How To Drive In Atlanta
1. You must first learn to pronounce the city name, Atlana. Old-timers are still allowed to call it Alana.
2. The morning rush hour is from 5:00 am to noon. The evening rush hour is from noon to 7:00 pm. Friday’s rush hour starts on Thursday morning.
3. The minimum acceptable speed on I-285 is 80 mph. On I-75 and I-85, your speed is expected to at least match the highway number. Anything less is considered ‘Wussy’.
4. Forget the traffic rules you learned elsewhere. Atlanta has its own version of traffic rules. For example, Ferraris and Lamborghinis owned by sports stars go first at a four-way stop. Cars/trucks with the loudest muffler go second. The trucks with the biggest tires go third. The HOV lanes are for the slow Floridians passing through who are used to hogging the left lane everywhere.
5. If you actually stop at a yellow light or stop sign, you will be rear ended, cussed out, and possibly shot. Unless there is a police car nearby.
6. Never honk at anyone. Ever. Seriously. It’s another offense that can get you shot.
7. Road construction is permanent and continuous. Detour barrels are moved around for your entertainment pleasure during the middle of the night to make the next day’s driving a bit more exciting. Generally, city roads other than the main streets have more potholes and bumps (usually speed bumps) than most dirt roads in the countryside.
8. Watch carefully for road hazards such as drunks, possums, skunks, dogs, barrels, cones, furniture, cats, mattresses, shredded tires, squirrels, rabbits, and crows.
9. Spelling of street names may change from block to block, e.g., Clairmont, Claremont, Clairmonte.
10. If someone actually has their turn signal on, wave them to the shoulder immediately to let them know it has been “accidentally activated”.
11. If you are in the left lane and only driving 75 in a 55-65 mph zone, k, e.g., you are considered a road hazard and will be “flipped off” accordingly. If you return the flip, you’ll be shot.
12. For summer driving, it is advisable to wear potholders on your hands. This is a repost. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Implicit Association Test
PG came across a link. The post was: What comes to mind when you see her headscarf? Let’s look at what your mind is seeing. Technically, this is about the hijab, pronounced eeJOB. If you google hijab, you will have the opportunity to buy one.
The article talked about the unspoken assumptions people have about a woman with a hijab. For PG, these are going to be mostly positive. Most of the Muslims PG has known are great people. The turmoil caused by aggressive Jesus worshipers is absent when dealing with Muslims.
Much of the article deals with “unconscious bias.” You are given the chance to take a “test your unconscious bias and find the areas of your perspective that need a little extra TLC.” PG is not sure that he trusts “Psychologists from Harvard, UW, and UVA.” Still, the only cost for taking this test will probably be damage to his mental health.
Before you start, there is a disclaimer. “IP addresses are routinely recorded, but are completely confidential.” There is a difference between confidential and anonymous. Big brother knows about PG anyway, so this test probably won’t make much difference. You are asked to agree to the following statement: “I am aware of the possibility of encountering interpretations of my IAT test performance with which I may not agree. Knowing this, I wish to proceed.” Fasten your digital seat belt.
Next, you choose a test. The first page has 15 options: Sexuality, Native American, Weapons, Arab-Muslim, etc. PG chooses “Weapons (‘Weapons – Harmless Objects’ IAT). This IAT requires the ability to recognize White and Black faces, and images of weapons or harmless objects.)
The first thing to do is answer a questionnaire. You are asked how warm or cold you feel towards white people, and black people. There is a list of statements that you agree or disagree, slightly, moderately, or strongly. Some of these statements are: I think of myself as someone who has an assertive personality, I have considered being an entertainer.
The heart of the test uses photographs. There are pictures of black people, and pictures of white people. There are pictures of weapons, like a bayonet, a historic pistol, a hand grenade, and a battle ax. There are pictures of harmless objects, like a water bottle, tape recorder, camera, and can of Coca Cola. Many of these could be used a weapons; a can of Coca Cola could be thrown at someone. Many Police consider a camera a weapon.
The pictures are flashed on the screen. You hit the e key for the left side, and the i key for the right side. At first the two choices are kept separate, i.e. you choose black or white, weapon or harmless. Then the two groups are combined. The choice is left side black weapons, and right side white harmless. Then they shift sides, to black harmless and white weapons. You are shown a picture, and choose which category to put it in.
