A Rainbow Prayer
Today is the National Day of Prayer. This is a repost.
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
Good Morning G-d. Please give me the slack I need to make it through this busy life. I have a birthday today, and am getting older. Please give me less pain, both above and below the neck. Thank you for letting me get this far. Thank you for the gift of sobriety, and the memory of inebrience. The gift of moderation would have been appreciated. Help me to overcome body chemistry telling me to be unhappy. If this doesn’t work, help me hide it better.
Please tell the Jesus Worshipers to shut up. They make too much noise. Help me to forgive them. Give Jesus Worshipers a bit more humility. Help Jesus Worshipers to get over their confusion, and quit hating gay people. Let people know that G-d does not write books. Let men know that A REAL MAN KEEPS CONTROL OF HIS TEMPER. Please tell the proud people praying today that it is better to listen than to talk, and that louder does not mean more true.
Please find a happy medium for Atlanta water. Let us have neither drought nor flood. It would help if the developers would move to North Carolina, and the politicians would grow a conscience.
G-d, please try to get along better with Allah. This is important. Maybe if you and her got along better, then all those religious crazies would hate each other less. Help white people and black people get along better. Please be good to the people who have already lived, and are now deceased. Please understand that I am not in a hurry to join them.
Help Mr. Obama with the mess this country is in. Help Israel get along with her neighbors, and live within her borders. Help the world solve the carbon dioxide problem.
Thank you for the birds that sing. Thank you for dogs, and dog owners who clean up. Thank you for earth, air, fire, and water. Thank you for the people who enjoy this prayer. Help those who are offended to get over it. Namaste, amen, all my relations, Good Bye.
Beltane
Thursday April 28 PG woke up at 6am, and was on the road by 7:15. The three days before this had seen several rider cancellations, and a serious storm in north GA. Finally, PG decided to ride by himself, and waited until the weather radar said it was clear ahead.
The ride went smoothly for 98 miles, until the traffic slowed down to 5 mph. There was tornado damage around Ringgold, and it took about an hour to go three miles. The sky was overcast all though Chattanooga, with some threatening clouds to the east. After going through Monteagle Pass, the sun broke through. For the time being, it was glorious.
Arrival and departure at SMS can be a production. You drop off your gear at the top of the hill, and move your car to the parking spot two miles away. You hike back, and hopefully your gear is down the hill. After lunch, you find a place to set up, grab a wheel barrow, and move into your Tennessee mountain home. Before long, it is time for the dinner circle.
Every night before dinner, the community gathers on the knoll. Inevitably, someone has an announcement. This first night, it was mentioned that the people who had been to gatherings before should mentor the new arrivals. PG wondered if this was really a good idea.
After dinner, the first night, PG helped some neighbors set up a tent. He left their site, found one of the trails, and started to walk. Before long, he realized he was lost. It was not raining, and there were extra flashlight batteries, so panic was not appropriate. After a while, PG found the garden, and was able to backtrack to his tent. The next morning, he counted the steps, from the drying shed to his tent.
Friday April 29 After settling in for a day, it was time to do something. The reason gatherings are so cheap is, all the work is done by attendees. After breakfast Friday, PG went up the hill to greet people arriving for the weekend. It is a fairly simple process…say welcome home, show them where the bags go, and give them a parking slip for their vehicle. Next, you give directions to the parking area, help them back their vehicle up without going over the edge ( the hills at SMS get steep fast), and direct the new cars in and the leaving cars out. The time goes by fast.
At 4:20 on Friday, a memorial for Crazy Owl was held. One day, the former Charles Hall asked to be sat up. He was propped up, and stared off into the distance. A few minutes later, he left this planet.
A procession started at the knoll, and went up the ridge to the memorial grove. A stone had been carved for Dr. Owl, and was passed around the circle. PG began, and ended, his comments with the words “all my relations”. Whoops from a nearby party could be heard throughout the remembrance.
During the day, people continued to pile into the sanctuary. Someone went around the dinner circle Friday night, and counted 225 people. PG long ago learned to be on the edge of the circle closest to the kitchen, and to walk fast the instant the circle broke.
A dance party was held Friday night in the pavilion, with drumming by the fire. Both events were too crowded for PG’s comfort. He went to bed early.
Saturday April 30 The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence had a procession, to carry merchandise from the storage tent over to the pavilion, for the auction. PG wound up carrying the front part of a large, heavy, picture display. After he picked up his end, a person made a speech that seemed to go on forever. Finally, the procession started, and was soon over.
