Leave It To Beiber
does beiber sound like itself?
like smash bash
swish or slash
zappa might sound like itself
if it were alive
pictures are from
Gwinnett County
which does not sound
like a traffic jam
Controversy
Number five on the yahoo home page news items is “David Bowie Controversy”. The old boi has some product for sale, and it must not be moving fast enough. The video has some religious imagery, including a scantily glad lady with a gushing stigmata. In the end, there is a tableau, with Ziggy ascending into the ceiling. The bathrobe he wears is more appropriate for a senior citizen than his thin white duke getup.
When PG was in high school, he took Spanish. The teacher was a fundamentalist Catholic named Mrs. DiPaola. Religion and politics were more fun than verbs and nouns, and she was easy to distract. One day she was talking about an uncle of hers, a truly righteous man. When he died, these bloody spots appeared on his hands. It was the stigmata, the wounds of Jesus.
When the Romans put someone on a cross, the spike went through the wrists. There is a space between bones, and the giant nail went through without breaking one. If the nail was in the hand, the weight of the body would tear it off. The Romans were pros. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
Seek And Yea Shall Find
There is a graphic on facebook, with a message that PG agrees with. Seek, and yea shall find. (Pun not intended.) Not only does it have a good message, but the source is easy to find. Learning the context, of the message, can shine a light on dingy corners. G-d is in the details.
Without further ado, here is the message: Each of us bears a responsibility to reject hate, whatever its form, whatever its justification. A soul filled with hate can devastate a community. A nation filled with hate can devastate a people. It must start and end with each of us. George Takei
The comment is part of a blog post written August 7, 2012. It was in response to the attack on a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. Mr. Takei says that Sikhs are confused for Moslems, leading to incidents like this.
This is highly ironic. The Sikh people originated in India. Some say that Sikhs are Hindus, and others say they are not. Some say that Sikhism is a warrior branch of Hinduism, created to fight Islam. These differences can be very confusing to outsiders.
Sikh is pronounced seek, like hide and seek. Sikh is not pronounced sick, as in ill. How you say a name affects your thoughts. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Jackson Katz
There was a link to a TED talk that promised to “Turn Every Man Who Watches It Into A Feminist.” PG gave it a try, and was not impressed.
The speaker was Jackson Katz. He likes to put the letters Ph.D. after his name. You have to dig into his biography to see that his doctorate is “in cultural studies and education from UCLA.”
The speech was given at a gathering called TEDxFiDiWomen. (Spell check suggestion: Committeewomen) It is an “independently organized TED event. The speech was about what men can do to reduce violence, mostly against women. The choir Dr. Katz preached to enjoyed the sermon. Did anyone who needs to change his behavior hear this talk?
Dr. Katz is an entertaining speaker. He spoke fast and loud, and the intensity of his rhetoric grew as he went along. He seemed to get his crowd fired up. How this emotion will be channeled is a good question. It would not surprise this viewer if some of these fired up women went home, and took the frustration out on a significant other. Verbal abuse is violence.
The first part of the lecture is wondering why this is considered a men’s issue. There were a few exercises in semantic mumbo jumbo, which might prove something. The idea that this is a human problem… that bullying and aggression are not good ways to treat people … is hinted at. Then, the focus goes back on the men, and how they need a “paradigm change”.
The moment when PG almost gave up on Dr. Katz involved racism. Yes, he had to throw that boogeyman in there. He gave the example of a bunch of white men having a conversation, and someone making a “racist remark.” The enlightened man is supposed to speak up, and say that this is not acceptable.
What PG wonders is why this was assumed to be a group of white men. Are you saying that only white people say rude things about other races? Or, maybe it is alright for black men to say rude things about white men. Until saying so called racist comments is considered wrong for all people, we are going to have a problem. At the very least, Dr. Katz is not as inclusive as he wants you to believe. Or maybe he just said something the “liberal” TED audience would find acceptable.
Some people find this sort of thing entertaining. It is possible that a man listening will hear this “leadership training” and learn to treat his neighbors better. PG suspects that the former is much more likely. The link is above if you want to hear it yourself.
Remote Transmitter
The “remote transmitter” is one cool device. It enables you to lock your car door from outside the car. If you stand next to the vehicle, and use the remote to lock the door, you will NEVER lock your keys inside.
