Plastic
This content was originally published March 22, 2010. … There was a much praised video about a Plastic Bag, that winds up in the Pacific Trash Vortex. The bag has a voice (supplied by uberkraut Werner Herzog), and goes looking for it’s “maker” (an unknown actress.) Today’s version: Plastic Bag (sottotitoli in italiano – voce di Werner Herzog)
The bag has a remarkable existence. First, it is used to carry tennis balls, then dog food, then to pick up the by product of dog food. This is remarkable in itself… the typical kroger bag, if it doesn’t get thrown away on arrival at home, will not be used for more than one chore. But this is a special bag.
After the secondary canine duty, the bag is thrashed. Somehow, it escapes from the municipal destination, and begins a wind propelled odyssey in search of “my maker.” After a while, it is on the beach, and the wind takes it into the ocean. It floats in the sea, has pieces bitten off my non nutrition conscious fish, and heads off for a legendary garbage nirvana.
Before long, the bag is in the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch. ” The GPGP is a bit north of Hawaii, and west of California. The bag movie was filmed in Wilmington, N.C. You should not think about this too long. At any rate, the bag is not happy in the GPGP, and moves on to greener pastures.
The next day, I go to a site called LISTVERSE. The letterman of the day is “top ten places you don’t want to visit”. Number ten on the list is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. GPGP is either the size of Texas or twice the size of the lower 48. It is a collection of debris, largely plastic, from the world. It is held in place by something called a gyre, which is a place where swirling ocean currents bump up against each other. Greenpeace has a neat little visual that illustrates this. … LISTVERSE is still publishing content in 2026.
Plastic is a petroleum by product, and has many benefits to our world. It’s durability is one of them, and also one of it’s negatives. (The fact that plastic is so cheap to make is another.) A plastic bag cast off into the environment simply does not disappear. Fish eat them, thinking it is good food, and die of starvation. (Does this affect the food chain?) While the film about the plastic bag is an exaggeration, the fact is that plastic is forever, and ever.
Pictures are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library The featured photograph was taken April 21, 1969. “Mendel College for Fabric Knowledge” The poster is from Treehugger.com. ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
BVD
This content was originally posted March 22, 2013. … Spencer Tracy’s second rule for acting is to not trip over the props. This might be a problem for Jon Hamm. In a bit of slow news day genius, his show leaked the information that the actor has been requested to wear underwear on the set. A rep for Mr. Hamm said: “It is ridiculous and not really funny at all. I’d appreciate you taking the high road and not resorting to something childish like this that’s been blogged about 1,000 times.”
This was an issue when Tallulah Bankhead was making “Lifeboat”. Other performers complained about the thespian not wearing panties. Director Alfred Hitchcock wondered if this was a matter for wardrobe, or a matter for hairdressing.
This concern about foundation garments, conveniently arising during the pre-easter shopping season, made me wonder when men started to wear drawers. Could this be the result of manufacturers inventing demand for a product? Wikipedia says the loincloth is thousands of years old. A footnote, about the invention of the jockstrap, led to an English article, A brief history of pants: Why men’s smalls have always been a subject of concern.
“In 1935, the first Jockey briefs went on sale in Chicago. Designed by an “apparel engineer” called Arthur Kneibler (working at the time for Coopers Inc), the arrival of the first underpants denuded of any legs and featuring a Y-shaped opening has been compared with the 1913 invention of the bra, or the 1959 debut of tights. … Coopers, now known as Jockey International, sent its “Mascul-line” plane to make special deliveries of “masculine support” briefs to retailers across the United States. When the Jockeys arrived in Britain in 1938, they sold at the rate of 3,000 per week.”
One popular brand of underwear is the BVD. This was originally made by Bradley, Voorhees & Day, hence the name. BVDs are not named for Bovine Viral Diarrhea. Pictures today are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library. The social media picture was taken April 30, 1951. “War Bond luncheon” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
War And Taxes
This post was published March 28, 2008. … One of the radio whiners was talking about taxes today. (That sentence could get a lot of use). There was some kind of economist guest, and the consensus was that lower taxes stimulated the economy. The thought occurred to this reporter … why have taxes at all? If lower taxes would stimulate the economy, then what about no taxes at all? I am no economist, but I suspect this would not work. To begin with, we have to pay the interest of the debt we already have. If we don’t pay this interest, then no one will loan us any more money.
Second, we have the War in Babylon to consider. Our Government tried to pay for this war with a tax cut before the invasion. The budget deficit went to $410b in 2004. The economy was stimulated, though, and there was regime change in Baghdad. Unfortunately, our army was not greeted as liberators. However, the tax cut was greeted as a liberator in certain circles here. (The budget deficit was $1.78t in 2025. The national debt was $7.37t in 2004, and $36.21t in 2025)
It would seem to this slack Georgia Blogger that the issue is not whether or not to have taxes, but how to assess them, and and at what rates. I have written a few times about the “Fair tax”. one two three The FT has the potential to work, but there are wrinkles to iron out. God/Satan is in the details.
Lets get back to the matter of how to set the tax rates. It is a mess. Tax deductions and tax write offs have produced many jobs, and done much good work. The powerhouse economy of the last seventy years has been a product of many factors. Deficit spending, a print happy federal reserve, and baffling tax laws have all played a part. Should we throw the baby out with the bathwater? Maybe we can go back to an emphasis on tariffs to raise money. This would have the dual effect of bringing in money, and protecting the industries that have not gone south of the border. Nevermind that tariffs were a minor cause of the war between the states.
