lottery). There used to be a link on the society page that enables you to buy Fruitcake Mints. “Keep your breath fruitcake fresh with these festive mints!”
December 27 is National Fruitcake Day. Pictures today are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library. The social media picture was taken in November 1970. “Mitchell Motors rooftop” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Legendary Thinkers
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Some philosophy is likely fraud; let’s start to uncover it If scientific fraud represents …
The last great restaurant deal in Las Vegas is this $9.99 sit-down meal
How a Nazi-Obsessed Amateur Historian Went From Obscurity to the Top of Substack
Sympathy for Hitler: How Darryl Cooper Beautifies the Architect of Genocide
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analysis of vascular injuries, attempted resuscitation surrounding assassination of MLK
Wrong way driver charged after deadly head on crash on I-85 in Gwinnett
curious about god · beat · fooled · curioius about god · cinnabon
help crystal · cinnabon crystal · ambrose bierce · definition of poetic language · jay sebring
mlk · dv dyke · backstreet · juggernaut nihilism · cch v dc
decline of the west · white house · ww1 · steve martin · meltislive
meltislive · hyyjoe · floyd arrest · gaza · arthur butz
oscar harris · publix · rage bait · continental philosophy · max glitz
kirkshooting · charlie kirk burial · einstein letter · dave portnoy · t4a critic
the four agreements · roofshooter1 · roofshooter3 · publix · rage bait
This is your monday morning reader for this cold December First. Today, we ask the question nobody dares to ask: What did Barbara Joan Streisand do with the extra a in her first name? Did she put it in an a-hole for later use? · President Elect Barack Obama had a few things to say about Gaza in December 2008. Meanwhile, there was another Israel-Gaza conflict to deal with. Barry said what his sponsors told him to say · @bauteddy Twitch Streamer Meltislive gets into a horrible car accident after racing down the Georgia’s highways … This is what you see at his Twitch channel today. · Opinions about Jesus are like other opinions, and an aromatic body part. Everybody has one. · “Irving is essentially an ideologue who uses history for his own political purposes; he is not primarily concerned with discovering and interpreting what happened in the past, he is concerned merely to give a selective and tendentious account of it in order to further his own ideological ends in the present.” · This quote is from a hit piece that Mother Jones wrote about Darryl Cooper. It could be applied to many different people. “______ is essentially an ideologue who uses history for his own political purposes; he is not primarily concerned with discovering and interpreting what happened in the past, he is concerned merely to give a selective and tendentious account of it in order to further his own ideological ends in the present.” · Coleman Hughes recently posted a video attacking Darryl Cooper. One of his sources was an article in Mother Jones, the magazine. Last week, I listened to a Darryl Cooper podcast episode about Mother Jones, the labor organizer. · SOPHISTRY This method is that of the later Sophists, a Grecian sect of philosophers who began by teaching wisdom, prudence, science, art and, in brief, whatever men ought to know, but lost themselves in a maze of quibbles and a fog of words. · is ___ a content creator affiliated with Chorus · i am at peace about g-d and about death, i hear and behold g-d in every object, yet i understand g-d not in the least, nor do i understand who there can be more wonderful than myself, why should i wish to see g-d better than this day · Dry-Boysenberry7701 u/Dry-Boysenberry7701 You don’t address any points made in the article. You also imply, without evidence, that the article is motivated by Cooper’s criticism of Israel. If you took 10 seconds to search Mother Jones, you’d find that they’re more significant critics of Israel than Cooper himself. Why is your first thought to blame Israel (The Jews?) without any information suggesting that to be the case? Some of the points that you don’t address (you don’t address any points): Do you think it’s acceptable to use a Holocaust denier like Irving as a source for WW2 history? Do you think his clear association with neo-Nazis (the mug, see end of this post, the podcast appearances, etc, described in the article) is acceptable? The article gives evidence that Cooper intentionally distorted history to downplay Hitler’s responsibility for Kristallnacht, and to imply that the Holocaust and mass murder of POWs was all forced by lack of food, rather than genocidal intent. I suppose they could’ve given more info about the “guten morgen” tweet, but it’s pretty easy to find yourself. And the website the Mug is from. Alongside other, more blatantly Nazi imagery like double lightning bolt, the black sun, etc. · Pictures today are from The Library of Congress John Collier Jr. took the social media picture in September 1941. “This family is having its first meal in their new home. FSA defense housing project. Hartford, Connecticut.” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
The Cynic’s Word Book S
What follows are selections from The Devil’s Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce. TDD began as a newspaper column, and was later published as The Cynic’s Word Book. TDD is in the public domain. TDD is a dictionary, going from SE to SY. Today’s selection covers x to x. More selections are available. A – D E – G H – I J – L M – O P – R R – S
SERIAL, n. A literary work, usually a story that is not true, creeping through several issues of a newspaper or magazine. Frequently appended to each installment is a “synposis of preceding chapters” for those who have not read them, but a direr need is a synposis of succeeding chapters for those who do not intend to read them. A synposis of the entire work would be still better. (Mr. Bierce probably meant to say synopsis. I looked into this. All google references to synposis point back to synopsis. The rabbit hole is deeper than that. I wondered what the author’s middle name was. When I learned that it was Gwinnett, like the county, I was charmed. The wikipedia outpost had more fascinating details, which I had to turn away from if I am ever going to finish this post.)