After lunch, PG was wandering around aimlessly, when the parking commandant appeared. Someone up on the hill has been there a couple of hours, if you want to go relieve him that would be great. At one point, a carload that had been wandering lost arrived, and was ecstatic to have finally arrived in the right spot. After a while, PG had to go back downhill, and get the truck driver to go back up the driveway, and bring a load of gear down. All in a day’s work.
Sunday May 1 This was the first Beltane for PG. He had been to the Maypole dance twice before, in 1987 and 1989,back when it was called Mayday. After the maypole was covered in ribbons, PG put his hands on it, and gave thanks for the 22 years since the last time. *It rained all day on Beltane*.
Monday May 2 After breakfast, there was a heart circle on the knoll. The sun was out, PG got too much on his back. He drew the Knight of Swords card, which told him to go get a shirt. This was not in time to prevent a sunburn.
A friend asked PG if he could use a cell phone. To get the device, and then to ride up to the top of the driveway (the only place at the Sanctuary where there is reception), PG rode in the community golf cart. This was a first, and made PG feel that much more of an insider.
At dinner circle Monday, it was announced that a heavy rainstorm was on the way, and blackberry winter temperatures. It was also mentioned that a car was laying on it’s side, on the road to the parking lot. PG joined the crew of men…three of whom were wearing skirts…that went to push the Ford Tempo upright. On the third push, the vehicle fell back onto four wheels. All the wheels had air, although one looked like it might need fixin soon. As Goatboy said, “This is a first”.
Tuesday May 3 The reports of heavy rain and cold temperatures were not exaggerated. PG spent most of the day wandering around, discovering the limits of water resistance in his gear. This was the last full day of the gathering, and a spectacular dance party was held in the main house. In one room there was a “Soul Train” theme. In the kitchen, there was “Solid Gold”. It was the last outbreak of glitter until the next time. This is a repost.
The War Prayer
In honor of the National Day of Prayer, Chamblee54 presents a rerun featuring a story by Mark Twain. The pictures are from Gwinnett County.
Over a hundred years ago, the United States was involved in a war that did not want to end. This conflict was in the Philippines. Although there had been an official end to the war, guerrillas continued to fight the Americans. The war was a nasty affair, with many atrocities.
The War against the Philippine people was a souvenir of the Spanish American War. There had been a rebellion against Spanish rule in the islands. After the American forces routed the Spanish, the rebellion shifted to the American occupiers. It was a war stumbled into, and difficult to end.
Mark Twain was horrified. He wrote a story, The War Prayer. As Lew Rockwell tells the tale
“Twain wrote The War Prayer during the US war on the Philippines. It was submitted for publication, but on March 22, 1905, Harper’s Bazaar rejected it as “not quite suited to a woman’s magazine.” Eight days later, Twain wrote to his friend Dan Beard, to whom he had read the story, “I don’t think the prayer will be published in my time. None but the dead are permitted to tell the truth.” Because he had an exclusive contract with Harper & Brothers, Mark Twain could not publish “The War Prayer” elsewhere and it remained unpublished until 1923.”
HT to David Crosby and his autobiography, “Since Then“. A book report is forthcoming.
Getting back to “A War Prayer“, the story starts in a church. A war has started, and is popular. The troops leave for glory the next day. The preacher has an emotional prayer to send them on their way. Unknown to the minister, there is a visitor. “An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher’s side and stood there, waiting.
With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal,” Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!”
The stranger motioned to the preacher to step aside. The stranger stepped into the pulpit, and claimed to have a message for the worshipers, sent directly from G-d. The preacher’s message was for support in time of war, and implied that G-d and the preacher support the same side in this conflict. There is an unspoken part to the prayer. This unspoken part was what the stranger was going to put into words.
“”O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle – be Thou near them! With them, in spirit, we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.“
Boston Atlanta Bombs
As you may have heard, there was an explosives incident at the Boston Marathon. The innertubes have been full of support for Boston. It is a contrast from the reaction to the Centennial Park bombing during the Atlanta Olympics.
It is nearly seventeen years since that July evening. After nine eleven, things are different, or so people say. With the rise of the intercom, the balance of message to medium has been oven more lopsided. There are billions of people looking for expression, and only so many cat videos. When a horrible event happens, you can show your solidarity with those affected.