A tax on the rich would bring in revenue, and is a crowd pleaser at election time. However, some of these people are entrepreneurs who create jobs. Besides, they give political contributions, and are protected. Maybe we could tax political contributions, and other forms of prostitution. Legalizing certain controlled substances would add to the tax digest. In short, I don’t have a clue. I am just a slack georgia blogger who doesn’t get campaign contributions.
This post was published March 25, 2008. … The blog battles are on hold. After being banned by a slew of Jesus Worship blogs, I have been mostly out of combat. Except for a skirmish with AtlMalcontent about Amnesty International, the western front has been quiet. … Renegade Evolution recently alerted me to the seven deadly sins test. I left a comment, and her initial reply started “chamblee54 who the f*** are you”. I mentioned I was a recovering Baptist, and Ren said “Baptist…egads”.
The Baptist experience is very different from the Jew experience. I decided a long time ago I didn’t agree with what went on in church, and was no longer a Baptist. My mother converted as a teenager, and recruited my dad a few years later. There is no long family history, no Seders with relatives, almost no ritual … just a noisy fascination with life after death. Jews, on the other hand, have a long history, and many families have been on the program a long, long time. I don’t know if you are really ever an ex Jew, whether or not you are observant. I also am not familiar with Ren’s story…what people mean when they say they are Jewish changes from person to person.
As for Renegade Evolution’s blog … it is well written, and has some great stories. I read a description of a porn movie shoot that was highly entertaining. She is focused on the sex worker point of view, which is her right as a blogger. It is also my right as a reader to get tired of reading about it. I have always found the feminist anti pornography attitude to be a bit mysterious. I imagine this is a function of being a gay man, from a culture which celebrates smut. Yes, that is the sound of one hand clapping…the other hand is busy.
Most gay porn is cooperative, that is, both men are equals and everyone has a squirting good time. I think a certain percentage of str8 movies are not. I have a str8 tape in my collection where this gnarly baldheaded guy says mean things to the woman. I find it tough to believe that guys are turned on by this, but apparently some are. I can see why some women object to this “entertainment”. I am glad that Ren is standing up for the rights of people like her (and that we live in a country that permits this). I also question how much I really want to read about it.
Back to the Seven Deadly Sins. This is a very old fashioned list, perhaps even obsolete. Listening to the well defended Jeremiah Wright, it is clear that Wrath and Pride are on their way to being cardinal virtues. With today’s prosperity gospel, Envy and Greed are no longer in disrepute. From the look of many waistlines in the modern church, Gluttony is a favored pastime. That leaves Sloth and Lust. Good old Lust … it always did have a special place in the hearts of pulpit pounders.
The discussion with Renegade Evolution is lost in the digital dustbin. Ren made her last searchable post January 13, 2013. As for AtlMalcontent, he made an amusing comment in his 2007 rant. “You argue, in essence, that we should say nothing about human rights abuses in Iran because it might create “ill will against the government there.” Good. Ahmadinejad is a religious fanatic with visions of grandeur. I agree it’s unwise to beat the war drums now, but Iran is not benign. Wouldn’t you be at least a little concerned if they acquired nuclear weapons?” Pictures today are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library
The social media picture was taken March 16, 1967. “ Chevron Island event ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
Are You a Liberal?
@jessesingal “I scored 92% on the Burnham Liberal Test (1964) — “Full-Blown Liberal.” 39 questions from Suicide of the West. Take it yourself” This item floated across my timeline when I was thinking of today’s entertainment. Taking a 1964 test about being “a liberal” should provide enough text to put between the pictures. Liberal was not an insult in 1964.
Jesse is a curious character. He is the co-host of Blocked and Reported, my monday morning podcast. Jesse has a lot of opinions, with a great deal of ideological diversity. If you listen/read long enough, you will be offended by something.
Today’s content hit a roadblock when I tried to find out Jesse’s middle name and birthday. Google/Wikipedia does not want to say. After a bit of digging, I found a dodgy website, Transgender Map. “Jesse Richard Singal was born November 24, 1983 … Singal and anti-transgender troll Katie Herzog started the “drama” podcast Blocked and Reported in 2020, which has significant coverage overlap with other anti-trans drama outlets like Libs of TikTok and The Matt Walsh Show.”
The first question: “All forms of racial segregation and discrimination are wrong. Agree/Disagree” This is basically what liberal/conservative meant in 1964, when I was ten years old. The rest of the questions used the Agree/Disagree format, which makes grading easier. Semantics and gray areas are not considered. Some of the other questions are interesting. Click here for a complete list.
09 – “If reasonable compensation is made, the government of a nation has the legal and moral right to expropriate private property within its borders, whether owned by citizens or foreigners.”
12 – “Any interference with free speech and free assembly, except for cases of immediate public danger or juvenile corruption, is wrong.”
15 – “Hotels, motels, stores and restaurants in southern United States ought to be obliged by law to allow Negroes to use all of their facilities on the same basis as whites.”
19 – “Corporal punishment, except possibly for small children, is wrong.”
24 – “Congressional investigating committees are dangerous institutions, and need to be watched and curbed if they are not to become a serious threat to freedom.”
27 – “In determining who is to be admitted to schools and universities, quota systems based on color, religion, family or similar factors are wrong.”
28 – “The national government should guarantee that all adult citizens, except for criminals and the insane, should have the right to vote.”
29 – “Joseph McCarthy was probably the most dangerous man in American public life during the fifteen years following the Second World War.”