SIREN, n. A musical prodigy famous for a vain attempt to dissuade Odysseus from a life on the ocean wave. Figuratively, any lady of splendid promise, dissembled purpose and disappointing performance.
SOPHISTRY, n. The controversial method of an opponent, distinguished from one’s own by superior insincerity and fooling. This method is that of the later Sophists, a Grecian sect of philosophers who began by teaching wisdom, prudence, science, art and, in brief, whatever men ought to know, but lost themselves in a maze of quibbles and a fog of words.
SOUL, n. A spiritual entity concerning which there hath been brave disputation. Plato held that those souls which in a previous state of existence (antedating Athens) had obtained the clearest glimpses of eternal truth entered into the bodies of persons who became philosophers. Plato himself was a philosopher. The souls that had least contemplated divine truth animated the bodies of usurpers and despots. Dionysius I, who had threatened to decapitate the broad-browed philosopher, was a usurper and a despot. Plato, doubtless, was not the first to construct a system of philosophy that could be quoted against his enemies; certainly he was not the last.
“Concerning the nature of the soul,” saith the renowned author of Diversiones Sanctorum, “there hath been hardly more argument than that of its place in the body. Mine own belief is that the soul hath her seat in the abdomen—in which faith we may discern and interpret a truth hitherto unintelligible, namely that the glutton is of all men most devout. He is said in the Scripture to ‘make a god of his belly’ —why, then, should he not be pious, having ever his Deity with him to freshen his faith? Who so well as he can know the might and majesty that he shrines? Truly and soberly, the soul and the stomach are one Divine Entity; and such was the belief of Promasius, who nevertheless erred in denying it immortality. He had observed that its visible and material substance failed and decayed with the rest of the body after death, but of its immaterial essence he knew nothing. This is what we call the Appetite, and it survives the wreck and reek of mortality, to be rewarded or punished in another world, according to what it hath demanded in the flesh. The Appetite whose coarse clamoring was for the unwholesome viands of the general market and the public refectory shall be cast into eternal famine, whilst that which firmly though civilly insisted on ortolans, caviare, terrapin, anchovies, pates de foie gras and all such Christian comestibles shall flesh its spiritual tooth in the souls of them forever and ever, and wreak its divine thirst upon the immortal parts of the rarest and richest wines ever quaffed here below. Such is my religious faith, though I grieve to confess that neither His Holiness the Pope nor His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury (whom I equally and profoundly revere) will assent to its dissemination.”
SUCCESS, n. The one unpardonable sin against one’s fellows. In literature, and particularly in poetry, the elements of success are exceedingly simple, and are admirably set forth in the following lines by the reverend Father Gassalasca Jape, entitled, for some mysterious reason, “John A. Joyce.”
The bard who would prosper must carry a book, · Do his thinking in prose and wear
A crimson cravat, a far-away look · And a head of hexameter hair.
Be thin in your thought and your body’ll be fat; · If you wear your hair long you needn’t your hat.
SUFFRAGE, n. Expression of opinion by means of a ballot. The right of suffrage (which is held to be both a privilege and a duty) means, as commonly interpreted, the right to vote for the man of another man’s choice, and is highly prized. Refusal to do so has the bad name of “incivism.” The incivilian, however, cannot be properly arraigned for his crime, for there is no legitimate accuser. If the accuser is himself guilty he has no standing in the court of opinion; if not, he profits by the crime, for A’s abstention from voting gives greater weight to the vote of B. By female suffrage is meant the right of a woman to vote as some man tells her to. It is based on female responsibility, which is somewhat limited. The woman most eager to jump out of her petticoat to assert her rights is first to jump back into it when threatened with a switching for misusing them.
