Too Hot
It is too hot to do pride today. See you in October. ~ That which does not kill us makes us fatter ~ After line five, insert: A family I cannot leave ~ Doesn’t reason have an equally slutty brother named logic? ~ my heart on my sleeve a burning in my soul home i never leave mouth i cannot control ~ Not to mention the hysterical reaction when someone challenges a label like cis-. If you read my blog post, you will see that I acknowledge the need for this classification. But say that you don’t like the currently fashionable one, and see what happens. ~ One night I wandered into Roses Cantina, at 688 Spring Street. George Thorogood was playing. ~ @DailyRobbins I am writing about John Wayne Conner, who is awaiting execution Google search for JWC showed yacht by John Wayne in La Conner WA ~ WILL RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE!!!!! ~ Preface to Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body. ~ Revealed: Jack Daniel was taught by minister’s slave how to distill signature whiskey ~ 8 Helpful Comebacks to Use When Someone Is Being Transphobic ~ 20 Powerful Quotes to Inspire Your Writing ~ Internet Argument Techniques ~ 9 reasons why “cis” isn’t working ~ The Reason Why This Is Correct ~ A Linguist Explains the Syntax of “Fuck” ~ Lisping – When /s/ and /z/ are hard to say ~ But When The Addicts Were Black, Nobody Cared ~ Why you think you’re right — even if you’re wrong ~ HeyJackass! Illustrating Chicago Values ~ the kid who asked too much, an interview with conner habib ~ THE DARK SIDE OF BUZZFEED ~ Not Everything Is a “Gospel” Issue – But Race Is! ~ Ten Signs of Intellectual Honesty ~ pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. ~ selah
John Wayne Conner And James T. White
Georgia is fixin’ to poison 0000384035. Here is the what the Attorney General of Georgia has to say: “An execution date for John Wayne Conner has been set for July 14, 2016. Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens offers the following information in the case against John Wayne Conner for the 1982 murder of James T. White.
At the time of the murder, Conner lived with his girlfriend, Beverly Bates, in Milan. On the evening of January 9, 1982, they rode with friends, including the victim, J. T. White, to a party in Eastman. After spending the evening drinking and smoking marijuana, the group returned to Milan around midnight. J. T., described by one witness as “humble and satisfied” and by another as “mellow,” exited the vehicle with Conner and Ms. Bates at their house. Soon afterwards, Conner and J. T. left the house on foot, taking with them a nearly empty bottle of bourbon that Conner had purchased the night before. They walked to the home of Pete Dupree, woke him up, and asked him to take them to get more whiskey. He refused.
Then, according to Conner: “[M]e and J. T. left and went down the road. J. T. made the statement about he would like to go to bed with my girlfriend and so I got mad and we got into a fight and fought all the way over to the oak tree and I hit him with a quart bottle. He run over there to the fence trying to get through or across, I reckon, so I run over there and grabbed him and pulled him back and hit him again and he fell in the water and he grabbed my leg. I was down there at him right there in the ditch where he was at and he was swinging trying to get up or swinging at me to try to hit me one, and there was a stick right there at me, and I grabbed it and went to beating him with it.”
The next day, J. T.’s body was found in a drainage ditch near the Milan Elementary School. Injuries on his forehead bore the pattern of the sole of a tennis shoe. His nose was broken, both his cheekbones were fractured, his eyes were swollen, and his left ear was severely damaged. He had been hit so hard in the face with a blunt object that teeth, as well as portions of the bone to which they were attached, were broken away from his upper and lower jaws. Dr. Larry Howard, who conducted the autopsy, testified that the trauma to J. T.’s head and face caused brain damage and bleeding in and around the brain which extended into his lungs, causing him to drown in his own blood.
Beverly Bates had gone to bed when Conner and J. T. left. When Conner returned, he woke her up and told her that they had to leave; he had had a fight with J. T. and thought he was dead. Conner ripped off his shirt and threw it into the fire. He told Ms. Bates that he knew where a car was with its keys in it. The car was parked in front of the school. Before they left town, Conner told Ms. Bates that “he had to be sure,” and walked toward the ditch. She heard a thud. Conner returned, and said now he was sure, let’s go. They stopped to get gas in Eastman. Ms. Bates gave Conner $ 20 to buy gas with; in return, he gave her a bloody $ 5 bill. They were caught in Butts County.
The $ 5 bill, as well as a whiskey bottle and a tree limb found near the body, were subsequently analyzed and found to have blood on them that was consistent with that of the victim and inconsistent with that of Conner (understandable, since Conner suffered no injuries during the “fight”).”
The next part of this story is from Findlaw.
On January 26, 1982, while in the Telfair County Jail, Conner pounded a bullet into his chest until it exploded. As a result, he was admitted to Central State Hospital (“CSH”) in Milledgeville, Georgia. According to the records from that visit, Conner was “mute, uncooperative and appeared to be semicatatonic” upon admission. He showed “complete psychomotor retardation and [was] unable to answer any questions.” Conner was medicated and placed on “suicide precautions.” He later became cooperative and responsive.