The last questionnaire is the demographics. Annual family income is not considered. Ethnicity refers to hispanic/latin, or non hispanic/latin. Religion, age, “political identity,” gender (only male or female,) and education are considered, among other factors.
The result: “Your data suggest a strong association of Black Americans with Weapons compared to White Americans. … The interpretation is described as ‘automatic association between weapons and White Americans’ if you responded faster when weapons and White American images were classified with the same key than when weapons and Black Americans were classified with the same key.”
Whatever. Maybe PG should take another test for comparison. Maybe this time, choose a subject where hateful judgement is not in your face everyday. Since the seminal article is about the hijab, maybe … “You have opted to complete the Arab Muslim – Other People IAT.”
The opening questionnaire is different.”I attempt to appear nonprejudiced toward Arab Muslims in order to avoid disapproval from others, NO spontaneous prejudiced thoughts come into my mind when I encounter an unfamiliar Arab Muslim.”
This test is different from the race test. Instead of photographs, words were used. For the two groups of people, we have names (seemingly all male.) Examples: Arab Muslim – Akbar, Ashraf, Habib – – Other People – Benoit, Philippe, Guillame. The other categories are Good and Bad. Examples: Good – Joy, Love, Peace – – Bad – Agony, Terrible, Horrible.
PG made more mistakes in the fancy part of the Arab test. He took a couple of breaks to take screen shots, one of which is included in this report. At times, he felt himself automatically blaming the Arabs for bad things. This did not happen, consciously, in the race/weapons test.
The result: Your data suggest little to no automatic preference between Other People and Arab Muslims. … This new test was prompted by the events of September 11, 2001. Suicide pilots, identified as Arab Muslims, crashed airplanes into the World Trade Center towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. killing about 4,000 people.
While this may have some value to the ivory tower crowd, it does not tell PG much about himself. Arguably, IAT says more about the researchers than it does the respondents. It is doubtful that these tests will “find the areas of your perspective that need a little extra TLC.” Pictures from The Library of Congress. These pictures were not used in the IAT studied today.
RuPaul Has Striven
People are getting tired of talking about #transracial, or whatever that hairdo challenged woman was claiming to be today. An interview with RuPaul is usually more entertaining. Especially when a *possessive pronoun disputed* reality show is going to be shown in Great Britain, and needs promotion.The result: RuPaul: ‘Drag is dangerous. We are making fun of everything’
The article is about what you would expect. There was a comment about not wanting to drop “she-mail” from RPDR. This bit of language whimsy had the PC police on red alert. If you want to be old fashioned and read the article, just follow the link. The real fun starts in the comments. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Celtiberico Rebel who dressed like “boy who fell to Earth” Is Illuminati lizardmen conspiracy true?
The article Celtiberico links to is full of zesty quotes. “Drag Race is a brutal look at the underground world of radical homosexuality. Hosted by a lanky female serpent by the name of RuPaul … Drag Race is much more than a Gay Agenda plot to lure the heterosexual population into hardcore sodomy. By assaulting patriotic Christendom with seductively sensual transgenderism … It comes as no surprise, then, to learn that RuPaul ends each show with the ancient Freemasonic incantations of “Shan-te” and “Sa-che,” both of which are prayers spoken in the original Coptic and meant to invoke the Illuminati god of enchantment, Isis. … This unassailable evidence seems to suggest that Drag Race is an attempt to infect the media with viral images of shape-shifting sex vixens to make complete alien domination more comprehensible for the human race.”
BeckyP Although RuPaul has striven to make a positive contribution, and remains an excellent role model, the same cannot be said of Bruce Jenner..and yet Bruce Jenner appears on the front cover of Vanity Fair. Astonishing. Blythe Freeman Striven is a past participle, please rephrase. whood I strive. They strived. We are striving. They have striven. calm yourself down. RoyalSuperiority Aren’t both ‘has strived’ and ‘has striven’ equally acceptable here? Mihangelap “we strove” equally acceptable Pollik RuPaul? Positive role model? To whom? (Clue: it is not the trans community)
snecko Why not spend time being angry with people who disagree with you? I’d be willing to bet that, by and large, people involved in drag would share 99% of your worldview. I just don’t get this obsession of nitpicking at the habits of people who are essentially your comrades when there are actual bigots still out there. Drag’s ‘transmisogyny’ and racism, if it exists, is obviously not the intended message or the guiding values of the movement. To me, it seems to be about being who you want to be in a non-judgemental and loving atmosphere, which should be pretty groovy to anyone remotely on the left. I just don’t get why you would attempt to shit all over it for accidental transgressions which are debatable in the first place.