SYCOPHANT, n. One who approaches Greatness on his belly so that he may not be commanded to turn and be kicked. He is sometimes an editor.
SYMBOL, n. Something that is supposed to typify or stand for something else. Many symbols are mere “survivals”—things which having no longer any utility continue to exist because we have inherited the tendency to make them; as funereal urns carved on memorial monuments. They were once real urns holding the ashes of the dead. We cannot stop making them, but we can give them a name that conceals our helplessness.
SYMBOLIC, adj. Pertaining to symbols and the use and interpretation of symbols.
They say ’tis conscience feels compunction; · I hold that that’s the stomach’s function,
For of the sinner I have noted · That when he’s sinned he’s somewhat bloated,
Or ill some other ghastly fashion · Within that bowel of compassion.
True, I believe the only sinner · Is he that eats a shabby dinner.
You know how Adam with good reason, · For eating apples out of season,
Was “cursed.”But that is all symbolic: · The truth is, Adam had the colic. · G.J.
The classical references in this text have not been verified. Pictures today are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library. Charles D. Jackson took the social media picture October 10, 1951. “Zenas Sears, WGST Radio personality, promoting “20 Grand Cream Ale,” for the Gate City Beverage Company, 350 Marietta Street, Atlanta, Georgia ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Hypertension Industrial Complex
This content was posted December 12, 2020. … Prescription medication is a part of life. Most of mine deal with hypertension, aka high blood pressure. According to this website, hypertension is the number one co-morbidity for covid-19. It is helpful to take care of this.
I go to a doctor, who sends a script to the pharmacy. The doctor is part of a hospital/medical company. All the stages of this procedure are regulated, and financed, by an insurance company. Since I am over 65, this means medicare, or another layer of nonsense. I will use nick names today. The doctor/hospital is Curly. The pharmacy is Larry. The insurance company is Moe.
Once a year, I go see Curly. He takes a blood sample, and a few instrument readings. Curly sees that I have not died yet, and approves my medications for another year. I did this a few weeks ago.
Friday afternoon, I called Moe. The idea is to get a 90 day supply of the meds. After wading through Moe’s telephone system, and waiting on hold, I am directed to a telephone operator. I tell Moe what scripts I want to order.
I say carefully, and repeatedly, that I want these medications shipped mail order. It is cheaper, and easier, than going to see Larry in person. For some reason, this point often gets lost when medical machines try to work together. I say, over and over, send the meds by mail order. Unfortunately, this is prescription renewal time. Moe needs to call Curly, to confirm that the prescription is valid. Between Curly, Larry, and Moe, something is going to get screwed up.
The call to Moe takes place on friday afternoon. All goes well until 7:41 pm, when a text arrives from Larry. The prescriptions are ready for pickup. The script was sent to the pharmacy, not the mail order house. Buying hypertension medication can make your blood pressure go up.
Larry has an especially stupid phone system. I finally get to talk to a pharmacist. She explains that Curly sent them the prescription, and there is nothing that can be done about it.
This is blood pressure medication. This is not something that people take to have fun. This is boring old amlodipine and benezapril. If something this basic can get screwed up, I can only imagine what would happen with a complicated illness like cancer, or HIV. The idea that Larry is going to distribute the covid vaccine is cause for great concern.
The next step is to call Moe. The phone menu is having a bad day, and asks me to repeat my account number twice. Finally, I get through to a lady, who speaks with a serious accent. The lady asks me to repeat the account number one more time. The lady says that Curly sent the script to Larry, and there is nothing Moe can do about it. I am beyond angry.
It is now friday night. Curly has quit doing business. I will have to wait until Monday morning. Curly has an obnoxious phone system of his own. Curly is a giant bureaucracy. I have no idea who to talk to about this. I just have to wait until Monday morning, call the phone number, and hope for the best. Sometimes, if the first attempt does not work, then the second try will turn out better.
Eventually, this is going to work out. It has so far every time in the past. It can be frustrating, though, and scary. This is a non emergency situation. What would happen if I had to deal with the institutional shadiness of Curly/Larry/Moe, when every second counts?