By court order, Conner remained hospitalized at CSH until February 19, 1982, while the staff evaluated him for competency and insanity. ….. An IQ test administered while Conner was at CSH revealed a full-scale Weschler Adult Intelligence Score IQ score of 87, which placed Conner within the normal or average range of intelligence. On February 19, 1982, CSH issued a letter to the trial judge stating that Conner was competent to stand trial and could be held criminally responsible.
Conner’s father initially retained David Morgan to represent Conner in the underlying criminal case. About the same time, Dennis Mullis, a public defender, was appointed to represent Conner in an unrelated case. When it became clear that Conner’s father would not be able to pay Morgan’s fees through the pendency of the criminal case, Mullis was appointed to assist Morgan.
On April 30, 1982, Morgan filed a motion for funds to hire a defense expert to perform a mental examination because he was considering raising an insanity defense. This motion was heard on May 11, 1982. At that time, the court had the benefit of the February 19, 1982 CSH letter stating that Conner was competent to stand trial. Mullis stated that he could not determine if CSH had done anything wrong in its examination without an independent expert to assist him.
Nevertheless, the state trial court deferred ruling on the motion because the defense had not yet filed a motion to raise the insanity defense. At a later pre-trial hearing on June 21, 1982, Morgan withdrew from the case and Mullis became Conner’s sole counsel. At a hearing on June 30, 1982, Mullis announced that he would not be seeking to assert the insanity defense based upon his review of additional information private counsel had obtained from CSH. After that, Mullis did not file any other motion pertaining to Conner’s mental health nor did he request the appointment of an independent mental health examiner.
At his jury trial on July 12–14, 1982, Conner neither testified nor presented any evidence on his own behalf. During his guilt phase closing argument, the prosecutor said the following:
Ladies and gentleman, as prosecutor, as defense attorney, I have been involved in criminal law for seven years. As District Attorney of this circuit, I have prosecuted nine murder cases. I have never before sought the death penalty. I have seen several killings. I have been responsible for prosecuting several terrible killings. I have never before sought the death penalty. (This statement would later be considered improper conduct.)
Conner’s counsel objected. The trial court sustained the objection and gave the jury a curative instruction not to consider the penalty before deciding guilt or innocence.
After deliberating for fifty minutes, the jury found Conner guilty on all counts. Before the sentencing phase, the trial court granted defense counsel a brief recess for Mullis to confer with Conner. When the proceedings reconvened, the court asked Mullis if he planned to present any evidence in mitigation. Mullis responded:
Your Honor, I had planned on calling four witnesses—of course, the defendant, and his brother, and father, and his mother. After the verdict came in I talked to Mr. Conner in a room adjacent to the courtroom and he has informed me that he does not desire me to enter any evidence in mitigation. He does not desire to do that himself, he has told me. I have counsel[ed] him that my advice would be to do otherwise. My advice would be to put in some evidence to mitigate this. He has told me he does not desire to do that.
The following colloquy then took place between the court and Conner: THE COURT: Mr. Conner, do you understand your rights to present evidence? MR. CONNER: Yeah. THE COURT: And you have instructed your counsel and you are telling the Court now that you do not want to put anything in in evidence of mitigation? MR. CONNER: That’s right. THE COURT: All right, sir. That’s your privilege.
The prosecution and the defense then made their closing arguments without presenting any additional evidence. During his sentencing phase closing, the prosecutor once again expressed his personal belief, based upon his experience, that the death penalty was appropriate in Conner’s case… The jury returned a death sentence …
Conner filed his first writ of habeas corpus in state trial court on March 23, 1984. Evidentiary hearings were held on September 24, 1984, and February 11, 1985.
In the first evidentiary hearing, Mullis testified about his representation of Conner at trial. He explained that although raising an insanity defense crossed his mind, he found nothing to substantiate such a claim. When asked about the CSH records, Mullis admitted that he knew that Conner had some psychiatric problems and suffered from drug and alcohol abuse. He further admitted that in seeking the appointment of an independent mental health examiner, he did not reveal to the trial judge any of the information contained in the CSH records.
Mullis testified that while he was considering potential mitigation, he spoke with Conner’s parents and brother. They discussed Conner’s “upbringing” and “socioeconomic information.” Mullis stated that he learned that Conner had a deprived economic background and had not been raised “in the best of circumstances.” After Conner was convicted, Mullis spoke with Conner’s brother about testifying in mitigation. Also during this time, Mullis approached Conner’s girlfriend, Beverly Bates, who had testified against him at trial, about testifying in mitigation, but she refused. …
Mullis stated that his plan to present the testimony of Conner’s family members changed when Conner informed him after the entry of the guilty verdict that he did not want to present any mitigation evidence. Mullis explained that Conner said “something to the effect of letting [the jurors] do what they will.” Mullis testified that he explained the purpose of the evidence to Conner but that Conner did not seem to care about himself….
As for Conner’s relationship with his father, she explained that they were close but that Conner’s father beat him as a child and into his teens. Conner’s mother admitted that he had problems, describing him as a “very troubled young man” who drank alcohol and used drugs. She explained that Conner was always depressed and that he felt unloved. She also stated that Conner tried to commit suicide in 1981. … Conner’s father also described a second suicide attempt, in which Conner tried to kill himself by cutting ropes holding him in a tree while he was working with his father in a tree surgery business. Conner told his father that he was trying to have an accident so that he would fall and kill himself. …
Having determined that we must vacate the District Court’s judgment denying Conner’s petition and remand for further proceedings on the mental retardation claim, it is unnecessary for us to decide anything regarding the other two claims—the ineffective assistance of counsel at sentencing claim and the prosecutorial misconduct claim.