The device had not worked well. It took a few seconds holding down the button to get things to happen. One day, it did not work at all, no matter how long you held the button down. PG thought it was the start of a long decline in the viability of the vehicle, which was an unpleasant thought.
The next day, the owners manual was consulted. PG did not even know what to call the doohickey, until he found remote transmitter. There was some language about putting a new battery in. This is probably going to be cheaper than replacing the receiver.
The first stop is the tool box. A set of small screw drivers was found. None of them would get the screw on the key fob to turn. PG decided to ge out, and get a screw driver along with the battery.
The auto parts store had one man working in it. After waiting on a few people, he got to PG. They would have to take the cover off the key fob to see what battery to put inside. Three screwdrivers were tried, and none worked. The parts store man took a long phone call, from a person that did not seem to understand some simple instructions. Meanwhile, PG was feeling worse, and worse, about the situation. When the long phone call was over, PG told the man that the dealer was the next stop.
Curry Honda has had mixed results over the years. PG did not want to go there, but saw few options. He was directed into the parts department. A man tried to take the screw out, and it did not want to leave the casing. The parts man went to see a buddy in the service department, but the buddy was at the hospital with his sick wife. PG had another key, which had been resting in a box for seven years. The parts man was able to get the screw out of that key, and replace the battery. With a new screw, the total came to $16.44. The remote transmitter now works. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Thomas Jefferson Said What?
PG was wasting time with facebook when he saw a friend say “Damn I love this quote”. The passage being praised was “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” Desmond Tutu.
The rhetoric alert started to flash. These days, the wolf and the sheep buy their clothes at the same Walmart. To hear some oppressors talk the talk, they are the ones under attack. It is tough to tell the good guys from the bad guys. Also, as the Kony fiasco showed, often you can make things worse by getting mixed up. Sometimes the best thing to do is mind your own business.
Ok, now that is out of the way. Some lines sound good, but don’t hold up to a bit of thinking. As for the veracity of the quote, Desmond Tutu may very well have said it. (or maybe one of his rivals said it, and Mr. Tutu copied it.) The quote has been attributed to Thomas Jefferson, Edmund Burke, Patrick Henry, and probably others. Almost no one has a source, for the quote, from the dead white guys.
There was a discussion in Prison Planet Forum about BHO, and his alleged good buddy Larry Sinclair. The signature line for one of the posts was that crowd pleaser, “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” Thomas Jefferson. All that needed to happen to get the party started was to highlight the quote, right click, and ask Mr. Google to help.
A post called MISQUOTING THE FOUNDERS did not mince words. “The only problem with this scene that has been repeated many times across the country is that Thomas Jefferson never said that, never wrote that, and quite possibly never thought it. Our aspiring politician had fallen victim to the perils of popular misattribution. You could fill a book with misquotes and misattributed quotes we hear repeated regularly today. Right now if I Google “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent” the entire first page of results wrongly attribute it to Thomas Jefferson. The quote and its many variants have been attributed in the past to Thomas Paine and Edmund Burke, but no record exists of the quote in any of their writings or contemporary accounts.”
On November 13, 1787, Mr. Jefferson wrote a letter to William Smith. The letter is full of zesty quotes. “What country before ever existed a century & a half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.”
A few lines above that, Mr. Jefferson said “God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion.” Twenty years after he wrote this, Mr. Jefferson was President. He probably did not want to deal with a revolution when he was President.
Getting back to the quote about tyranny, Martin Porter wrote an entertaining essay, A study of a Web quotation. He gives credit, or blame, to Edmund Burke. First, a list of different versions is presented. This is a clue that something is awry. The conclusion: “There is no original. The quote is bogus, and Burke never said it. It is a pseudo-quote, and corresponds to real quotes in the same way that urban legends about the ghost hitch-hiker vanishing in the back of the car and alligators in the sewers correspond to true news stories.”
Mr. Porter wrote a follow up essay, Four Principles of Quotation. These principles are:
Principle 1 (for readers) Whenever you see a quotation given with an author but no source assume that it is probably bogus.
Principle 2 (for readers) Whenever you see a quotation given with a full source assume that it is probably being misused, unless you find good evidence that the quoter has read it in the source.
Principle 3 (for quoters) Whenever you make a quotation, give the exact source.
Principle 4 (for quoters) Only quote from works that you have read.