The Boston Marathon is a longstanding tradition, and will continue. The Atlanta Olympics was a one time deal, which is just fine. While people rush in to support Boston, there was a lot of I-told-you-so going on the Saturday morning after the Atlanta blast. A lot of people were expecting the Atlanta Olympics to be a disaster. The bombing was confirmation that picking Atlanta was a bad idea.
The reaction of authorities is a bit different this time. There are surveillance cameras everywhere now, and suspects were found. Hopefully there will be sufficient evidence to convict Mr. Tsarnaev, if indeed he is guilty. (Spell check suggestion for Tsarnaev: Tsarina)
By contrast, a security guard was found to blame the Atlanta bombings on. PG lived near the Buford Highway apartment residence of Richard Jewell, and saw the dozens of TV camera trucks in the parking lot. (That was one of the few Olympic events that PG saw.) Mr. Jewell was cleared, but had his life ruined. He died in 2007.
Roadkill For Dinner
One night, PG was driving on one of the Rockbridge roads in DeKalb county. Suddenly, a deer ran in front of his vehicle. The critter was faster than the Nissan, and calamity averted. There are an estimated 42,996 deer-car collisions in Georgia every year. If you hit a deer, you can do whatever you like with it. If you hit a bear, you have to report it before dinner time.
As the innertubes are reporting, Montana recently passed a law legalizing consumption of roadkill. As The Atlantic reports, “Currently sitting on Montana Governor Steve Bullock’s desk is HB27, a bill that allows Montanans to salvage and eat the beasts they run over with their cars. To the antelopes, deer, elks, or moose out there, you’ve been warned.”
As this tasteful interactive map shows, this is a states rights issue. Bambi burgers have long been legal in Georgia. What is surprising is the freedom loving T states, Tennessee and Texas. They both prohibit collection of roadkill. The CS Monitor questions how much the law is enforced. “Tennessee authorities said no law officer would likely ever charge anybody with “possession of roadkill with intent to eat.”
Not everyone thinks this is a good idea. The Goat Blog reports “But some Montana lawmakers, like state Senator Kendall Van Dyk, questioned eating roadside cuisine from a food safety standpoint. “Despite it’s good intention, it doesn’t pass the smell test for me,” he said in an AP story.”
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
Science Test
When PG hears about the Pew Research Center, he thinks of a picture of deodorant testers sniffing away. In fact, PRC is a serious research house, full of dedicated focus groupies.
One recent event is a Science and Technology Knowledge Quiz. Some say this knowledge is the door to a brighter future. Many stumble over the threshold. This test will tell PG how he “measures up”.
The first four questions are true/false. The next nine are multiple choice, The demographic questions involved gender, age, and education.
PG scored 12 of 13 correct. He did not answer question four. This is a design flaw in the study. Many studies require you to leave an answer before going to the next question.
This result is better than 85%, below 7% and the same as 8%. People with too much free time can learn more in the report. Those who feel that G-d is in the details are likely to be disappointed.
Blonde On Blonde
The aptly named Dangerousminds has a link to a story about the recording of Blond on Blond, by Bob Dylan. It only happened once.
Bob Dylan was 24 years old, newly married, and had “sold out” i.e. started to play electric guitar. A bunch of Canadians known as The Hawks (later The Band) was touring with him. Barely a month after the release of “Highway 61 Revisited”, sessions started at a New York studio.
The New York sessions did not work, so a decision was made to go to Nashville. Al Kooper played organ, and served as a music director. A crew of Nashville players was recruited. A bass player named Joseph Souter, Jr. would become famous a few years later using the name Joe South. Kris Kristofferson was the janitor at the studio.
Most studios have bafflers, or sound proof room dividers, splitting the studio into cubicles. For these sessions, the bafflers were taken down, and the band played together as a unit.
The second session in Nashville started at 6pm and lasted until 530 the next morning. Mr. Dylan was working on the lyrics to “Sad eyed lady of the lowlands”, and the recording could not start until he was ready. The musicians played ping pong and waited. At 4am, the song was ready, and the record was finished in two takes.
PG had marginal encounters with two players on this album. He met a lady once, who worked in an insurance office. One customers was Joe South. The file on his driving was an inch thick.