2025 Update: I now repeatedly tell the doctor to send the drugs by the mail order pharmacy. The last time I had to deal with the local pharmacy, the phone system was so dysfunctional that I do all my business in person. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the social media picture in October 1941. “Mr. Albert Brissant and his niece who are still living in the Pine Camp relocation area near Evans Mills, New York. They had an antique shop here which they have sold out and are now looking for a new farm.” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Coleman Hughes V. Darryl Cooper
Coleman Cruz Hughes recently did a show attacking Nicholas Joseph Fuentes. While going after NJF, CCH went on the attack against Darryl Cooper. Both NJF and DC are critics of Israel’s dirty wars, which might be the ultimate motivation for these attacks.
NJF is a gnarly piece of work, who is currently getting plenty of bad press. Darryl Cooper is different. I am a fan of the MartyrMade podcast. Earlier this year I did a deep dive into “Fear and Loathing in the New Jerusalem”. The chamblee54 commentary is linked here.
I disagree with DC about many things, including his notorious comment about Winston Churchill. However, I have mad respect for MartyrMade podcast. Does DC make mistakes? Maybe. If you produce 27 hours of content on a subject, you probably will get some things wrong. Especially when you consider that a lot of these matters have two hotly contested sides.
DC made an infamous appearance on the Tucker Carlson show, saying that Winston Churchill was the primary villain of World War II. CCH mentioned it, of course. CCH then quoted a story from Mother Jones, How a Nazi-Obsessed Amateur Historian Went From Obscurity to the Top of Substack. (CCH does not have show notes. Fortunately, google still works when it wants to.)
As it turns out, I recently listened to a MM episode about Mother Jones, the historic figure. “Whose America” is about the coal wars in West Virginia. The show features a picture of Mother Jones with red coals in her eyes. “The magazine Mother Jones is directly named after the legendary labor activist Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, who was a fierce organizer for workers’ rights in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, inspiring the magazine’s focus on progressive causes and investigative journalism.” Sometimes, “progressive causes” include discrediting a podcaster who is critical of Israel.
The MJ story is a hit job, with very few links. This quote sets the tone: “Cooper, for example, wrote “Guten morgen” to a user on X last August, along with a picture of himself holding a coffee mug. It might take a moment to realize the user is a self-identified Nazi, and the mug Cooper holds is sold on a website where you can buy a T-shirt in which a Nazi SS sword plunges through the Star of David.”
Later, MJ ties DC to David Irving, a notorious holocaust denier. In the Carlson interview, DC mentioned that Winston Churchill had financial problems, and was bailed out by Zionist financiers. This information is easily available from other sources. However, DC did mention that he found this information in Irving’s writings. After making this connection … without linking to the source … MJ rants about David Irving for several paragraphs.
There is one quote from MJ about David Irving that is remarkable: “Irving is essentially an ideologue who uses history for his own political purposes; he is not primarily concerned with discovering and interpreting what happened in the past, he is concerned merely to give a selective and tendentious account of it in order to further his own ideological ends in the present.”
If you were to take out “Irving” and put a blank space in its spot, you could describe a substantial percentage of the rhetoric mongers today. It would definitely apply to Coleman Hughes. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the social media picture in August 1941. “The family of Mr. Dan Sampson. The Sampsons are moving out of the Pine Camp expansion area to a 240 acre dairy farm in South Rutland, New York obtained through the New York Defense Relocation Corps. Near Sterlingville, New York” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Did Jesus Go To Hell?
This content was posted December 22, 2008. … Maybe the problem is Jesus. Like many other issues, there are semantics involved. There is the historic Jesus. The legend is that a virgin mother gave birth to Jesus. He grew to be a carpenter, until taking time off to talk about God. Jesus was too much trouble for the powers that be, so he was killed. Later, Jesus rose from the dead. … There is also the spirit, which many call Jesus. This spirit has little in common with the historic Jesus, except for using the name. The best way to know the spirit Jesus is through those who believe in it.