33 – “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and expression.”
39 – “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”
Many of these statements look very different 62 years later. #27 would be the conservative view today. In many of these issues, they sound good until you consider the implications. “Freedom of expression” includes going on a shooting spree.
“72% Mostly Liberal You share most of the liberal assumptions Burnham identified, though not without reservation.” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the social media picture in March 1942. “Chicago, Illinois. Provident Hospital. Miss Irene Hill, nurse technician, taking baby to be x-rayed” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
David And Elton
This content was published March 24, 2023. … On page 327 of David Bowie: A Life, the Live Aid show goes down. One backstage reunion did not go well. “There wasn’t much love lost between David and Elton–perhaps they’d fallen out at some point …”
Elton John says he fell out with David Bowie over ‘token queen’ remark “David and I were not the best of friends towards the end. We started out being really good friends. We used to hang out together with Marc Bolan, going to gay clubs, but I think we just drifted apart…. He once called me “rock’n’roll’s token queen” in an interview with Rolling Stone, which I thought was a bit snooty. He wasn’t my cup of tea. No; I wasn’t his cup of tea”.
1975 was a different time. David Bowie was moving out of Ziggy Stardust, and became the Thin White Duke. At some point he starting doing lots of cocaine. On page 196 of DBAL, Jayne County has stories. “It was pretty obvious the David was taking coke. He became very skeletal in his appearance and began rattling off speeches that sounded meaningless to the rest of us–strange things about witchcraft, demons, and sexual prostitution in ancient times … weird things that made everyone nervous. He began to get paranoid and accusing people of ripping him off and stealing his drugs. … He had to have cartilage removed from one part of his body and put in his nose because the coke had eaten his nose cartilage away.”
While David was popular in 1975, and had a certain aesthetic aroma, Elton John was a phenomenon. Everything Elton touched went to Number One. Elton was one of the most popular solo acts the market ever sold. Maybe David was jealous of Elton’s success.
By all accounts, Elton did his share of “hooverizing.” In 1975, Elton was officially in the closet, although a lot of people knew otherwise. In one impossible to confirm story, a friend was working in an Atlanta club called Encore, later known as Backstreet. One busy night, he was in a hurry to get somewhere, and bumped into someone. The person he knocked over was Elton John.
The infamous Rolling Stone interview was part of the damage. “Rock & roll has been really bringing me down lately. It’s in great danger of becoming an immobile, sterile fascist that constantly spews its propaganda on every arm of the media. …. I mean, disco music is great. I used disco to get my first Number One single [“Fame”] but it’s an escapist’s way out. It’s musical soma. Rock & roll too — it will occupy and destroy you that way. It lets in lower elements and shadows that I don’t think are necessary. Rock has always been the devil’s music. You can’t convince me that it isn’t.”
Cameron Crowe How about specifics? Is Mick Jagger evil? David Bowie “Mick himself? Oh Lord no. He’s not unlike Elton John, who represents the token queen — like Liberace used to. No, I don’t think Mick is evil at all. He represents the sort of harmless, bourgeois kind of evil that one can accept with a shrug…. Actually, I wonder … I think I might have been a bloody good Hitler. I’d be an excellent dictator. Very eccentric and quite mad.”
Playboy Magazine gave David another chance to talk about Hitler. “I’d love to enter politics. I will one day. I’d adore to be Prime Minister. And, yes, I believe very strongly in fascism.” “Rock stars are fascists, too. Adolf Hitler was one of the first rock stars.” “PLAYBOY: How so?” BOWIE: “Think about it. Look at some of his films and see how he moved. I think he was quite as good as Jagger. It’s astounding. And, boy, when he hit that stage, he worked an audience. Good God! He was no politician. He was a media artist himself. He used politics and theatrics and created this thing that governed and controlled the show for those 12 years. The world will never see his like.”
PLAYBOY: “Last question. Do you believe and stand by everything you’ve said?” BOWIE: “Everything but the inflammatory remarks.” We don’t know whether a jab at Elton was inflammatory. “I consider myself responsible for a whole new school of pretensions–they know who they are. Don’t you, Elton? Just kidding. No, I’m not.”