Murderpedia notes “The jury found the following statutory aggravating circumstance: “The offense of murder was outrageously and wantonly vile, horrible and inhuman in that it did involve depravity of mind and aggravated battery to the victim.” The evidence supports this finding. Appellant chased an unarmed, intoxicated victim (who failed to leave a mark on his assailant) from the road, across a drainage ditch and into a barbed wire fence; dragged him back to the drainage ditch; used a whiskey bottle, a heavy stick and his feet to beat and stomp the victim to death; and left him to die, lying in the water. The evidence shows that the defendant unnecessarily and wantonly inflicted serious physical abuse upon the victim prior to his death. The facts of this case distinguish it from those cases in which a finding of would not be appropriate.”
The fiswrapper sees the imposition of the death penalty differently. “Conner’s killing of White during the drunken brawl, while heinous, raises questions about whether the murder was proportionate when compared to others that landed men on death row. Some killed multiple victims. Some killed children. Some committed murder during an armed robbery or a sexual assault. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, during a two-year-long investigation of Georgia’s death penalty, found that prosecutors rarely sought the ultimate punishment for murders similar to White’s.”
This quote is from a news report. “The tour was for Federal Communications Commission member Ajit Pai, who had come to the prison to meet Corrections Commissioner Homer Bryson and talk about what the federal government could do to help combat the scourge of contraband cellphones. After their meeting, warden Bruce Chatman led a small group on a tour of the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson. … Upon entering the row, Chatman acknowledged some cellphones have been found on death-row inmates. “But it’s been a while,” he said proudly.”
While on the tour, the group met John Wayne Conner. “With a broad grin that displayed several missing teeth, John Wayne Conner introduced himself by saying his name was the same as the “little Terminator.” That would be John Connor, the character in the “Terminator” movies who will lead a human revolt against the machines that have taken over the world.
Conner, 59, announced he has been on death row for 33 years. As for his appeals, they’ve almost run out, he said. “I’m hanging in there. I’m still kicking. In here, that’s a good thing.”
When asked how he bides his time, Conner, with a child-like enthusiasm, reached down, lifted the corner of his mattress and pulled out about a half-dozen watercolor paintings. He proudly laid them across his bed for all to see. Most were vibrant landscapes, including one with a majestic waterfall. Conner said it takes about an hour to finish a painting.”
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. UPDATE: John Wayne Conner died at 12:30 am, July 15, 2016.
Cis-
The prefix cis- is being used to mean the opposite of trans. This is a gender thing. A cismale is a man who uses the factory equipment. A transman is someone who does things differently. There are various forms of this, which is a bit too complicated for social media discussion. Fecesbook Facebook, famously fallacy friendly, is not a good medium for subtle discussion.
Before we get started, it should be noted that cis- serves a valid purpose. The only objection here is to the word itself. It has a weird sound, and can be confusing. Perhaps an alternative would be to say birth gender. If you are were born male, and live in compliance with the gender assigned at birth, then you are a birth male, as opposed to a trans male.
Today’s drama started out with a post by Kat Blaque. Mx. Blaque is self described as “Illustration, Animator, Youtuber” on twitter, and “Children’s Illustrator, Thrift Store Addict and Opinion Vlogger” on facebook. The comment: “People who don’t like the word “cis” are annoying because they pretend it’s made up when it’s a prefix commonly used in science. but whatever. Ya’ll some children.”
Luther Mckinnon This comment is transplaining. I don’t like cis- because the s sound is tough to make for many people. Also, cis- sounds like cissy. Kat Blaque Butch up mary.
There were comments. Most of them had to do with “sounds like cissy.” The objection is not because of “emasculation.” The simple truth is that a cissy (or sissy) is a man who does not conform to gender standards. In other words, he does not act like a man. A cismale is someone who does conform to gender standards. Cissy sounds a lot like cismale, and yet they mean dramatically different things.
The language g-ds have spoken. The opposite of trans- is cis-. Any man who does not conform to this language standard is less of a man than one who does. To have standards of masculinity applied to using a prefix denoting the opposite of trans…this is weird.
Luther Mckinnon So, we make a difference this time. The business of using the cis prefix if fairly new. We can get into ableism issues here if you like. It is interesting that I made the comment about the s sound first. The part about similarity to cissy was second. The first comment was ignored. The incidental second comment was jumped on by the “woke”masses. There is also a bit of confusion here. A cissy is basically a non gender conforming male. Cis- means conforming to the gender assigned at birth. I see a contradiction there. Kat BlaqueI have a lisp and I can say cis just find. Butch up. Samantha Nicholson I like “cis” it sounds very scientific and using it makes me sound smart! “Prefix commonly used in science.” This is news to a lot of people, with the possible exception of the Cisco Kid. Crosswordsolver.org has a list of words starting in cis. One familiar item is cistern, the opposite of a dry garden. Other commonly used words include cisalpine, cislunar, cismontane, Cissoid, Cistothorus, Cistothorus palustris, and Cistus ladanum.