Pixles Counted Yep. The dress and all the makeup in the world cannot take all the chauvinism away from this kind of masculinist ideology. I’m sorry for whatever happened to you, Rupaul. You don’t have to follow the same cycle of abuse, you can choose to break the chains of violence. We are strong, and we don’t need your paternalistic neoliberal self-help philosophies to get us through the day. We have before you and we will after you. Step out of the way. georges1 Sorry, but who is this ‘we’? ArundelXVI Yeesh. Did RuPaul kick your dog or something?
vonZeppelinThis comment was removed by a moderator because it didn’t abide by our community standards. Replies may also be deleted. For more detail see our FAQs.
bcnteacher Love Ru Paul but I am my own role model.
Toomuchstupidhere No, drag is boring and predictable – yesterday’s news. Trans is much more thought provoking. sUgadee I know this is the guardian, where British ignorance is highly valued and accepted, but the show has had a few trans contestants.
Sceptic101 I’m confused. The Guardian seems to habitually refer to transvestites, transsexuals, etc as ‘she’. Is this a new and realistic policy? chickenlover4 Either Ru specified to use the pronoun “he” or I think it’s a “he” because in the interview he is not in drag. If you’re in drag it would be “she” or “they”. I think pronouns are subjective to each individual and you just have to exercise sensitivity. People will forgive you for not using the correct pronoun. (PG is recovering from a run in with the pronoun police. *They* do not forgive.)
pineapplesage exhibitionist nihilism xesolor Self-gratifying troll.
Magnolia La Manga If drag is embarrassing these self-respecting gays (whatever that means), I think it’s doing exactly what it’s supposed to…
HelloKittyFanClub I had to scroll to the top of the page for a moment to check if I was on the Daily Mail comments section. Some of you seriously need to get over yourselves; between the veiled and not so veiled homophobic comments and the negative know-it-alls you sure know how to drag (ho-ho) down a show that is all about fun, entertainment, light and love.
A Sentence Which Dances
“cant say much about that at this time” Thank you. Our justice system is flawed, to put it mildly. That said, there is little to be gained by talking before a trial. ~ @sadqueer4life here’s White Male! On the Internet with hit single “I Write Long-Winded Facebook Comments Not Tragedies” ~ That shirt is taking about itself. ~ @AllusionistShow Today’s etymological research has taught me that nice originally meant ‘stupid’. #yetagainetymologyruinseverything ~ Outside alcoholic beverages are not permitted by law. ~ This works better without rain. ~ He is another tool of #attentionwhoreindustrialcomplex His problem with Lady Jenner is that she gets more publicity than him. ~ Here is the source of this quote. GOOD THOUGHTS/GOOD WORDS/GOOD DEEDS Don’t be sidetracked by elaborate creeds and doctrines- the truth is as simple as it is profound. From the ancient teachings of Zoraster to today, these three principles have been the heart of the message of every G-d realized Master. ~ This is a busy crowd. Any day you choose is going to have conflicts. ~ The popup spam for this post said “We see you’re in Dacula” ~ Would SJW be an acronym with an implied plural nature, like POC and WMD? The plural of SJW is SJW. ~ What is going on under that pulpit anyway? That look on his face tells me he is having a good time. ~ The support of the United States ~ It takes we to be weird. ~ The motto of my blog used to be a quote from Hunter S. Thompson … When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. After a few months, it was pointed out to me that I was spelling weird incorrectly. ~ GA Price Level 2 – $324.50 plus applicable fees Ticket fees are $32.75 per ticket ~ Notify Me on Launch! Share your name and email address with Pagebacker View advertiser privacy policy ~ On this day, the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus let’s remember that we are overwhelmingly loved. That Christianity is at its core the teaching of a radical lover and is an invitation to love one another in a way the offends the pious, defies the state and is beyond all conventional catagories. ~ Don’t they make papers now that will write themselves? ~ I really look forward to hearing what