Seven daily grams of coke (DBAL p.223) did not kill David Bowie. He soon moved on to make The Man Who Fell to Earth. People magazine helped out with the publicity. “No role could have suited David Bowie better in his first major movie than that of an inscrutable interplanetary traveler outfitted with human skin, sex organs, Ronald Reagan hair and humanoid pupils to slip in over his horizontal, mismatched feline slits.” Forty years before Donald Trump made the tangerine toupee cool, Ronald Reagan was prematurely orange. Pictures today are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library. The social media picture was taken August 11, 1965. “MGM party for Judson Moses at Aunt Fanny’s Cabin restaurant” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
Tourette’s At Baftas
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mizarvision · iran · fetlife · varsity · one star
murray · gr ford · windows 11 · divineisll · divineisll
divineisll · china · leb’s · leb’s · pickrick project
Leb’s · baldwin · one star restaurants · faeries of palestine · mystical messenger
rumi · smith hughes · kink machine · bryan tyler cohen · only thing worse
@nihilist_arbys Just as the eternal ribbon of cows trudge ever forward even as they watch their brothers and sisters slaughtered just before them only to bleed out and sluice through the industrial machines .so do weI. we must and thus we live. Only to die. Alone. Please continue to eat arbys … @belize042 If the cows ever saw curly fries they’d know the sacrifice was worthwhile. · Nice to meet you Luther, how is your search going and what are you looking for? · you talk like a bot · and you understood a robot talks? lmao · then you are one also · · There are rumors that the plumbing problems on the USS Gerald Ford are no accident. I googled “sailors aboard the USS Gerald Ford have sabotaged the plumbing”. I found this: “A 2020 Government Accountability Office report pointed out that the sewage pipes woven throughout the ship were too narrow to properly serve the flushes of the 4,000-plus crew members onboard. To unclog the toilets, the Navy has been forced to spend $400,000 per flush of a unique acidic chemical designed to flush out and unburden the strained pipes.” · A company dedicated to achieving geographic business intelligence analysis through artificial intelligence technology, building a God perspective that no one can reject. · @Protestia Pastor Scott Thomas accidentally sends as wooden dowel/ skewer through his hand for a sermon illustration, writing: “Cindy and I spoke on “Building A Marriage” and used a wedding cake for our illustration. To close the teaching, we stressed that if we build our marriages outside of God’s order… the whole cake (marriage) crashed! · All went well… until I slammed the cake upside down and SURPRISINGLY DISCOVERED that the cake company had implanted a dowel inside to hold the cake layers together. 😳 When I slammed the cake upside-down the dowel pierced through the bottom of the cake and traveled completely through my hand! When I looked down… the dowel was sticking 5 inches out the back of my hand! I immediately pulled the stick out of my hand and tried to wrap my head around what just happened! 🤢 Cindy immediately slid me a towel… I wrapped my hand, finished the message and prayed to close out the session in the next 5 minutes. 😬” (video in tweet) · This is your weekly reader for another cold monday. We still have not started a war with Iran, that I know of. We may look back at this time one day, and wonder why we didn’t appreciate how good life was right now. · Yet another hypocrisy hunt meme appeared on Facebook recently. This one involved uncredited content. Maybe people have the “right” to post this type of material, but we are not required to pay attention. · @RaniaKhalek I 💯 understand why the dominant argument in the U.S. against a war on Iran centers on how it could harm US assets, interests and whether goals are even achievable. But it’s still wild to me that the blatant criminality of a war and the damage it would do to the lives of 90 million Iranians, not to mention the 100s of millions across the region, does not register at all. That’s how dehumanized we are, the impact on our lives in this area of the world isn’t worthy of even a tiny consideration. This deep-seated genocidal barbarism across the U.S. ruling class political spectrum is terrifying when you consider its capacity for destruction. · Closed now · The title of today’s product is Diarization. This is the act of making a RT diary. Unfortunately, diarization sounds a lot like diarrhea. The spell check suggestions for Diarization: Notarization, Digitization, Deodorization, Polarization · In 2015, Craig Hicks killed three of his neighbors. Some say it was because they were Muslims. Others say they had a disagreement over a parking spot · This quote is from a profile in LIFE magazine, published May 24, 1963. “extensive profile of him by journalist Jane Howard, where under the dated title “Telling Talk from a Negro Writer” Baldwin’s timeless wisdom on life and art unfolds · you think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read · On May 17, 1963, Baldwin appeared on the cover of TIME magazine as part of a major story titled “Nation: The Root of the Negro Problem,” whose lead sentence read: “At the root of the Negro problem is the necessity of the white man to find a way of living with the Negro in order to live with himself.” Although Baldwin’s civil rights advocacy was the focus, the piece shone a sidewise gleam on Baldwin the artist and raised the broader question of the writer’s role in society. The following week, the May 24 issue of LIFE magazine — which was owned by the same company — built on that cultural momentum with an extensive profile of him by journalist Jane Howard, where under the dated title “Telling Talk from a Negro Writer” Baldwin’s timeless wisdom on life and art unfolds. · One of the one-star restaurants reviewed in a recent video was the Landmark Diner on Luckie Street. This is the location of Leb’s Restaurant, the scene of a sit-in that turned violent in 1964 · Apparently, the KKK got their pointy hat outfit from “La Hermandad de los Negritos (English: The Brotherhood of the Blacks), a Catholic brotherhood. Founded in 1393 by Cardinal Gonzalo de Mena y Roelas to care for the Blacks of Seville, the Brotherhood has a remarkable story. They were wearing the pointed hood of their uniform before there was a United States of America · “But you still think, I gather, that the racist is necessary. Well he’s not necessary to me, so he must be necessary to you. So I give you your problem back. You’re the racist baby, it isn’t me.” · Did Andy Warhol say “In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes”? He probably did. However, there is no definitive source · In my lifetime, I have used zoom. It is always something that does not work. tonight, it was the earbud sound, which i use because it has a microphone. there is a series of options on the settings page, and you have to click options until you stumble onto the one that works, which is not guaranteed to work the next time · In my lifetime, i have woke up, looked at twitter, and seen that our idiot president has got us into a war that we will lose, at great cost, both in human life and the economy. my mental health has suffered since israel participated in the october 7 attack. this latest tragedy may well prove to be the worst one yet, with the straights of hormuz closed. I hope the next generation knows that our addiction to fossil fuels has come at a steep price, both in the damage to the enviornment and in the ownership of these resources going to regimes in west asia that are under attack , and fight back. Iran was taking control of their oil when the cia and the mi6 ousted their government and installed the shah, who was so hated that he was ousted by the shia revolution, which was not pleasing to the west, who has tried to destroy the islamic republic ever since. in my lifetime i have watched the arab oil embargo after the very convenient war of 1973, and of the newly empowered arab states telling us the shah of iran was going to be trouble … at least until he was ousted by the islamic republic · Pictures today are from The Library of Congress Jack Delano took the social media picture in March 1942. “Chicago, Illinois. Provident Hospital. Laboratory technician” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
Operation Epstein Fury
On August 1, 1914, war was breaking out in Europe. The British foreign secretary said to a friend, “The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time”. That is what yesterday morning felt like, waking up to the news that the war had started.