Al Kooper had a prosperous career after his association with Bob Dylan. The former Alan Peter Kuperschmidt produced the first three Lynyrd Skynyrd albums, and sold that contract for a profit. (Spell check suggestion for Lynyrd Skynyrd: Lyndy Skyward)
One night, Mr. Kooper was playing a show at the Great Southeast Music Hall, and PG sat in front of the stage. During a break between songs, PG asked his friend “what time is it?”. Mr. Kooper heard him on stage, and said it was 11:30.
Pictures for this feature are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
Highest Aspirations
As you may have heard, someone asked Bradley Manning to be a “grand marshall” at the San Francisco Corporate Pride parade. When enough people objected, another, higher official pulled back the invitation. Since Pvt. Manning will be behind bars when the parade is held, it was a moot point.
The uninvitation is a semantic feast. “Specifically, what these events have revealed is a system whereby a less-than-handful of people may decide who represents the LGBT community’s highest aspirations as grand marshals for SF Pride.” So that is the ultimate goal of queer life? Or, more specifically, to have Daniel Ellsberg represent you, while you rot in solitary confinement.
Glenn Greewald, who seldom is at a loss for words, chimes in with Bradley Manning is off limits at SF Gay Pride parade, but corporate sleaze is embraced. The hypocrisy patrol is feverishly crunching the sin statistics. Apparently, when you have a corporate sponsored event, it is ok to take tainted loot from criminal multi nationals. But, when a Private, with access to secrets, spills the beans, he is not to be honored. It can get confusing.
There is some more commentary about Bradleygate. The Board of Directors President of SFP is Lisa Williams. This is not the psychic medium, even though the name is the same. Ms. Williams issued the statement about the highest aspirations. In an ironic twist, Lisa Williams is the chair of the political action committee of the Bayard Rustin Coalition.
Bayard Rustin was the primary organizer of the 1963 March on Washington. A speech about having a dream was made that day, while Bayard Rustin made sure there were Port O’Potties for the crowd. Mr. Rustin also was a conscientious objector to the draft. He spent time in prison for his troubles. This was not during the Vietnam war, when this sort of thing was fashionable. This was during World War Two, when conscientious objection was treason. Someone should give Lisa Williams an irony board.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. These are Union soldiers from the War Between the States. None of these men copied intelligence documents onto a CD, labelled Lady Gaga.
Lewis Grizzard
In the time between 1980 and 1994, if you lived in Atlanta you heard about Lewis Grizzard. Some people loved him. Some did not. He told good old boy stories about growing up in rural Georgia. Many of them were enjoyable. He also made social and political commentaries, which upset a few people.
PG had mixed feelings about Lewis. The stories about Kathy Sue Loudermilk and Catfish were funny. His opinions about gays, feminists, and anything non redneck could get on your nerves. His column for the fishwrapper upset PG at least twice a week.
In 1982, Lewis (he reached the level of celebrity where he was known by his first name only) wrote a column about John Lennon. Lewis did not understand why Mr. Ono was such a big deal. PG cut the column out of the fishwrapper, and put it in a box. Every few years, PG would be looking for something, find that column, and get mad all over again.
The New Georgia Encyclopedia has a page about Lewis, which expresses some of these contradictions. If Grizzard’s humor revealed the ambivalence amid affluence of the Sunbelt South, it reflected its conservative and increasingly angry politics as well. He was fond of reminding fault-finding Yankee immigrants that “Delta is ready when you are,” and, tired of assaults on the Confederate flag, he suggested sarcastically that white southerners should destroy every relic and reminder of the Civil War (1861-65), swear off molasses and grits, drop all references to the South, and begin instead to refer to their region as the “Lower East.” Grizzard also wore his homophobia and hatred for feminists on his sleeve, and one of the last of his books summed up his reaction to contemporary trends in its title, Haven’t Understood Anything since 1962 and Other Nekkid Truths (1992).
In the end, which came in 1994, when he was only forty-seven, the lonely, insecure, oft-divorced, hard-drinking Grizzard proved to be the archetypal comic who could make everyone laugh but himself. He chronicled this decline and his various heart surgeries in I Took a Lickin’ and Kept on Tickin’, and Now I Believe in Miracles (1993), published just before his final, fatal heart failure.
As you may have discerned, Lewis McDonald Grizzard Jr. met his maker on March 20, 1994. He was 47. There was a valve in his heart that wasn’t right. The good news is that he stayed out of the army. At the time, Vietnam was the destination for most enlistees. The bad news is that his heart problems got worse and worse, until it finally killed him.