One more person made a comment. Cianán Russell Luther, sit down. Seriously. I know you- SIT DOWN. Luther Mckinnon Who? This post has gone on long enough. It is time for the pictures, from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
James Baldwin And The Six Letter Word
In the spring of 1963, KQED filmed a show, “Take this hammer”, about James Baldwin. The snippet in the video above 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.
What resonated with me about this particular video though, is the universal experience we’ve all had being referred to, thought of as, or called something we inherently are not. Not because of something we’ve done, mind you – but because of the way others “interpret” us. Those of us that “transgress” gender norms are often given titles and names that don’t fit who we are – but are more representative of the fears and desires of others. 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 2016. (All discussions of race must mention the year.) The TV show was fifty 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.
African America is keeping the n-word alive. But it is still about the speaker, not the one spoken of. When people say the nasty word, they are talking about themselves. They are now the people James Baldwin is talking about. This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. These men are Union soldiers, from the War Between the States.
Rainbow Cake And Unicorns
This is a borrowed post. It was originally posted at A Merrier World . PG does not bake or write in first person. He has never had kids. He does borrow other peoples ideas, and introduces them to the rainbow. This is a repost
At the end of her birthday party last year, M announced that she would be having a unicorn party for her next birthday. I didn’t realise that she was absolutely serious about this. I thought, “It’s a whole year away – she’s bound to change her mind.” But no, for a whole year M has stuck to her original intention and has been counting down the days until her unicorn party.
You could argue that I’ve had a whole year to prepare, so why the sudden rush to get everything ready last week? Well, M may have had a solidly clear idea of the grand theme for her party, but she left the finer details entirely up to me.
Not wanting to disappoint, I threw myself into turning our house into an enchanted forest in the hope that any passing unicorns might be tempted to pop in on the big day. We made glittery trees and rainbow streamers while M’s big sister created a welcoming poster for the front door.
Last year, M set her heart on a cake she saw in a book by Debbie Brown (here’s a warning to parents – only ever let your children see pictures of cakes that you’re happy to make yourself). Four being so much more grownupperer than three, M has now entered the chocolate frosting and smarties stage.
I’m not so very far removed from the icing sugar cloud of despair that I miss those fondant modelling sessions yet … I’m quite happy to be doing chocolate and smarties. I couldn’t resist giving the birthday girl a little surprise, though. From the outside, M’s cake looked perfectly normal (in a homemade sort of way) – a magical plastic unicorn standing amid swirls of white chocolate buttercream and scattered smarties. M’s seven little party guests looked on dutifully as M blew out her candles and I took a knife to cut into the cake.
Hesitating before plunging in to make the first slice, I asked them all, “Do you know what happens when a unicorn stands on top of a birthday cake?”
“No,” they whispered with wide eyes. “He makes a rainbow,” I told them, cutting into the cake. The next day, M sidled up to me and asked, “Mummy, how did the unicorn do that to my cake?”
Well, if there’s by any chance anyone left in the blogosphere who hasn’t come across a rainbow cake before now, I’ll explain my own take on the concept … just in case a unicorn happens to pass by and stand on another little girl’s birthday cake ;-) . I’m not sure who had the original idea – there’s a box-mix version doing the rounds that appears to have started with this thread in the dubiously-named ‘Something Awful’ forums. Rejecting the layered box-mix and diet soda variety however, I based my own rainbow cake recipe on Farida’s beautiful Zebra Cake.
I followed Farida’s instructions to make a yellow cake batter (whichever basic cake recipe you choose, it’s important that it’s one in which the batter doesn’t mix about too much during baking or you’ll end up with a muddy brown cake instead of a rainbow).
Then, instead of dividing it into two parts and colouring one part with cocoa as Farida did, I divided the mixture between seven bowls (roughly 4 tablespoons of batter in each) and used my fondant paste dyes to colour each portion a different colour of the rainbow.
I then poured each rainbow batter in turn (starting with red) into the centre of my prepared cake pan. As Farida says, don’t wait for each colour to spread out before starting with the next – just pour the batter into the centre of the pan, then pour the next colour right on top and then the colour after that without waiting for each to spread fully.
The weight of each batter pushes the previous colour out further and, as long as you keep a steady hand with the pouring, they all sort themselves out. And it’s as simple as that.
I found out in the school playground this morning that one of the guests has kept her special piece of rainbow cake carefully wrapped up since the party so that she can show it to everyone who visits.
Flarda
“I’ve never met anyone from Florida that wasn’t either a serial killer or a future serial killer…” The comment from facebook did not quite ring true. PG had some duplex neighbors from Flarda once. The dumped the cat box by the driveway, eighteen inches from where PG stepped out of his car. They were unlikely to committ cereal killings, unless it involved Captain Crunch.
PG and Uzi went to Saint Augustine. The worst thing to happen is the upstairs neighbor flooding a bathtub, forcing P&U into another room. There were a few other inconveniences… not finding a buffet near Valdosta, and driving for another hour before landing at a Burger King. Driving the one way streets of the historic district, looking for the Lightner Museum, and then a parking spot, was another comedy classic.