There is some dispute when the historic Jesus was born. As another blogger put it: ”Israeli meteorologists best guess places the real date of Christ’s birth on September 29th, 5 B.C. The Catholic writer Mario Righetti candidly admits that, “to facilitate the acceptance of the faith by the pagan masses, the Church of Rome found it convenient to institute the 25th of December as the feast of the birth of Christ to divert them from the pagan feast, celebrated on the same day in honor of the ‘Invincible Sun’ Mithras, the conqueror of darkness” (Manual of Liturgical History, 1955, Vol. 2, P. 67).” … The truth is, we don’t know when historic Jesus was born. Four days after the winter solstice just seemed like a good time for a celebration.
There is also the spirit Jesus to think about. Since it doesn’t exist outside of the hearts of the believers, it can have any “birthday” it wants. December 25 works just fine. … The idea for this post was a rant about the hurt that spirit Jesus has put in my life. About the harm done to our society by the leadership of the Christian church, and their followers. About the debasement of our government by exploiting religion. This will not change anyone’s mind, and will only make me feel worse. Jesus is a source of misery to me. His birthday … spirit or historic … is nothing to celebrate.
This content was posted December 3, 2022. … A blogger named Older eyes put up a post about Tim Tebow and Bill Maher, who recently had a twitterspat. It went like this. “Maher Tweeted: Wow, Jesus just f—- TimTebow bad! And on Xmas Eve! Somewhere in hell Satan is tebowing, saying to Hitler, “Hey, Buffalo’s killing them” … To Tebow’s credit, he ignored Maher, Tweeting only, Tough game today but what’s most important is being able to celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Merry Christmas everyone GB² (according to Tebow’s website GB²=God Bless+Go Broncos).
I felt obliged to pile on, despite forgiving Denver for Super Bowl XXXIII. I left this comment: “1 – In all probability, Jesus was not born on December 25. The celebration of his birth was grafted onto a pagan festival day. 2 – It sure was fun watching Buffalo run those interceptions back for touchdowns. 3 – There is no good choice here. In both cases, you have the option of turning the TV off, or switching away from twitter. If you are in enforced contact (a work or family situation) with someone who will not shut up, who repeats his obnoxious opinions with disregard for his neighbor, then you do not have this option. 4 – Jesus said, when Satan was through talking to Hitler, please leave me out of this.”
This got me to thinking. If you saw a mushroom cloud rising over Peachtree Industrial Boulevard, that might have been the result. Did Jesus go to hell? The party line is that Jesus paid the price for the sins of mankind. Is forty four hours in a cave enough? When you consider the billions of lies, murders, and fornications, you have to wonder. Maybe Jesus is taking the place of man in hell, paying the price for your sins. … This is a repost from 2012. Tim Tebow’s fifteen minutes are over. Colin Kaepernick’s fifteen minutes refuse to end. Pictures today are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library The social media picture was taken March 5, 1954. “Atlanta Car for Hire Association member (?) taxicab” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
If I Were A Poor Black Kid
This content was published December 12, 2023. … There is a fuss going on about an article at Forbes magazine, If I Was A Poor Black Kid. I was reading a facebook discussion of the article, and decided I wanted to read the original. I googled white guy writing about being a poor black kid for freakin’ FORBES, and the fun began.
Angry Black Lady Chronicles tells of the day when her (white) mother took a day off, from her job as a copy editor, to get young ABL enrolled in a tougher math class. Greg Laden’s Blog chimes in with Forbes’ Gene Marks Needs To Check His Priv. The last line says it all … “Or, as in your case, not so smart but privileged.”
If you want to read the denunciations of the Forbes article, open your eyes and take a look. You might want to hurry up. Soon, there will be another article, somewhere, that people don’t like. Maybe you can talk about the War on Christmas. This is an example of Christian Privilege gone awry. It is a safe bet that many of the poor black kids are Christians. Maybe one form of privilege will outweigh another. Or people will learn about a grain of salt.
It is ironic that the piece was published in Forbes. Malcolm Forbes was fond of saying that he was loaded with “sheer ability, spelled i-n-h-e-r-i-t-a-n-c-e.” The elder Forbes had a lavish lifestyle, with Elizabeth Taylor as a beard. His son, Steve Forbes, (Malcolm Stevenson Forbes Jr.) was quoted as saying “My father once spent $5 million on a birthday party for himself in Tangiers. Why can’t I spend a few more running for President?”.
This feature was originally published in 2011 It was a simpler time. Pictures today are from the Georgia State University Library. The social media picture was taken September 4, 1947. “Capital Theater Ernest Tubb personal appearance. ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
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