The Doe Family
A doe is a female deer. There is also a human Doe family.
John Doe is rather slow. Not much is known about him.
How does a man without an face get in wikipedia?
Sha Dow is a mysterious figure. Why he changed his name, no one knows.
Jane Doe is the ex wife of Sha Dow. She is having an identity crisis.
Juan Doe is undocumented.
Bro Doe is on the down Low.
TaeKwonDoh is the asian of the family. She will kick your ass.
Do Si Doe likes to dance. She thinks being called square as a compliment.
According to science and legend, there was once a bird, the Dodo.
This is doe-doe, not doo doo.
Which will bring us back to Doe.
This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Fixing The Flag
PG had been by the house ten thousand times over the last fifty years. It had been vacant since last summer. There was a flag out front, on display 24/7. PG did not think this continous display was a good idea, but did not want to dwell on it. Eventually, the flag would come down, into a respectful retirement.
This afternoon saw something different. The rope that attached the bottom grommet to the flag pole was broken. Instead of being tied down one side to the pole, the flag was hanging from the top grommet like a red, white, and blue dishrag. PG saw this while riding by on his bike, and realized that it could be fixed in two jerks of a sheep’s tail.
There were some things the flag rescue person did not count on. The first mistake was getting some four inch cable ties. They were not long enough. String would have worked better, but sometimes the desire to go high tech wins out.
When PG got back to his bike, the next door neighbor was in the road, staring. “What are you doing?” “Trying to fix the flag” “It’s not broken. That is not your yard, and you should not be there messing with it.” ” I have known the family for fifty years” “They sold the house, it doesn’t belong to them anymore”
Sometimes, what you are doing is right, or at least not wrong. It is also not worth fighting about. You need to know the difference. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Jesus Gets A New Nickname
There is a video making the rounds now. The title involves Jesus, and a certain racial slur that is delicately known as the N word. When you go to many links, you get this message. “Jesus is my N…” This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Brian Spinney, LLC.” You should not worry about missing out. Just go to youtube, and search for the phrase that pays. Someone else will have posted the video, and you can feel the magic for yourself.
Here is a story about the song, with the edgy language bleeped. “One pastor is trying to spread the word of God with an edgy rap song. The rapping pastor and his wife claim they have “Christian swag” while tossing around the n-word. “Jesus is my ni**a!” Proclaims the pastor in one verse. The video of the rapping pastor was recently uploaded to YouTube but it’s not clear when it was filmed. It was taken at a church in Iowa which closed in 2004.” Another helpful interneter has the lyrics.
In case you didn’t know, Pastor Jim Colerick, and Mrs Mary-Sue Colerick, are melanin deficient. They are, as Bette Midler once said about Karen Carpenter, so white they are invisible. It is not considered good manners for Caucasians to use this word, with or without salvation.
There is another angle to this equation. Many Jesus worshipers see not using cusswords as a sign of righteousness. As a result, many Jesus worshipers use the words G-d, and Jesus Christ, as tools of their anger. This violates the third commandment. Now, this use of a sacred name, as profanity, is being extended to using a sacred name as a racial slur.
When you call a book “the word of G-d”, you give certain words too much power. When you decide that the lazy way of saying black is a super duper naughty word, you give those five/six letters way too much power. Now, we see the convergence of these two taboos. Let the party begin.
Pictures of Pastor and Mrs. Colerick are taken from the video. The other images are from The Library of Congress. This was written like Stephenie Meyer.
Sports Tax
There was a facebook link to What’s your take on President Obama’s second term? This is a poll about BHO, apparently without a fund raising subplot. PG declined to take the survey, because “It doesn’t matter what I think” was not an option.
There is another story at the website with the BHO poll. The headline was Didn’t Watch the Super Bowl? You Still Got Charged. It was about the “sports tax”. Some of the examples were goofy, but the concept is worth looking at. Especially in Georgia, where taxpayers are being asked to help build the Blank Bowl for the Falcons.
The pretty new stadiums cherished by the NFL are usually built with taxpayer help. Bloomberg has more information.
Taxpayers have committed $18.6 billion since 1992 to subsidies for the NFL’s 32 teams, counting the expense of building stadiums, forgone real estate taxes, land and infrastructure improvements, and interest costs on public bonds, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Eighteen of the teams are owned by billionaires. Even clubs using privately financed buildings such as New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, where the New York Giants and Jets play, receive tens of millions of dollars in subsidies in the form of land and infrastructure spending.
Publicly financed stadiums for all U.S. major-league sports, including soccer, cost taxpayers about $10 billion more than forecast when accounting for the costs of land, infrastructure, operations and lost property taxes, according to a study of all 121 facilities in use during 2010 by Judith Grant Long, who teaches urban planning at Harvard University. The NFL has the highest public price tag, with taxpayers putting up about 87 percent of the expenses for NFL stadiums, she writes in her 2012 book, “Public/Private Partnerships for Major League Sports Facilities.”