If these principles were to be used, then there would be a lot less hotheaded talking on the intercom. Those who are trying to influence you to the justice of their cause will not want you to read this. Pictures for this feature are from The Library of Congress. These pictures are Union soldiers, from the War Between the States. When war is discussed, all inspiring quotes are in doubt.
This is a repost. It is written like James Joyce. In the past year, doing due diligence on alleged quotes has become a hobby. Many people don’t care who said it, if they agree with the thoughts expressed. The prevailing thought is that an idea becomes more true with a famous name at the end. If the famous person is deceased, and cannot defend his/her reputation, that is not a problem. People do not like being told that Santa Claus does not exist.
May 6
May 6is a day in spring, with 35% of the year gone by. It has it’s fair share of history, some of which did not turn out well. In 1861, the Confederate Congress declared war on the United States. In 1937, a German zeppelin named “Hindenburg” exploded while trying to land in New Jersey. In 1940, Bob Hope did his first show for the USO, somewhere in California.
Roger Bannister ran the first sub four minute mile, on May 6,1954. The current record is 3:43.13 by Hicham El Guerrouj on July 7, 1999, with a party with Prince to celebrate. Since most track meets now use 1500 meters, the mile record is more or less obsolete.
On this day, Georgia executed two notable prisoners. In 2003, Carl Isaacs was put to death. Mr. Isaacs was the ringleader in the 1973 Alday family killing, in Donalsonville GA. Five years later, in 2008, William Earl Lynd was poisoned by the state. This was the first condemned man to die after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that execution by poisoning was constitutional.
Taurus is the sign for those whose blood starts to pump May 6. Included are:
Maximilien Robespierre (1758) Sigmund Freud (1856) Rudolph Valentino (1895)
Orson Welles (1915) Willie Mays (1931) Rubin Carter (1937)
Bob Seger (1945) Tony Blair (1953) PG (1954) George Clooney(1961)
To make room for these folks, someone has to die. For May 6 this would mean:
Henry David Thoreau (1862) L. Frank Baum (1919) Marlene Dietrich (1992)
This is a repost. It ia written like H.P. Lovecraft.
The Revenge Of The Freedom Parkway
At about three o’clock sunday afternoon, the sun came out. It had rained cats, dogs, and snakes, with the occasional octopus thrown in for political correction. PG and Uzi needed to get out, but were wary of getting caught in a storm. More precipitation was predicted.
The opportunity to get out was overwhelming, and Uzi made his way to PG’s place. Going down Clairmont Road, the conversation touched on the usual forbidden subjects, to the peril of everyone’s mental health. PG had decided that the beltline was the place to be, and soon found a familiar parking spot. The beltline still has lots of parking, if you are sure to lock your door.
Uzi did not want to get too far away. The first stop was a restroom. Of course, the beltline does not have these, nor any hidden shrubbery. At the North Avenue end, the troops went down Angier Springs, toward Shasta’s place. PG was reluctant to go on private property, and found a pair of 53 foot trailers. They provided enough discretion to deliver the merchandise.
There was a band playing at the Masquerade. Whether it would be worth paying to see was a moot point, as it was more than sufficient for background sounds. There were dark clouds on the southern horizon, and Uzi wanted to get back to the vehicle.
Things went well until the Freedom Parkway. PG had opposed the construction of the highway, but that was long ago. Evidently, the highway wanted some revenge. As PG walked underneath it, he was taking pictures, and not looking at the ground. His feet got caught in a section of old roots, and into the gravel he fell. The camera got the worst of it. It is probably not good for very much any more.
As he got up, and examined his body for anything broken, some small drops of rain fell. A decision was made to walk faster. The vehicle was on Irwin Street, and was reached just when the raindrops got too big to ignore. It could have been worse.
The Humpty Dumpty Conspiracy
The post above this is Who Pushed Humpty Dumpty?. If you look at the URL, you will see a -2 after the title. This means that there has been another post at Chamblee54 with this conspiracy oriented title. A trip to google city shows that PG is not the only person to have pondered this issue.