It is an old truism that in war, the first casualty is the truth. Propaganda has long been a major player in the West Asian conflicts. X is full of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. Below is a very small sample of the news and opinions available. It should be noted that these opinions belong to the tweeters. I am personally taking in as much as I can stand, and trying to make sense of it all.
@dccommonsense “In general the problem the U.S. has in its Middle Eastern interventions is always underestimating the complexity and powder keg-like conditions in these countries. Instead of empowering a side we favor we usually open up a Pandora’s Box of violent Murphy’s Law outcomes instead.” … Dan Carlin has been relatively quiet since October 7. The other prominent history podcaster, Darryl Cooper, has been outspoken about the various wars, and has caught hell for it.
@RaniaKhalek “Trump unleashed Hell. Bombs are falling on the entire Middle East. The Strait of Hormuz is almost closed. All sides are digging in. It’s all about who cries mercy first. The U.S. and Israel murdered the restrained Iranian leadership that was invested in endless negotiation. What comes next will probably understandably be more hawkish bc strategic patience doesn’t work. · Even before these decapitations they decided to go all out. This is for survival so escalation against a rogue empire is the only option. They’re even hitting Oman, the one gulf country to condemn the U.S.-Israel attack while playing a constructive and mediating role. · There’s no going back now, the strategy is to regionalize the conflict in hopes the GCC demands an end. It’s a huge gamble but the Iranians were cornered into it by the U.S. and Israel. And if this draws out global shipping and oil markets will be impacted. Meanwhile, Team Trump is dumb and insane. They don’t understand Iran, they suck at geopolitical maneuvering and think they can do regime change with overwhelming air power alone. · This was all unnecessary but here we are, tens of millions of people afraid and unable to leave their homes. The end game is unclear. There are no good options. This is what people warned about. More reckless idiocy from the nuclear armed pedophilic class in Washington.”
@_ZachFoster “”You do not need to close the strait. You just need to make it uninsurable.” This is called Iranian “economic statecraft,” as U.S. Secretary of state Scott Bessent would say.”
@DanMKervick I don’t think the absence of protest in the US is due to Americans being pacified. I suspect it’s actually because they have an increasingly accurate undertanding of the way the world works and know that protests have rarely proven to be an effective form of resistance. /1 The right to petition the government or demonstrate one’s opinion doesn’t mean much if the government doesn’t care what most people think. It’s just a way of expressing the desire for resistance without actually resisting. //2 @DrBrianReid Give Xanax credit too.
Armchair Warlord @ArmchairW Well. War with Iran it is. I had hoped it would not come to this juncture, but here we are. Some thoughts after the day’s fighting. · 1. As an initial matter, the Trump Administration’s actions here are aggression and perfidy. This attack on Iran was unprovoked and occurred during negotiations in which the Iranians were by all indications willing to make significant and lasting concessions to assuage American and Israeli concerns about the peaceful nature of their nuclear program. Soon enough we will regret setting this precedent. · 2. US and Israeli forces appear to have achieved tactical surprise by launching a limited decapitation strike first against senior figures in the Iranian regime. The measure of performance of the strike – did they hit what and whom they intended to hit – is currently the subject of… significant debate. The measure of effectiveness of the strike – did it dislocate the Iranian defensive response or cause panic and infighting in the regime – was negative. The Iranian military deliberately cleared what was at the time an airspace crowded with civilian traffic, brought air defenses online, and began launching retaliatory strikes about an hour later. · 2A. The Iranians only brought their air defenses online after their airspace was clear of civilian traffic, suggesting they felt confident in their ability to absorb a limited first strike and also indicating that they very much wanted to avoid repeating Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 with wild defensive fire. · 3. Iran has thus far had some success penetrating US and Israeli missile defenses on the far side of the Middle East and considerable success smashing up US bases (and local critical infrastructure) in the Gulf and Iraq with their plentiful arsenal of short-range missiles and cruise drones. There’s nothing really new and game-changing here from the Twelve Day War, as I pointed out earlier. They have a lot of missiles and drones and seem more than happy to contest with us on throw-weight. · 4. As I pointed out earlier, the considerable standoff that US and Israeli aircraft are operating from has wrecked sortie generation. Coalition strikes on Iran throughout the day have been remarkably modest following the initial wave of attacks, likely due to a combination of delay from forced refueling, disruption to remote bases due to Iranian missile attacks, forced use of standoff weapons due to Iranian AD coverage, and Iranian AD attriting incoming salvos. Effects have not been particularly impressive either – I’ve seen a grand total of two strikes with noticeable secondaries. · 4A. As long as the Iranian IADS network remains intact enough to deter Coalition forces from flying “downtown” into Iranian airspace proper, there’s very hard limits on the amount of coercive power that can actually be applied to Iran. We only have so many standoff missiles and don’t have a Russo-Chinese missile printer to call upon. And I remind the reader that our bigger and stronger adversaries (Russia and China) are very invested in ensuring that IADS network remains intact so as to preserve their ally. · 5. There has been no noticeable regime fracture or civil insurrection in Iran. Everyone in the regime seems to have fallen in line immediately and all the demonstrations in Iran through the day have been pro-government. This is to be expected – the Iranians have not only rehearsed this, they’ve had multiple repetitions of executing it over the past year. · 6. Mossad’s attack network in Iran seems to be well and truly