This is not going to be the comprehensive travelog that you probably would not read anyway. It has been mostly two semi elderly men catching up on slack quota. Swimming in salt water is aerobic exercise, especially when you have to walk across the street to do it. Anyway, here are some pictures.
Your Mother Would Be Utterly Appalled
This story is borrowed from Gartalker, who borrowed it from someone else. The pictures are from The Library of Congress This is a repost.
When you have to visit a public bathroom, you usually find a line of women, so you smile politely and take your place. Once it’s your turn, you check for feet under the stall doors. Every stall is occupied. Finally, a door opens and you dash in, nearly knocking down the woman leaving the stall. You get in to find the door won’t latch. It doesn’t matter, the wait has been so long you are about to wet your pants! The dispenser for the modern “seat covers” (invented by someone’s Mom, no doubt) is handy, but empty. You would hang your purse on the door hook, if there was one, but there isn’t – so you carefully, but quickly drape it around your neck, (Mom would turn over in her grave if you put it on the FLOOR!), yank down your pants, and assume” The Stance.”
In this position your aging, toneless (God I should have gone to the gym!!!) thigh muscles begin to shake. You’d love to sit down, but you certainly hadn’t taken time to wipe the seat or lay toilet paper on it, so you hold”The Stance”. To take your mind off your trembling thighs, you reach for what you discover to be the empty toilet paper dispenser. In your mind, you can hear your mother’s voice saying, “Honey, if you had tried to clean the seat, you would have KNOWN there was no toilet paper!” Your thighs shake more.
You remember the tiny tissue that you blew your nose on yesterday – the one that’s still in your purse. (Oh yeah, the purse around your neck, that now, you have to hold up trying not to strangle yourself at the same time).That will have to do. You crumple it in the puffiest way possible. It’s still smaller than your thumbnail.
Someone pushes your door open because the latch doesn’t work. The door hits your purse,which is hanging around your neck in front of your chest,and you and your purse topple backward against the tank of the toilet. “Occupied!” you scream, as you reach for the door, dropping your precious, tiny, crumpled tissue in a puddle on the floor, lose your footing altogether, and slide down directly onto the TOILET SEAT. It is wet of course.
You bolt up, knowing all too well that it’s too late. Your bare bottom has made contact with every imaginable germ and life form on the uncovered seat because YOU never laid down toilet paper -not that there was any, even if you had taken time to try. You know that your mother would be utterly appalled if she knew, because, you’re certain her bare bottom never touched a public toilet seat because, frankly, dear, ”You just don’t KNOW what kind of diseases you could get”.
By this time, the automatic sensor on the back of the toilet is so confused that it flushes, propelling a stream of water like a fire hose against the inside of the bowl that sprays a fine mist of water that covers your butt and runs down your legs and into your shoes. The flush somehow sucks everything down with such force that you grab onto the empty toilet paper dispenser for fear of being dragged in too At this point, you give up.. You’re soaked by the spewing water and the wet toilet seat. You try to wipe with a gum wrapper you found in your pock! et and then slink out inconspicuously to the sinks.
You can’t figure out how to operate the faucets with the automatic sensors, …..so you wipe your hands with spit and a dry paper towel and walk past the line of women still waiting. You are no longer able to smile politely to them. A kind soul at the very end of the line points out a piece of toilet paper trailing from your shoe. (Where was that when you NEEDED it??) You yank the paper from your shoe, plunk it in the woman’s hand and tell her warmly,”Here, you just might need this”.
As you exit, you spot your hubby, who has long since entered, used, and left the men’s restroom. Annoyed, he asks, “What took you so long, and why is your purse hanging around your neck?” … This is dedicated to women everywhere who deal with a public restrooms.It finally explains to the men what really does take us so long. It also answers their other commonly asked questions about why women go to the restroom in pairs. It’s so the other gal can hold the door, hang onto your purse, and hand you Kleenex under the door!
Cruise Control In The Rain
There is a bit of facebook “wisdom” floating around. This time, most of the the internet skeptics seem to think it is the truth. Lets begin with the message:
A 36 year old female had an accident several weeks ago. It was raining, though not excessively when her car suddenly began to hydro-planeand literally flew through the air. She was not seriously injured but very stunned at the sudden occurrence!When she explained to the Police Officer what had happened, he told her something that every driver should know – NEVER DRIVE IN THE RAIN WITH YOUR CRUISE CONTROL ON. She thought she was being cautious by setting the cruise control and maintaining a safe consistent speed in the rain…. But the Police Officer told her that if the cruise control is on,your car will begin to hydro-plane when the tyres lose contact with the road, and your car will accelerate to a higher rate of speed making you take off like an aeroplane. She told the Officer that was exactly what had occurred. The Officer said this warning should be listed, on the driver’s seat sun-visor – NEVER USE THE CRUISE CONTROL WHEN THE ROAD IS WET OR ICY, Along with the airbag warning. We tell our teenagers to set the cruise control and drive a safe speed – but we don’t tell them to use the cruise control only when the road is dry.