A book, Who Pushed Humpty Dumpty?, gets prominent placement. You get what you pay for. “It looked like a horrible accident, but upon further investigation, it turned out to be an even more horrible crime. Local businessman Humpty Dumpty was indeed dead of a fall from his wall. With the assistance of Officer’s O’Ham, Bacon and McSwiney (The 3 Little Pigs) and Officer Jack (The one with a beanstalk in his yard), Storybookland Police detectives Sgt. Joe Bundy and Rookie detective Bill Gimble have their work cut out for them. The suspects include The Big Bad Wolf (Storybookland’s Crime Boss), Jack and Jill (who were suing Mr. Dumpty for their fall), Wee Willie Winkie, The Spider (of Little Miss Muffet fame), The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe… not to mention Mrs. Dumpty, herself. “
Before we get much further in this murky mystery, lets take a look at the original.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall;
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King’s horses And all the King’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again!
HD is typically thought of as being a giant egg. It is not known why it was sitting on a wall. Eggs usually lay on their side, unless they are sitting in an egg holder. The gender of this giant egg is unknown. Why was a team of horses expected to reassemble a broken egg ?
A character named Humpty Dumpty appears in Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll. He has a conversation with Alice, which implies that it is a different HD. Alice is a suspect in the content distribution of HD.
Four years ago, someone at Yahoo answers had too much free time. There was a post, Did humpty dumpty fall of that wall or was he pushed??? The issue of who offed HD remains a mystery. Some of the answers in this forum try to “explain” the legend of HD. Some fundamentalist Christians will tell you that things are to be taken literally, and that scholarly interpretation is the work of the devil. In spite of these nay sayers, some of the reader supplied answers make sense.
Humpty Dumpty was in fact believed to be a large cannon! It was used during the English Civil War (1642 – 1649) in the Siege of Colchester (13 Jun 1648 – 27 Aug 1648). Colchester was strongly fortified by the Royalists and was laid to siege by the Parliamentarians (Roundheads). In 1648 the town of Colchester was a walled town with a castle and several churches and was protected by the city wall. Standing immediately adjacent the city wall, was St Mary’s Church. A huge cannon, colloquially called Humpty Dumpty, was strategically placed on the wall next to St Mary’s Church. The historical events detailing the siege of Colchester are well documented.
June 15th 1648 – St Mary’s Church is fortified and a large cannon is placed on the roof which was fired by ‘One-Eyed Jack Thompson’. July 14th / July 15th 1648 – The Royalist fort within the walls at St Mary’s church is blown to pieces and their main cannon battery ( Humpty Dumpty) is destroyed. August 28th 1648 – The Royalists lay down their arms, open the gates of Colchester and surrender.
A shot from a Parliamentary cannon succeeded in damaging the wall beneath Humpty Dumpty which caused the cannon to tumble to the ground. The Royalists, or Cavaliers, ‘all the King’s men’ attempted to raise Humpty Dumpty on to another part of the wall. However, because the cannon , or Humpty Dumpty, was so heavy ‘All the King’s horses and all the King’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again!’ This had a drastic consequence for the Royalists as the strategically important town of Colchester fell to the Parliamentarians after a siege lasting eleven weeks.”
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This is an edited repost.
Normalcy
In 1920, a former journalist named Warren Harding ran for President. The slogan of his campaign was “A return to normalcy”. Mr. Harding, who had previously coined the phrase “founding fathers”, won the election. Many consider Warren Harding to be a very bad POTUS.
Go ahead 93 years, and look at facebook. There is an eye catching graphic. “IF YOU CAN’T EXPLAIN IT TO A SIX YEAR OLD, YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND IT YOURSELF.” ALBERT EINSTEIN WHAT IS NORMALCY IN AN ABNORMAL SOCIETY?
Wikiquotes says this quote is “misattributed”. Credit/blame is given to several other people. The explainee is sometimes said to be your grandmother, or a barmaid. There is an account of Dr. Einstein saying something similar in a conversation. In a court of law, this is considered hearsay.
Is this normalcy? To publish beautiful images, based on dubious quote? Even if a famous person did say it, does crediting a more famous person make it more true? Maybe the whole thing is just another example of a beautiful medium, with no message. Only if your grandmother is a six year old barmaid.
This visit to Zuckerland is interrupted by a flash and a beep. There is a message in the inbox. You read it, and type a reply. When you hit the send button, you see this: ” _____ is using an app to chat. To message ____, you need to change your settings to let friends who use apps see if you’re online. Would you like to allow friends using other apps to see your online state?”