dismembered – as I suggested it had been earlier. There have been no reports of commando or insurgent activity in Iran over the course of the day. The Iranian internet is shut down at the moment and nobody seems to be posting online via Starlink. · 7. Oil shock is a real prospect here. The Strait of Hormuz is closed. The Bab al-Mandeb is likely going to be interdicted soon by the Houthis. Iran has already begun limited strikes on oil and gas infrastructure in the region. Air and missile campaigns are inherently indecisive, and Americans are not going to tolerate a weeks or monthslong campaign that spikes oil to $150+/barrel. · 8. Claims are floating around – out of Israel, of course – that this entire affair was a scheme cooked up by Trump and Netanyahu and that the negotiations were always a sham. I suspect that isn’t the case, and that Trump was herded into action by Netanyahu threatening to attack unilaterally after the US “coercive task force” was finally fully assembled in the Gulf. · So how does this end? Well, Trump has been quite explicit that he’s aiming for a short war (probably trying to beat the markets), so I wouldn’t be surprised if this is over relatively quickly. On whose terms… well, that’s another matter altogether.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the social media picture in October 1940. “The foremen and tractor operators of the Woodman Potato Company at lunch. Near Caribou, Maine” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
Fifteen Minutes
This content was posted February 22, 2025. … Andy Warhol is quoted as saying that “in the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.” If a celebrity is getting tiresome, people will wonder when their fifteen minutes will be up. After hearing about fifteen minutes my entire life, I began to wonder if Drella really said that. If you can’t be cynical about Andy Warhol …
Wikipedia is a good place to start. “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes” … appeared in the program for a 1968 exhibition of his work at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden. Photographer Nat Finkelstein claimed credit for the expression, stating that he was photographing Warhol in 1966 for a proposed book. A crowd gathered trying to get into the pictures and Warhol supposedly remarked that everyone wants to be famous, to which Finkelstein replied, “Yeah, for about fifteen minutes, Andy.” Nat Finkelstein was a sketchy character, in the Warhol tradition. His version is suspect. The Swedish museum part is real.
“Andy Warhol’s first European museum solo show took place at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm from February through March 1968. Pontus Hultén curated the exhibition together with Olle Granath. The exhibition came with a catalogue that was, like the show, named ‘Andy Warhol’. Kasper König, who worked for the Moderna Museet as an intern of sorts in New York, developed a basic concept for the book. … After Warhol had given his approval to this first proposal, König proceeded to create a dummy. … When König returned his dummy to the Factory, Warhol scrutinized it carefully but made only a small number of changes. Contrary to what Warhol wanted to be popular belief, those who produced input at the Factory were carefully monitored. … The final edits on the dummy were made in Stockholm by Olle Granath. He compiled a small selection of Warhol quotes and aphorisms from a stack of books and clippings collected by Hultén and placed them in the book as an introduction before the image sections.”
““Sometime in the autumn of 1967, Pontus Hultén called and asked me if I (Olle Granath) could help him and the Moderna Museet to organize an Andy Warhol exhibition that was due to open in February…. An important part of the exhibition was the production of a book. It was not supposed to be an analytical catalog of Warhol’s work, but a book that conveyed his aesthetics without heavy texts. … One day, Pontus brought me a box, almost the size of a Brillo box, and told me that it contained everything written by and about Andy Warhol (today the equivalent would probably be two truck loads). My job was to read it all and present a proposal for a manuscript with Swedish translations. After a couple of nights of reading and taking notes I delivered a script to Pontus and awaited his reaction with great anticipation. ‘Excellent,’ Pontus said when he called me, ‘but there is a quotation missing.’ ‘Which one?’ I said. ‘In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes,’ Pontus replied. ‘If it is in the material I would have spotted it,’ I told him. The line went quiet for a moment, and then I heard Pontus say, ‘If he didn’t say it, he could very well have said it. Let’s put it in.’ So we did, and thus Warhol’s perhaps most famous quotation became a fact.”
“The exhibition in Stockholm attracted a relatively small number of visitors, due to the extremely cold winter, but also to the fact that leftist radicalization increasingly drove the Museets public to mistrust anything American or consumerist. There was no space yet for a more complex reading of Warhol’s relation to consumption. The book, however, became very popular: its enormous edition allowed it to be distributed in nightclubs and record stores, not only museums. A timeless update on the latest from New York, it first became a cult object, then a collectors item.”
Did Andy say that? Probably, but not definitely. Andy was shot by Valerie Jean Solanas on June 3, 1968, a few months after the show in Sweden. Andy survived, and had fifteen more minutes. Pictures today are from Pictures are from The Library of Congress. The 1927 pictures were taken at “California Beauty Week, Mark Hopkins Hotel, July 28 to Aug. 2, auspices of San Francisco Chronicle.”
James Baldwin And The Magic Word
This content was originally published September 10. 2013. … In the spring of 1963, KQED filmed a show, “Take this hammer, featuring James Arthur Baldwin. The snippet in the video seems to have been the last three minutes of the show. Here is a transcript. Mr. Baldwin discusses a six letter insult. The n-word is more about the speaker, than the spoken of. A 2010 blogger had this to say:
“I’ve often felt that people’s projections of me are oftentimes just that – their projections. However, Baldwin’s ending sums up a solution to this perfectly: “But you still think, I gather, that the n****r is necessary. Well he’s unnecessary to me – he must be necessary to you. Well, I’m going to give your problem back to you…you’re the n****r, baby…not me.”