This message makes intuitive sense. Unfortunately, a lot of other bits of internet wisdom sound good at first, but turn out to be frauds. There is no way to confirm the story of the “36 year old female.” When you are repeatedly lied to, your instinct is to not believe what you are told. In this case, if you google the key phrase, you will find abundant confirmation.
Snopes has numerous critics. In this case, the story is confirmed, and a link supplied to the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia. “Turn off the cruise control: Wet roads can cause wheels to spin and lose control. The only way to stop wheels from spinning and maintain control is to immediately reduce power. An activated cruise control system applies continuous power, keeping the wheels spinning. By the time you disengage the cruise control it may be too late – you may have already lost control.”
Hoax Slayer says the story is true, but “misleading and overly alarmist.” They say the number one problem here is the slower reaction times with cruise control. People typically move the right foot away from the control pedals when CC is used. If there is an emergency, you will react a split second later. HS has a link to Car Point Australia, which makes this point: “This is the key that makes a nonsense of the email. Modern cars take their speedo reading from the driveshaft or transmission. This means the cruise control bases its responses on the speed of the driven wheels, not the car itself. This is an important distinction and fail safe position. If the driven wheels skid because they lose grip, the spinning wheels will cause the speedo to show a higher reading which will force the cruise control to release the throttle faster than most drivers. Regardless of whether the car itself slows down or speeds up, the cruise control will always reduce the throttle no matter what until the driven wheels slow down back to the pre-set speed. If the wheels continue to slip under this scenario, this will always leave the car traveling more slowly relative to the road, not faster as described in the email. “
Truth or fiction and urban legends agree with snopes that this is a real problem. The only dissenting voice seen so far is museum of hoaxes. They give a link to Australia’s Royal Automobile Association, which doesn’t think it is a problem. ” “Should the car’s tyres break traction with the road, such as in an aquaplane situation, the increase in wheel speed would be sensed and the cruise control system would then reduce the amount of throttle and maintain the set speed. Additionally, cruise control systems are deactivated as soon as the brake is applied. As braking is usually an automatic reaction in most emergency situations, the scenario of cruise control causing an increase in vehicle speed is highly unlikely.” Maybe it is ok in the southern hemisphere, but a problem north of the equator. This is a repost.
Stars And Bars
@KenSimonSays The Confederate flag began flying over SC Capitol in 1962 as protest to desegregation. It’s not “heritage”, it’s racism. #TakeItDown This is a repost.
As Richard Nixon might have said, let me make one thing perfectly clear. PG is no fan of the stars and bars. Whatever value the “Confederate Flag” may have as a symbol of southern heritage has been obscured by its use as a symbol of hatred for black people. South Carolina should not fly the “Confederate flag” over the state capitol.
On the other hand, PG does not like being lied to. If you are offended by a symbol, then say you are offended by a symbol. Don’t rewrite history to support your cause. If your cause is so wonderful, then you should not need to conjure up so called facts from history.
In 1956, Georgia incorporated the stars and bars into the state flag. In 1993, people wanted to change the flag. So far, so good. The flag was an aesthetic eyesore. The flag was offensive to a significant portion of the state population. The flag eventually was changed, and changed again.
There was one problem with the 1993 effort to change the flag. Governor Zell Miller, a strong proponent of flag change, said in a speech that the stars and bars were added to the flag, in 1956, as a protest against integration. Many people accepted this bit of historic revision without question.
Some did not believe that for a minute. The legislature in 1956 was not that smart. They were a bunch of white males who were, with a few exceptions, racist, alcoholic crooks. If someone had suggested a flag change as a stand of defiance against desegregation, they might have thought it a good idea, but few Georgia legislators thought like that. This was 1956. The sixties, where protest became the new national pastime, were a few years away.
PG did some research, and found a newspaper article from February 1956 announcing the new flag. The article did not mention protesting integration. Instead, the legislature said they wanted to honor the Confederacy. The cult of the Confederacy was stronger in 1956 than it is today.
@chamblee54 “flag began flying over SC Capitol as protest to desegregation” ~ do you have documentation for that claim?
@KenSimonSays link 01 (pages 18-19, et al); link 02 (para 1); link 03
The three links provided are scholarly accounts of various issues. None of them showed that the motive for flying the stars and bars was a “protest to desegregation.” This passage from link03 is typical. “The flag was first raised over the capitol in 1962, just a few years before Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In its historical context, the decision to first fly the flag over the South Carolina capitol can reasonably be seen as a defiant act by a legislature determined to resist national pressure to desegregate.”
Link01 tells much the same story. “South Carolina began its official celebration of the Confederate flag in 1962 during a time when many white Southerners were resisting the end of Jim Crow Laws with police dogs and much worse. Traditionally, governments fly flags to endorse or approve what is symbolized, and not to provide history lessons.”
The next sentence is ironic. This is lawyer writing, which is mostly incomprehensible to people like PG. This sentence is probably not intended in the way PG is taking it. “In Croson, the Court established three basic principles of skepticism, consistency, and congruence concerning governmental race based classifications.” PG seldom needs encouragement to be skeptical.