Moving along, a friend is “sharing” a bit of text. After a couple of sentences, PG realizes that he has seen this text before. It is about how 545 people made life tough for 300 million. If you absolutely have to read the latest version, here it is. It is too late to sign the petition.
Charley Reese was a writer for the Orlando Sentinel. He wrote a column in 1984 that started it all. (Oldtimers might recall when 1984 was in the far off future, when Big Brother ran everything.) The column was revised in 1995, in time for the internet to introduce it to normalcy. Mr. Reese retired from the Sentinel in 2001, and wrote a nationally syndicated column for King Features until 2008.
Health issues are cited in the last column as a reason for retiring. Five years later, Mr. Reese is still with us. The last column says that the election of a black man as POTUS is a good thing. This thought might induce apoplexy in many who share the facebook version of the last column.
The Orlando Sentinel also refuses to die. There was a 2011 article about the column column. The reporter caught up with Charlie Reese. “I call it the Frankenstein column, That’s one of the problems with the Internet. Once something goes on the Internet, people rewrite.”
Mr. Reese is surprised that the column gets praised as a rare moment of wisdom and insight. “It’s a fifth-grade civics lesson; that’s all that column was,” he said. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
Super Hero
Robert Allen Zimmerman
Arrived in Duluth Minnesota May 24 1941
Eight days later he was edited
Two wars later he became Bob Dylan
And slept with Joan Baez
He sold out by playing electric guitar
25 Bad Neighborhoods
It is time for the 2013 version of NeighborhoodScout’s ® Top 25 Most Dangerous Neighborhoods in America. Chamblee54 wrote about the 2009 and 2010 editions, but somehow missed 2012. HT to Peach Pundit, who report that “Lakewood is rated the 9th most dangerous city in America.” Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Neighborhood Scout is a subscription based service, telling realtors about neighborhoods around America. The T25MDNIA study is a publicity gimmick, like political polling companies studying religion. This survey seems to get more attention than Top 100 Safest Cities in the U.S. The safest list has three Georgia towns: Johns Creek (14), Milton (39), and Peachtree City (63).
The Top 25 list is not very reliable. The neighborhoods change from year to year. They seem to focus on some states, and ignore others. This year, Michigan has six bad hoods, and Illinois five. Two cities, in those states, have four each. Two hood cities include St. Louis, Memphis, and Houston. By contrast New York, New Jersey, California, and Florida get clean bills of health.
Only one of the hoods is in Georgia. By coincidence, PG helped a friend move to Adair Avenue last Saturday. To get there, you go past the Federal Prison, and go forward at Jonesboro Road. After a couple of side streets, you turn right, and go up a hill to Adair Avenue. When you get there, the first two houses that you see are boarded up.
Here is the 2013 list of America’s worst neighborhoods.
1 Detroit, MI (W Chicago / Livernois Ave)
2 Detroit, MI (Mack Ave / Helen St)
3 Detroit, MI (Gratiot Ave / Rosemary)
4 Chicago, IL (S Halsted St / W 77th St)
5 Spartanburg, SC (Washington Heights)
6 Houston, TX (Scott St / Wilmington St)
7 Detroit, MI (Wyoming St / Orangelawn St)
8 Greenville, SC (Woodside)
9 Atlanta, GA (Hopkins St SE / Adair Ave SE)
10 Saginaw, MI (E Holland Ave / E Genesee Ave)
11 Memphis, TN (E Eh Crump Blvd / S 4th St)
12 St. Louis, MO (Delmar Blvd / N Euclid Ave)
13 Chicago, IL (S Homan Ave / W Roosevelt Rd)
14 Rockford, IL (Kishwaukee St / Grove St)
15 Houston, TX (Sauer St / Mcgowen St)
16 Chicago, IL (S Ashland Ave / W 76th St)
17 Indianapolis, IN (N Meridian St / E 34th St)
18 Nashville, TN (8th Ave S / Wedgewood Ave)
19 Flint, MI (Chambers St / Stonegate Dr)
20 Indianapolis, IN (North Indianapolis)
21 West Memphis, AR (E Broadway St / Stuart Ave)
22 St. Louis, MO (Cass Ave / N 9th St)
23 Memphis, TN (Saint Paul Ave / Walnut St)
24 Tulsa, OK (E Apache St / N Quaker Ave)
25 Chicago, IL (S Indiana Ave / E 60th St)
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