It is now 2026. (All discussions of race must mention the year.) The TV show was sixty three years ago. A few things have changed. To many white people, overt expressions of racism are seen as bad manners. The n-word is taboo in polite company. The overall attitudes may not have changed, but most white people are careful how they say things.
Mr. Baldwin offered an insight into who the user of this nasty word was really talking about. Now, there is another six letter word being casually tossed about these days. It starts with R, where the other ends with R. What would happen if you took Mr. Baldwin’s talk, and substituted racist for the other six letter word? It is an interesting way to look at things. What follows is not a perfect fit, and may be offensive to some. A few times, it is very close to the truth.
“Who is the racist? Well I know this … and anybody who has tried to live knows this. What you say about somebody else, anybody else, reveals you. What I think of you as being is dictated by my own necessities, my own psychology, my own fears … and desires. I’m not describing you when I talk about you … I’m describing me.
Now, here in this country, we got somebody called a racist. It doesn’t in such terms, I beg you to remark, exist in any other country in the world. We have invented the racist. I didn’t invent him, white people invented him. I’ve always known, I had to know by the time I was seventeen years old, what you were describing was not me and what you were afraid of was not me. It had to be something else. You had invented it so it had to be something you were afraid of, and you invested me with it. … I have always known that I am not a racist … but if I am not the racist … and if it is true that your invention reveals you … then who is the racist?
I am not the victim here. I know one thing from another. I know that I was born, am gonna suffer and gonna die. And the only way that you can get through life is to know the worst things about it. I know that a person is more important than anything else. Anything else. I’ve learned this because I’ve had to learn it. But you still think, I gather, that the racist is necessary. Well he’s not necessary to me, so he must be necessary to you. So I give you your problem back. You’re the racist baby, it isn’t me.”
Chamblee54 has discussed Mr. Baldwin before. 071222 100722 032623 Pictures today are from Georgia State University Library. The social media picture was taken November 11, 1954. “Roxy Theatre, Atlanta, African American entrance ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
Tiny American Faith Groups
This content was published February 11, 2015. … As you may have heard, a man killed three of his neighbors in North Carolina. The victims were Muslim, and the alleged perp is white. Since America is now a nation of media critics, the way this incident is covered is getting as much chatter as anything else. The usual comments about lack of media coverage, and the different ways the race of the perp affects what the media calls the person, are being made.
Some stories report that a dispute over parking spots was behind the slayings. While this may seem trivial to some, parking disputes can be heated. Did the condo community have enough parking spaces? Is killing over a parking spot any sillier than killing because of differing opinions about God?
The Washington Post has a story about the killing, “Chapel Hill killings shine light on particular tensions between Islam and atheism”. “The alleged assassination by an outspoken North Carolina atheist of three of his Muslim neighbors is shining a light on particular, deep tensions between two tiny American faith groups: Muslims and atheists.”
Is that tiny America, tiny faith, or tiny groups? How can atheists be called a “faith group?” Maybe we should go back to saying religion, instead using faith as a semantic substitute. Or maybe, just maybe, we should quit labeling people based on their opinions about God. Is it really any of your business?
The WP story has a link to the facebook page of alleged killer Craig Stephen Hicks . There are numerous comments criticizing the Abrahamic religions. There is also a puzzle, a video about New Zealand, and a link to a story about what occupations the 50 states have. The Hicks page is not different from most facebook pages.
Perhaps the facebook page has a clue to the real motive for the killing. Mr. Hicks is a Pittsburgh Steeler fan. Mr. Hicks is married, and went to Disneyworld two months ago. Mr. Hicks is in two facebook groups: Atheism on Youtube, and LET’S REACH 1 MILLION PEOPLE CAMPAIGN…It’s a start! LGBT EQUALITY. Mr. Hicks likes the movie “12 Years a Slave.”
This incident is tough to wrap your head around. Mr. Hicks probably did not need to own a firearm. Since he is white, the media guide says he is a troubled individual, which does not seem to be in question. If he had been black or brown, Mr. Hicks would be labelled thug or terrorist. Those two labels also seem to fit, regardless of whether or not this was a hate crime.
On June 12, 2019, Craig Stephen Hicks was convicted of first degree murder, and sentenced to life in prison. 1456389 is currently held at Central Prison, Raliegh NC. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the social media pictures in August 1941. “Children of Albert Lynch, FSA client of Dummerston, Vermont” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
Diarization
sing elders welcome · Be necessarily mean · use facilities
We’re starting today feeling good. We’re going to try to write something, instead of just looking in the archive and dredging up past glory. Yesterday’s controversy was about a facebook meme that rubbed me the wrong way. My rule for such things is to let it slide. If I need to take action about it, I snooze the person who sent it. Yesterday I had a weak moment when I saw this meme. Somebody was using religion to manipulate people. I noticed some things about it that didn’t add up, and I decided to write something. I may have offended the person who put it up. The only indication I have that he was offended is not clicking like on my reply. This is pretty superficial.