@chamblee54 “in it’s historic context, the decision to first fly the flag …can reasonably be seen as a defiant act” (1)
@chamblee54 A scholar talking about historic context is not good enough I want a newspaper account from 1962 saying (2)
@chamblee54 this is why the flag is being flown they pulled this BS in GA over the state flag https://chamblee54.wordpress.com/2015/05/03/changing-the-flag/ …
@KenSimonSays Ah BS, from a man who quotes himself to try and prove a point. Hey, you’re entitled to kick your feet all you want.
@KenSimonSays And keep in mind, these are the same ppl who’ve convinced themselves that Civil War was fought over “states rigjhts”
@KenSimonSays and not slavery, so they’re very good at bullshitting themselves.
@KenSimonSays Eventually, the bigots are going to not have any more space to wriggle out of.
@Brimshack Did you really think they would actually say they were flying the flag to protest desegregation? (@Brimshack retweeted the first tweet from @KenSimonSays. PG currently follows @Brimshack, who is based in Alaska.)
@chamblee54 I went through this with the ga state flag – am no fan of csa flag – the protest integration thing rings false (1)
@chamblee54 you say it is to protest integration, a publicity stunt … of course they would say that is why they did it(2)
@KenSimonSays Not a publicity stunt. A temper tantrum codified into law. You think politicians are above such things? Or that the
@KenSimonSays flag suddenly magically appeared after almost a full century of not really being an issue…until integration enters
@KenSimonSays the picture, first in schools in the ’50s and more and more in the proceeding years. Closing your eyes to this is
@KenSimonSays what’s got a lot of people down there thinking the war was “northern aggression” over “states rights”.
@Brimshack That isn’t clear at all. This would be one of many disingenuous narratives produced by neoconfederates.
@KenSimonSays But that flag will come down eventually, it’s just a matter of time. And you’ll pout & write abt how unfair it is,
@KenSimonSays how it violates your free speech, dishonors memory of the dead, govt intrusion, all the while the real reason is the
@KenSimonSays that Yankees came down & told wealthy sadists what to do with their slaves & you side with the slave owners.
This is why we can’t have nice things. At no time did PG support South Carolina flying the stars and bars. All he did was show “skepticism,” per link01, to an statement. This statement was used to support something that all three parties agree on. People get so attached to their arguments that a little bit of “skepticism” makes them crazy. Just for the record, in case you missed it the first time: South Carolina should not fly the “Confederate flag” over the state capitol.
The issue of the stars and bars continues to be much talked about. The gun culture is untouchable. The concept of solving problems through violence is not challenged. The verbal abuse culture is celebrated, especially in the Jesus worship church. Denial of mental health issues has become politically correct, at least where Dylann Roof is concerned. Since none of these root causes of the Charleston tragedy are going to be addressed, people focus on a tacky historic symbol.
Pictures of Union Soldiers from the War Between the States, are from The Library of Congress.
Sophistry
هو الذي يتحدث عن الحقيقة يجب الحفاظ على قدم واحدة في الركاب ~ So that really is an Arab expression. I like to say that for any bit of truthiness that I don’t have a source for. ~ When I first saw skink, I thought it was skunk. You do not want to disturb a skunk. ~ Error establishing a database connection ~ @BitterBlueBetty Pastor’s been preaching apocalyptic sermons like there’s no tomorrow… ~ @EricWolfson How did you know that your one rude & insulting remark would successfully make me change my entire political ideology? #QuestionsForTrolls ~ Be sure to say lids, instead of tops. Your house might get mobbed if word got out that you have a bunch of tops there. ~ Thats no excuse. I suspect your leftovers are better than most people”s planned meals. ~ I can do it for myself. This one was easy. I saw yours, thought it a bit odd, but did not feel like tracking it down. A few hours later, I saw the seminal Instagram instrument, and put two plus two together. What might be more beneficial is to start a movement to encourage critical thinking. This would be a threat to the political, religious, social, and economic leadership. If our self appointed leaders can’t take a joke, they can consume their own product. Concurrent with this would be for people on social media to take responsibility for the nonsense that they post. If you post something, it is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to verify the information. With google, it is very easy, though seemingly too much work for the facebook floozies. You can aslo provide a link to the source of your information. Saying “google it” does not count. ~ Jon Stewart would say “How would you like to live it?” to radical applause. ~ Social Justice Jihad is tiresome for noncombatants. ~ Do I lose points for not using google? Or, do you lose points for not providing the link in your initial post? ~ I seriously doubt that a living Randy California would have brought this suit. ~ @chamblee54 world did not end in 5 days, nor was Seattle wiped out TNC is fond of sophistry ~ @racefortheprize I’m guessing you didn’t read the New Yorker article he’s discussing. ~ @chamblee54 I read the part where TNC said he had never been called n***** ~ jackass ~ localism of our times ~ 1-@JohnHMcWhorter @GlennLoury here is my hypothesis for the popularity of shouting racism https://chamblee54.wordpress.com/2014/07/20/the-problem-of-anti-racism-2/ ~ 2- @JohnHMcWhorter @GlennLoury sjw are secretly racist, like homophobes are secretly gay – both try to hide unresolved issues w.trash talk ~ 3- @JohnHMcWhorter @GlennLoury http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/42339?in=21:10&out=21:51 “liberals” are having too much fun calling