you have to say. I do moderate comments, but non-spam comments will take less than 24 hours to appear… Thanks! ~ many people consider the word “lame” to be offensive ~ The 5 Worst Conservative Reactions to the McKinney Pool Incident ~ if you must ~ who? ~ 2Dollarz Jesus wouldn’t be caught dead in cargo shorts ~ Icecold Davis Not for more than three days anyway. ~ You know what AlterNet brings you and millions of readers: A progressive truth squad and hundreds of articles a week — so you can use us for one-stop reading, when you are on the go. We are closing in on our Spring fundraising goal of $40,000 and need $5000 more to put us over the top. I very much hope you can help us. The coming months will be challenging to all of us. We need to be prepared. ~ This simple Facebook post will show you how TLC is the perfect example of ‘white privilege’ ~ Jesus Would Hate This Christian Blogger Just as Much as You Do ~ Dear Gawker, Jesus hates it when you lie about him ~ ‘The Ethel Merman Disco Album’ ~ @Brimshack False equivalence is a way of life for some people. @Wonkette ~ John don’t take any of it personally. It’s just their often unsophisticated and unenlightened opinion and none of it has anything to do with my life. ~ In an argument about race relations, all participants lose. ~ @MarkHarris Since you last logged on, we have become enraged at [person] for [transgression] & will not rest until [punishment]. –Twitter auto-greeting ~ I don’t mean teacher herself about dance, I mean teaching herself to write a sentence which dances Michael Silverblatt to Susan Sontag ~ @dusdus Linguistics, video games, comic books, horror movies, karaoke, fuzzy cats, being frustrated with American liberalism. Tweets don’t express anybody’s views ~ @WernerTwertzog I can no longer distinguish among the beards of hipsters, the orthodox, the homeless, the simply mad, and English professors. the spell check suggestion for @WernerTwertzog is Westerner ~ Q: Why did the blonde get excited after finishing her puzzle in 6 months? A: The box said 2-4 years! ~ pictures from The Library of Congress. ~ selah
Heather Has A Mommy And A Daddy
Heather Has a Mommy and a Daddy
Deep in the heart of Dullsville, at the end of a cul-de-sac, behind a lawn of scratchy brown grass dotted with giant plastic butterflies, three flaking cement deer, and a philodendron the size of Bob Hoskins though with fewer decorative parts, lives Heather Thompson. Heather has a mommy and a daddy. Heather’s daddy is an accountant. Her mommy is a homemaker. Before Heather was born they met, fell in love, and got married. “I love you very much and I’m having your child.”
Danitra is Heather’s best friend. One of Danitra’s dads is an empowerment facilitator. The other is an aura consultant. Danitra doesn’t know what they do at work, except they don’t need briefcases. Before Danitra was born her daddies met and fell in love, and after seventeen years spent discussing caring and support, handling acceptance, and negotiating intimacy, they had a commitment ceremony. “I love you very much and I’m designing the rings,” Danitra’s Daddy Mike said.
One day in school Heather’s teacher, Mrs. Weinberg-Lopez, tells the class to draw pictures of their families. Danitra draws two men, Julio draws two women, and Heather draws a man and a woman. Keanu points at the woman Heather drew, with squiggly yellow hair, a crude red dress and simple brown shoes. “This dad here’s got some ugly drag going on,” he says.
At lunchtime Danitra sits on the bench next to Heather and pulls a sandwich out of a brown paper bag.“Want to trade?” Danitra asks. “I’ve got grilled eggplant and goat cheese on marjoram foccacia.” “Um, I didn’t bring lunch,” Heather stammers, kicking her brown paper bag out of sight. “I’m … uh … on a diet.” “Diet?” Danitra asks. “Haven’t your dads told you not to buy into that patriarchal looks-based chauvinism? And anyway, what’s this then?” she asks, holding up the bag with “HAVE A SUPER DAY!” written in sparkle marker on it.
Julio, who was listening nearby, runs up and grabs Heather’s lunch. “Yeah, what’s this? It’s somebody’s lunch!” Heather jumps at the bag but Julio holds it out of reach. “You give that back!” Heather yells. “Try and make me!” Julio chides. He pulls Heather’s sandwich apart and drops it like it was electrified. He wobbles away, holding his stomach.