Lawyer Survivor · incompetent cover up · they’re not good at it
Round two this is basically going to be a diarization of my morning. I should be careful. Diarization sounds a lot like diarrhea. Pouring out my thoughts, as I get going in the morning, is very close to diarrhea. … We’re getting ahead of ourselves. The first step in my morning, after I plug in the phone and turn the computer on, is to take my meds. My drugs. My pills. You can’t get your thrills if you don’t take your pills. You might get some bugs if you don’t take your drugs. If you don’t take your meds, we’ll have to call the feds.
stern security · arrested corrupt leader · WITCH HUNT! Come along
Like so many other things in my life, morning meds thing has evolved. I have a plastic tub, on a shelf by the desk. I put the pill bottles on the desk. I have a tupperware cup. I take the proper dosage from each bottle, put the pills in the tupperware cup, and put the pill bottle back in the tub. This way I know that I have taken what I need out of each bottle. One exception is the carvedilol, which the doctor wants me to take twice a day. I put the bottle on the desk, and try to remember to take a second dose. This afternoon treat puts the LOL back in carvedilol.
influence Kanye · Many despise public scribe · correct buggery
The intent of this project is to react to the Haiku reductions. In this case, you have a screen shot of two tweets. “influence Kanye” God help you if you let that idiot influence you. “Many despise public scribe” I mean that kind of could stand alone. The nature of being a public scribe involves creating content that is going to piss off somebody. What’s really interesting about this reduction is the second half. The reply tweet is from @buckleycarlson, the son of Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson. Young Carlson’s tweet is reduced to “correct buggery”. If TSNC was to actually say the words correct buggery, he would explode. The diarization of Tucker Carlson.
trauma pumping out · hormone chemical cocktail · anxiety cult
When I said diarization at the start of this endeavor, I meant taking my morning, and presenting it as a minute-by-minute real-time diary. It turns out diarization is a real word. There’s something called Speaker Diarization “Unlock the full power of your audio content with industry-leading speaker diarization. Identify speakers to create structured, speaker-labeled transcripts that bring clarity to even the most complex conversations.” The example given here is from a service center phone conversation. The AI wonk took the transcript, and identified the speakers. “We identified 11 positive sentences, and 3 negative ones.”
penniless eighth-grade · prison pa America · forever unjust
Maybe it’s time to think about Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson. For many years TSNC was the boogeyman of the cool people. I vaguely absorbed all of this, but didn’t really pay much attention to it. I hadn’t actually watched him on Fox News, and didn’t understand the fuss. Then TSNC got fired from Fox News for opposing the war in Ukraine. I then realized that I really didn’t know the guy. All I knew was what his opponents had been shouting about him. Now TSNC is saying critical things about Israel. The same people that loved him before now hate him. He is taking on the one issue that you are not allowed to take on. There’s something troubling about this.
never float over · perceivable transparent · iridescent rat
This reduction is under a picture of Franz Kafka. When I google his name, I see this: “Anxiety, Absurdity, and Alienation: The Life of Franz Kafka — Franz Kafka’s troubled life made him one of the most successful writers of all time. Unfortunately, not many people know his story, and many don’t know that he was Czech.” If you want to see the full article, you have to click through a notice: “This website uses cookies to provide you with the best possible service. Your continued use of the site means that you agree to their use. Want to learn more? Visit here: COOKIES Agree”
©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
Whose Christianity?
“If our Christianity causes kids to go hungry, the sick to go without healthcare, the stranger to be unwelcome, and the needy to be treated as “parasites,” all while billionaires get richer, we’ve ignored the most basic elements of Jesus’ teachings.” A meme based on this quote appeared on my facebook feed. Strange things to turn up when you take a closer look. God/Satan is in the details.
Where the original says “our Christianity”, the facebook version says “your”. The original says “we’ve”, while facebook says “you have”. “The needy” becomes “the elderly on social security”. The original is on the instagram of Benjamin R. Cremer. BRC “is a Wesleyan pastor, theologian, and writer based in Idaho. He currently serves as the Amity campus pastor at the Cathedral of the Rockies.”
The meme has the logo of Brian Tyler Cohen, and is on his facebook page. Rev. Cremer is not mentioned. As you might surmise, BTC is Jewish. Some would question the propriety of a Jew lecturing people on how to be Christian. Maybe that is why BTC changed “our” to “your”.
BTC is a curious character. He is the co-founder of Chorus Creator Incubator Program, a “dark money” effort to promote progressive influencers. “(Stuart) Perelmuter cofounded Chorus with Democratic influencer Brian Tyler Cohen, who has over 4.6 million subscribers on YouTube and leads messaging check-ins for the creator cohort on “rapid response days.”
There is also this: “Former David Pakman producer reveals that he, Brian Tyler Cohen, and Meidastouch decided to suppress coverage of Gaza because it was “too divisive” at White House meeting with Kamala Harris … I actually have an email from him after he visited the White House last year on the day of Joe Biden’s State of the Union address. … And he told me in an email that they talked amongst themselves and came to the conclusion that the topic is too divisive, it might drag down their channels, that it’s a poison pill, and that it’s better if they just don’t talk about it at all.” The colossal tragedy of Israel’s war of annihilation in Gaza was too divisive for Democrats to talk about. (FWIW, David Pakman is a Chorus content creator.)
BTC may have the “right” to tell us how to be good Christians. A better question might be why we should care. All we know about the “teachings of Jesus” is what the Bible says. Not that this matters to “some” Christians. The church mostly talks about “Salvation,” not what Jesus said when he was alive. Logical consistency doesn’t matter when you are trashing MAGA.
Pointing out examples of hypocrisy is very boring. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the social media picture in August 1941. “Having dinner at the home of Ray Lyman, FSA client near Castleton, Vermont” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
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