DJT #racist not everyone agrees ~ Maybe we should quit using the word terrorist. It is a tool of propaganda. ~ You can always complain about the media, whether you consume it or not …if you can’t say anything good talk about the media ~ This quote can also be attributed, with various wording, to WB Yeats and Bertrand Russell. Mr. Russell had this rendering: ““The fundamental cause of the trouble in the modern world today is that the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.” ~ I thought COBRA was health insurance for people who lost their job. Ruthless terrorist organization? It was never organized very well.I never dealt with anyone named Ruth. It was terrible. ~ The left needs to figure out a way to reconcile with the fact that people can disagree with them and they don’t have to be “racists” or “bigoted”. The world is not black and white and people vote for things for many different reasons and they may have different priorities. There is a difference between being wrong on something and being racist. The people harmed the most by this are the victims of real racism who are not taken seriously because the word has begun to lose its meaning and it could mean anything you want it to be. That’s why it’s dangerous what the regressives are doing. ~ @SamHarrisOrg I actually have no opinion about #Brexit. Is there a social network for people with no opinions? ~ @chamblee54 Is there a sewer system for someone without an asshole? ~ @dancpharmd if I could change one thing about #Pride events, it would be that they would not be drenched in alcohol. ~ I just took the Asperger Test I have a few observations. 1- Slightly agree/disagree scores the same as Strongly. Why put the extra choice if it doesn’t mean anything? Why is neither-agree-nor-disagree not an option? 2- When I hit submit, it kept telling me to answer all the questions. The screen went shady, with the black questions exposed. I suspect this was a game, to see if you answered questions the same way twice. 3- Could this test be culturally attuned to white, Christian, 21st Century America? Perhaps someone from another culture would see things different, and get the Aspergers-indicative answers that they should not be getting. ~ Aunt Helen ~ Frank Zappa Reads NSFW Passage From William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch (1978) ~ Tenn. congressional candidate posts ‘Make America White Again’ sign ~ whine ~ The Playboy Interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates ” I’ve never had a white person call me a n*****” ~ LEAVE PARTIALLY ALONE!!!! ~ https://www.quora.com/Did-Einstein-really-define-insanity-as-doing-the-same-thing-over-and-over-again-and-expecting-different-results ~ Einstein on misattribution: ‘I probably didn’t say that.’ ~ “The definition of insanity” is the most overused cliché of all time ~ The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over, but expecting different results ~ Man Who Claims to Be Omar Mateen’s Lover Says Orlando Shooting Was ‘Revenge’ ~ This quote ~ Book Party “White Trash” — a cultural and political history of an American underclass ~ The Most Intelligent Presidents in U.S. History ~ Is Black Lives Matter the New Civil Rights Movement? ~ The Boy Who Cried Wolf ~ pictures today from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. ~ selah
The Origin Of Barbie
PG found a copy of Snuff at a yard sale. The story was written by Chuck Palahniuk, pronounced paula nick. This book report may have spoilers.
The 197 pages recount an attempt to break a world record. Aging porn star Cassie Wright is trying to take on 600 men in one session. The plan is to die, in a blaze of gooey glory. The story is told by four characters: Mr. 72, Mr. 137, Mr. 600, and Sheila. Each of the four feels a connection to Miss Wright. It is a case of four wrongs making one Wright.
The story gets weirder and weirder. Mr. 72 is convinced that he is the son of Cassie Wright. Mr. 137 became an Okla-homo after being diddled by daddy. Mr. 600 is said to be Miss Wright’s baby daddy. Sheila, original name Zelda Zonk, was another possible Wright baby. After a while, the reader just plows ahead. When PG pays a dollar for a book, he wants his money shot money’s worth.
Snuff has a couple of gimmicks that are repeated to the point of no return. The talent is known by a variety of names, like pud puller, wiener wrangler, page paster, fist flogger, white washer, and sherbet shooter. The movies made by Cassie Wright all had satirical titles, like World Whore One, and The Asshole Jungle. It was funny the first twenty times.
Another gimmick Mr. Nick works us with is the “true fact.” Someone will throw out a chestnut, and say “true fact.” Many of them are Hollywood beauty secrets, like Lauren Becall, and Tallulah Bankhead, drinking eggshell tea. Here is an example.
“… Hitler … was disgusted by seeing his fellow soldiers visit French brothels. To keep the Aryan bloodlines pure,and prevent the spread of venereal disease, he commissioned an inflatable doll that Nazi troops could take into battle. Hitler himself designed the dolls to have blond hair and large breasts. The Allied firebombing of Dresden destroyed the factory … “
Mr. Google has more. “But in 1942 the project was halted when German soldiers refused to carry the dolls because of the potential embarrassment if they were captured by the enemy. Author Graeme Donald uncovered Hitler’s secretive “Borghild Project” while researching the history of Barbie, which was based on a postwar German sex doll.”
“I was actually researching the history of the Barbie doll that was based on a German sex doll of the 1950s. Ruth and Elliot Handler from America visited Germany in 1956 and saw the Lilli dolls that were sold in barbers’ shops and nightclubs – and were not for children Ruth didn’t realise this and bought one and realised later they were not toys. But Ruth and her husband used the doll as a foundation for what became Barbie.”
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
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