“Oh my God!” he cries. “There’s like dead stuff in there!” Danitra looks at the sandwich lying on the cement. “Is that MEAT? Is that like SPAM?” Claudia, sitting quietly at the other end of the bench, bursts into tears. “Heather’s eating BAMBI!” “It’s friggin’ Wonder Bread!” Julio scoffs. Keanu walks toward the bread and peers at it. “And it’s got LUBE all over it!” “You idiot, that’s MAYONNAISE.” “What’s mayonnaise?” “It’s like goat cheese for heterosexuals.”
“Heterosexuals?” Keanu asks. “Heather’s mommy and daddy are heterosexuals?” Heather starts to yell. “No! I don’t have a mommy and a daddy. I’ve got two daddies!” “Hell-OOOO!” Danitra says, drawing the word out to twelve syllables. “We can see your clothes!” “Um . . . “ Heather stalls, “then I’ve got two mommies.” “And we’ve seen you play baseball,” Julio answers.
Heather, unable to think of a response, sits on the bench and starts to cry. Danitra pulls a robin’s egg blue bandana from her pocket and dabs at Heather’s face. “Maybe your mom’s not really a woman,” Danitra offers. “Well,” Heather says, sniffing, “she cleans the house, and cooks, and does the laundry.” Danitra fumes. “We’re trying to establish that she’s female, not that she’s an idiot.”
“Maybe your dad’s not really a man,” Julio suggests.“Well,” Heather answers, wiping her nose. “He’s big and strong and he’s got a mustache.” Several of the children wonder what this proves but nobody says anything. “So let’s say you’ve got a mom and a dad,” Keanu says. “Then where did you come from?” “They went to bed together, and then I was born.” Some of her friends express further interest, but Heather doesn’t have a brochure. “Daddy put his thing in mommy — “
“Oh, man,” Keanu interjects. “Is that legal?” “HelLLLLO!” sings Danitra, who gets the word up to eighteen syllables this time. “We’re in CaliFORnia!”
“And nine months later I came out of my mommy’s tummy,” Heather adds. Several of the children wonder why they didn’t hire a surrogate with a vagina but nobody says anything.
Heather Has a Mommy and a Daddy, Part Two
One night there’s a dance at Heather’s school and her parents offer to chaperone. While Heather’s dancing with Danitra she sees from the corner of her eye her mom and dad moving onto the dance floor. She watches in horror as her mom just sort of stands there swaying, her gingham granny dress limply hanging to the floor. She grimaces as her dad starts chopping at the air like Jackie Chan being attacked by locusts.Occasionally their movements coincide with the beat. Heather runs to the bathroom crying.“Heather, don’t feel so bad,” Danitra says. “Lots of kids have embarrassing parents.” She starts to lead Heather out of the bathroom, then stops. “Um, maybe we should stay in here a while longer. They just started doing the Bump.”
One day the class projects are due. Heather brings in the model she’s made. It’s a lump of brown Play-Doh with ketchup poured over it and dotted with marshmallows stuck on with toothpicks. She sets it on the table as her teacher comes over to look.
“Why, Heather! That’s . . . nice! Very very nice!”“What the hell is it?” Tommy asks. “TOMMY! Heather’s parents had me over for dinner once. This is what they call ‘Salisbury steak.’” Heather bursts into tears. “NO IT’S NOT! It’s a VOLCANO! That’s lava, and that’s steam coming out.”
Danitra enters and places her project next to Heather’s on the table. “Why, Danitra, what’s this?” Danitra delicately removes the sheet protecting her project. “Versailles.”
Heather takes one look at the tiny replica of Louis XIV’s summer home, constructed by Danitra and her two dads out of two hundred cubic yards of teak plank, thirty square feet of gold leaf, sixty pounds of Italian travertine marble from the same quarry Michelangelo used, tiny topiary and functional miniature fountains, and cries even harder.
“Why did I have to have a mom and a dad?” Heather sobs. “Why can’t my family be like all the rest?”
Mrs. Weinberg-Lopez pulls Heather close. “Children,” she says,”every family is special, including those conforming to the rigid, stereotypical standard of male domination.” She starts to tell the class about her own family, including her hearing-impaired Hispanic mother, her height-challenged Israeli father, and her Gypsy recovering-substance-abusing brother-in-law and Armenian sex-addict half-sister, but stops, realizing the school year is only 4,074 hours long.