This spending on sports facilities comes at a time when most governments are broke. Basic services are being cut back, and taxpayers are in revolt. Many say professional sports is a luxury we can no longer afford. The subsidies of events like the Super Bowl make them less profitable for the host city.
The second sports tax is a bit more esoteric. The sports industry gets tax breaks. They can make campaign contributions, and get cool deals from lawmakers. The one percent has it’s privileges. The rest of the population makes up the difference.
The third tax is a bit flakey. The word here is that sports channels are expensive, and included in most basic cable packages. If you don’t watch ESPN, you still have to pay for it. Unless you don’t pay for TV, which is still an option.
The fourth sports tax involves institutions of higher learning. If you attend a football factory, there are athletic fees. Resources that could be used for education are used to pay for athletic programs. While some athletic programs are cash cows, many are not.
The article does not mention higher health care costs because of sports injuries. When you operate under the insurance paradigm, everyone’s burden is spread out. When there are more expenses, there is more for the pool to pay for. Football is notorious for it’s injuries, but other sports contribute to the problem. This does not consider the resources directed to glamorous sports medicine, instead of others.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This is written like David Foster Wallace.
Beating Heart
people say
I firmly believe
I work to live
I don’t live to work
is there a difference?
does your heart stop beating
when you clock in?
do you get hungry before lunch?
Pete Hamill says
live your life, don’t perform it.
Pictures: L.O.C.
Casting Call
Local Production needs talent.
Yassir Arafat look-a-like.
Great pair female Caucasian (age 20-27)
fake breasts that are willing to bounce
in a bikini top on camera.
Caucasian female 25 years old girl
looks like she is ready to have fun
and already had some last night.
House Bill 39
There is a proposed law at the Lesterslature to outlaw naughty photoshopping. Crusading blogger Andre Walker gives some examples. The page sometimes has a fundraising ad for Paul Broun, US Senate 2014.
The helpful illustration shows the lawmaker’s face, pasted on the body of an adult actor. The face, and body, are the same race. The naughty parts on the picture are pixillated, or so it is hoped. If the actor’s prop really looks like that, then he has worse problems than being involved in Georgia politics.
A Savannah newspaper has the 411 on this threat to our freedom, Nude photo spurs action on Georgia House bill. “An Augusta legislator has found himself the victim of the type of photo manipulation that he is working to outlaw. Rep. Earnest Smith is cosponsoring House Bill 39 that would make it a misdemeanor with a $1,000 fine. It is authored by fellow Democrat Pam Dickerson of Conyers who first introduced it last year in response to online attacks of a teenaged girl. “We need to do something.”
Smith said Monday that he learned last week that someone had digitally pasted his head on the body of a nude man, but he doesn’t know who did it. “I could not venture to give you an answer,” he said. The bill received no action last year, but Smith hopes this year will be different, perhaps because the picture targeting him illustrates how vulnerable all politicians are. “It can be done to anyone at any time.”
So far, he has heard no objections from free-speech advocates defending the Constitution’s First Amendment. “No one has a right to make fun of anyone. You have a right to speak, but no one has a right to disparage another person. It’s not a First Amendment right,” he said.”
It is not certain if Mr. Smith’s bill is even in consideration this year. If you google “georgia house bill 39,” you get this: “… declarations of intent and attendance records for home study programs are submitted to the Department of Education rather than local school superintendents; to provide that notice by local school systems to parents relating to unexcused absences may be made by United States mail;”
In Virginia, HB 39 has a different meaning. “Causing telephone to ring with intent to annoy. Provides that a second or subsequent conviction of the Class 3 misdemeanor of causing a telephone or digital pager to ring with intent to annoy is a Class 2 misdemeanor.”
This is written like David Foster Wallace.
Pictures are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”
Happy Mardi Gras
It is fat tuesday again. For someone who lived most of his life in Georgia, it is just another day.
In 1990, PG went to carnival. He rented sleeping bag space in a house on Marigny Street, just outside the quarter. It was like nothing he had ever seen.
This was 14 months after PG quit drinking. If he had life to do over, he would have gone to Mardi Gras first. He did feel good about going through that much drinking without being tempted to participate.
By the end of the Rex Parade, PG was getting tired of the whole shebang, Mob scenes of drunks, in costume, can get old. PG has not been back.
Two years later, the Grateful Dead was playing at the Omni, and the camp followers were in the parking lot. PG would go on his lunch hour and observe. A young lady walked by, and PG said Happy Mardi Gras. She gave him a string of beads.
Five years after that, PG had a boss from New Orleans. He looked like the Grinch who stole Christmas. He also hated Mardi Gras. PG did not know this, and greeted him Tuesday morning with a cheerful Happy Mardi Gras. If looks could kill, PG would have dropped dead.