Sixteen years later, PG found a website, Wired for Books. It is a collection of author interviews by Don Swaim, who ran many of them on a CBS radio show called Book Beat. There are two interviews with Lewis Grizzard. The first one was done to promote My Daddy Was a Pistol and I’m a Son of A Gun. This was the story of Lewis Grizzard Senior, who was another mixed bag.
PG found himself listening to this chat, and wondered what he had been missing all those years. The stories and one liners came flowing out like the Chattahoochee going under the perimeter highway. Daddy Grizzard was a soldier, who went to war in Europe and Korea. The second one did something to his mind, and he took to drinking. He was never quite right the rest of his life. His son from adored him anyway. When you put yourself in those loafers for a while, you began to taste the ingredients in that stew we called Lewis Grizzard.
PG still remembers the anger that those columns caused … he has his own story, and knows when his toes are stepped on. The thing is, after listening to this show, PG has an idea of why Lewis Grizzard wrote the things that he did. Maybe PG and Lewis aren’t all that different after all.
The pictures for this feature are from The Library of Congress. While picking out the pictures, PG listened to the other Lewis Grizzard show with Don Swaim. They both have last names that are often mispronounced. When Lewis wondered where Klansmen get those pointy hats… at the KKK mart, perhaps… PG had to stop the broadcast and write a postscript. This is a repost.
Monty Python
Chamblee54 left a comment
Promoting his poorly-read blog
The ALL-CAPS whiner calls it SPAM
The next day saw a politically-correct omission
If remembering Confederate Memorial Day is SPAM
Then Chamblee54 is Monty Python.
Confederate Memorial Day
Today is Confederate Memorial Day in Georgia. It is an ancient question…how to honor the soldiers from the side that lost. They were just as valiant as the Union Soldiers. Considering the shortages of the Confederate Armies, the Rebels may have been just a bit braver.
The issue of Federalism is a defining conflict of the American experience. What powers do we give the Federal Government, and what powers do we cede to the States? The Confederacy was the product of this conflict. The Confederate States were a collection of individual states, with separate armies. This is one reason why the war turned out the way it did.
This is not a defense for slavery. The “Peculiar institution” was a moral horror. The after effects of slavery affect us today. Any remembrance of the Confederacy should know that. This does not make the men who fought any less brave.
It is tough to see the War Between the States through the modern eye. It was a different time, before many of the modern conveniences that are now considered necessities. Many say that the United States were divided from the start, and the fact the union lasted as long as it did was remarkable. When a conflict becomes us against them, the “causes” become unimportant.
The War was a horror, with no pain medicine, and little that could be done for the wounded. It took the south many, many years to recover. The healing continues in many ways today. Remembering the sacrifices made by our ancestors helps.
This is a repost from CMD 2010. Pictures are from the Library of Congress.
Beijing Liberal
A tasteful facebook facility called Being Liberal recently posted a graphic about Muhammad Ali. The image has been liked by 17,056, and shared by 9,365. The text in the graphic says “A reporter asked Muhammad Ali, “How do you feel about the suspected hijackers of 9/11 sharing your faith?” Ali answered, “How do you feel about Hitler sharing yours?”
There are so many ways to trash this. If a person burns to death on the 86th floor, do you need to say “suspected”? What if the reporter was Jewish? How do we know what religion Mr. Hitler was? Did this exchange ever happen?
Apparently, the former heavyweight champion was at ground zero September 20, 2001. “Former heavyweight boxing champ Muhammad Ali visited the ruins of the World Trade Center on Thursday. When reporters asked how he felt about the suspects sharing his Islamic faith, Ali said, “Religions all have different names, but they all contain the same truths,” adding, “I think the people of our religion should be tolerant and understand people believe different things.”
The facebook listing has this comment: “It has been brought to our attention that this didn’t actually happen, but that doesn’t detract from the point of the statement. Many people share this sentiment, as reflected by the comments on this image.”
The home page of BL has a picture of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Under it is the motto: “‘Being Liberal’ – What does it mean to YOU? Share with us! Wear proudly the “Liberal” label, as a badge of honor!” Judging from this graphic, being liberal means saying whatever feels good to say at the moment, without any regard for whether the platitude is the truth.
Snopes has a page debunking the ground zero quote. There is also another tall tale about Mr. Ali. “Just before takeoff on an airplane flight, the stewardess reminded Ali to fasten his seat belt. “Superman don’t need no seat belt,” replied Ali. “Superman don’t need no airplane either,” retorted the stewardess.”
Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
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