“Just because Heather’s parents are heterosexual doesn’t mean they’re slow-witted philistines, though there are strong correlations you don’t need a PhD in statistics to understand. But Heather is lucky to have a sweet mom and a wonderful dad and a dog named Molly and a hamster named Samson, and they all live together in a lovely house. They’ve got interesting avocado-colored appliances, carpet as long as your hair, and furniture that‘s by-and-large wood that must have taken them hours to assemble. There’s a big plastic sofa that turns into a bed, and a La-Z-Boy — ”
“A what?” Keanu asks. “A La-Z-Boy,” Mrs. Weinberg-Lopez repeats. “It’s a big vinyl chair that reclines.” “Oh, man!” exclaims Keanu, covering his face with his hands. “And I thought our Herman Miller reproductions were embarrassing!”
Mrs. Weinberg-Lopez continues. “But the important thing is, they’re a family. They’re a group united for a common purpose, where each individual is given a sense of empowerment and their shared bonds are formalized in a ritualistic manner.” “Oh,” the students respond in unison. Everybody hugs.
The story was borrowed from World Class Stupid.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
Broken Pencils Are Pointless
I tried to catch some Fog. I mist.
When chemists die, they barium.
Jokes about German sausage are the wurst.
Venison for dinner? Oh deer!
A soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.
I know a guy who’s addicted to brake fluid. He says he can stop any time.
How does Moses make his tea? Hebrews it.
I stayed up all night to see where the sun went. Then it dawned on me.
This girl said she recognized me from the vegetarian club, but I’d never met herbivore.
I’m reading a book about anti-gravity. I can’t put it down.
I did a theatrical performance about puns . It was a play on words.
They told me I had type A blood, but it was a Type-O.
Earthquake in Washington obviously government’s fault.
Why were the Indians here first? They had reservations.
Be kind to your dentist. He has fillings, too.
Class trip to the Coca-Cola factory. I hope there’s no pop quiz.
Energizer bunny arrested. Charged with battery.
I didn’t like my beard at first. Then it grew on me.
Did you hear about the cross eyed teacher who lost her job because she couldn’t control her pupils?
What does a clock do when it’s hungry? It goes back four seconds.
I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me!
Broken pencils are pointless.
What do you call a dinosaur with a extensive vocabulary? A thesaurus.
Velcro – what a rip off!
England has no kidney bank, but it does have a Liverpool.
I used to be a banker, but then I lost interest.
I dropped out of communism class because of lousy Marx.
All the toilets in New York’s police stations have been stolen. Police have nothing to go on.
I got a job at a bakery because I kneaded dough.
Haunted French pancakes give me the crepes.
I used to think I was indecisive, but now I’m not so sure.
Cartoonist found dead in home. Details are sketchy.
Pictures from The Library of Congress.
So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed
When an author has book product, the author gets interviewed. This is how PG first heard of So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, by Jon Ronson. The act of using “the media” to promote book product is a curious analog to shaming. To have the exhibitionism on the wtf podcast, starring the shame-proof Marc Maron, is another item on an overloaded irony buffet.
SYBPS is a work of non fiction. In other words, we take the author’s word that these events really happened. In fiction, you know from the get go that it is a made up story. There are a few sayings about this. A: to tell the truth you need to write fiction. B: life is bad fiction. As a celebrity tweeter said, @mattyglesias One man’s cheap shot is another man’s shaming.
Several of the stories involve people getting caught in lies. There is the story of three academigeeks who created a faux Jon Ronson for twitter. Some of their justifications sounded like this: @Johann_MG The Infomorph isn’t taking your identity. It is repurposing social media data into an infomorphic identity. It did not end well for the young men. They were exposed. People on twitter said rude things about them. Currently, another digital infomorph is on twitter. @jon_ronson A Weavr made from wikipedia In response to this video by the real Jon Ronson.
The next story involves a man who invented quotes from Bob Dylan. This is another level of irony … with the wealth of material available about Robert A. Zimmerman, this guy felt the need to make stuff up. The story is by turns amusing and pathetic. The author was paid $20k to give an apology speech, with a giant screen behind him for the unkind twitter comments. Maybe throwing rotten tomatoes would have been kinder.