This is a repost. Pictures from The Library of Congress.
Candygate
There is a curious story today,Atlanta Hates Republicans: Political Correctness Bans Candy. It seems some members of Atlanta Young Republicans went to fire houses, giving candy to firemen for Valentine’s Day. It was intended as a gesture of appreciation, and was well received by some.
“That was, until, we were turned away because of political affiliation. Apparently one of the chiefs was concerned about accepting candy from a Republican group because they did not want to appear partisan. This prompted an email to a supervisor that resulted in a city-wide candy delivery shut down. I’m sorry, sir, but when did accepting candy from young professionals who wanted to solely express gratitude become a political statement? Would you have done the same thing from the Young Democrats? How about if we had been handing out steak dinners with baked potatoes and pecan pie? I’m calling you out, because I don’t think you would. It’s interesting that the further south we went into the city, the less receptive people became. (I thought liberals liked free stuff???) I could understand if we were bringing around voter registration information or pushing a certain candidate, asking for donations or had something to gain from our actions…but delivering candy? What the heck has the world come to?”
The part that gets the bells ringing here is “It’s interesting that the further south we went into the city, the less receptive people became. (I thought liberals liked free stuff???) “. Is the candypasser trying to use code words here? Does “liberal” really mean “black”? Inquiring minds want to know.
The blog that tells this story is a grammar challenged facility The Perspicacious Conservative. The conservative movement seems to have degenerated to making jokes about anyone they consider “liberal”. Evidently, not being bought off with VD candy is a liberal trait.
HT to Peach Pundit. Pictures are from big government liberals The Library of Congress. The spell check suggestion for candypasser is canvasser. This is written like Raymond Chandler.
Ramen Recipe
take an almost empty bottle of salsa
add five ounces of water
put the lid on the bottle
shake
boil the water
add the water
to crushed ramen noodles
in a bowl
put the lid on the bowl
wait five minutes
eat
clean up
Twenty More Words
PG saw the absent housemate.
who said “you didn’t like Bear Bergman’
sometimes you write stuff
people take the wrong way
spell check has limits
comprehension check is not invented
there are only twenty more words
and then you can look at the pictures
Six Letter Label
There is yet another blog post about Shirley Q. Liquor, I’m Tired of Explaining Why I’m Offended by a Racist Drag Queen. SQL is a comic character, a black woman played by Charles Knipp, who is white. The concept is not pleasing to many people.
There is a sentence in the post which needs to be broken down. “Here’s my question: When people like me say that something is potentially racist, why do we have to defend ourselves to White people who act as the final jurist of the opinion?”
To begin, people very seldom say anything as restrained as potentially racist. The judgment is made with great force and certainty. The accuser appoints herself judge, jury, and hangwoman. There is a rush to be seen denouncing the so called racist, usually at top volume.
Racist is a six letter label, just like the N word. It is a word that gets attention. Racist is casually tossed around, and is filtered out by many people. Maybe, just maybe, there are better ways to deal with situations without using this six letter judgment.
Last summer, PG received a mailer that had some questionable content. It discussed the creation of a city of Brookhaven. The mailer was displayed, and the racially obnoxious aspects of it were discussed. Six letter labels were not used.
On election day, the voters chose to create a new city. PG’s protest did not do any good. Would using a six letter label have made any difference? Probably not. This blog does not have that large of a readership. Also, some people who were troubled by the mailer felt that a new city was the correct thing to do. PG just wanted to let people know he was not pleased.
PG is white, and can only speak for himself. When he hears the word racist, his BS detector kicks into action. These arguments are rather one sided, with white people usually the bad guys. If you want to influence behavior, you might think twice before tossing a six letter label into your speech.
There is a bit of logical fallacy in that sentence. You make a statement, go past considering whether or not it is true, and go directly to asking “why”. That would seem to be the case here. When is a person made to feel that “we have to defend ourselves to White people who act as the final jurist of the opinion?” Do these PWOC (People With Out Color) use a weapon to force this explanation? Why would you have to explain yourself anyway?
It is *racially specific* that she says white people in this sentence. Would it be better if a POC (Person of Color) didn’t automatically believe everything the author says? PG, the PWOC, could also add that he has observed POC, who generally act as the final jurist on racial matters. Maybe it is POC privilege.
When you google the phrase “what is racism?”, you get 156 million results. The definition is changing everyday. Certainly when you discuss so called reverse racism, or anti PWOC nastiness, there are many who say that racism is a society wide privilege for the PWOC, and that POC cannot be racist. Whatever.
The point is, when you hyperdefine a concept like racism, you run the risk of defining racism so narrowly that offensive entertainers do not fit the definition. Shirley Q. Liquor talking about her nineteen babydaddies does not affect the larger issues of white privilege. Or maybe racism is anything that annoys a POC. At some point, the six letter label does not mean very much.
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
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