Justine Sacco made an unwise tweet about AIDS and white privilege. She landed in South Africa to discover herself notorious, and unemployed. The tabloid press said Max Mosley was at a Nazi themed sex party. He sued the paper about the Nazi part, won a settlement, and boasted of being a player. The tabloid newspaper got caught in another scandal, and was shut down.
This being non fiction, Mr. Ronson goes all over the place. There is a $500 a seat weekend seminar on “radical honesty.” There are academics, of various levels of intelligence, who write about shaming, prison techniques, and other trivia. There is a company who floods the internet with flattering stories about you, so that the trash goes to page three of google. There are also more people whose lives were ruined by public shaming. One example is the rape victim who committed suicide after her cross examination.
The star shaming saga is donglegate. (spell check suggestion: congregate) Two young men at a tech conference made a tacky joke. A lady, Adria Richards, took a picture of the young men. Immediately, the picture was on twitter. @adrisrichards Not cool Jokes about forking repo’s in a sexual way and “big” dongles Right behind me.
One of the young men lost his job, only to get another one. Ms. Richards, who publicly fired the first shot from her twitter account, lost her job, and was subjected to a massive amount of abuse on the internet. The 4chan crowd had a good time with Adria Richards.
In her interview with Mr. Ronson, Ms. Richards said she felt that the dongle joke jeopardized her safety. “Have you ever heard that thing, Men are afraid that women will laugh at them and women are afraid that men will kill them?” “People might consider that an overblown thing to say”… She had, after all, been in the middle of a tech conference with eight hundred bystanders” “Sure And those people would probably be white and they would probably be male.”
While researching donglegate, Mr. Ronson talked to some people at 4chan. There was a comment made. It went into the preview copies of the book, but not the final edition. This is part of the the publicity process. Someone took offense at this comment, and made an issue out of it. For more details see this story, File under ‘inevitable’: “So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed” author Jon Ronson slammed by Twitter-shamers.
In all of these tales, Mr. Ronson’s name was spelled correctly. Some say there is no bad publicity. Whatever is said creates awareness of your product. There is a lot of awareness for SYBPS, and Mr. Ronson, right now. @jonronson Feeling incredibly sorry for #RachelDolezal and hope she’s okay. The world knows very little about her, her motives.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Picture #06662 is from “Second International Pageant of Pulchritude and Eighth Annual Bathing Girl Revue, May 21, 22, 23, 1927, Galveston TX.”
Mrs. Dora Stainers
Some pictures have longer captions than others. Shorpy published one with a mouthful.
Mrs. Dora Stainers, 562 1/2 Decatur St. 39 years old. Began spinning in an Atlanta mill at 7 years, and is in this mill work for 32 years. Only 4 days of schooling in her life. Began at 20 cents a day. The most she ever made was $1.75 a day & now she is earning $1 a day when she works. She is looking for a job. Her little girl Lilie is the same age she was when she started work, but the mother says, “I ain’t goin to put her to work if I can help it. I’m goin’ to give her as much education as I can so she can do better than I did.” Mrs. Stainers is a woman of exceptional ability considering her training. In contrast to her is another woman (this name was withheld) who has been working in Atlanta mills for 10 yrs. She began at 10 yrs. of age, married at 12, broke down, and may never be able to work again. Her mother went to work in the cotton mill very young. Location: Atlanta, Georgia.
The photographs of Mrs. Stainers were made in March, 1915. The photographer was Lewis Wickes Hine. “Working as an investigative photographer for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC), Lewis Hine (1874-1940) documented working and living conditions of children in the United States between 1908 and 1924.” “In 1954 the Library received the records of the National Child Labor Committee, including approximately 5,000 photographs and 350 negatives by Lewis Hine. In giving the collection to the Library, the NCLC stipulated that “There will be no restrictions of any kind on your use of the Hine photographic material.”
The house that Mrs. Stainer lived in is long gone. 562 1/2 Decatur Street is across the railroad tracks from the Fulton Cotton Mill. With real estate agents demanding names for all neighborhoods, the area is known as the Old Fourth Ward. At 552 Decatur Street is A & R Welding.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
2 comments